[DEV REQUEST] Balancing Character Customization

About muscle slider, it would be nice if miqo'te got same muscle body as midlander...

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Originally Posted by Letbluevannback

Honestly I'd prefer if they removed the option to toggle on/off limbal rings from Au Ras (they should always have limbal rings, like how Dunesfolk always have glossy eyes and Seekers always have cat pupils) and turn that tab into a Horn tab instead, where you can choose both main and secondary horn sets. The fact that main horns are locked to faces and secondary horns are locked to certain hairstyles is just plain dumb.

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Id so be okay with this as long as we can change our horns, it's a really big feature and yet we are stuck with either horns we like less with a face we like or vice versa

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Originally Posted by CuteWhisper

Id so be okay with this as long as we can change our horns, it's a really big featurr and yet wr are stuck with either horns we like less with a face we like or bice versa

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They did say there was a technically limitation on the amount of variables they could give each race. While they could potentially give a lot of options for individual traits (hairstyle, face, skin tone, tails), they are limited in how many traits are available to be changed on each race. That is simply due to how character model data is stored apparently. I suspect this is one of the reasons horns tend to be paired with faces on Au Ra and races like Au Ra and Miqote don't have muscle sliders.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

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Its such a lame excuse though. You look at other games and they have better character creation than FFXIV. Im not saying they are better games as a whole but come on if if they can pull it off, SE should be able to do the same. If you look at what he said before 3.0 came out, he clearly said in one of the conventions that we will be able to customize so many things with Au Ra and they are so lacking. I like the race but they really missed the mark and its kinda sad.

I want to be honest here:

I ve seen a lot character creator tools from other MMORPGs. From very limited (WoW) until endless (Star Trek, Black Desert), I ve seen everything. But the character creator from FFXIV is one of the best. I tell you why:

1. You have many options, but not too much.
2. You cant mess up things. Even if you try hard, you still fit into the lore.
3. You can make a beautiful character with less effort.

The problem with character creators like in Black Desert or Blade and Soul is, that you can do too much. I ve spent more than 3 hours on one character, by changing every single detail of hairstyle, face and body. At first I was satisfied, but a few hours later in the game, I realized, that I messed up my character. Legs to high or face to small, i dont know.

So, when it comes to improve the Character Customization:

• Add a booty slider (yeah, its still a thing. Let us be 1.0-sexy xD)
• Seperate horns, hairstyles and face types from Au Ra (still some space for improvements here)
• Allow to use body-parts from other races (like Elezen-ears for Hyur. Hilda approves)

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Originally Posted by Fitzy

Lets see if i can put this into easy terms to understand.

Picture memory as a number of slots. Now assume we have 4 available slots for facial features. These 4 slots can be filled out for example with face, eyes, nose, mouth. We are now using all of our available slots for these 4 customisation options. The reason we cant have the horns and face as a separate option is because this would create a 5th customisation option, but we only have room for 4 options.

As for why adding extra hairstyles doesn't affect this is because even if we have 100 different hairstyles to choose from, ONLY 1 hairstyle (the one you choose) is actually taking up 1 of the 4 available memory slots.

The number of total hairstyles we have to choose from is likely to have its own separate memory allocation but that's another issue on its own. You have to view memory as the separate parts that they belong to to make up the whole.

Its a similar issue to the common misconceptions that people have with inventory space. They wonder why if we can purchase an extra retainer, why cant that extra space just be given on our characters. Its the same issue, 1 character with 100 slots plus 1 retainer uses the same amount of available memory when they summon a retainer as a person with 1 character with 100 slots and 10 retainers. Because only 1 retainer memory is loaded up at any given time. The character inventory memory remains the same at 100 slots

But if we had a person who has a character with 200 slots and 1 retainer, they are suddenly using almost 2 times the memory of the person who only has 100 slots and 1 retainer because that character inventory has to be loaded in memory at all times.

And lets not even get started on the technical side of what memory means cause that just gets even more confusing, does it refer to space on a HDD, or RAM or even the capacity of your bandwidth. Most people on these forums think it refers to HDD space, but in most instances, it refers to the later two areas.

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This would make sense to me perhaps in regards to low-RAM systems like a PS3, but beyond that... We have MMOs out right now with some 20+ sliders, another 6 palette choices per character, atop an inventory of up to some 50 slots, banks with another 50, and every item you've ever worn stored alike to an achievement in memory for instant appearance access... If that really comes down to a compromise between character appearance choices, item storage, (and perhaps even achievement storage), I'd rather have the actual appearance choices and just see glamour requirements revised and "optimal for" gear returned.

Now, honestly, I don't think XIV's character creator wants for much. The poster above me has already listed all I'd really want added, apart from the ability to modify some of my emotes, running animation (to avoid the fem hyur flappy arms) or create 'expression sets'.

*Ignore sig. Forgot to turn off. Post way out of date.

