Initial character creation during game setup

[Rokiyo]

Issue:
I'm finding that there are only a handful of colonists that I'm happy to begin a game with, especially when I want to ensure that I have the skills that I need for a strong early game.

Considering the sheer amount of backstories that can generate poor early game choices (strong in skills that aren't implemented yet) or outright crippling ones (anyone incapable of hauling or mining or violence), I'm finding myself spending large amounts of time repeatedly clicking that randomize button over and over again before the start of each game.

One of the better phrases I've heard to describe this effect is: "People will grind endlessly and hate themselves for it if they perceive they will gain an advantage from doing so."

Suggestions:

• Reduce the variety of backstories available during initial game setup, leaving out any stories with serious drawbacks.
  OR
• Convert the backstory labels into dropdown menus that allow you to select which backstories you want for each character
  OR
• Allow full customisation of a single character only (incl. age, hair, apparel, etc), with the other two colonists being randomly generated after the map loads.

[Tynan]

I recognize the problem (compulsive optimization) but I haven't found a good solution yet. I'm not really comfortable with any of yours. I want to avoid adding a full-edit screen just because it would take a lot of work and maintenance to implement. Every character detail would have to be matched with an interface for changing it, which would be a nightmare and require constant maintenance as the characters gain more differences.

My actual recommendation is just to not randomize too many times. With the new passions system in Alpha 2, the number of characters you can get will expand even more; optimizing will become basically impossible.

I also never find, myself, that you really have to randomize. The only characters who are good at nothing are the rare ones where the childhood and adulthood advantages cancel each other(vatgrown con artist). Having weird colonists is part of the fun; it encourages you to develop the colony differently given your different human resources. I hope to emphasize this further in the future.

[Rokiyo]

In that case, I would almost be inclined to suggest that you remove character creation screen altogether.

I can get behind a game where I need to play with the hand I am dealt, but that "Randomize" button leads me to think that character creation is a part of that process.

While I'm excited to hear that more character variety is incoming, I fear that with the passions system the Randomize button might become something of a Pavlov's button, where I will feel compelled to push it repeatedly until I either hit the jackpot or give up in frustration (often caused by clicking too quickly and noticing the jackpot after hitting Randomize again).

Not pushing the button, when I know that a great character might be just one more click away, will be very difficult for me.

[Hieronymous Alloy]

The problem right now is that tthere's a big difference between getting colonists with implemented skills and ones whose skills aren't in yet; getting a miner, a high Social, and a grower right off is just a lot more useful than starting out with three artists. Start with a high Research colonist and you can move right to hydroponics without ever bothering to grow anything outside, but the research tree is so short there's almost no use for research skill at all by the time you're 60 days into the game.

I do feel like there are a few criteria that are somewhat necessary to start a colony -- i.e., you need someone with relatively decent Social or you won't be able to recruit any more colonists. Others, especially a high-skill miner, are so useful right off that it's hard to go without.

One option would be a "priority skills" screen where you could pick, say, Social, Shooting, and Mining (for example), and the game would just auto-reroll until you got a set of three characters that had at least one character with an "8" in each of those things (i.e., maybe three characters with 8+ in each, maybe one character with 8+ in all three and two other random characters, etc.)

The other way around this issue would be to institute relatively easy training options for all skills. If my characters can all raise social easily by idling around the kitchen table, I may not need to start with a high Social dude. If they can train military skills on targets maybe I don't need to start out with a sniper. So forth.

[BattleFate]

I've always liked a point-buy type system when it comes to character creation. And I love the idea of Rimworld allowing for true character creation. How does this sound:

Allow a drop down menu of choices for the childhood and adulthood backgrounds, which would then set your 'base' points in the relevant skills (and block out incompatible ones).

Then depending on the game difficulty, you would have say 50 points to use in various skills. going from a 2-3 would cost for example 1 point. But going from a 3-4 might be 2... going from a 9-10 would be 10 points... etc. Meaning you could have a character who excels at a single skill, or one who is above average in a few... or even one who is average in most of the things he does.

I don't believe this would be particularly hard to program, and if it's done right, would allow very little maintenance once finished, as it would generate the drop-down menus from the list of childhood and adulthood backgrounds, which it would draw from a separate file (XML file perhaps?).

I suppose like this you would be unable to allow the starting three characters to be user-generated backgrounds. But you could still end up meeting them in-game later.

I've attached a quick excel file I threw together in a half-hour to demonstrate what I mean. The Adult and Child backgrounds are menu selections.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]

[Tuimatoe]

Personally I think the Randomize button should be removed. You can't choose who survives a plane crash

It's all about the start, "randomizing" to get the ideal colonist removes the best aspect of the game, the struggle to get a foot hold in you area of operations.  If you get a Molotov cocktail in the back because your mate can't throw for ****, learn from it. when he puts you out, arrest him and sell to the next slave ship for someone with better aim. Same for every skill, can't cook? Eat him... I'm sure the irony won't be lost on him.
Pick and choose your skill via slave ships and travelers etc.

I do like the idea of training mentioned above to, even if skills learnt are capped to level 5 or so. If you've never used a weapon before why wouldn't you fire off a few rounds before the trouble starts.

[Rokiyo]

My first thought after Tynan's response was also that the Randomize button should be removed, but then it occurred to me that then there would be no point in displaying your starting colonists before the game starts.

The more I think about it, the more I think the colonist select screen should be removed entirely: The gameplay it currently provides isn't meaningful, and without that it just becomes a static screen instead.

[Coenmcj]

I would personally prefer it if I don't get stuck with all the user made people myself... a few of them really screw you over at the start simply because they're so common in the randomisation for some reason.

I honestly have no preference on either of these options provided that the user made ones are limited at the start or don't show up at all right off the bat.

[Hieronymous Alloy]

If you remove the randomize button at start people will simply randomize at world creation, and those people will just be even more annoyed by the process because they'll have to generate a whole new world each time they don't like their starting colonist batch.

Different people play the game different ways -- it's awesome that some people like to start with a random colonist selection but not everyone wants to.

[Rokiyo]

Alright, what if the game offered you a list of 9 random colonists and you had to pick your favourite 3?

That way there's still a bit of randomness, and still a bit of player choice.

[keylocke]

If you remove the randomize button at start people will simply randomize at world creation, and those people will just be even more annoyed by the process because they'll have to generate a whole new world each time they don't like their starting colonist batch.

Different people play the game different ways -- it's awesome that some people like to start with a random colonist selection but not everyone wants to.

agreed.

how about this : during the start of the game : there should be options for randomizing character values (ie: tick boxes to choose between random gender, age, backgrounds) rather than randomizing all of the values all at the same time.

this way, values can be as random or as custom as players want, without adding an entire new system for character creation.