Power vs. Aesthetics

[Hides His Eyes]

This is one for RPG fans.

Am I alone in getting very stressed out by constantly having to compromise or even downright choose between aesthetics and power when designing a character? I guess it's unavoidable to an extent but what gets me is when developers seem unaware that they're doing it, and they do it way more than necessary. Not an RPG but Soul Calibur IV is the one I'm thinking of as I've been playing it a lot lately. I've found myself designing some really badass characters: ninjas, samurai, warrior-monks, Obi-Wan Kenobi-style hermits and steampunk adventurers. But every single one has ended up dressed like a total gooseberry and looking nothing like my original concept. It doesn't cut it to say that Soul Calibur is not about designing characters, because the game includes a fantastic character design tool, it's just rendered useless by the RPG mechanics. And you can't even think "oh well I guess it's realistic that the stylish silk shirt doesn't offer as much protection as a breastplate" since in this game the silk shirt is, inexplicably, just as likely to offer more protection, and there's likely to be a fluorescent orange shell suit that offers more than either. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't all so totally arbitrary.

Ok, that was me shamelessly venting. But does that kind of thing bother anyone else? Even in RPGs do you find yourself stressed by the aesthetics vs. power question? Can you bear to equip the stuff that doesn't gel with your character concept (or just looks stupid) because it makes you more powerful?

 

[Stammer]

It's ALWAYS bothered me. There are so many ways to get around this problem that it's baffling to me that no games ever use them.

I'm usually fine with my character looking a little bit goofy to have good stats, but I do have a line where I just say "no way, Jose".

 

[Kekkles]

Yeh, I'm a right bastard when it comes to Aesthetics, I would even go so far as to stop playing the game because of the my character would keep veering from how I personally want him to look. In Soul Calibur though their designs are more like Armour = Slow but Strong and Silk is more Agile but easy to break through and your character is usually based around that. It IS very limited because I would enjoy to play as a character that's aesthetically more casual but with as much power as someone with armour on...

WoW (although I despise the thing) has recently/is going to make a feature that allows you to keep the aesthetic but still have the stats from the new item! Which is damn right cool if you ask me!!!

I believe character creation should never limit anything, if there is a way of going round this it could be to (in future) have the more aesthetically pleasing stuff be unlocked! But for only games that use the same system as Soul Calibur.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Meh. It bugs me when games do that but there are some RPGs that separate appearance and armor into two groups and yet it somehow feels weird when you upgrade armor and look the same.

 

[Twad]

I would have beleived myself "above" the concern of "pretty", but in some games the gear is just so awfully ugly i just cant bring myself to ever use them, eve if they are uber-powerfull.

Oblivion is guilty of this, all the high-end stuff look like the idea a 5-years old would think of a "cool" armor. Neon green for light, red/black spikes of villainy for heavy? Hell no.

Demon Soul equipement design is more "realistic", and yet its much more nice to look at, even the low-tier stuff look cool.

 

[Rawne1980]

And thats the main reason I love PC gaming.

If my character doesn't look right, in most games I can mod it out.

I don't like the standard armour sets or character looks in Fallout 3/NV and Morrowind/Oblivion so I use mods.

Dragon Age Origins and DA2 are games I use mod armour and weapons in aswell.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

This is one for RPG fans.

Am I alone in getting very stressed out by constantly having to compromise or even downright choose between aesthetics and power when designing a character? I guess it's unavoidable to an extent but what gets me is when developers seem unaware that they're doing it, and they do it way more than necessary. Not an RPG but Soul Calibur IV is the one I'm thinking of as I've been playing it a lot lately. I've found myself designing some really badass characters: ninjas, samurai, warrior-monks, Obi-Wan Kenobi-style hermits and steampunk adventurers. But every single one has ended up dressed like a total gooseberry and looking nothing like my original concept. It doesn't cut it to say that Soul Calibur is not about designing characters, because the game includes a fantastic character design tool, it's just rendered useless by the RPG mechanics. And you can't even think "oh well I guess it's realistic that the stylish silk shirt doesn't offer as much protection as a breastplate" since in this game the silk shirt is, inexplicably, just as likely to offer more protection, and there's likely to be a fluorescent orange shell suit that offers more than either. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't all so totally arbitrary.

Ok, that was me shamelessly venting. But does that kind of thing bother anyone else? Even in RPGs do you find yourself stressed by the aesthetics vs. power question? Can you bear to equip the stuff that doesn't gel with your character concept (or just looks stupid) because it makes you more powerful?

You can actually play with the RPG elements turned off. I think that it was the default match type.

Anyhoo, I only really get angry when the stronger armor/clothes/whatever actually looks stupid. I can live with looking kinda silly, or having mismatched stuff, but I've skipped over armor sets because I didn't like the way they looked.