We're highly unlikely to get face/body options in place of new hairstyles simply because the entirety of the players can go to an aesthetician to change their hair, but many or most would be unlikely to buy a fantasia to try on a new nose or chin.

So far we have received one "free" fantasia an expansion. I don't see them adding options to the CC in patches, but an update accompanied by an expansion (and the free fantasia) would be appropriate. If they can or will actually do that is another matter.

I want more options myself. I don't want an extremely complex CC like say the the one in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but more ear/horns, body-type sliders, facial features, tails etc would be nice.

It'll happen when they get the logic to stop supporting the ps3 as that's where the majority of the "memory" issues come from. Course this is just my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Slirith

It'll happen when they get the logic to stop supporting the ps3 as that's where the majority of the "memory" issues come from. Course this is just my opinion.

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Sadly it was confirmed at the EU fanfest that it will not be happening :( even with PS3 dropped..

Who's to say they haven't had equal development time, or even equal outcomes in the sense of each having options enough to likely appeal to x% of that race's players, though?

One race's 6 options aren't necessarily going to have a more desirable coverage than another race's 4. Aiming for equality in count alone appeals only to fluff choices.

Result > Effort. Weigh the result by... the result, not the effort (choice count).

Edit: The better question is, "is it sufficient?" It doesn't matter if one race has it better or worse, or by what degree. If another race's customization feels insufficient, it should be fixed. Ideally speaking. Now whether that's cost effective, given that race's player count and how difficult its designs are to create is another story, at which point you have to ask, do I want each race to have sufficient customization, or do I want the game as a whole to feel like it allows for a good amount player customization for a sufficient amount of players?

Usually one side will require the other, but not always. (And as a cat, you'd be right to assume that my reference lies with the latter.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

One race's 6 options aren't necessarily going to have a more desirable coverage than another race's 4. Aiming for equality in count alone appeals only to fluff choices.

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That is some serious spin. xD

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Originally Posted by Naunet

That is some serious spin. xD

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I'm just saying the metric presented is unreliable. I want more character customization, too, but "balancing" them based on the number of choices, or grading the quality of customization based on choice count alone does not guarantee a better product. That's like asking for x words of explanation for a design choice from the devs. Sure, it increases the chances of something in there being worthwhile, but wouldn't the simple yet more thorough metric "am I satisfied?" be more appropriate? Accepting the effort over the result is to accept fluff-work.

It's the same with customization for combat classes. The question shouldn't be "how many choices did the class get" as "what percentage of players felt 'very satisfied' with the choices they were given and the class variant(s) they produced from them?" If the prior did not significantly improve the latter, then the development time was largely wasted.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Sure, it increases the chances of something in there being worthwhile

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As you said, more choices will always increase the odds that an individual will find something they like. Having the same percent chance to find something you like on every race/gender combo is only fair.

1 & 1/2 years later...Yoshi said they were not planning any new character customization at EU fanfest for 4.0.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Sure, it increases the chances of something in there being worthwhile

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That's the point. Character customization is an entirely subjective matter for players when creating a character. More options will always be better than fewer options, as people have vastly different tastes.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

That's the point. Character customization is an entirely subjective matter for players when creating a character. More options will always be better than fewer options, as people have vastly different tastes.

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Tani is saying not to use "hyurs have more" as an excuse. Every race having more will of course be better. But hyurs having more is because they're easy to develop around, and hyurs are the reason we don't have arses.

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

But hyurs having more is because they're easy to develop around

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I don't really buy that excuse. Every single race is essentially human, with slight variations in overall build, skin tone, etc. There is no race that should have any greater difficulty to design for, all things considered.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

I don't really buy that excuse. Every single race is essentially human, with slight variations in overall build, skin tone, etc. There is no race that should have any greater difficulty to design for, all things considered.

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Buy it or not, that's precisely how it is. We're all hyurs with extra bits, and the extra bits take extra time and resources to develop for.

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

Buy it or not, that's precisely how it is. We're all hyurs with extra bits, and the extra bits take extra time and resources to develop for.

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You're not going to convince me that it takes significantly more time to design a miqo'te face compared to a hyur face, or any others. xD I think SE's artists are better than that.

In development everything is designed and made on a hyer model first then reshaped to conform to the other races hence why hyer is "easy to work around" since it the race everything is molded on first.

We're talking about faces and things, not armor models.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

I don't really buy that excuse. Every single race is essentially human, with slight variations in overall build, skin tone, etc. There is no race that should have any greater difficulty to design for, all things considered.

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Nonetheless it's genre standard that the most humanoid races usually have the most options, so unless this is some awkward form of racism against inexistant species (or player personality types that would be drawn to them), their development must be considered more efficient, either because
- They take less time to develop, or —
- Their options affect and satisfy a larger portion of the playerbase, making them a more lucrative choice to flesh out in the goal of providing satisfying customization overall than the other races.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Nonetheless it's genre standard that the most humanoid races usually have the most options, so unless this is some awkward form of racism against inexistant species (or player personality types that would be drawn to them), their development must be considered more efficient, either because
- They take less time to develop, or —
- Their options affect and satisfy a larger portion of the playerbase, making them a more lucrative choice to flesh out in the goal of providing satisfying customization overall than the other races.

