[Mega Thread] - Character Customisation & the 'IPG' (Part 2)

Please do better Rare!
I have played in the closed and open betas. And I like so many other people gave so much feed back about the IPG. I can appreciate that you took 2 peaces of feedback. The favorite button which sounded like a great idea but doesn't actually help upon using it. And the delete character option. Which is actually very helpful.
WE NEED FILTERS.
I am looking for a specific looking character. So therefore the opposite gender, extreme age difference, hair colors are all just filler. I understand you at rare like the ipg. But it could still work if there were filters. Without them I am forced to go through page after page of characters I have 0 interest in. I have been selecting my character going on 2 hours. I stopped to take a break. Your game is awesome but I am stuck selecting a character not having fun. The options seem even less then the betas. At least then I saw a few characters that were ok. But this time around I just feel I am searching through a bunch of old fat ladies. If you gave us filters I would have found something close to what I want using your ipg. I would be looking through randomly generated characters within an age I want and a body type and skin and hair color. It would just be so much faster. And we would get to enjoying your game that much faster.
Please give us some feedback on the topic. We like you want to make your already great game even better and more enjoyable for everyone.
Thank you,
Capt. Buck

Ok here is what I would like to see improved:

1. Delete character without loosing progression and items
2. Saved pirates in the IPG should stay if we decide to make another pirate
3. Slider for gender, age and body shape

I actually liked it. I'd find a pirate I liked, locked him in, and kept generating new pirates. I ended up with a number of them that was hard to choose from. I had hoped I could create a "crew" that I could rotate around for play.

I am curious about the props/poses, though. Does the guy that heft the cannon ball better at shooting the canons? The one with the map have an easier time finding treasure? Does the one with the shovel dig faster? Is the one with the ale barrel stronger? It's okay if there's no difference; I was just curious.

So when I saw the IPG in the Beta, I figured they were hiding the full-featured character customization for the final release. I mean, it's not like they'll only have randomized pirates in the final game, right? Right?

Apparently, I should have paid more attention to the forums. Whoops.

I can't tell if this was a legitimately misguided mistake on the part of Rare, or the devs not having enough time to flesh out a character customization UI. I mean, would a company as beloved as Rare really throw out such a critical part of the gaming experience to match their "grand vision"? We may never know. We can only hope that Rare will release a full, sliders and all, pirate customizer for us to use.

I'm one of the people who spent over an hour trying to find a pirate that matched what I was looking for, but ultimately gave up. I don't want to rethink character selection and try a whole new experience. I want to immerse myself in a fantasy world, with a fantasy character that I dream up. I want to think about my choice of character, but I don't want to think too hard about it. I want to select the scars I want, not debate if I should throw out a character I kinda like because their legs are too skinny for their body.

I definitely did not think "this is my very own Rare-created pirate character." I thought "I hate this experience" as I spammed the Page Down key trying to find something that I felt represented my personality well. I felt teased by all these really cool scar and tattoo options that I couldn't choose for myself without compromising on other things.

My final character didn't feel "Rare-created." No one at Rare hand-picked all the aspects of my character. It felt like I could see the unfeeling algorithm pumping random numbers into the invisible sliders I wish I could access. So close, yet so, so far away.

There's something special about designing your own character. You put your own heart and soul into the thing. You can put your own bits of flair that show people what kind of a person you are. There's a sense of accomplishment when you've finally gotten it just how you like it, and you feel proud to show it off to the world and dress it up and immerse yourself in your own fantasy.

If you want this kind of experience with the IPG, you'll have to spend hours rolling for pirates, and ultimately you will be disappointed. It'll feel like you've missed out.

Honestly, I would have been happier with fewer customization choices instead of having the possibilities teased for me. I'd rather have picked from a small number of actually Rare designed models. But instead, I had to watch as I'm shown bits and pieces of missed opportunities.

