Guild Wars 2

I don’t know that there’s a way I can receive assistance on this, but in case there is, I am asking! I am very particular with how my character looks/feels in games, and really want a human female that feels like it fits a style I want to play with. Yet, so far I have not felt very confident in the creations I’ve come up with for faces. Part of this is that I’ve found that what I enjoy in Character aesthetician previews, once I see her outside of that preview, it feels/looks very different.

It could be I’m rare to have this issue, or that I’m female IRL, or it could be others have had this issue as well potentially?

Does anyone have tips/ideas/suggestions? I’ve been buying more makeover kits than a person should lol. I’ve also only played for 3.5 weeks, I LOVE this game, I LOVE the customizeability, just wish there was more customizeability for the faces and that it showed more precisely what the character would look like in-game. What looks very cute on my character selection screen, looks so far meh in-game. I’ve been looking at other characters too and probably spent way more time than is necessary trying to get ideas from others, as it’s not like I can copy their sliders!

I’m aware I’m probably pickier than the average game-player

You’re not alone in this matter – I’ve also spent hours on end moving face sliders pixel by pixel. I get what you mean by the preview looking very different from the in-game model. I think it has something to do with the angles and lighting discrepancies between them.

Funnily enough, I had the exact same problem in Skyrim, and found this article (https://levelskip.com/rpgs/better-looking-characters) offering some advice. I’ve found some of it is applicable to Guild Wars 2’s character customizer as well. The main things I took away from it are that it’s usually best to slightly alter a preset rather than radically change it to suit your needs; and take some time to understand what features you actually think of as attractive/preferable. Maybe Google the celebrities or models that you think look good, take some time to analyze why you think they look good, and then you can replicate those features for your character.

Having spent considerable time staring at closeups of Guild Wars 2 human females myself, I can also say that in my personal opinion, an attractive face is easily achieved with the ninth default face option (not the ones exclusive to makeover kits), and sliding the “eye height” option all the way to the right. This is a good starting point for me, and from there I usually just make minor adjustments to the chin and nose sliders. You might not share my view of beauty, but it’s an option for you to try at least.

Good luck, and welcome to Tyria!

I’ve been playing around with character creation as well recently and the main difference I’ve noted between creation and gameplay is that humans and norn are going to look about 2-3 skin tones lighter in open world than they do in the preview. And they look kinda plastic-skinned due to the minimal texturing on the body/older faces.

Could you specify a little more about what it is that bothers you? Is it that you can’t see the changes you’ve made to the face, skin texture, colours are different, etc?

You’re definitely not alone in having this problem. (Or in being female in real life, contrary to popular belief a lot of us play MMOs, including GW2.)

If you can give us some information on what you’re trying to achieve or why you’re unhappy with your attempts so far we can probably give you specific tips. But here’s some general ideas.

Take screenshots

It might be helpful to take screenshots of your choices, particularly the position of the sliders, when you create a character, so that if you need to change them you can quickly recreate what you’ve got and then make changes instead of starting from scratch each time.

It could also save you money. Instead of buying a makeover kit each time you want to make changes you could make a new character, screenshot the sliders, try them out in game and then only buy a kit when you’re certain you’ve got the look you want.

Make sure you actually know what you want

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds. I use the same main character in almost all western RPGs. After almost 15 years you’d think I’d have a clear idea of what she should look like, and in general I do. But it was only recently I realised that I don’t want her to be attractive and that realisation made creating her in different games much easier.

(Not that I deliberately make her ugly, it’s just that it’s not a priority for her to be attractive and she tends to end up kind of plain. Also I tend to give her small scars when that’s an option.)

Go in order of priority

The default faces can look very different depending on things like hair style and colour, skin colour and even eye colour. Even more so if you also change some of the sliders. (Try moving a few right to the end, what looks good on one face makes others look really weird.)

So if you’ve got specific features in mind it can be a good idea to put those in first.

For example my main character is quite short and slim built, has long straight-ish black hair and grey eyes and in GW2 she has medium brown skin. So when I’m making her I put all those in first, before I even look at the default faces, let alone touch the sliders.

That makes it much easier to choose a face because some just don’t suit those features whereas others do. And once I’ve got the key features and a good default face as a starting point it’s relatively easy to get the sliders right.

Take your time

If you’ve got a face that’s almost but not quite right take some time to just look and think about why it’s not right. Are her eyes actually too big, or is it that you’ve made her nose too small? Do you really like that hair style?

If possible it might be helpful to take a break while leaving the character creator open. If there’s a danger someone else will come along and mess it all up or “helpfully” shut the game down because you forgot it’s best not to risk it, but if you can stepping away for 10 or 20 minutes and coming back to it might allow you to see it with fresh eyes and spot the mistakes.

Danikat.8537:

It could also save you money. Instead of buying a makeover kit each time you want to make changes you could make a new character, screenshot the sliders, try them out in game and then only buy a kit when you’re certain you’ve got the look you want.

this helps a lot and so does the rest of your post and the other posts here. So, to be clear though, there isn’t a way to test my Characters look out in the game before purchasing the kit, right? Especially if I want the exclusive features?

I like the option to let go of making sure she’s attractive actually haha. Kind of relieves some pressure. And screen shots have worked well for me or using my iPads camera to save pictures of sliders. I have gotten excited about how she looks in the character creation place and that hasn’t gone well for me when I decide to buy the kit over excitedly.

Walking away has so helped, cause I find things I haven’t liked once coming back so far.

Your post helped me to be less mental in this process and be more asking myself “why” I want her to look a certain way so that I can be happier with her look for longer periods of time instead of what my mind thinks is pretty temporarily haha.

Sunarah.6432:

I’ve been buying more makeover kits than a person should lol. I’ve also only played for 3.5 weeks

I don’t know about you making a Greek goddess, but what I can tell is to stop spending money on your character appearance right now. You should delete and remake your characters at this point.

To put it in perspective, many of us have had the same characters for well over 200 weeks. So the 1 week or whatever you’ve had a character isn’t worth spending money on when you can get to the same point in mere minutes or at most days once you’re familiar with the game.

Sunarah.6432:

this helps a lot and so does the rest of your post and the other posts here. So, to be clear though, there isn’t a way to test my Characters look out in the game before purchasing the kit, right? Especially if I want the exclusive features?

There’s a way, but you’d have to make the character first. If you go into any starting city or Lion’s Arch, make your way over to the Black Lion Trading Post people. Standing next to them will be a human lady in a bright purple dress with a little mirror icon over her head. Talk to her and you’ll be taken to a character creation window that includes all of the exclusive stuff in addition to the normal features. You can try out your look there.