Body weight calculator on character creation

I think the character creation interface should have a numeric feedback on height and weight. It should be visible on body creation and while adjusting sliders.

That way I could have realistic stats in my character bios. I know I can ask something like seven friends, remove the lowest and highest estimate, and average the remaining. But I think that most people have more trouble estimating the mass of a computer generated human than an actual human.

No... then everyone will make their female characters even SMALLER.

Yeah I think the only thing the character creator needs to make it better is two things:

1) An actual output of the exact height.
2) All NPCs to be resized so that they have more normal uniform heights making it easier to know if we will have a tall or short character by comparison.

Can't agree that this would be a good idea. It's as bad as insisting natural origin should be restricted to what humans can do.

Plus, as mentioned, "weight" makes no difference whatsoever in game. I can make a scrawny kid-hero who is almost never knocked back, or a super-buff hero with heavy boots who's knocked back if someone sneezes in his direction.

Go look up averages and type them into your bio.

I think that if the Devs wasted any code time on this, instead of giving us something we really want, you'd see a backlash.

Seriously man, think for yourself. It's a GAME! There are SO many variables that would go into calculating the weight of a character that the math alone could take a year. Or if you're going to make numbers up, why have a scale at all?

Add me to the group of players who wouldn't mind the game doing something better to give me the exact height of my characters but leave off doing anything about weight because that value is completely subjective.

Think of it this way: I can SEE the relative height of my character on the screen but I can't SEE how heavy my character might be due to any roleplay rationale I might be able to come up with. Therefore the game shouldn't bother to try to "guess" my weight for any reason. If a weight value is important to you then record it in your bio.

P.S. I noticed that Intussusceptor noted his "forum location" was Sweden. Like most of the rest of the world I suspect he's used to using the metric system for heights and weights. Ironically for him if this game started giving us calculated heights and weights it'd probably be in feet/inches and pounds. That would probably be almost as annoying to him as not having that info at all.

Well, I am in no way suggesting that character size should affect in-game mechanics. Nor I suggest that calculated body mass should be automatically visible when you view someones bio.

What I suggest is a numeric feedback that is only visible for you when you create or modify a character, which you can use in you bio if you want. For me, building character storylines is an important aspect of the gaming experience. And I prefer calculations before guesses. It can be something simple as displaying the vital stats of a character, or to calculate the impact energy when a robot made by hafnium (density 13.31) charge into something at his running speed (which is not hidden for me).

PS: While I'm used to metrics, I have no problems with feet/inches and pounds. I rather expect it, since height is described in feet, and so are the coordinates saved in demo files.

While having a tool included in the Character Creator would be more convenitent for the OP, there are sources available online to calculate reasonable weight and/or body mass indexes for various heights, such as:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/bmi_tbl.htm

Lots of pretty colorful porintable images:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...rt&FORM=IQFRRS

Height & weight tables used for life & health insurance underwriting:

http://echealthinsurance.com/health1...weight-charts/

If it really matters for RP purposes (to get it right in the bio) any one of these sources would work.

If the OP is proposing that it matter in how a character performs, then, no thank you.

Lothic, your first assumption was correct, that I just want the number to look at for RP purposes.

Ad Astra, thanks for your links, I'll have a look to see if I can use them to calculate accurate weights.

I don't want the weight (neither calculated or user specified) affect the game mechanics, since it would mess up a lot of balancing, where the devs have made an excellent work, and restrict high performing characters to a certain body type. Knockback IOs etc serve all my needs for making my character behavior feel realistic.

If it's exclusively for RP reasons, I'd prefer the game not specify or even suggest a weight. To be remotely realistic or useful it would have to specify a wide range of weights, anyway, before even considering the ways in which supers can break that mold.

I've never seen the point of explicitly mentionning a character's weight in their bio, unless it's several orders of magnitude higher or lower than you'd expect from looking at the model.

People would only complain when they couldn't make their 6' tall Amazon with huge muscles weigh less than 160 pounds (because as everyone knows, any woman that weighs more than 160 pounds is horribly obese and disgusting).

OP, why not team up with a programming buddy and develop a 3rd party application like Mids' that does this outside of the game. Use costume codes to upload data linked to individual costume pieces, weight, density and so forth that then adds it all up based on character height/size. Then, at the end, you can determine if the character's base mass is based off of another element.

I'm sure a lot of people would find it a fun little app to play with. I know, when I created my main character, his costume is taken into mind with respect to his abilities. Since he's Super Reflexes, he needs clothes that give complete freedom of movement and are extremely light. Basically, a short sleeve gi with regular material for pants and tabi shoes. Later, he incorporates a puncture resistant skin-flex shirt to help guard against swords/knives and grazing bullets. Since he's only of moderate height and rather slim, I'd probably put his entire outfit at no more than 180lbs (his sword is wood too, not metal).

I can't say I specifically seek out a character's weight for customization but I do consider it. I think it'd help visualize the impact of a character's actions by adding another facet to look through, but again, only as a 3rd party program. If the devs can't even set the time to get better respec UI, I don't want them spending it on extra fluff like this.

I think this suggestion is pretty cool. There are two ways in which I could use this. First, for those instances when I wonder just how unrealistic the proportions of the female characters are. Second, for my natural characters, since I like to be able to gauge their strength based on weight class. Don't ask why, but it is kind of important to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven Yeah I think the only thing the character creator needs to make it better is two things: 1) An actual output of the exact height. 2) All NPCs to be resized so that they have more normal uniform heights making it easier to know if we will have a tall or short character by comparison.

This. So much this! Something that has annoyed in this game is how all of the NPCs are seven feet tall. When I made my characters, I made them to have appropriate heights, with my tallest being 6'7". That is quite tall for any regular person, but in this game it is like he's just an average guy.

Now, normally players make their characters tall in MMOs where they can do so, so I can understand why the game made be made tall. This doesn't sit well for anyone who doesn't make a 7' sparkling Adonis.

While I don't have a desire to see it included in the game, basically, you're interested in something that would assist you in calculating the approximate weight, based on the mass of the avatar.
And I do find that interesting!

I haven't checked those links Ad Astra offered up yet, but I was going to say that I'm sure there must be some resources out there to assist (obviously, not to the degree that you were suggesting for the game to provide), but something, at least.

I used to be a fan of professional wrestling and then in multiple sports... So, I used to remember a lot of heights and weights of exceptional physical specimens (of course, the wrestlers used exaggerated numbers, hehe... and, then again, the official listings of most professional athletes are not always accurate either... haha).

Still... I think we could come up with average ranges for a human's weight based on height and the body sliders... How to divide that information up though... Hmmm...