Body types that modify attributes

[MammonAzrael]

I would love to see randomly generated bodies for the sandbox mode. There are several potential aspects I can think of:

• Cosmetic - These qualities would have no mechanical impact on the game. Visuals such as skin color, or how skinny or thick you are, and even random gender would be great. Think something like Rust. With that, randomly assigned voice actors, with maybe a couple more options, to help blur the binary gender spectrum?
• Mechanical - Each character could have a random generated set of traits, that offer sliding scale payoffs on various things. For example, you could be more muscular than normal, and have a higher carrying capacity, but consume calories slightly faster. You could be fatter, and have an innate warmth bonus and slightly decreased stamina (that feels a bit fat-phobic, but it was the first thing to popped into my head). You could have a set of pre-existing conditions, like allergies or asthma, and spawn with a limited set of medical supplies to deal with them. An insomniac that needs to sleep more, or occasionally can't get to sleep, like Cabin Fever. There are an enormous wealth of options that could add a great deal to the rogue-like feel of the sandbox mode.

Between the two, I personally would prefer the cosmetic changes, since at least a variety of skin colors should be relatively easy and greatly add to the diversity of The Long Dark. I've been thoroughly enjoying the Canadian wilderness, thank you for all the hard work!

[Mel Guille]

Hi @MammonAzrael, welcome to the forums! Glad to hear you're enjoying the game.

These are some interesting ideas. Were you thinking that players would create a custom survivor that better reflected themselves, or would they be dropped into the game as a random collection of traits? 

[Bjern]

58 minutes ago, Mel Guille said:

Hi @MammonAzrael, welcome to the forums! Glad to hear you're enjoying the game.

These are some interesting ideas. Were you thinking that players would create a custom survivor that better reflected themselves, or would they be dropped into the game as a random collection of traits? 

Personally I would very much enjoy customizing my own character, selecting both traits and character appearance. The interesting thing about body types in particular is it would make sense if it has an in game effect on your character. I'm actually an ectomorph, and the cold does seem to bother me more than most other people, but I warm up really fast from being too cold, and I'm also lighter in weight than other people - on the otherhand, a good friend of mine is an endomorph, and he copes with the cold much better than I do, however once he starts to really feel the cold, it takes him ages to warm himself up again, and he is heavier in weight than I am...This is what we have noticed in real life anyway. There is potential there for some kind of game correlation with pros and cons per body type, which would add variety to the characters, and could also mean that dead bodies would have more variety in appearance as well.

[MammonAzrael]

Hi, and thank you!

Those are both reasonable options, both with their own advantages. Tl;dr I would prefer a random collection generated for each sandbox.

Custom survivor - Designing your own survivor can lead to great attachment, and increase your connection. This increased investment sounds great, but it may take it's toll or repeated deaths in sandbox, and would encourage min/maxing. I think that may be better suited to the story mode, to help with investment in the character, and to avoid the burnout of having to make the same character time and again.

Random survivor - I think this would play better in the sandbox environment. It would offer players a greater degree of experience, causing unique challenges for each run. I've always been partial to Rust's approach to this, as it encourages diversity in a simple but clever way. Having the character traits determined randomly also allows for a quick and clean entrance into a sandbox game; instead of spending time designing the perfect character for your run, you just select your difficulty, starting location, and feats. Then you're off! Given the semi-opaque nature of the game (mechanics are vaguely described and a lot of it is learned from discovery), then plenty of these character traits could be hidden information as well. You'd find out your skin color when you hold a storm lantern or get hints about your weight or muscle mass from the clothing doll, you'd assume you have asthma if you start the game with an inhaler, and so on.

[JimmyPL56]

Great Idea! Why not give the option for custom or random when you start?

For the custom option, I would prefer a questionnaire over a typical RPG stat-based creation. For those of you who played Jagged Alliance back in the day, I'm thinking something similar to that concept. 

In addition to the trait adjustments based on body type, your starting skills could vary based on your past experience/education/professions.

