Yes, exactly. That’s specifically why I gave that caveat. But, we’re talking about game design here, and customer appeal. When the initial sales were directly tied to expectations based on a previous title(and following sales likely being highly social-sales), you can exclude monetary success. The success(or lack there of) we’re talking about is community reception, which has to do with player experience, as does seeing gender availability. It’s just obscene to rely on D3 for a good argument to include alternate genders.
Btw, I find this topic really odd(I know some of you don’t! Not trying to discredit your feelings). By playing gender locked rolls in games I’ve always felt that it was easier to sympathize with their situation and more compelling but never did I feel like I was forced to be the person. I still always felt I was controlling a character, I was just better placed in their mindset by that character being an actual story driven piece that was built around rather than AnonymousMale#2349.
And on the topic of open genders, a lot of the time(I’d say more than 60%) I choose female avatars, despite being a male and completely heterosexual. For more me it’s more about which gender I see as more likely to fit that role(after all I don’t see them as surrogates I live through, but rather characters I control), while keeping a balance of male/female characters in my account profile. For example, quick, nimble dexterous type(rogue, archer etc)? Female. Warrior, tank, berserker, etc? Male. Mages, I usually go back and forth on depending on their kit. Things that are dark and sinister lean male, things that are light, fun, playful(think Lux ), female. So, if you’re a female, whats so wrong with controlling a male character?
You are the first one that is really taking the side of “no character customisation”. Until now I only saw people that wanted customisation for better immersion and people that say they don’t care.
It’s fine. Think whatever you want. But I really don’t see a point in being “against” character customisation. Nobody has any disadvantages if it was in.
Furthermore, i think the thing with having alternate genders is that it might appeal to more people. It also make the game “new” again several times.
I suppose if you play an ARPG for the story only, you don’t really care about that since once the game is finished, you’ll move on something else.
I do think that hardcore players might be more interested in having more options for their characters, and it might have an effect on player retention. (and therefore in income, if we think about MTX.)
I wouldn’t mind if Last Epoch introduce alternate genders later in paid MTX. I would totally pay for something like 4-5€, or a 15-20€ a bundle. (But ironically i would be strongly against to pay for haircuts / dyes etc.)
But i want to make something very clear. And all my friends who play ARPG think the same, I want my character to look good. The look of the character in an ARPG is something very important (to me at least). Whether it is the global theme i want its outfit to convey, the gender or the haircut, i like it to look unique, powerful. I want to show off in town with that sick new unique or legendary i just got.
Wearing (and therefore having the character’s look changed by) new gear is always satisfying. It shows the progression of your character., time invested in it etc. This very aspect made me stick on Wolcen way more than i should have ! (:p)
This alone shows that people care about how their character look.
TLDR ; I think it comes down to what we expect from the game.
A 20h-30h game with a nice story and hordes of monster to slay. Why would i care about the gender ? I might be even more invested in the characters because of their background.
A game to sink 3k hours in it ? Visual appeal of the characters and possibilties (for less redundancy) are a must have in my opinion. It keeps the game and experience fresh.
The irony being, it takes an aweful lot of upper body strength to be able to use a bow, especially the larger ones. Not that I’m having a go at your internal head-cannon/preference for what genders you prefer to play particular builds as.
Disclaimer - I’ve never drawn a bow, but if it’s got a draw weight of 80-130 lbs, that’s quite a lot.
Never said women couldn’t be physically strong, nor that they couldn’t fire bows with their feet. However I suspect that that wasn’t an English (or Welsh) longbow with 80-130 lbs draw weight. I also suspect that the human toes can’t hold that kind of weight (80-130 lbs), though I have no data or anything to back that up, other than personal incredulity (which works for a lot of people on the internet, so it’s fine!).
I was also commenting on the assumption that women-should-be-using-bows-'cause-they-don’t-require-much-physical-strength is clearly crap & depends on the bow. You’d obviously need significantly more strength to fully draw a bow with 130 lbs draw weight compared to a bow with 40 lb draw weight. The archers in the battle of Agincourt (where they English army was mainly made up of archers & slaughtered the French nobles) would have probably been built like brick ****houses & an aweful lot of upper body strength.
Which is why I mentioned “especially the larger ones”…
If a person (regardless of gender) wanted to use a big war bow, they’d have to spend quite a bit of time working on the relevant muscle groups in addition to practicing that they can hit stuff. Or they could use a Crossbow since they could be fitted with a winch to draw it.
On average men are far stronger than women(just a scientific fact) so you wouldn’t be out of line saying it in the first place. Yes an individual, specific woman can be stronger than an individual, specific guy(these two obviously lived very different lives lol) but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We were talkin about my internal head-cannon/preference for which genders I prefer to play particular builds as, and thats basically just arch-type generalities; quite non-specific.
Nice video btw, Llama8. I’m surprised the guy didn’t talk about daggers, short swords or any of the alternative melee weapons like katars, whips or bladed chain type weapons(idk what to call these lol). Also, I did some archery when I was a kid but never got the point where I considered different bows and draw strength, so can’t say(mine was a smallish fiberglass one lol).
Yeah, I wasn’t looking to call anyone out on it, just added a point that “proper” bows (that you’d likely be using when trying to kill “gods”) would need a fair bit of strength to use, therefore if your head cannon is for a lower strength character, a big-arse bow wouldn’t fit (in the real world).
That said, I’m well aware of the ridiculousness of my statement about the strength requirements of a bow capable of killing a god.
The only way for EHG to solve that issue is to get rid of bows and implement guns instead. Guns are easier to use for women so it’s more appropriate for a female ranged class.
I read this a couple weeks ago and shelved it for after I actually played an acolyte through the campaign. She definitely comes across as evil to me. Her lines almost universally are about seeking power and she doesn’t show remorse for killing (mocking the elder in the ruined era, gloating about having to kill Rayeh’s soldiers in the divine era). The only time she sort of reveals a conscience is when your Imperial era buddy dies, and even then she’s saying he was “useful” and his death is “inconvenient”, though the VA shows a hint of emotion.
I think she’d come across a lot better if she were more interested in knowledge, rather than just power, and occasionally showed a goal other than just personal fulfillment.
No, no, and no. I would have been a fan of both a female knight (because full-plate battle maidens are cool to me) and a gender neutral rogue (to enhance their mystery), but I don’t feel like having an option to switch between them is necessary, because I don’t feel that gender plays a role in the class archetype each character represents.
Character editors are also unneeded, since changes to facial or body features would be hidden under equipment and unrecognizeable while the camera is zoomed out anyway.
What I care about is that each class has a distinct personality and silhouette. If I am running around with several buddies or wading through a crowd of players in a hub area, I want to be able to pick classes out from the crowd without having to mouse over them. Having the primalist hunched over in a lumbering gate while the acolyte carries herself in a more haughty manner would tell me more about their personality than their gender would.
Yeah, I never got that either. I understand that they might be wanting to keep away from comparisons to the Witch in PoE, but the term Warlock is specifically a male version of Witch.
Edit: Since the class is all about curses and debuffing, maybe something like Enchantress would be better? I know it doesn’t sound as dark as the character is made out to be, but it still fits more than Warlock does.
For me its the lowest priority in hack&slash game.
I can understand some folks want to have this feature. But I doubt that anyone will want it to be higher priority then endgame content or unreleased classes.
This is not a type of game where you often see your character close-up.
), female. So, if you’re a female, whats so wrong with controlling a male character?