 

[omega 616]

Fuck no, if it gives me more power or makes me stronger some way I am wearing it.

It could be single most ugly piece of armor ever and I will still wear it, it it has good stats.

I even do what I remember a lot of escapist users said they didn't, putting helmets on people. They don't want to spend ages making a good looking person only to stick a helmet on and cover it up.

I go with all the help I can get, if that mean's I look like a clown or a member of the KKK I am doing it. (yes, the KKK do look ridiculous)

 

[Kekkles]

I think the RPGs (debatable application of term) like WoW and pseudo-RPGs like the recently released (on steam) Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, get it right. If you want to be a character that dresses one way, there is going to be a gameplay vein that matches your chosen aesthetic.

I.e. cloth wearers are weak but powerful, etc, and that cloth is tailored to compliment cloth wearers. What I'm trying to say is that games these days often seem to make it possible for you to select a gear-chain and stick with it.

But at the same time it'd be nice to play as a sort of swordsman that doesn't wear armour, but just cloth. It wouldn't make sense but isn't that the point in fantasy? In a Role Play aspect it shouldn't matter with what you wear for how powerful you are.

 

[Aean]

Sometimes in a close match up I sacrifice stats for looks, but only if its something I don't think would get me killed later for.

 

[Hides His Eyes]

auto-snip

You can actually play with the RPG elements turned off. I think that it was the default match type.

Anyhoo, I only really get angry when the stronger armor/clothes/whatever actually looks stupid. I can live with looking kinda silly, or having mismatched stuff, but I've skipped over armor sets because I didn't like the way they looked.

In Arcade mode and ordinary VS. mode the RPG stuff is switched off. But the main single player game mode, where you spend the bulk of your time, is Tower Of Souls, in which RPG stuff is mandatory and the stages get so damn hard that you are forced to use the most powerful equipment.

I would have beleived myself "above" the concern of "pretty", but in some games the gear is just so awfully ugly i just cant bring myself to ever use them, eve if they are uber-powerfull.

Oblivion is guilty of this, all the high-end stuff look like the idea a 5-years old would think of a "cool" armor. Neon green for light, red/black spikes of villainy for heavy? Hell no.

Demon Soul equipement design is more "realistic", and yet its much more nice to look at, even the low-tier stuff look cool.

Well, for me it's not so much about looking cool or pretty, although that comes into it. It's really about character concept. If I design a character then I have some kind of idea of who or what that character is and hence an idea of the way they should look and dress. And I don't like there to be one best option, basically. I totally agree about Oblivion though.

I think the RPGs (debatable application of term) like WoW and pseudo-RPGs like the recently released (on steam) Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, get it right. If you want to be a character that dresses one way, there is going to be a gameplay vein that matches your chosen aesthetic.

I.e. cloth wearers are weak but powerful, etc, and that cloth is tailored to compliment cloth wearers. What I'm trying to say is that games these days often seem to make it possible for you to select a gear-chain and stick with it.

That's fine as long as the gameplay-aesthetic match makes sense. It's very annoying to decide you want your guy to be a warrior who wears a bandanna only to find the game has arbitrarily dictated that bandannas are only for rogues and are no use to or even barred from warriors. On a related note, I hate it when you need a high intelligence stat to use a staff or wear a pointy hat. Just because wizards traditionally wear pointy hats, and wizards are traditionally intelligent, does not mean you need a MENSA IQ to wear a fucking hat.

I think the best model is (as it is for so many things) Neverwinter Nights. Heavier armour protects you better but limits your movement, light armour does it vice versa. But there's a really wide range of both to choose from to suit your aesthetic purposes.

NWN (D&D in general, in fact) does even better with weapons. Your choice of weapon in D&D is an aesthetic, character-concept choice, but not a purely cosmetic one, because every weapon is different in gameplay terms but they all have strengths and weaknesses. A scimitar doesn't have as much ordinary damage potential as a longsword, but it gets more criticals. A bastard sword does more damage than any other one-handed weapon, but you have to spend a feat to use it (as a one-handed weapon). It's exactly the way all RPGs should do weapons, in my opinion.

 

[Biosophilogical]

Dragon Age: Origins. I could never play a regular mage because the robes looked terrible, and I could never wear massive armour because it looked ridiculous (now everything up to heavy chainmail was alright, but massive armours just look silly).

Same thing in DA2. I hate the mage robes, so I boost strength to 19, wear blood dragon gear, and re-spec once I get Champion's armour (adding strength along the way to get better warrior armour, which, when combined with rock armour and the con+health regen boost from spirit healer OR the fortitude boost from forced mage is amazing).

Also, Oblivion. I'd end up wearing Battle-mage gear (Frenzy some mages and wait for a battlemage to die, then steal his stuff) because I didn't like the look of the higher armours.