[MammonAzrael]

Having the option for custom or random generation is pretty reasonable, and allows for people to play "against" one another easier.

I like the idea of also having a potentially different skill load out. Though I'm not sure what trade offs those would have.

 

I was reading through the forum a little and found a couple similar suggestions, but mostly divided by gender lines. I would like to emphasize that I am NOT suggesting anything be different between genders. Personally I would love it if the game embraced non-binary gender and did away with the male/female choice altogether. But since that likely won't happen, please don't ever make any mechanics tied to gender!  My suggestion of randomly generated traits would hopefully be paired with randomly generated appearance and gender.

[Bjern]

2 hours ago, MammonAzrael said:

Having the option for custom of random generation is pretty reasonable, and allows for people to play "against" one another easier.

They could always add a random character generator option if the player wants it random.

[MammonAzrael]

That should read custom OR random generation.  Editing

[Bjern]

59 minutes ago, MammonAzrael said:

That should read custom OR random generation.  Editing

Sounds good to me.

[cloudsoda]

It'd be cool to pick your facial features, not like the Fallout 4 "slider for everything" style, but more like a flipbook style.

 

Also maybe if you had enough run-ins with wolves, bears, etc. you could get scars and/or bite marks?

[Bjern]

10 hours ago, cloudsoda said:

It'd be cool to pick your facial features, not like the Fallout 4 "slider for everything" style, but more like a flipbook style.

 

Also maybe if you had enough run-ins with wolves, bears, etc. you could get scars and/or bite marks?

Oh, I really like the idea of potential for appearance change from what your character experiences (scares and so forth), that would be pretty cool!

[farce713]

On 20.1.2017 at 0:55 AM, MammonAzrael said:

Hi, and thank you!

Those are both reasonable options, both with their own advantages. Tl;dr I would prefer a random collection generated for each sandbox.

Custom survivor - Designing your own survivor can lead to great attachment, and increase your connection. This increased investment sounds great, but it may take it's toll or repeated deaths in sandbox, and would encourage min/maxing. I think that may be better suited to the story mode, to help with investment in the character, and to avoid the burnout of having to make the same character time and again.

Random survivor - I think this would play better in the sandbox environment. It would offer players a greater degree of experience, causing unique challenges for each run. I've always been partial to Rust's approach to this, as it encourages diversity in a simple but clever way. Having the character traits determined randomly also allows for a quick and clean entrance into a sandbox game; instead of spending time designing the perfect character for your run, you just select your difficulty, starting location, and feats. Then you're off! Given the semi-opaque nature of the game (mechanics are vaguely described and a lot of it is learned from discovery), then plenty of these character traits could be hidden information as well. You'd find out your skin color when you hold a storm lantern or get hints about your weight or muscle mass from the clothing doll, you'd assume you have asthma if you start the game with an inhaler, and so on.

i really like this but i would also like some sort of information sheet about your character, that you can look at in game. just like the clothing doll (which i love :)) but with slots for your traits instead of clothing.

[MammonAzrael]

The idea of scars is really cool. It may be too much (or maybe expansion material), but permanent damage in addition to scars could be a thing. Though maybe anything serious enough to be permanent you wouldn't survive in the first place.

I would like the attributes to be discover able but hidden, but then I acknowledge that I like the "hidden" nature of the mechanics in games like this. I could see it maybe being a toggle, like the metric/imperial option?

[deathbydanish]

44 minutes ago, MammonAzrael said:

The idea of scars is really cool. It may be too much (or maybe expansion material), but permanent damage in addition to scars could be a thing. Though maybe anything serious enough to be permanent you wouldn't survive in the first place.

I would like the attributes to be discover able but hidden, but then I acknowledge that I like the "hidden" nature of the mechanics in games like this. I could see it maybe being a toggle, like the metric/imperial option?

Scars eh, I would imagine there would be a need to use the sewing kit or the fishing tackle to stitch wounds closed. I thought maybe make a mini game of it, but then I think how painful it is in real life to do it without anesthetic and then there goes that idea.