Rework character creation #67851
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I'm going to chime in with a generalized counterpoint, just to defend the current system, as a defense of the current system wasn't provided. I understand that under "Alternatives Considered" it states that both options could be presented, but the suggestion also states that the preset system should be 'generally recommended for everyone' even if the advanced system remains. I would like to say that I greatly prefer character creation as-is and have no problems making characters with varied and interesting flaws. Nor do I have any positive traits that I consistently take. In the past I have always played freeform in order to make the characters I want to make, and it's highly unlikely that any of the presets in the system you suggest would appeal to me and they would dampen my creative freedom. I don't find the ability to make a 'massive brute' who is also a master tailor incongruous at all - it's interesting. If I want to be Kanji from Persona (high tailor, hates books, hotheaded, bruiser-type traits) that's great, and a preset-driven system wouldn't allow that. And I don't think anyone should be encouraged away from making complex and varied (and as a result, realistic - as very few people IRL are actually thematically coherent) characters to fit some kind of arbitrary definition of what's "thematic" (which seems to boil down to what's stereotypical, at least from the examples given). Also, a lot of roleplay and creative potential also comes from randomly generated characters. Randomly generated characters give plenty of opportunity to adapt playstyles to strange and varied traits with very little time/effort in the way of buy-in. I know that if given preset characters as a first-choice/generally recommended option, I'd read the blurb, already know everything I need to know about the character, and then promptly forget about them. My feelings would be akin to "Ah, I guess I'm starting with Sgt Soldier with the PTSD again," rather than (with custom characters) "Oh man I hope this neat character concept goes well." or (with random characters) "Oh wow, this person has one hell of a temper for being so flimsy, I'm going to chew on this for a bit while I play to come up with a nuanced, interesting understanding of the character." Character creation is important to me, and the idea that what amounts to preset characters would be 'recommended for everyone' or the first/only choice is something that would definitely turn me off the game. At most I think the preset system should be expanded a bit with more support and attention, but I do not agree with any suggestions to devalue the current system in favor of a preset-driven system. |
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Yeah picking presets sounds like a massive reduction in freedom for no real benefit. As it is I almost never pick anything other than Survivor, and I generally avoid backgrounds as I do not want the game deciding such things for me. I enjoy hand-selecting stats, skills, and traits that I think will fit my run.
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Sounds like a "you" problem tbh, giving only a list of something to play as sounds awful, you have unlimited ways to make characters with our current system, this is way better than being locked to only a few (even if we get 1000 presets, its still way way too low compared to unlimited choices), as always:
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I understand some people have problems with not gorging themselves at all you can eat buffets, or feeling guilty about maybe eating too much, so I'm not opposed to some "recommended" or "standard" characters as an option, in particular if they can be characterized as "weak", "standard", "powerful" to allow the player to get a feel for where the balance is supposed to be (it wouldn't hurt if these could be used as a starting point that then can be modified by the player). I don't think there's a need for extremely weak or godlike examples, as it should be easy for players to figure those out for themselves. The main problem with the new completely free system is the lack of guidance when it comes to what's considered "normal", as a new player has no idea what a "normal" stat is, or whether a skill level is "high". There is a kind of feedback system that's supposed to provide some info, but something is wrong when your character is considered overpowered when nothing visible is taken to provide such overpower. |
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Thank you all, for your productive feedback, it is interesting to see how different the points of view can be! :) Ad random characters: The last few ones I have played were also such characters and while I thought it was cool and I enjoyed the quick creation process it also felt super...arbitrary? I don't know, like I couldn't connect to the characters at all. Also some were just super flawed in one aspect or other (5 strength, severe mood debuffs) that made the prospect of trying to progress that character very unappealing.
