Importance of beauty in character design, A case study on Concord

Aside of your basic and usual flame on lookism and thinking that everyone is around that.

People will always like the characters whom are interesting, if I remember correctly there's a cognitive bias in which people tend to add more positive traits toward people whom are good looking, so for obvious reasons the characters in games which are more successfull and interesting are the ones which have NPCS models of nice looking. Obviously games attracts if you have the ability to create your own character whether you like, which is why Black Desert Online before it came out offered an "open beta" to customize character which attracted huge amount of people cause of details, while others tend to create as ugly character as they can just for fun.

I'd say the important thing is the possibility to create the ugliest and prettiest character, but that's only for character creations, for NPCs I'd say it needs to be moderate, Witcher 3 wouldn't be as liked if Geralt or Yennefer wouldn't look nice, Tomb Raider series too, meanwhile no one care about Metro 2033 because the setting is more important than what characters actually look like, similarly with PoE or Last Epoch due to gameplay style. So it varies based on setting, gameplay or other factors. Even the 1 or 3 person camera can matter in that case, I don't think characterisation options/character matters that much in Cyberpunker 2077, Cod series, Kingdom Come Deliverance or Doom due for them being first person games.
Nonetheless many games which will offer more "spice" and some sexualisation will sell more easily, but they will lose their popularity as quickly cause of cheap tricks.

This theory fails to explain Bethesda's success.

This theory fails to explain Bethesda's success.

You say that, but they actually put quite a lot of effort into the character creation screen, despite the game being first person.
With the 2.0 update now you can even make custom outfits, so that you can wear whatever for the stats, and then still have you look as you want.


It doesn't need to be lewd, just not ugly.

@Lucifrost I think the difference in genre plays a part in that case. Bethesda makes sandboxes pretending to be RPGs, not hero shooters.
Also more importantly, even the most repulsive Argonian or Altmer (watch me as the jannies ban me for racism) is more appealing to look at than the guys at Concord.

@JaniSIr

I know and I appreciate that, if it would be more limited I don't think that many people would have a problem with that in CP77


Here I was referring to games who uses cheap trick of using lewd to sell such as Stellar Blade, Asian MMOs, Gacha games, many of them just live for a short span because of main focus in soft sexualisation which obviously works but it doesn't work in most of the times for a long term time. Which is why up to this day Dark Souls 3 which came out in 2016 has right now bigger active play base than Nier Automata which came out in 2017 [fun fact it came out for my 18th bday], don't take me wrong I like both of these games but Nier at the start attracted because of the "plot" and many people didn't stay long enough to experience the real plot, while Dark Souls 3 had other reasons to attract players.
[I couldn't think of any other games to compare right now so it might be not that accurate to compare these 2]

Some "ugly" games actually win too, battlebit mastered which is literally bit style of game which I ain't liking, it was a well done game, Crab Game which is just a badly looking game but it hits the atmosphere of possibility to play in group of friends and have just fun. There might be more examples of such movements but these 2 games are the only stuff I can think of right now.

You know any good western RPGs that aren't sandboxes? I may have an easier time finding a game I like if I set my expectations accordingly.

@-YaoiBoy-
I'm going to be disappointed if I pick up a game expecting an RPG, only for it not to be an RPG. This is apparently what Bethesda does, and I don't want to make my search harder than it needs to be since I'm already biased against western games.

I actually did try the old Bioware games. I did not understand them.

I am not currently in the mood to take risks. If I ever decide to try another one of the games you recommended, it will be The Witcher.

@Lucifrost
Bethesda games seem to aim at a different kind of roleplaying, where someone creates a character and fully writes a story for that character themselves, roleplaying whatever they created in their head and with little interference from the game. Like my friend would say: "I use a mod to disable quick travel in Oblivion because I don't play those games - I live them", which isn't something I do. Full freedom is all fun and good, but I usually need efficiency and quest-driven exploration for higher levels of engagement. Therefore, big locations and significant lack of guided exploration can be a bit of a pain for me.
For someone who likes to explore and read everything methodically, like me, sandbox games can be quite a nightmare. "Choose a random direction and go" is not the way I play games, nor do I excessively roleplay a particular character, to a point where I'd only do some content and not all of it simply because "my character wouldn't go to that location" or something. Refusing to do a clearly evil quest if you play a nice character is one thing, but chaotically skipping entire zones or subplots is entirely different. I do EVERYTHING I can do on my first playthrough and live with the story consequences, never trying to leave anything "for the later", except for when I just want to fully replay it again in a different way and with different outcomes.

What older BioWare games have you tried? :) And what created a problem of understanding?

I would strongly recommend reading The Witcher books before playing the games, for better context, but I understand that it might be a bit too much preparation for some games that you might not even enjoy + I've heard people complaining about the English translation of the books, so maybe it's not particularly good? It was easy for me because I'd already read them before playing the games.

Taking risks can definitely require a specific mood :p it's the same for me when it comes to JRPGs. I still haven't advanced beyond Chrono Trigger and The World Ends With You, and it's been like 5 years or something. I have to repeat in my head "this is going to be a more or less linear story, your actions most likely won't affect anything" like a mantra lol to adjust my expectations accordingly as well. That's the hardest thing for me to overcome because linearity and lack of agency is the antithesis of what an RPG is in my mind. I grew up with Western RPGs from 2000s and late 90s, where they really started to diverge from JRPGs when it comes to their common ancestry, so it's no surprise that I have an entirely different "RPG culture" and expectations.
When someone mentions "Western RPGs", I don't think of Ultima or Wizardry that may have more in common with JRPGs - I haven't even played them, but I think of Neverwinter Nights with its wonderful and rich toolset, high-quality fan content and persistent RP servers that people enjoy even to this day, or Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines with its rich roleplaying options when it comes to different vampire clans, or Arcanum where you can murder every single NPC in the game and still complete the main story. So yeah, my mindset may even be different from that of a person who played 80s Western RPGs, for example, because they were still a common ancestry for both Western and Eastern RPGs. The Western RPGs I was introduced to were already a product of them going into different directions and not having much in common.
In any case, my 3rd JRPG game may be Xenogears because it regularly pops up in my mind, but who knows when that will happen. I barely play anything I want to play these days, let alone experiment.