It's not too late, Rare. You can design a customizer, with sliders instead of random numbers, and add it to a later release. You can give us a second chance to make the pirates we dream of. You can let us have this experience that so many of us are asking for. It would make the game feel that much more rich and personal.

Please consider,
mellonnite

(Founder) (Pre-Ordered December 10th) (Played all Beta/Scale Tests)
What can I say, I have tried my very best to be open minded and accepting of the IPG, I really really have. But it is absolute rubbish, its the opposite of what the developers said why they had it. All the characters who spawn, look identical, the female models are for some reason taller than all the male models, it took me personally 00:00 to 4am yesterday to choose a character, than I decided to change today and I couldn't find any I liked and that took me from 11am to 7pm to choose, I kid you not. I counted the hours.

The whole IPG idea is Sugar Honey Ice Tea.
I heard all the arguments and even supported it myself at the beginning, allow me to show you the list and then proving them wrong.

- It stops players from becoming Blackbeard or Jack Sparrow
Answer - I firstly don't want to be either of those, I wanted to make my own unique pirate, with it's own lore, to match with my friends and crew, you are correct, you can't "be" jack sparrow, or Blackbeard exactly, but you can become carbon copies of them, there are characters on the IPG that are exactly Blackbeard or Jack Sparrow-esk.

(Here is my Blackbeard Clone next to my Girlfriend's model which is taller, even though it looked smaller on the IPG Selection Menu)

- Everyone looks the same, just with extra scars, tattoos or recoloured hair.
This is no Joke. I must have reset my character over 100 times, I have been in the IPG for the entire day, and I am sick of it. All I see are the same "fricking" characters, pasted over and over again, just with extra or less features and its disgusting.
NOT ONCE DID I SEE ANY CHARACTERS THAT RESEMBLED THOSE FROM THE TRAILERS I now understand, they were man made characters, not generated. But if you don't believe me, me and my friend got the same character here.

-His

-Mine

- Women are ironically taller than the Men.
I don't know why this is the way it is, but I noticed it and it really annoyed my brain, I don't know why, but I am used to women being smaller than men in games, but every woman I saw NPC or Foe/Friend was taller, than all the guy models I saw NPC/MEN. I hope this is fixed in the future, I think it has something to do with the Women's necks, but I tried searching for a really tall looking character, to compare to the NPC and couldn't find a SINGLE MALE that was taller than the NPC Women. I don't even know if this is how the game is, or I just had the most unlucky RNG of Pirates even though I was searching the entire day. I think that there should be both tall male and female and not only female.

- The Infinite Pirate Generator takes longer than Character Customisation
What can I say, I have been searching the entire day, I have yet to find any that are interesting or cool, I wanted a tall, manly Pirate, who has a fierce some look and here is the problem I found.
I would find a tall pirate man - He would be fat/overly skinny, have a face the shape of a foot and appear smaller than women in the game. I would get the same IPG over and over again with either less or more scars and that repeated. (Let us adjust our Pirate's height!)

Suggestions if we keep the monstrosity known as the IPG

• Allow us to edit our Tattoos, Scars, Hair Colour, Hair Type, Makeup and Beard Type before we spawn in. (This way we can see what our pirate will generally look like.
• If you favourite a Pirate, the IPG should spawn similar pirates to that, or pirates that share the same body part values. E.G - If I save a Pirate with Black Hair, a Scar and a fat body, there is a higher chance that Pirates that are Fat, Black Haired and have Scars will spawn.
• Let us do small chances to stop us from, searching over and over to find more disappointments. (I would find many that looked nice, but would either have the wrong hair colour with a big nose and slanted eyes, allow us to change it on that character!
  OR
  Allow us to refresh an actual character, so it keeps the same body type, but randomises the head features.
• Allow us to choose Height and Body Type and Gender, I only wanted a tall, big built (fat muscular) but not obese character to spawn, instead you get 8 characters spawn that aren't what you want or are looking for.
• Bugs Found

(Sometimes the Shovel appears above the head with the shovel pose)

(If your internet drops, you get kicked out, you can rejoin and see your favourite Pirates but sometimes the game will crash and then your favourite pirates will be erased.)