There would be presets with thematically not directly connected traits, those would just have to be tied into the character in the introductory blurb. As it stands which of the flaws do you consider "interesting" or which ones would you play with? Why inconvenience myself? So I want to play a tailor who is also a deft fighter/brute, that is fine. But under which circumstances would I play that character but also randomly make them lactose-intolerant? Or really bad with animals? Thematical should not be stereotypical, the opposite, actually! Forgive me for my poor examples! I will see if I can think of some better ones. I don't understand your idea with "Oh man I hope this character concept goes well"... there are like... 3 character archetypes in this game? I don't see how picking little redundant flaws makes me excited for the fate of the character? In the old system I would always run the Naked and afraid character, because it felt like a real challenge but also I was rewarded for that...now, why expose myself to just the 50/50 chance of death within 2 days because I didn't find any meds? With points gone, I need the game to nudge me in the direction somewhat or it is just completely unappealing. Why choose flaws that massively bog down my crafting, if I don't get RNG-lucky, when I could just play that exact same character without that 1 specific flaw.
Strange counterpoint tbh, you say freedom is super important and immediately concede that you play with only the most basic starting option at all? Also, as above "hand-picking" irrelevant traits and/or stats is hardly super engaging or fun?
"Play as you want, nobody is stopping you from nerfing yourself with a 4 4 4 4 stats and all negative traits or playing with 20 20 20 20 and all positive traits I don't agree at all. This is like the old debug-mode argument. Oh you don't like feature x-y just debug it away. Oh you want a diamond katana, just debug it in. I don't want to feel like I am abusing the game. There are also 100% not 1000s of actually different characters that vary in a meaningful (!) way from each other... for most basic professions the starting loadout provides merely a small set of modifiers. Positive traits that actually matter and change a run/strategy significantly are few and far in between, although there are more negative traits that can make for a real challenge. |
It's not a strange counterpoint, you're just cherry-picking. I often avoid prescriptive choices like backgrounds and professions as I prefer to earn things in the game, but the way I personally prefer to play the game shouldn't dictate how everyone has to play it, it's just one example of how your proposal is off-base for how a lot of people play the game. Hand-picking traits and stats to suit a particular character might not be fun for you, but that's just you. I and many others happen to enjoy it. I like making unique characters that have complex arrangements of strengths and weaknesses that are my choice and not dictated to me by a handful of rigid presets. To provide anything close to the degree of freedom players currently have, you'd need hundreds of backgrounds, and the player experience would go from just picking what they want to scrolling through one obtuse and massive list. We would go from the current freeform system to one where certain choices were "meta" due to the natural tendency of players to minmax in such systems, and so players would always pick them. This is literally why we got rid of point buy. You'd either be robbing players of the freedom to play how they want, or mucking up the UX or both, and the result would be worse than the system we got rid of to get the one we have now.
The game tells you if you're making an overpowered character, which is the constraint. The tool for you to circumvent that constraint is to ignore its advice and do what you want. This sort of freedom is pretty essential to the CDDA experience. Point buy can be re-enabled by players who prefer to use it. I'll grant that this isn't perfect, see below.
I agree this is down to not enough feedback in chargen. The current system suffers from the same issue point buy did, mostly because it's basically still using points and not in a way that is meaningfully associated with the relative strengths of specific chargen options. Players buy a couple of points of cooking to reflect a person who had a job and a life before the cataclysm, they get told that's "overpowered" and they correctly assume the whole thing is off. We could stand to have the guidelines from game_balance.md worked into the UI, so players better understand that 8 strength is a couch potato, 10 is a jogger, 12 is a high school athlete, 14 is college level, 16+ is olympic level, that sort of thing. Then players would be guided toward making characters according to more naturalistic guidelines rather than what is "overpowered" or "underpowered", which are essentially meaningless terms outside of a few specific skills and stats. It doesn't matter so much if they're making a strong or a weak character as long as they are able to understand what they are doing. |
These seem like two different criticisms. One criticism is that you feel like there's arbitrary and unfun negative traits. That's not necessarily a criticism of the character creation system itself, and more the design of those traits. However, there are circumstances where I would choose those traits, because real people and interesting characters are multifaceted. It's not randomly adding things, it's layering on more complexity and nuance to the character. There are people who are randomly lactose-intolerant and also lawyers who do kickboxing in their free time. There are soldiers who hate animals (or who, despite all efforts, just don't jive with animals well) and also like to dabble in cooking.
