The Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #71: Do you design specific characters or explore what can be designed?

[DougGraves]

When you go to make a new character or are using the costume creator for fun (my daughter does that and never plays the actual game) do you have a specific concept or character in mind and make that - or do you explore what can be made and then find something you like?

 

Bonus question - do you use the random costume generator and how do you use it?

[Luminara]

I always have something specific in mind... and it always changes.  I've reached the point of just poking around until I find one costume piece that I want to use, then building around that.  As I level up, I refine the look, and if it's a character that makes it to 50+, I'm usually satisfied with the result.

 

25 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

Bonus question - do you use the random costume generator and how do you use it?

It's good for finding combinations of costume parts that I wasn't thinking about.  But I've clicked that thing tens of thousands of times, only kept one costume that it created (pointy ears, gas mask, wings, monstrous legs, everything black and dark orange, damn thing looks like a bat.  the costume creator randomly crapped out a bat).

[NotsoevilDM]

When I create a new character, I usually have a basic idea and archetype/powerset combo in mind. Then I play around in the costume creator until I get an initial outfit to start playing, which may or may not get reworked as the character levels.

 

As Luminara said, random costume creator is good for ideas but I usually rework the results until I am happy with them. I have not yet had the good fortune of getting a perfect costume out of it.

Edited March 21 by NotsoevilDM

[Greycat]

The answer, as always... "it depends."

 

Sometimes a character starts with a name, sure. Or part of a story or a theme, and I'll start with that. Sometimes I'm making things with others. Sometimes a character can be inspired by something I saw or heard, or a new powerset (or one I haven't played in a while) or - rarely, honestly - a costume piece. Different things get different weight for each character.

 

For instance, the very first character I made way back when on live (issue 3,) Memphis Bill, was me trying to find a "closest match" to a character I'd played in a PnP Silver Age Sentinels game. The look that *character* had was never going to get replicated in game (still can't, really,) so the costume creator was mostly there for "well, find something I like."  (The original costume didn't really last long past upgrading my Matrox Mystique 440 - 4 Mb card.)

 

On the other hand, another - Sweet Child o'Mimes - quite obviously had costume fairly high on the list for a mime-like look or the joke would have fallen flat. Same with Celery.

 

So... yeah. Varies by character.

 

As far as random, while I've hit it occasionally for amusement (or horror,) no, I don't really use it. Never really have run across something I liked.

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

the costume creator randomly crapped out a bat).

 

that's weird.  Normally things randomly evolve eventually into a crab

[lemming]

I often start with a name, but sometimes it's a powerset concept I want to explore.

 

For costumes:

I often screw around with random, but often I'll just save like maybe the color combo and some parts.  I try to screw around with costumes before they hit level 10 just because I'm being cheap, but I will often do refining at level 50.

[FFFF]

I have some power sets combinations I want to try but can’t associate it with a name and a costume I’m satisfied with. 
 

For example, I’d like to try an Energy Melee/Bio Armor character but for the life of me, I can’t think of a concept that marries those two powers elegantly enough for me. The aesthetics of pink pom-poms with bio armor makes it kind of hard…at least for me. 
 

Most of my easiest to apply concepts also seem to combine some of the worst (“weakest”) power sets together. When I accidentally end up with a meta build combination I’m actually surprised. “Oh so this is how powerful characters are? Huh.”

[Snarky]

I struggle mightily, miserably? With this issue.  I have yet to “find” the perfect home for my vamp concept.  Part of the issue is what is in my head is not in the game.  I have a few characters in my head like that.  My Super Strength concept does not have rage issues.  So I stopped running SS.  
 

Which leads to… Following what the game does and designing from there.  A Fire Fire Fire Blaster.  A Invul Dark Tank.  A Dark Dark Corr.  Just over the top excellent powerhouses.  
 

Never use the costume generator, although some of my stuff probably looks like i do

[Go0gleplex]

I like to play around with power set combos and experiment with how they play and synergize like Rad Melee/Stone Armor. Mud pots + Irradiated Ground = dead zone for instance. Playing with the character creator is also amusing but I seldom go into things with something in mind other than "I wonder how..."

