I like options and all those games too, but I can't help but feel that all the cool class or subclass choices in Owlcat's Pathfinder are sort of undermined in their character creator by putting those silly class outfits up front. Having 3-6 options for each subclass, but everyone still looks the same hehe.
It's as if I'm choosing to play a certain character type based on which initial looks I don't hate, instead of choosing a class I want to play and then creating a look that I enjoy which fits with that concept. Like the hard work put into the portraits and then the hard work put into the avatar models, they are sort of working at cross purposes for me. Since you can't really modify either, and neither can be made to look consistent with the other.
BG3 does something rather similar, it's just somewhat less pronounced, probably because the base options here are so much more limited and the BG3 modelling designers are better and get paid more lol.
Not to pick one thing and just bag on it relentlessly, but I think both games underestimate how important designing a satisfying character look is to the overall experience.
It was different in the old games because everything was so lo-fi and abstract by comparison, but once I can actually see this stuff articulated out into the models with greater detail, then I want to control and change all these things, but usually I can't. D&D game designers seem to delight in spending all these zots on faces and haircuts, but then skimping on the outfits and going with a locked design, even though the outfits end up being way more important to characterization in the end, since that's what we end up looking at the whole time. It's strange because by every measure BG1/2 had way fewer options in this regard, yet somehow still felt more adaptive. All the little blank faces and generic armor types, working with 3 colors in the 2d sprites, managed to pull it off better 20 years ago than anything I've seen since. Sure rogue hoods might have been just as annoying then too, but somehow it grates harder on me now.
I think I will just never be satisfied until we actually get a D&D developer who gives primacy to that aspect of char creation and does it up to the nines in a modern presentation. Like spending a year or two just building that out, or at least using a base engine/design studio that can do the heavy lifting for them, already built-in. Everything I've seen thus far is like half or quarter measures, since I know what's possible, but I guess they just want to keep that stuff proprietary and squarely in the art direction development arena. You know, instead of just giving the players a simplified version of the same kinds of tools that their artists are using.
ps. Just to use an obvious BG3 example, Larian's modelling artists clearly have the tools to make a Wyll or a Shadowheart, or whatever specific concept they might have in mind. But they will then keep that under lock and key as a show-off piece, such that the random player couldn't make such a character with the in game tools provided. Unless they are unlocking and unpacking stuff in mods. But its basically like being given a Lego set with all the shitty pieces and told to go to town, all the while staring at a pile with the really good pieces sitting across the other side of the table, where we can't reach. That idea. They want to be the artists, instead of making us feel like the artists, if that makes sense. All MMOs seem to do this as well, though they tend to provide more base options. I think an inverse approach taken to heart, would be an immediate hit for the ages. Where the game lets us be the artist, to create whatever look we can conjure up in the imagination, which is basically what PnP play amounts too, since nobody ever has a portrait really. Unless they like to draw, or know someone who does. But every player wants the same I think. They want to be the artist. A game can let this happen and encourage it, but usually they hold stuff in reserve and don't give up the tools of the trade. Or maybe its just way harder to build than I might think? But I think they should hire a series of modelling and 2D artists, and then have them build out a toolset/design suite for the Character creator in a way that's new-user friendly. There's a reason we all aren't modelling in Maya or Unity or Unreal or whatever the cutting edge iteration might be. What the casual player needs is basically a version of multiple choice design, where the tools are intuitive and the labelling easily understood, but where ALL the choices are cool. Because they were selected/curated for inclusion in the first place. Really trying to avoid the usual, which is like 2 cool, 2 passing fair, 2 middling, 2 ugly. Plug that in to whatever, be it heads or armor sets etc, that's usually what we get. Kinda falls short. I just want a bigger box of crayons. Comparing the BG3 character creator to the Pathfinder one, I'm just left feeling how neither is really the ticket, and it could be so much more. Maybe in the next decade I guess