Ah, you're speaking purely mechanically? That might be the difference here, and why you're receiving a lot of pushback. I certainly don't optimize for game mechanics. I don't think about mechanical archetypes. I barely know the "optimized" archetypes for this game, despite sinking hundreds of hours into it. Here's what I mean by "I hope this character concept goes well". ====== Skip to the next equals bar if you don't want to read about my OCs lmao (My examples are going to be off of stable, as that's where the characters I'm attached to live. I always play freeform, though, so it's close enough.) I have a character concept of a Magiclysm necromancer who was already half-dead. In addition to his circumstances, he also has a rather cheery and friendly personality. I chose to represent half-dead with the traits Imperceptive Healer, Strong Scent (could have also went Weak Scent and validated it), and Chemical Imbalance. I could've also picked Terrifying because animals would likely avoid him, but didn't think to when I was first making him. His natural personality and physical flaws manifested in him being Squeamish and a Lightweight. There's a few more traits sprinkled in for additional flavor, but you get the gist. I love him to death and he's in my presets. Another character concept I tend to revisit often is an LMOE shelter empathetic-to-a-fault scientist. Negative traits: Lifelong Vegan (while I know not all lifelong vegans have Meat Intolerance/Lactose Intolerance, many have developed it), Truth Teller, Pacifist. A lot of times meat is some of the only food she can find in the middle of winter, and I have to balance her physical and moral hangups about it with her need for survival, and she has an in-character reason to experiment with mutagens for that reason. ====== End OCs I find both of those to be highly 'thematic' and 'coherent' and are much, much more attached to them than any preset. And honestly neither of them would make the cut for game-recommended presets for various reasons. I have never found them annoying to play or regretted the more fiddly traits I chose.
Because you like that concept and like the challenge, not because you think you'll get something out of it. I personally wouldn't run Naked and Afraid regardless of what I get out of it because I don't find it fun. I could start with the promise of a dozen high-quality CBMs after a week and I wouldn't take it.
Just off the top of my head there are many coherent and interesting 'variations' on the preset suggestions you shared. For example, many troubled kids have no problem with learning and books, they have problems with authority. Many priests are young. Contrary to popular belief, nerds do not-infrequently hyperfocus on physical hobbies as well. The diversity of human experience is what's supposed to be reflected in a freeform editor.
I think the core of the issue here is that there are many, many players who easily make concepts and can stick to them with no issues (either through random generation or by hand. I randomly generated a handful of characters before I typed this out I found all of them compelling and interesting). You seem to have an adversarial relationship with the character creator, where you're trying to pick and choose traits not to make an interesting, varied person but to game the numbers until you make something you think is strong but not too annoying to play. For you, presets would be a step up. For others who do not have an adversarial relationship, putting presets at the forefront would be a massive step down. |
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I was told point buy would be removed entirely in next stable, so I can't go back to that. @fairyarmadillo you say freedom like it is actually a good thing here? I suppose it boils down to personal preference, but it is well known that freedom of choice in games is a hollow concept if the actual choices don't matter or aren't meaningful. Maybe you can just ignore that aspect but when playing games, the quality of the decisions I (am forced) to make, for me determines the quality of the game. Just look at practically any other game ever that has a character creation screen? I can name a lot off the top of my head that give the player a limited resource (points e.g.) and force you to make a difficult call. Many games also have separate "creative" modes where such restrictions do not apply. I'd argue (as I have in the OP) that for a game that wants to be a tight and grim survival game at least having both is necessary to satisfy the different types of players. Regarding the information that people get in the character creation screen...that feature seems like an afterthought as well...what even refers to "Offense" and "Defense"? What on earth is "Lifestyle"? I see which things affect that by virtue of fiddling around with it, but the categories seem strange to me as well. The categories seem extremely broad, my master chef might have incredible knowledge but only through his cooking skill which is almost completely irrelevant in game. "Ah, you're speaking purely mechanically? That might be the difference here, and why you're receiving a lot of pushback. I certainly don't optimize for game mechanics. I don't think about mechanical archetypes. I barely know the "optimized" archetypes for this game, despite sinking hundreds of hours into it." A lot of pushback...referring to two people who disagree and like each others comments? hmm. EDIT: Sorry I derailed a bit and I think I might just still be salty about taking character creation points away. I'm gonna leave my statements as they are though. |
This is a misrepresentation bordering on bad faith. I haven't liked or disliked any comment and if you hover over the likes they are not from the same two people making points against you. Edit: I lied, I liked one comment of the nine. If you'd like to know why I was approving of the suggestion that more feedback be given for what stats mean in the editor.