 

[bruggs]

When I saw the option to make your helmet invisible in DA2 I whooped with joy. Such a simple and brilliant solution!

 

[Captain_Fantastic]

oh god this bugs me to no end it gets to the point where i just level my char to the point that armor bonuses wont mean much and i use the stuff i think looks good

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

I am SUCH an aesthetics junkie. I know for a concrete fact, simple as the sky is blue, that Blood Dragon Armor in Mass Effect 2 is the best armor possible for any power-based class... like Adepts or Sentinels... the only classes I regularly play. And most of it looks fucking awesome! But that HELMET! It's just so... not the face that I've spent my entire Mass Effect career painstakingly updating and perfecting. I can't wear it. And then, when I put on the N7 armor, I KNOW I can more or less re-create the BDA's stats. I've done it before. But it turns out looking so... awkward. So I just make it look good, and my armor bonuses are pretty much worthless.

I read somewhere that Mass Effect 3 will have the option to hide helmets, like in Dragon Age 2. I have no greater wish in the world than for BioWare to make that work for the one-piece armor sets, too. I can't imagine that the worst-case scenario for that (Creating a completely new model for each bonus armor, just with no helmet and Shepard's head) would take THAT long.

 

[newdarkcloud]

This happens to me all the time. The example I can best recall is from Mass Effect 2. I wanted to get a boost from headgear, but I still wanted to see my characters face. I compromised by wearing the visor (which looks badass) even though I didn't rely on headshots as an Adept.

I didn't mind what they did in SoulCalibur because of Standard Mode (Weapon/Armor effects disabled). It meant I could completely ignore stats.

 

[KiloFox]

i trump stats for looks to a point. if something looks great and perfect for what i want, i'll wear it until it gets outclassed enough to warrant me swapping it out.

as for the Soul Calibur 4 stuff, i have several characters designed around a specific character model... IE from a certain game/anime/OC.... and i try and limit the options as much as i can to fit that character model. (you DO realize you can recolour items right?) and i've gotten really good at it (granted i have EVERYTHING unlocked) and i've gotten really good at designing those characters really well both aesthetically and stat-wise. what i can't get from the more visible armour, i make up for in the less visible accessories (socks, undergarments, necklace, headband, Etc) and the skills (Venom Fang and HP Steal FTW) and they're all designed well enough for me to be able to sweep through Hard mode with no problem, and without spamming attacks. (something i both detest doing, and arn't good at) i submitted one of my designs of an anime/game character (Etna and Flonne from Disgaea... Laharl never really worked right... he looks ridiculous) to one of the character design template guides on GameFaqs, but i was laughed at and denied because the guy didn't like Disgaea (dick move BTW)

on a separate note i have yet to finish tower of souls, 3rd-to-last level i havn't been able to finish yet.

 

[F4LL3N]

Dragon Quest IX has this problem. You can rarely use actual armor if you want good stats. I have to pick shirts, pants and bandana's over actual armor a lot of the time just to get the extra defense. But that game is all round funky and it has since grown on me, so it's not a problem really.

 

[DementedSheep]

I don?t get stressed about it but it is kind of annoying. Whether or not I equip stuff based on looks or power depends on the power difference and how hard the game actually is. I never equipped any of the hats for mages in DA:O because they look too stupid and the game is easy even on nightmare. If I?m still going fine with my current equipment I?ll just keep using it. A few mmo?s have appearance and stats as different things or have a slot you can put equipment in that will override you?re armour which is a nice feature and it would be good if some single player games adopted this. It's not essential but it would be nice.

 

[CrystalShadow]

It does actually annoy me.

I get that in some contexts it would make sense, but surely with a bit of creativity you can solve this issue.

Which reminds me, I played Star Trek Online for a while, and that has power armor. But since you rarely see anyone in star trek using such a thing, it gives you an option to turn it off.

It'll still have a gameplay effect, but it won't be visible. And all the standard uniform designs are cosmetic only, so... Yeah. That kind of works.

And then there's terraria, which has armor and 'social' slots for each bodypart.

What you have in the armor slot determines what the gameplay bonus is, while what you have in the 'social' slot determines what you look like.
(If you don't have anything in the social slot, the item in the armor slot is what you'll see.)

There are several items that don't give any bonuses, but you can wear them in your social slot without it having a negative impact on your stats.
And... If there's some kind of armor that does have a stat bonus, but you've got something better, you can still wear the weaker armor in the social slot just for it's appearance alone.

As a gameplay mechanic that seems like a reasonable enough solution to me...

And unless the game makes a point of the player being able to recognise how powerful / what kind of character someone else is by what their clothes look like, why should it matter?

It seems kind of obvious really.