Changing appearance desperately needs some work

I doubt I'm the first to say this

Nope

but the system for rolling a new pirate really sucks unless you get insanely lucky

How so?

I spent five hours yesterday rolling

You spent 5 hours wasting away on the pirate creation screen. because you wanted a barbie pirate....that is a YOU issue, not a game issue. You wasted the time, 5 hours?! which you never getting back. Again that on you

she has a weird look around her mouth that ruins her whole appearance

You wouldnt happen to be one of those people who...returns a Burger to MD over a small pickle on your burger..are you? Very minor issue because it wasn't perfect :(

It sucked, it was frustrating, I wrote up a whole rant about it in the steam discussions in which I had to try very hard to avoid swearing.

Glad you didn't Would of made you out to be a very silly person by many. Angry over a pirate look that displeased you because of a minor issue. and Ruined your experience?

it felt like a scam, and frankly it's really killed my interest in playing the game

....You let a minor issue ruin your fun in a game. Let me remind you, 98% of the time you never see that face. Nobody is gonna stop to admire that face, not even random pirates. They see a pirate. Ugly, normal or fun looking.
Unless you have a mirror on your ship, do tell me how you unlocked it.
2% you see your pirate in Stores/Menu or Emotes.

I had to spend ancient coins on who I dislike even more than the one I changed from.

"Had to"? You didn't have too, nobody forced you. You did that on your own.

I really doubt you want players stopping playing and stopping being interested in new people playing, due to bad experiences with in-built game features that aren't even part of the gameplay.

Minor issue. And if players let something such as, "I didnt notice my pirate had a mole. I hate moles" on there pirates or "Missing teeth" They got bigger issues than playing a game. Which once again...you dont see yourself all the time or other players will stop to look at your face. If players stop playing because of this, oh well. Go play The Sims.

Male/Female, Age & Body Size. Only real change I can get behind. Nothing else is needed.

I really hope you'll consider this, because unless it's added I really can't see myself playing much more Sea of Thieves, despite how fun so much of the gameplay i

You. and Only you hold yourself back from playing a video game. Over a small issue. So small...it will be forgotten.

This is a very rare issue only a select few have. The system is intended that way because they thought "if people could make their own pirate, they wouldnt be ugly enough", and if you can roll more like one that has a lot of traits you like, then you basically can just cycle between favorites until you have all of your desired traits how you like them... otherwise known as... character creation!

If you dont like 1 thing about a pirates look, its not a big deal, you wont spend much time looking at them anyways

Not going to lie, if you are considering leaving the game literally because of a mouth imperfection, I recommend you do not play at all.

Sea Of Thieves is nitpicktopia.

There are pros and cons to any chatacter creation system. That said, I do think some minor level of filtering would not be the end of the world as it relates to the IPG. Keep it mostly random, sure, but I think some base level filters such as:

Masculine, Feminine, Any
Skinny, Large, Muscular, Any

These would be mostly unobtrusive, and help ensure that the IPG is mostly spitting out Pirates that fit at least the base level criteria of the player. I also think you would get players across all the various options still, because these are so basic in choice.

I also think it would be good to not have Scars baked into any of the characters. This is a Cosmetic type within the game, and so Scars should be treated as such - a Cosmetic you can equip of not. I just really don't like the idea of a selectable Cosmetic choice being something that also has a chance to be baked into the Character. That can cause weird conflict with the Cosmetics for this, that will then make people potentially not want to use something they otherwise would have due to how it impacts the overall appearance.

That could strike a perfectly fine balance I think where you have just enough personal choice to get the ball going and not waste IPG slots on things the player will 100% not want to use so that you can do more permutations each roll that could potentially be of use to them. You still get the randomness of the core IPG and get Pirates who don't start falling into cookie cutter tropes so easily (and potentially still have players need to get used to accepting one or two features not being exactly how they would have liked and learning to just embrace that). And you remove sources of potentially needless conflict with an entire category of Cosmetics that the game has on offer.