As I said in my first post, I'm cool with presets being expanded on. I am not cool with presets being the only or recommended for everyone options, as you suggested. You did not present your argument as an optional alternative that could be given more attention to, you explicitly requested that character creation be overhauled for a preset-first design. |
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Yeah, presets are cool but not as the only option, which it seems you are advocating, OP |
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I have no doubt we need to change UI of the new character menu and rearrange UI elements there. I don't think we need to rework the process as a whole. Removing free-form character creation and using only characters templates is nothing near the return of boundaries (from stat and skill points) you are missing. Aside from more neat UI (which is a separate issue), there are already all the tools to create more immersive, interesting an varied scenarios - you can create a mod that would blacklist all vanilla scenarios and professions and replace them with whatever starts you want. For example, it should be possible to create a scenario EOC, that would run dialog on game start and change your character depending on your answers (like in Elder Scrolls series). Adding professions to select from should also be kinda easy. |
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Hm, yes it definitely isn't hard to do or far from what already exists in the game, as in the "play now" or random character modes. Btw does anyone know if those two are functionally the same? Play now seems to give more coherent characters, but maybe that was just a few lucky rolls for me? @Zireael07 poor formatting on my side, but in the OP it clearly says that I would consider it most reasonable to have both modes be available, just like basic world gen but then also advanced world gen for people who really want to fiddle with the details. Completely tangential question: "8 strength is a couch potato, 10 is a jogger, 12 is a high school athlete, 14 is college level, 16+ is olympic level, that sort of thing" is not true, right? Is 8 no longer considered average person? |
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To say more precisely: The STATS screen as well as the SKILLS screen are the biggest offenders to me, and could be rolled into the other categories, imho. Bake STAT and SKILL bonuses into Professions and Backgrounds and we're basically at a middle ground between what the game is doing now and what I suggest, that I personally would be very happy with already. Tbh skills are already a major part of the professions, and most Professions having a STAT bonus or penalty that comes from working in said profession for an extended period of time feels suitable anyway, as it is already done with skills. Obviously the bonuses/penalties here shouldnt be too severe, in case youre stacking several of them. |
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With the old pool systems you had 8 as the base stats before allocating points, with enough points to average to 9.5. Thus, I would assume an average person was supposed to sit around that mark. Also, under the old system you couldn't get above 14. Sure, the joint pool system allowed you to to spend all the points on things other than stats, but it also allowed you to spend all of them there, with extra points bought (or expended) with scenarios and other minus point buys. I definitely dislike the idea that stats would get hidden away behind other selections, as you definitely can have intelligent manual laborers with no education and no or limited trade skills (at least formally recognized ones) as well as physically fit desk jockeys. |
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The first thing in game_balance.md: Minimal stat: 0 (Should only happen due to penalties, instant failure in most scenarios. Basically actively dying, almost unable to even carry themselves.) Very low stat: 4 (Lowest in chargen. Either an average person who's injured or someone who's naturally very dainty and sedentary.) Moderately low stat: 6 (Below average. Sedentary job, not very active.) Nominal stat: 8 ("Average" human. Mostly sedentary job, somewhat active but not particularly a gym-goer, etc.) Moderately high stat: 10 (Has a decent bit of strength. Active job and/or works out consistently.) Very high stat: 14 (Very strong. Job is either based around fitness or they're dedicated to building a lot of muscle. Should require a lot of effort to maintain.) Maximal human stat: 20 (Extremely strong. People who spend their whole lives dedicated to being as strong as possible, and with good genetics too. Olympic powerlifters, record-setting strongmen, etc.) Superhuman: >20 (Anything beyond this should require bionics or mutations.) If a truncated version of these descriptions, even just a one or two word descriptor, popped up in the tooltip and changed as you raised or lowered the stat, people would understand better what they were doing. IE 0: Infirm |
This may be wrong and it's entirely unclear whether that's true or not because I've never gotten a consistent answer as to which it is. If we're supposed to have >14 stat if we're "highly talented" characters then I've been making chars wrong all this time... |
