The Character Creation process is the first thing we engage with in BG3, and I'm sorry, but it just isn't doing its job to my satisfaction.
Things have been added to it, sure, obviously there are more classes now, but the default presentation and the sort of skip-around back-and-forth that goes on here makes a lot of the most important Char creation stuff seem rather static or inconsequential or irrelevant to what the experience is going to be. Basically it gives me the impression of a being a random grab bag, where too much information is presented at once and the player has too many things/tabs to manipulate and fiddle around with from the same menu there, without enough structure or step by step flow. It's not quite orderly enough and I think it could be much stronger.
First, I don't think we should be shown a default Avatar until the player has actually clicked into something and selected some stuff first.
As a player once I'm shown a visual for the Character's avatar, I immediately want to start tweaking the appearance, but that tab is in the middle and really that's just not how it should start. In BG3 it's a bit like taking the process outlined in the PHB, but where the pages are all cut out and rearranged on the floor in a nice survey spread. But then some pages are tapped/stapled to other pages, such that if you pick up one page to get a closer look and read the deets there, it starts pulling the other loose leafs around until it's all a big mess again.
On Beyond they give the following sequence...
1. Choose a Race
2. Choose a Class (and a Background)
3. Determine Ability Scores
4. Describe your Character
5. Choose your Equipment
In BG3 we get this... but it's not really a sequence, just how stuff is arranged from left to right within the same general Char creation menu/screen.
1. Origin (Name and Background)
2. Race
3. Appearance
4. Class
5. Skills
6. Abilities
The way it's presented now, before actually doing/clicking on anything, we are immediately shown a High-Elf Barbarian female named Tav ,all dressed up and ready to go, with Ability scores and the like already shown on the left hand side of the screen. If you want to see something else displayed, you have to skip over to Race or Class to pull up another Avatar default, then click into appearance etc. But again, because of the way you can just skip around, the whole process is a bit muddled.
The game asks us "Who Are You?" when the screen is launched, but really the way it's presented the actual question is more like "Is this who you are?" And then the player has to say "No, that's not who I am" and change a bunch of stuff in the middle. It's just leading where it doesn't need to be.
The appearance tab, which is the most interactive and probably the most important in terms of satisfying what the player is actually looking for at that point, is all jammed together into one spot. Other tabs, which should probably be more about providing a gloss on critical information about D&D systems, is subordinated to the specific Avatar being visualized. There isn't room to present stuff like Abilities or Background in a compelling way, because you have to see the Avatar at all times in this screen.
The player wants to manipulate what will actually change the visual though, and so they start banging around and skipping ahead. Way too chaotic. I don't know how other people engage with it, but that's how I do. I see something visual and I want to start manipulating that visual immediately.
In my view this shouldn't happen first, it should happen last, in the describe your character part. We don't get to choose Equipment in BG3, since that is generic and determined by our Class choice, sadly. In BG3 the last fields to tweak are Skills and Abilities, which are going to be by far the most confusing for anyone not already familiar with D&D. But rather than getting a separate treatment with room for the game to describe what's going on here or for the player to really explore it, it's just sort smashed in like an extension of appearance. Like at best you'll get a little drop down arrow to collapse/expand some details, but even there, it's like it's all being compressed for the quickie and encouraging the player to just blow straight past half the material to get to a visual they want.
I think they should completely rebuild this aspect of the game, rather than just 'polishing' it. Many of the pieces are already there, but this jigsaw isn't nearly complete.
It has received very little substantive work during the EA, despite being the literal first thing that the player will interact with in the game. The BG3 Char creator should be a glowing triumph by now, but honestly it looks and feels the same way it did in 2020 to me.
The Tutorial Prologue is pretty similar, in that it has maybe changed at the margins in a few respects, but remains more or less the same, even after two years of development.
I know this is a perennial conversation topic, but I wanted to go a bit beyond "more heads and outfits please" to try and describe why I think it's failing in broader terms, hence the new topic thread. I think the Character Creator is absolutely the most important part of a BG game. It's the hook. It's the thing we "play with" before playing with anything else. It's also the thing that will bring the player back, for another run, or another 100 hours or maybe another 1000 if it's actually done up proper. Super important, at least to me. So I wanted to give this feedback again, cause it's been quite a while, and I just don't see that much has changed here. I have some thoughts and images I want to add, and mention stuff like Bio, but before going there I just wanted to drop a thread for it, instead of spreading around many topics like I tend to do lol. But please, hop in here, if you got any thoughts, cause I feel like now is definitely the time. Before too long now the game will be out, and it's kinda too late at that point, so just trying to get in some feedback here while there's still a chance it might have an impact.
Last edited by Black_Elk; 10/09/22 10:05 PM.
