Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I have a solution to this whole “Give me Character Customization/ Leave it for RNGesus to decide” thing. It isn’t an original solution, since I’m just going to point out how Paradox handled things in CK2 (and everyone and their dog loved CK2). Crusader Kings was mentioned earlier in the thread, sure, but no one mentioned that its Achievements were tied to its Ironman mode, which strictly forbade the Character Customizer, at least as I recall. I always thought that was an elegant solution to the conflict that seems to be going on in this thread.
As I see it, there are the people who want to have control over the story that their game tells, and the people who want to beat up RNGesus even if it means both of their hands are tied behind their backs. The later crowd, in my experience, has a lot more overlap with the achievement hunters of the world than the former does. Tying the achievements to playing without any character customization gives an incentive toward playing with whatever junk characters the RNG gives you, while players that want to use custom characters likely won’t care. Heck, if you really want to take a page out of Paradox’s book you could even toss out character customization as a 5$ DLC (queue an entire forum’s worth of outrage here).
As it is right now, I often find myself restarting a new game several times until I have a crew that I deem “playable”, and I doubt that I’m the only one who does this. That isn’t what a functioning system looks like, and if the main argument against incorporating some form of character customization is essentially “but that will make the game easier!” then I really think that locking the achievements away from people in playthroughs that use custom characters would nip that in the bud. After all, who cares if the game is easier for me, if it won’t mean that I can get the same “Congratulations on Winning the Game” picture more easily than the other guy.
Everyone wins. I get to play with characters that I want to play with. Achievement hunters aren’t having their achievements devalued by “easy-mode” players.
Seriously. Paradox already solved this. Do correct me though, if I am wrong.
