Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Character Creation Feedback

Hehe I probably am though. Or at least I got the chopped part down pat lol

So I managed to get some caps of all the bodies in Char Creation right quick. I defaulted them all to fighter Class, because the Barbarian outfit is so busy and I found it distracting. I just wanted to get everyone in a nice neat line, with the same crops, so we can see how this stuff displays in the Char Creation screen. I reduced the image to 75% so it wouldn't be too massive, but at least you can see the spread and relative scales as they present on first view.

I followed the layout of the Select Race tab, with the defaults at the top and Sub-Race variant default below that. I wish they would display with a generic Fantasy Race tunic or something, since I don't think we should get that armored view until we select a Class, but gotta work with what we're given I guess. Anyhow, here's everyone standing together...



The camera zoom shift for the shorties is kind of annoying, and I still find the background environment distracting here, but it sort of works.

I wanted to really delve in on the "Heads" since that's the first field in the Appearance tab. Or more specifically wanted to focus on the "Faces" and how they are being gated by Race and Sub-Race in that field, sort of unnecessarily. At first I wanted to try to find a way to present them all together like I did in the Heads thread. Just so that would be kind of aesthetically pleasing to me, which for me would be Mombi's glass cabinet of stolen heads. But then I didn't want to make the choices there seem more numerous or various or more impressive than they actually are in the default. So instead you just get this for right now... hehe


Now that may look a bit oddball, with the close crops, and just running the faces all together one into the next, but I think it conveys a general idea. I got tired, so it's not exhaustive. Didn't get around to the males or the monstrous races, and I didn't do the sub-race versions (beyond just repeating the last face to give an idea of what's going on there) but the faces themselves just repeat in Sub-Race, albiet in a different order, so I think it works to give the impression. Everything else is cosmetic nuance, like skin tone or eye color or makeup etc. The defaults seemed important to show though (even I find the eye and makeup choices kinda weird in some cases), since that's the first impression we'll get.

The reality is that they are just using hair or makeup or eye color etc as a way to convey a sub-race distinction within the defaults, but none of that is gated in the way that the basic faces are. Meaning I can make a High-Elf who looks in every way like Lloth-Sworn drow or whatever, provided I go in and mess with the individual fields, but I can't get to a different face set unless I go back and select a different race from the earlier tab.

The game will save cosmetic choices based on the specific selected Race, but if you go to a new Race then it will return the regular defaults there, until you start changing stuff around. Curiously I haven't found a quick and easy way to "clear all" other than closing out of the Char creation screen and relaunching it again, so that's another minor annoyance.

Now I'm all zonked though, so I'll have to think on a bit what I'd like to actually say here, but we can just ruminate on the images for a second I suppose.

The first thing I'd like to see, is a lot more variation in Height/Scale for the models, so the player can actually tell how large these races are relative to each other.

Like for example, are Gith supposed to be taller than the Humans or just more gangly lookin'? You'll notice that only the Male Gith have that distinct phenotype, whereas the females just look the same as all the other medium sized female humanoids. I think I'd be a little weirded out if suddenly Lae'zel was looking all extra gangly, but the way its presents it's hard to tell what going on. Similarly, why not just make the Elves somewhat more diminutive relative to the humans, so we could tell them apart at a glance? Also what's up with the Gnomes? Are they shorter than the Halflings, or it just our camera messing with us? All these issues can be summarized with the question, is the Character creator showing us this stuff at scale, the way it will present in game? And if not, why not? Char creation is the place to establish the metrics on this stuff I would think.