 

[Vic Raiden]

I started this game with recreating my favorite OCs, and beyond that it's mostly either going on autopilot or trying to round out an enemy force I cook in AE.

[WumpusRat]

Generally when I create a character it's because I've come up with a concept I want to explore. 

Sometimes it's a powerset combo I haven't tried before, but most of the time it's an idea for an "archetype" that I want to play out.

For the last year or so I've been making D&D/Pathfinder classes that wound up in Paragon, and have been putting together powersets that I think work for those classes. Some of them have been really easy (shield/axe tanker for the fighter, for instance, or beast mastery/nature mastermind for the druid) others have been really tough (the paladin in particular was hard to figure out since I needed a tanky weapon-based melee class that could heal, and I don't want to use aid other because of the dang tricorder).

Another thing that I tried to do for the first 20 or so was to never replicate powersets. I still TRY to, but some of them have had a bit of overlap, as there are only so many weapon-based melee sets. So it's gotten me to explore some powersets that I'd never really thought much about before, and try out combos that have turned out to be really fun. Like ninja/empathy, or gravity/trick arrow. 

 

[Ukase]

11 hours ago, DougGraves said:

do you use the random costume generator and how do you use it?

I pretty much only use the random generator - and then, because the random generator loves animal heads and floating brains, I tend to adjust the look a little bit. I almost always take off the stupid tails. If I'm going to be staring at the back side of an avatar, that tail is distracting. 

And the auras rarely seem to fit in my mind, so I take those off, too. 
And the whole left side glove/boot looking one way, and the right side glove/boot looking another way, I don't know why, but I hate that look, so I always make them the same. Except on one character, one of my challenge characters. His name was Scrounger, so I opted to make it look like he found what he was wearing in a garbage can. (described in his bio)

 

[Frunobulax]

I always have some kind of idea and then I try to create it through my costume and power choices (usually).

 

I've only ever used one costume that I did not create myself.

 

I made a zombie mm and I'd never seen the default costume before as mm's were new to me, so when it came up I decided to use my original idea on some other character, and kept what I thought was a funny random costume, a Satanic Gimp.

[kelika2]

Powers for synergy/strength > name thats available > costume

[NotsoevilDM]

16 hours ago, Snarky said:

I struggle mightily, miserably? With this issue.  I have yet to “find” the perfect home for my vamp concept.  Part of the issue is what is in my head is not in the game.  I have a few characters in my head like that.  My Super Strength concept does not have rage issues.  So I stopped running SS.  

While I realise it may be gimping the character a bit, why not just avoid taking the Rage power if it does not fit the SS concept? You could always substitute in something else like Assault from the Leadership pool to boost DPS or just stick an extra damage IO in attack powers.    

 

As an example, Flitz has Flurry from the Speed pool. Not the best attack power (roots character, long animation, low damage...) but it ties into his origin as a 'teleporter' and sometimes you get to see him apperently punching air and an enemy that is running away still getting hit. Plus MA is a kick heavy set so i felt I needed more punches that weren't Fighting Pool.  

[SeraphimKensai]

More often than not when making a costume I will just let it develop organically as I put the pieces of the puzzle together. Most recently for my new fire/fire tank I built 5 costumes for him starting with street clothes. The character bio I came up with derives his power from a magical talisman that gives him armor and powers...so costume 2 is the armor appearing. costume 3 is his skin/hair starting to turn. costume 4 is his skin essentially ignited with fire under the armor. costume 5 is designed to give him the flaming phoenix wings, but only while he's flying.

 

Other characters might not necessarily get so many costumes, but I try and make something that ties into the character's bio to a reason degree.

[UltraAlt]

23 hours ago, DougGraves said:

do you have a specific concept or character in mind

 

Most of the time.

 

23 hours ago, DougGraves said:

do you explore what can be made

 

Most of the time. I'm digging through to find the costume parts that work best of the character conception.