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I agree with OP and have been thinking this for weeks. Who initiated this change and why?? Can anybody link me to that discussion? It's a fundamental change on the concept of the gameplay itself. This is not a """STORY GENERATOR""" or whatever, it's an apocalypse survival game. Players have always been able to go into settings and give themselves 99 points to play with if they wanted to. Isn't asking them to do that equally valid to the suggestion "oh, simply do not use so many points"? It's aggravating to try building a character but then double checking against the whatever it says and figuring out if it isn't balanced. I've been going back to pre-rework installs to work out what I should or shouldn't afford. It feels less like spending scarce currency on upgrades and more like balancing a checkbook. They've built this new system in because presumably someone wanted it. OK, well could you not just make it an option? ENGAGE UNLIMITED MODE, BOUNDARIES UNLOCKED! Or if that's somehow out of hand, please put in 'normal gameplay challenge mode'/'classic mode' or whatever for us longtime players who engage with the imposed limits that define a gameplay experience. All the bones of that are obviously still there, simply let us turn it back on. The Point Pools setting in options appears to do nothing now, so just rework that one. In all honesty this should be the alternate, non-default mode, not the rules based gameplay within set boundaries. Cannot picture the sort of playstyle that loves nuanced detailed simulationism and then chooses to go off the rails and delimit themselves first thing. It's like thinking video games are at their peak when you have the most cheat codes active. |
You are missing the whole point that point system was arbitrary and unbalanced. |
Any solution will be 'arbitrary' to some degree. It could be called arbitrary that you have to select from a particular list of starting locations. Is the solution to just allow a player to spawn at the tile of their choice? I would say no. Games, as a concept, are defined by their restrictions. To play a game is to submit yourself to otherwise arbitrary rules. The fun arises from overcoming those imposed limits with your own ingenuity. To say, 'ahh here do whatever you want' is to make it literally less of a game. If the initial issue was ever balance, the obvious solution would be to increase or decrease the starting point pools, which was something touched on at various points as evinced by the Any Pool, profession/skill/stat Pools ect. options. It doesn't seem like this would be a solution that addresses balance since it essentially says 'have balance be whatever you prefer!'. That's not balancing a game, it's recusing yourself from the concept of balance. I understand that people have different preferences as regards how they want things balanced, but again, it has always been possible to adjust your starting points. Removing even the option to use point pools, a mechanic something like a decade old, a core element of the game's design around which the entire rest of that design is and has always been based, in favor of a colored line of text that suggests you may be overdoing it, is not defensible on the issue of balance. When they removed Shia Labeouf and the granade and such from the base game they just put them in a mod so people could have them if they felt like it. This system feels more like a mod, but the classic system is just totally unavailable? Have a single setting in the options: Limit - overpowered/average/weak/no limit |
We are not interested in balancing points system. |
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Reading this, and the present thread, it seems like a lot of this hinges on the question of whether or not there exists some default boundary beyond which the game stops you from adding new traits/etc, at least based on the comments of @Night-Pryanik and others. That's probably the crux of the issue: does the game or does it not have a suggestion about how it ought to be played. Should it do so. It seems like games should have such a thing, at least if they are intended to provide a coherent challenge to each player. Since it's clear that the extant system does quantify traits into a numerical value in order to assign their sum a description, wouldn't it be straightforward to set a default beyond which no more additions can be made? And like previously the user could simply adjust this default in settings. For new players or general discussion about the game in other fields like on Lets-plays, having a default, standard difficulty is meaningful so that people don't go overboard before they really understand the system they're using, and so that discussion and descriptions are always made around an understood standard. If an FPS asked you something like "how many hit points should the enemies have?" it would be somewhat difficult to talk about it from a neutral standpoint. |
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Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
With the removal of points for character creation the entire process has become very unsatisfying and leaves too much creative space to the player. While I agree that balancing character creation points is a logistical nightmare, the "mathematical" incentive to create a character that was removed needs to now be replaced with a "thematic" sense of coherency. The need for chosing "optimal" traits/stats/professions/starting locations is now entirely gone, but the player instead is just swimming in an ocean of choice. To alleviate that, I suggest removing some of the layers of character creation to prevent analysis paralysis as well as character creation guilt (also inherently un-fun, aka "oh no, how many positive traits can I take before I feel like I'm cheating at this game?).
