I agree, i can’t play a character if hate how he look like.
So actually i only play 2 classes.
Gender choice could help a lot.
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Acknowledging that having both genders for each class is a lot of extra work to do fully, might I request a relatively low-effort option?
Buried somewhere in advance settings can we have an “unlock models” check box, that lets any model be used for any class? Let me play the Rogue model/voice/cutscene/etc with the Sentinel skills (or any other combination). The story and voicing will be a bit off, but after the first time through I doubt anyone will care much. I guess the equipment textures are another big piece of work, but is there a 1-1 mapping that could be made between class-specific item textures (e.g. map Sentinel Plate to whatever the equivalent Rogue body armor is, so no new textures are needed)?
A thought, that would be “close-enough” for me to be happy.
I hope at some point we will have the option to choose gender, skin color and a few basic face sets atleast. And not paywalled in the MTX store. We are already paying atleast like $30 to play this game.
Skin colors (and I know you mean RACE…) are not MTX, and neither are genders. You’re trying to incite argument based on absolutely nothing…
Raidr1 never said they were, he was hoping that they wouldn’t be, because we don’t know much about it (other than that the devs want to do it but have limited resources).
You’re playing a character in this game, not creating one. Games that does have gender freedom usually have you create a character (usually something nice to look at while playing). I fail to see why that’s any relevant in this game or any ARPG. You don’t see at your character for the most part.
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Not True. Grim Dawn or Diablo 3 makes you chose your gender. Diablo 4 will come with haircuts and other things to personnalize within the creation menu.
To add to the topic again (i already said what i think a while ago) and answer furthermore to your assumption, if i find a class “ugly” or not to my taste i won’t ever play it. It’s the case in PoE, i have 3.2k hours and never played the templar. As soon as they’ll add a better / alternative model / different gender (they will at some point they said it so) i’ll play the class.
I want my character to look good. To be aesthetically pleasing. The visual aspect of your character is ALSO a form of reward. That seems to be a difficult concept to grasp for certain people in this topic.
Chosing gender / haircuts or whatever will help a tremendous amount to do that. I’d like to point out that one of the main reason WoW was successful was that you could see your character progression through your gear. (yes it’s a different type of game, but you could see at first glance somebody reached endgame etc.)
I have that feeling in diablo games, (but not in PoE which feels terrible). Here in Last Epoch it’s starting to work a bit with the 3D models of the highest base, but it’s not there yet IMO.
EDIT : there’s an obvious reason why MTX are working so well in PoE. Without them your character looks like dogshit. People LOVE looking good even when they don’t create their characters, and they WILL PAY for that. Even in an ARPG. I know some people don’t care, but they’re exceptions i think.
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IMO, if things are slow enough for you to notice your character’s face/hair/skin colour/etc, you’re either in town or it’s not an aRPG.
To borrow a saying from them up north, there’s nowt as queer as folk.
For me that’s primarily in the look of the gear, it’s a good thing that Cyberpunk is 1st person 'cause my character looks like a ####ing clown…
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But even in an APRG you’re looking a lot at your character. (And i really hope LE won’t ever be as speedy as PoE, i’d love for it to keep its actual pace.) : sorting your inventory, gambling, talking to NPC or just taking a quick break between activities. But also while travelling in maps. Also the very first part till you reach end game due to the game being slower…
Yes if you’re playing a character like my rogue who clears in 1mn a monolith run you mostly won’t care about the haircut or whatever. But even in those moments, i pay a lot of attention to animations / skins. Before she use shadow cascade etc.
In D3 (and i don’t expect this in LE sadly), you can even differentiate your gender / class by just looking at the animations in fight. The difference is quite noticeable at any time, and a lot of work went into this. It’s always a pleasure to play this game from time to time just for this very reason.
I’ll take that as a compliment, thanks !
Agreed. And it’s actually a big downside of the game. Not having the satisfactino of looking good in an APRG…
BTW, I actually spent quite a lot of time to make my character look good and it’s a complete failure. Although it doesn’t matter because you never see your face except on the inventory menu or in a mirror, where i appear to be bald. (it’s a bug when you wear helmets)
Yeah, hence the “in town” comment (even though you may not actually be in town when you perform those actions). Also, given the helmet slot covers the hair, would you be able to tell what your particular haircut is after the first few minutes (until you equip your first helmet). IMO, when you start putting gear on a character, that becomes the primary means of differentiation for the majority of the game, unless there are some open-faced head gear so you can at least see the skin colour.
That I’m not sure I buy, have you got some examples of different animations for male/female characters using the same skill?
Ahh, I did wonder why that was happening (not that I ever really look in the mirror). There’s also a brief second when you get on a motor bike while the game loads your head-wear that the character is bald as well, most disconcerting.
It’s mostly about posture and not animation themselves i guess. They way they hold weapons, or subtile ones like the rolling animation etc. I’m not a professionnal in this domain. But you can feel the difference.
And it’s actually a point in favor of having different genders for a same class, because the work needed could be less than what we think. Using almost the same animation for the skills or auto attacks, you’ll need to add a few differences here and there, and the major work would be with gear : Clipping issues, alternate versions for chests gear etc.
Edit : https://youtu.be/tZ6ryOVOnB8
The wizard have a lot of difference. Mostly how the hands are positionned while casting spells.
How bizarre! Why would they do different skill animations for male/female characters?
Because if they didn’t, people would then just complain that the female characters are just skinned male characters and that is sexist, and “part of the patriarchy” or some such.
Or the male characters are just reskinned female characters. I think the statement says more about the speaker than what they’re speaking about.
Either way, I have seen people complain about such things. It usually just goes one way though as males usually don’t give a crap. Heck, guys used to play female characters in MMO’s to get free stuff from people. I think female players care more about representation, so they are usually the ones that complain. I’m not making a value judgement on that, just stating that that is the way it seems to be.
I could see somewhere down the line, when multiplayer gets rolling reliably, that the character creation thing gets a second look. Once you have parties of 4 Rogues and they all look the same, it could be seen as more relevant. Right now, with just single player, it seems a waste of resources.
Why wouldn’t they ? Slightly different models, slightly different animations. They had the ressources to make the game feels more alive.
As i told you, i usually change and alternate the models and it keeps the game fresh. And for people like me who are quite inveseted in such things, it makes a difference.
Edit : There is a reason why blizzard games feels more polished than the others. It’s this kind of details. (I’m not saying D3 is the best aprg though)
Yeah, I get that & that’s fair enough, it’s important to you & makes you value the game more.
I’m an accountant IRL so I guess I’m going to take a more cost/benefit view on things like that. It’s a nice touch, true, but I’ll always wonder if the resources spent on that could have been used “better” (IMO). shrugs
And a million billion dollar budget. 
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For all we know, it was a make-work project, between other animations. It’s not like they decided every single thing at the beginning, laid down a list, and said “Follow this, lemme know when it’s done, then publish”.
They could have had alternate animations as side-projects. “Oh, you finished that animation already? Well, it’s an hour before you get off, not enough time to introduce a new project fully. Just work on gender-swapped animations, like you’ve been doing for the past 6 months.”
This is true, and (not being in the industry) one might imagine that there might be less work for the animators to do after they’ve finished doing all their animating & the programmers are making everything work.