Worst Character Creation

[Callaxes]

Alright so we know which games have the best stat muchin', but which ones have the worst. To me, the holy trinity of a character creation is: realism, ballance and complexity, if a game has atleat 2 of these then it's considered great.

For lack of complexity

Ultima 7 - To put it short the game had 3 stats STR, INT and DEX and 3 skills. Melee, range and magic. Of course the game had tons of interaction and it's one of my Top10 games, but the character creation is a pain in the ass. The first 2 Gothics come close.

For lack of ballance

Morrowind - just keep jumping, bribing, sneaking and casting fireballs at the same time and you'll be a jack of all trades in no time.

For lack of realism

Hard to nail this one, seeing that there are alot of games in where realism is treated like shit. Wizardry had some very retarded combinations you could do (which actualy worked), but I can't consider it's CC to be bad.

 

[JarlFrank]

I guess you mean development, not only creation, as in the Gothics you don't create a character at all but just get a premade guy.

 

[Nalanod]

For lack of ballance

Morrowind - just keep jumping, bribing, sneaking and casting fireballs at the same time and you'll be a jack of all trades in no time.

Is that actually lack of "ballance" (sic.) or is it just the player exploiting the skill system?

 

[Helton]

Is that actually lack of "ballance" (sic.) or is it just the player exploiting the skill system?

Lack of balance.

Have you played Morrowind?

 

[Riso]

Forget Morrowind. Oblivion is worse.
Because in Oblivion you have to choose skills you absolutely never ever want to use so you don't get fucked by the auto difficulty.

 

[Higher Game]

The worst character creation systems are those that emphasize physical appearance, but the actual stats don't make a difference because it's impossible to gimp your character. Dumbed down games tend to have it like this these days.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

A little pet peeve of mine in character generation systems is when skills aren't described or seem really good, but aren't. Even though it breaks the holy immersion, it's nice to have maybe some warning text, like with certain weapon skills in Shadows of Amn and how it said these weapons were rare or there weren't many magical ones. Nothing sucks more than picking some skills that sound great, but have little to no practical application.

At least be like Fallout and make niche skills mostly self-evident.

 

[mondblut]

I second that. Some games with complex and otherwise brilliant CC's tend to have a lot of absolutely useless skills, generally inherited from tabletop games without alteration. Case in point: Realms of Arkania (roughly half of skills are either never used at all, or used once or twice per 3 games in some scripted encounter obviousy designed solely to justify the presence of said skill). Funnier case in point: Megatraveller, with manual specifically underlining which skills are actually used in the game and which (about 10 times more) are only there to be consistent with P&P rules.

 

[Jasede]

RoA doesn't have as many useless skills as people claim. Also, the skills that were, indeed, useless were a nice anti-powergaming blockade: A new player can't know what skills will never be used, so he must spend a few points on them, just in case.

This is just like in P&P- maybe your "riding" skill will never be used for 3 whole campaigns- yet it still makes sense to increase, just in case. The beauty of RoA is that giving your chars many, many skills won't break the game.

 

[Texas Red]

Jade Empire has the worst creation/development I have ever seen. You have only 3 stats that dont affect anything and weapon styles. God, it was awful. I guess some Bioware marketing suit thought that something more complex and engaging would have a negative effect on the sales, no doubt.

 

[crufty]

It should go without saying that the worst character creation system is any console jrpg.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

I didn't like the character creation in Arcanum. It left me puzzled with what the hell I am supposed to do and put what points where in the score of skill and attribute windows you have. When leveling my character in Arcanum I always had this nagging thought at the back of my head wondering if I put my attribute/skill points into a viable build and I'm not going to screw myself later in the game. Contrast this to Fallout where character creation was intuitive and kept all on one "page".

I didn't mind Morrowind's character creation so much. It did its job well enough where you select some major and minor skills and a sign. It was character progression that sucked balls. Oblivion took it to the next level where you had to pick the stats that you were never going to lose in order to not get screwed over by the auto-leveled monsters like Riso said.

 

[Claw]

For lack of complexity

Ultima 7 - To put it short the game had 3 stats STR, INT and DEX and 3 skills. Melee, range and magic. Of course the game had tons of interaction and it's one of my Top10 games, but the character creation is a pain in the ass.

Please explain how the character creation is a pain in the ass. Iirc it consists merely of typing in a name and choosing a gender and avatar.

I believe one of us must understand the phrase "pain in the ass" incorrectly.

 

[made]

That's right, U7 had no character creation to speak of; you started with the same base stats every time.

If you mean the char creation of U4-6, where you answer a set of moral questions to determine your stats, then you are even more wrong. It was actually one of the best of its kind as it encouraged you to *gasp* roleplay your avatar instead of powergaming and maxing out stats to your liking, unless you looked up what each answer affects beforehand, in which case you fail and likely didn't enjoy Ultima to its fullest potential anyway.