In more detail my issues with character creation as of the current experimental are as follows:
a. Changing stats is neither thematic nor flavourful. My character could be a massive brute that is also a master-tailor, or not. (I.e., stats and traits/backgrounds are massively removed from each other to each others detriment.) Also, this does not help with issue 1. Mathematical optimization incentive was removed, but why ever chose low stats? They are too broad to be reasonably considered a big part of roleplaying, which negative traits do a much better job of.
b. Changing skills is also neither flavourful nor thematic. My character just happens to be a crazy expert at this one thing? It is not evocative and with skill grind already being a more un-fun part of the game the incentive to just give a bunch of skill levels in a lot of skills is high.
c. Professions are varied and the list is huge. Unfortunately over the years the has also been an accumulation of varying professions that have practically no gameplay impact and honestly even very little "fluff" impact. Most of the civilian professions add 1 small item that you are likely to find anyway, or perhaps 2 levels of a skill that you could train to that level anyway. And the roleplaying/imagination part is only supplied with a single line or very sparse inspiration otherwise.
Some professions do stand out, because they add items/traits/gear that you would otherwise have no way, or only a difficult way of acquiring said gear.
d. Backgrounds are perhaps the most thematically oriented category, (and easily iidentifiable as the most recent addition) as they were designed as just precisely one thematic "background". I like that they often combine multiple things, even disadvantages and advantages, which creates a bit of thinking space on which compromises you're willing to make!
The middle ground between them and "traits" as well as professions seems muddy, however.
e. Traits in and of itself seem fine, however there a lot of outliers imho, that are problematic: Negative Traits that make the game more tedious I imagine are rarely picked. Just giving my character a wheat allergy offers practically no narrative fluff while making the nutrition aspect of the actual game marginally more annoying to deal with, but by no means difficult ,mind you!
In general negative traits exist only for rpg purposes and for people to challenge themselves, which is fine! However traits that add tedium will never be chosen (at least by me). Examples would be: Traits that impact hauling, traits that take away major parts of the game (wayfarer, illiterate, most metabolism traits) These traits have no narrative purpose (unless you're roleplaying as gluten intolerant me, e.g.).
At the same time some positive traits help with certain playstyles so much I find it really hard to stay away from them (night vision, parkour, quick) which puts the player in an awkward and uncomfortable position as described above.
f. Starting location is in itself tucked away in a little corner, that many a new player probably doesn't even see it, but it is a relevant variable, as the starting location can contain a lot of relevant gear or make for a good starting base or for something that has to be immediately abandoned.
Solution you would like.
I suggest the following:
Replace the lack of "game-mechanical structure" of character creation (that used to be points) with "thematic structure" that are "packages" of game starts that bundle all of the a-f points from above into one selection the player can make and get started.
This could take shape in the following:
TL;DR: Roll the entire character creation screen slog into one nice and crunchy menu that lets you choose between a wide variety of characters that have different strengths and weaknesses all displayed at once, don't have to be balanced against each other, but offer distinct approaches to the (start of) game and thus feel fresh every time you try a new one yet specific enough to tickle your problem solving right brain. Don't worry ever again whether you are cheating the game or just being a masochistic idiot.
The advantages this provides are the following as per my observation:
Describe alternatives you have considered.
To some extent my suggestion already exists in the shape of the "preset characters". The feature feels more like an afterhtought though, and I would appreciate an actual revamp of the character creation screen.
Obviously this could also be implemented in the sense of having two options for character creation:
and
Additional context
After transferring the most iconic/relevant starts obviously we could add more starts on the condition that they offer a distinct approach/gear/location and are thematically somewhat coherent.
EXAMPLES (just rough ideas with distinct options for a through f):
THANK YOU for reading through all that! Please let me know if this sounds like a good idea, I tried to keep it somewhat structured, feel free to critizise/comment specific points ini this issue as well. This post is also meant as a place for discussion as I am interested if other players also see character creation as much as a chore as I am lately. I mostly just end up messing around in character creation, then maybe starting out with a character but at best quickly abandoning him.
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