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But... all of the races are humanoid, with maybe the exception of the lalafelin baby-faces...

And don't most active players play the tailed races? ._.

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Originally Posted by Roda

But... all of the races are humanoid, with maybe the exception of the lalafelin baby-faces...

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Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make. Designing a miqo'te face is not any different than designing a hyur face. They're both human faces. There are zero distorting features that could possibly make the miqo'te face more difficult to design for (as opposed to say, a charr or an argonian or whathaveyou).

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Originally Posted by Roda

But... all of the races are humanoid, with maybe the exception of the lalafelin baby-faces...

And don't most active players play the tailed races? ._.

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I am not claiming otherwise. I am only saying that clearly there are certain approaches to how development time for character design choices is allotted, and maybe, just maybe, there's a good reason those are taken over a quota system.

Did <furry-scaled-tailed race 2> get 6 face, 5 tattoo, 4 jaw options? But they already have the same total components? I said 6 face options!
Did <tail-less hairless race 1> get their 4 tail options? No? Because they have no tails?! Madness!

If anyone really want a specific face or scale design or tail type and think that others would similarly feel more manifested in or attached to their characters if it were implemented—or even just a type or feel thereof—they ought merely to suggest it. Or one could point out what appears to be missing from the coverage of the race. But "give us as many face options as the humans" (in my, entirely personal, opinion, 6 variants of derp) is just not likely to get what you're looking for. The developers of these assets most likely stopped where they did because they thought they'd more or less covered their bases. You can prove them wrong, you can throw out some lucratives.

Nor can one rightly claim unfairness when far more players will benefit from a given allotment of development time, or, on the other end, the "less supported" race already necessitates additional customization categories or greater work per option (less the case in our mostly unvaried races, apart from the initial investment of tails, for which they allot no time for anti-clipping after 1.x, horns, and relative armor rescaling, largely for varying headsizes and male au'ra triangle heads*).

*Probably not a big deal really; I just felt like poking fun.

Bumping this thread yet again. It was mentioned in the last live letter there are no plans to add anymore customization options to the character creator and they plan to just keep adding more hairstyles.

Developers please reconsider, a lot of races like Au Ra, Elezen, Hyur Highlander, and Roe desperately need more options.

Muscle slider for Miqo'te and au ra should be a possibility as well with the dropping of PS3

http://i.imgur.com/lG8oUNB.png

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Originally Posted by Vejjiegirl

Muscle slider for Miqo'te and au ra should be a possibility as well with the dropping of PS3

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Even though the PS3 had nothing to do with not having more options. They've said in several live letters that its server stress keeping things out, not PS3.

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

Even though the PS3 had nothing to do with not having more options. They've said in several live letters that its server stress keeping things out, not PS3.

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Please explain how adding a few bytes of extra data to character definitions will affect server stability in a game where we are getting 40 new inventory slots with SB already and +10 positions per category in the Armory Chest. Remember *ALL* rendering is done locally on the client and all graphical assets reside on the client - the server is not involved at all.

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

Even though the PS3 had nothing to do with not having more options. They've said in several live letters that its server stress keeping things out, not PS3.

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Adding 2 new hairstyles every patch and the servers are ok, but heaven forbid they add new Jaw Options to every race with only 3 jaws the servers would explode!

http://puu.sh/k6DK5/6487ef9127.png

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Originally Posted by Fitzy

Its a similar issue to the common misconceptions that people have with inventory space. They wonder why if we can purchase an extra retainer, why cant that extra space just be given on our characters. Its the same issue, 1 character with 100 slots plus 1 retainer uses the same amount of available memory when they summon a retainer as a person with 1 character with 100 slots and 10 retainers. Because only 1 retainer memory is loaded up at any given time. The character inventory memory remains the same at 100 slots

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Adding a glamour log or a tackle box would be similar to adding another retainer in this regard. In fact, in the case of a glamour log, it would save memory since you could strip the items registered to it of extra information such as who crafted it, what colors it was dyed, combat stats, etc.

In summary, this doesn't quite apply to inventory. Square wants to make money selling retainers and doesn't want to expend the effort to add features most other MMOs have.

I always perfer to have more options...

Even if nothing new gets added, making all features available on all faces would do a great deal to increase the available options.

Bumping

they should just change the character memory or take off some useless sliders like muscle to give something new. I was just browding the Au ra horn topic but that got put down because there isnt enough memory or something... it would be nice if theyd let Au ras change horns just like elezens and lalas get to change their ears. Also more body sliders than only breasts for females, always been weird. So many MMO's have more variety in body changing idk why is SE still lacking in that section so much.