It still wouldn't be a mess a sliders, just a few options you could select that would just default to the "Any" option giving that first roll of the dice a completely random spread just like it does now (and unless the Player elects to make a couple selections the IPG would have no change in behavior whatsoever).

An option for more neutral poses would be great; as you said, the exaggerated nature of the current poses usually make it hard to see basic features on a pirate. Would also like there to be an option to remove/change clothing, as it can make it hard to see what body type a pirate has.

I don't really support the idea of 'weighted' characteristics being added into the creator, as I feel like that would go too much against the point of the IPG (which is to generate unique pirates); but it would be nice to see a gender toggle. It would literally cut time spent in half without hindering uniqueness any bit.

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Unfortunately, I don't think they will ever update the pirate generator. As far as I can remember, the only update they have ever made to it was the addition of the 'favorite' feature (which was a change made between open beta and launch haha).

@redeyesith I think the base level scars you get are actually permanent to your character, you can just add additional scars, but never remove the base ones.

@spookygunner385 said in Changing appearance desperately needs some work:

(Although I can't help but feel it somewhat undermines their point when a significant percentage of the NPCs in the game aren't ugly, even before you count the Pirate's Life ones based on actors.)

The intent is for players not really npc's but the only npc's i can think of that dont seem janky in some way are ramsys kids, larinna, and the merchant alliance characters that arnt really pirates. Beyond those few, everyone has some features that look strange, even the beloved pendragon has a nose the size of cuba!

@goldsmen that is correct, and what I am against (and have been since Scars were introduced as a Cosmetic way back).

@redeyesith said in Changing appearance desperately needs some work:

@goldsmen that is correct, and what I am against (and have been since Scars were introduced as a Cosmetic way back).

Personally i kinda like that some scars are permanent, but if equipping a different set of scars replaced the ones you already had until you unequipped them, i could get behind that as like a sort of "you always have battle scars as a pirate" thing. That and i believe the default scars it gives are randomized, so they can be a unique trait to your pirate ontop of other stuff.

@faceyourdemon I wouldnt say its really gatekeeping how to have fun, in a game where you will rarely see your characters face, usually the character creation process isnt the part thats fun... i will spend hours in a skyrim or dark souls character creator, and totally forget the experience, or what my character even looks like after a while.

@faceyourdemon said in Changing appearance desperately needs some work:

@goldsmen Nah its gatekeeping, telling people they shouldnt care much about it while they do, promote nothing.

Many players cares about their look and dont want to look like ogres

You can care about your look to some extent, like i said, i spend hours when i do have a character creation or decent customization, but you shouldnt care about a few flaws that are a bit off from what you want to the extent that you spend hours of frustration trying to find something that you think is perfect. Its not worth the frustration for maby a few seconds of seeing your character at a time on average.

Theres a difference between saying "your not allowed to want different traits" and saying "you are making a mountain out of a mole hill", some flaws with a character isnt worth that much frustration. My character looks like hes always about to pass out, and has an absolute honker of a nose, but it wasnt worth stressing and spending hours just to get the traits he had with a smaller nose and a bit of caffeine in him.

@faceyourdemon said in Changing appearance desperately needs some work:

@goldsmen I personally not asking from Rare to make the perfect character, I understand their vision here, but my QOL suggestion is needed as a great compromise.

And shuffling through many of them is just wasting our time.

I dont think anyone is against the idea of some specific qul changes, but the only ones i can think of are male/female, and maby size, but usually when people spend hours searching for a character, its not because they couldnt find a buff character, tucker build, or heavy set character in the gender they want, its typically because they dont like specific fine features that most others wouldnt notice.

As I've said before, the amount of times this suggestion gets brought up is a clear indicator that the community wants a better character creator.

Unfortunately, there's always going to be 2 or 3 people gatekeeping a good idea just because they personally dont care about said idea and even when it does not affect them in any way.

I feel your pain. The solution is to have a control over the camera to inspect your selection freely and maybe some poses too. Some defects are hidden until your character smiles for example - no tooth. It can be hearthbreaking.

Rare, there is a room for improvement without changing the system :)