NPC Models, Player Models, Custom Enemies... What Do You Think?

Do you have a preference: human/humoid NPCs with their own custom model rigs or NPCs with the same player model rig?

I recall having some casual discussions about this when the AE first came out.
It was cool to have the chance to create custom enemies, but it was also somewhat disappointing to only be able to use the player character models (Of course, it was also cool to be able to fight against characters made with the player character models, indeed!).
Do not get me wrong, I understand why. This is not a daydreaming post about wishing that we could attach any animation and any costume piece to any model/skeleton.

Now, move on to taking this to enemy NPCs outside of the AE...

Does it matter if they're NPC-only or the same as the Player Character Model to you?


I, personally, find that things look a little too samey when fighting custom enemies in the AE.
While the costume/character creator in this game is tremendous and I love it and I'm not trying to criticize it at all, it has its limitations. Limitations are often needed in order to provide abundant options (funny that!).

Something just always feels weird when I'm fighting groups that are wearing the same exact costume pieces as we have... but, more so, it is the skeleton, the stances and the animations that seem to stand out to me (I could be wrong, but that's how it seems to me).

Anyway, this isn't a complaint thread...
It's actually just a bit of realization on my part that a lot of people have often clamored for more similarity between NPCs and PCs and it's not anything I ever really spoke up about or against.
Seeing a possible result of that particular feedback (in the beta CoT remake), I am curious if this is something (albeit, possibly misinterpreted by the developers) that I possibly should have mentioned my dislike for beforehand (if you catch my drift).

Regardless, I am honestly just curious what others think about enemies with the same skeleton as the players.
Obviously, there will always be enemies that are vastly different than us (well, unless they allow us to become gelatinous blobs or snakes or giant demons or armless hordlings, etc., hehehe).
However, for other humans and humanoids... Skulls, Council, Hellions, Outcasts, Malta, Carnival Of Shadows, Arachnos... Would you notice, would you like or dislike or be indifferent to them being made the same as player character rigs?


(use of models, skeletons and rigs may be improperly placed a few times within this post. My apologies...)

I think there should only be player rigs, with the exception of GMs. This may would include new RIGs for players to cover the less humanoid costumes, but it would be worth it imo.

Podering how the citizens look. And worse, how they run...

PC models for everything.

Let continued release of more costume pieces keep up the variety.

As much as I dislike what I have seen of the current CoT redesign, I think the devs made the proper call in wanting to make as many NPC costume pieces as possible also available to players. With the body scale sliders I think it is likely perfectly fine if the devs do all, or most of, their new stuff on the same base players use, since they have an excellent range to work with.

My only concern is that they do not abandon ALL costume elements that may fail to function for players due to player specific concerns. I believe they should have the goal of creating costumes that work for NPCs and PCs alike but the freedom to create pieces that sometimes only work on NPCs. And as far as I know, they could still create costume pieces on the player base that would fail once player animations/possibilities are considered but would be perfectly workable on specific enemies.

A switch to NPCs using the player avatars would mean they might be able to get the size and heigh under control a little more

I'm of two minds about this.

On the one hand, anything NPCs have, I want to have. I can somewhat swallow signature pieces, like Posi's unique helmet, Numina's coat, Manticore's "mane" and so forth, but every non-signature piece I want to have. To a large extent, this feeling is born from the belief that if they can use it, I can use it for all technology is concerned, and the game is just artificially keeping me from using it. Anyone remember the Shadow Bane sword? How about the Blue Shield? Yeah, like that.

So, on the one hand, I'd like to see any humanoid NPCs be made with the same rigs we're using so that we can always use their pieces.

On the other hand, the humanoid rig is very, very limited. For one, it's limited to only depicting humanoid characters. What about quadrupeds? What about snake people? What about legless ghosts? What about creatures on tank tracks... What about TANKS? Or how about formless enemies, like a big glob of jelly with mouths all over? There are many, many, MANY things that the humanoid rig cannot produce, and restricting our game to just humanoid characters is, I firmly believe, a mistake. We need the Snakes and the Hydra and the Titans and the Storm Elementals and the Sky Skiffs and the Spectrals and so forth, because they bring variety to the game in ways that wouldn't be workable for custom player characters.

So, on the other hand, I still want to see unique, custom NPCs who are vastly different from what the humanoid rig can support.

I suppose the balance point, as I see it, is in what's even conceivable as being used by a player. If I see dudes in tunics, I want them. They're humans, I'm a human, I want it. But if I see a dude with a swatch of tentacles where his lower body should be... Yeah, I can see that I won't be using that for my martial artists any time soon. The game needs custom unique characters, but they need to be so unique as to be impossible to conceive as being used by players. And this actually is a sustainable point of balance, I think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Umm...yeah...GG said "4-leg rig"