The Progression Clearing for the IPG.

• I understand this, but I wanted to play with my friends and do progression, but yet to find the Pirate I call "mine" this means, I am never going to level up until I find one I absolutely love. There shouldn't be a punishment for removing characters we can't even control the look of!

My Suggestion -
Add a fricking customiser, Rare came up with this dodgy, dumb Pirate Generator which probably took you longer to make than a customiser, and all it has done is made the Character Creation more tedious, less exciting and exhausting.
I want to make my own special pirate, not see the same Pirate repeated 50 times. The IPG was interesting but it has failed, let it go.
Rare in one of your Videos Ted Timmins said that he would "start making a character and scrap it and then choose a generated one, check my IPG time if you can and how many times I refreshed pirates, you will see it took me far over 2 hours to find a character and I am still not happy. If this was a character editor, I could have been done in half an hour and actually enjoying the game. And the reason that you don't want players all to look the same, is pathetic. THEY ALL DO LOOK THE SAME. I can make a character that looks fairly unique and what I want it to with a Character Editor.

The IPG is rubbish, I encourage anyone who agrees with me to send this to Rare and make sure they read this. I am done defending the IPG. Rare let us control our looks.

If my luck has come down to bad RNG then please instead of my character looking like this -

Allow us to edit the Height so I can have a character that looks like this.

(I actually liked that character, my only problem was that, it was too small, it put me off the character, I deleted it, trying to find a similar one but couldn't and just wanted to edit it.

Day 2 of selecting MY PIRATE... still nothing.
for all you new comers who have not got the game yet and care about how your pirate looks... wait to get the game. let Rare actually address the community. If I could return the game I would. Don't get me wrong I love the game. But the IPG has ruined the experience for me. I just don't even want to play at this point. Hopefully we get some answers soon. I guess I'll be back if that happens.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15327103/r

Everyone do this Poll!

@miss-sarbearr said in [Mega Thread] - Character Customisation & the 'IPG' (Part 2):

@pikaaroon so I don’t really like my character. There’s absolutely no way to change it ? :(

No, Not for now. (They said you can change hair colour in the future on the AMA i think)
You can also delete the pirate but you will lose progress.

I hope there will be in-depth character customization like changing shape and faces in the future, I don't like that when you pick a pirate in the IPG You will have that pirate forever, They need to add a barber shop or something and make us that we can get tattoos and put scars on our pirates, I don't know why they didn't add that in yet, A game based on only cosmetics and vanity should have that. Be the pirate you want to be and what you want to look like. I hope RARE will give us something to allow us to change how our pirates look other than the ipg.

The thing that bothers me most is the"stubble" on the male pirates. I mean we spend gold to buy cool beards, then the stubble should be hidden when equipping a beard. Or make the "stubble" a beard too that can be equipped and unequipped in the vanity chest.

As it stands now my pirate has an ugly shadow under his glorious beard and it just looks wrong and ugly.

Why did I choose a pirate with stubble? Because I spent 5 hours in the IPG and finally got sick of not getting a decent looking fella without one.

Otherwise I´m quite fond of my pirate. Thought the IPG was alot of fun the first hour...

On every game where you make your character, it takes me seconds to make "myself", which is a bald or head shaven guy with a goatee.
I spent at least 30 minutes pressing pg down, deleted 4 pirates (which is also broken, why loose everything just to change your avatar), and I finally was forced to settle with one of the randoms because my friends were waiting for me.
Seriously, don't do sliders or nothing fancy, just give us presets to choose from and combine, the same way your random "algorithm" seems to do already.
Ask the Transport Tycoon guy how he did his character maker, it doesn't look that hard.

I wish that I can change character without loosing everything. I’m tired to see my toothless character.