 

Am I trying to make character concepts based on using parts that I haven't used before? Rarely.

 

23 hours ago, DougGraves said:

Bonus question - do you use the random costume generator and how do you use it?

 

Rarely.

Sometime I make a character because I want to use a powerset, and I didn't really pre-plan a character concept.

And I mean rarely. I think I have only done this once.

I randomized until I found something cool - not so many times as I remember - and then used that as the base and changed costume parts.

I can't remember, but I think that time I even make the character name after I made the costume and/or changed the character name to more meet the character's costume.

[cranebump]

I almost always start with a name and an origin (and not necessarily a narrative one). Then I'll costume design on the basis of what seems to fit for that character.  I never use the random costume generator for anything I might play. I have used it to create some randos for an AE mish once (long ago).

[Paragon Vanguard]

The vast majority of my characters were created on paper a long.....long.......long time ago. I used to draw them and their stories when I was younger, even up into my 20's. I have been so pleased that CoH allows such a large diversity of appearance and mix match power sets. I have never used the random creator, because I have always had a specific toon in mind. I do have some that I have never drawn, but very few original to CoH.

I love the idea of letting the random creator do it's thing, then tweaking it!

 

In the end, I am a "Concept Player", in that I know what I want when I create the character, then match clothes and power sets to that toon.

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, NotsoevilDM said:

While I realise it may be gimping the character a bit, why not just avoid taking the Rage power if it does not fit the SS concept? You could always substitute in something else like Assault from the Leadership pool to boost DPS or just stick an extra damage IO in attack powers.    

 

As an example, Flitz has Flurry from the Speed pool. Not the best attack power (roots character, long animation, low damage...) but it ties into his origin as a 'teleporter' and sometimes you get to see him apperently punching air and an enemy that is running away still getting hit. Plus MA is a kick heavy set so i felt I needed more punches that weren't Fighting Pool.  

Let me tell a story.  A true story from live.  I would often level a new Brute, almost half time SS/Invul.  Just for the joy if it.  
 

Now, every i/o on live was expensive.  They did not attune.  So, except for a few globals i ran these on SOs.  
 

My brute was late 20s and i joined a redside team about 32.  They were led by a Brute running +1 or +2.   I followed the Brute into every fight, getting separated often. After 2-3 missions i get a tell… 

 

“Wait,,I thought you were my level. How are you  keeping up?”

 

SS/Invul.  Old school live “farming” for experience against Carnies.  Down about 6-7 levels. Sidekick was different back then. How?  The Rage is THAT good. And it is always on except for the crash.   

[furniturepolish]

I used the random button on a toon that became my first 50 on live and on HC I think it was my 2nd 50 who was made randomly. I struggle with concepts and costumes so I've got like a dozen or so "thought out" looks and then a parades worth of toons who are just slightly tweaked presets. 

[lemming]

And of course, one other way to start with a character:

 

[Ulysses Dare]

I always start with a concept. It might be a name, or a power combo, or a theme but there's always a starting point. Usually that concept will also point me toward a particular look.

However, sometimes I simply have no clear idea what the character should look like. On those occasions I've used the random button for inspiration. It's never to make the full costume though. Hit the button, look over the results, see if anything catches my fancy. Once something does, work from there to finish out the costume.

[Latex]

I usually start off with a simple concept idea, like a trope the character fits into, then go through powersets to see what makes that work, then fiddle with the powerset aura colours to try and make something that looks cool, then the costume starts to form from that vein, sometimes the characters really click and even win costume contests, othertimes it falls flat and just doesn't work

Some chars are inspired by niche comic OC's that take form from that with obvious differences but a similar vibe

 

Edited March 23 by Latex

[NotsoevilDM]

On 3/22/2024 at 6:21 PM, Snarky said:

Now, every i/o on live was expensive.  They did not attune.  So, except for a few globals i ran these on SOs.  

Haven't played a SS/Invul to any level, so I will take your word on it, but this - this is the truth!