 

[Jedi_Learner]

I thought the character creation in Jagged Alliance II was quiet poor. Didn't like the multiple choice questions for your character. I'd rather just click a specialist subject and be done with it. I'll admit I found some of the answers amusing, but I wouldn't want to do the same tedious test each time I started anew.

 

[Andrej]

Oblivion has the worst character creation ever, especially if you count your head as part of your character.

With wicked next-gen character concepts such as "A battlemage with lazy eye", "A big soldier with lazy eye", "A thief with lazy eye". Oblivion really is king.

 

[Lemunde]

A little pet peeve of mine in character generation systems is when skills aren't described or seem really good, but aren't. Even though it breaks the holy immersion, it's nice to have maybe some warning text, like with certain weapon skills in Shadows of Amn and how it said these weapons were rare or there weren't many magical ones. Nothing sucks more than picking some skills that sound great, but have little to no practical application.

At least be like Fallout and make niche skills mostly self-evident.

I had an idea where right before you complete the character creation process you go into a small area that has a random assortment of monsters, traps and things that you may encounter during the game as a sort of test run. Afterwards if you like your character you move on. Otherwise you go back and make adjustments.

 

[JarlFrank]

A little pet peeve of mine in character generation systems is when skills aren't described or seem really good, but aren't. Even though it breaks the holy immersion, it's nice to have maybe some warning text, like with certain weapon skills in Shadows of Amn and how it said these weapons were rare or there weren't many magical ones. Nothing sucks more than picking some skills that sound great, but have little to no practical application.

At least be like Fallout and make niche skills mostly self-evident.

I had an idea where right before you complete the character creation process you go into a small area that has a random assortment of monsters, traps and things that you may encounter during the game as a sort of test run. Afterwards if you like your character you move on. Otherwise you go back and make adjustments.

Like Oblivion?

 

[Claw]

No, like Eye of the Beholder. Of course like Oblivion!

 

[JoeDirt]

Only "real" way to handle character creation is through role-play questions, anything else is just munchkin fodder.

 

[HerbBoyOfBirkenau]

I would not mind creation systems that asked questions if they could just put some more thought into the answers and the impact on your character. Its always " You find an animal wounded in the forest, it is bleeding to death. Do you -A. Break its neck ending its life in a quick and painless manner(Warrior answer) B. Use a dose of poison to put it to sleep(Thief answer) C. Try to heal it using a spell(Mage answer)." Very rarely have I ever seen these types of question deviated from and they are just useless in making a good cc system.

 

[JoeDirt]

best char creation system is in RL

 

[The_Pope]

I would not mind creation systems that asked questions if they could just put some more thought into the answers and the impact on your character. Its always " You find an animal wounded in the forest, it is bleeding to death. Do you -A. Break its neck ending its life in a quick and painless manner(Warrior answer) B. Use a dose of poison to put it to sleep(Thief answer) C. Try to heal it using a spell(Mage answer)." Very rarely have I ever seen these types of question deviated from and they are just useless in making a good cc system.

I'd say it would be better to have backstory type questions explaining what the character did before becoming an adventurer (kind of like darklands) rather than 'what would you do'. You determine what the character would do during the game.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I didn't like the character creation in Arcanum. It left me puzzled with what the hell I am supposed to do and put what points where in the score of skill and attribute windows you have. When leveling my character in Arcanum I always had this nagging thought at the back of my head wondering if I put my attribute/skill points into a viable build and I'm not going to screw myself later in the game. Contrast this to Fallout where character creation was intuitive and kept all on one "page".

I agree that the character creation in arcanum is a bit puzzling when playing it for the first time. Since you just use your character points for everything (attributes, skills, techno/magick) I was sometimes wondering how to balance this out. Also, I felt that the manual didn't really do a great job in explaining the importnce of various aspects of the character system. How important is putting CP directly into health and stamina? Useless. How important is dexterty? Very important.

On the other hand, you couldn't do THAT much wrong, because you basicly only distributed 5 points at the start (not counting the warious ways you could shift your attributes with backgrounds), not created a completet build like in D&D games.
When you advanced in level, you could safe your CP until a fews hours into the game you'd have a clue what to do with them.

AND: The character creation in Arcanum was great for the amount of different character combinations it allows you to make.
Stealth, thieving, different schools of magick, different branches of technology, melee fighting, ranged weapons - divided into bows and guns, backgrounds, diplomacy, race...
all these elements are mixable and interchangeble with each other, and almost each aspect has an effect on the gameworld (like playing a socially discriminated half-ork or a stupid ogre) and "can be played out" (diplomats get to use their skills very often and at core points of the game, thiefs have a real paradise in arcanum)

Arcanum has actually one of my favourite character systems for the huge amount of different characters it allows. I think I like it even slightly more than the fallouts.

 

[JoeDirt]

not to derail the topic, but real quick: as things stand right now in the world of Arcanum, the equivalent to fallout's diplomatic sniper ubermensch would be the charismatic, spell-casting sword-swinger?