[Suggestion] Let us change character selection background

Carbonised

Personally, I'm a little fed up with all my 5 EP Dunmer characters standing in the snowy landscape of Bleakrock every time I'm on the character selection screen.

Seeing your character's current look, personality, pet and mount is a nice introduction screen, but it is a bit ruined by the background always being that same landscape of Bleakrock. I suggest that either you could choose from several possible backgrounds for your character selection screen (like new DLC and Chapter zones, for instance), or your character background would follow your race instead of your alliance. Thus, Nords would have a snowy landscape, Argonians would have a marshy and swampy, and Dunmer would have a volcanic landscape like Stonefalls or Deshaan.

When the starting zone was Bleakrock (and Khenarthi's Roost and Stros M'kai) it at least made a tiny little sense to have these backgrounds, but tutorials have long sine been moved to Vvardenfell and Summerset, thus, it is only appropriate that the backgrounds change to reflect that, or that you are at least given the option to choose a background that suits your character better.

Omgwtfbbq321

I'd like to have my main house as the back drop, maybe showing my characters in different locations of it.

Carbonised

Omgwtfbbq321 wrote: »

I'd like to have my main house as the back drop, maybe showing my characters in different locations of it.

Houses is also a great idea. Perhaps they could show your actual house with the decorations you put in, or at least a "generic" view of the house, with some generic furniture in the background. Custom would of course be better, but generic could possibly be easier to code.

Skinzz

Really?

Carbonised

xskinzcity wrote: »

Really?

Thank you for this excellent contribution to this thread. Really.

FoolishOptimist

I wonder if they could change it based on your character’s current regional location? It states the location on the select screen so it has data to extract from. Just have a different artwork for each different region.

Or you could gain artwork based on maxing out a Guild skillline?

A lot of my characters aren’t strictly alliance-based anyway. I’d rather be repping the Mage’s Guild or the Psijic Order.

Carbonised

FoolishOptimist wrote: »

I wonder if they could change it based on your character’s current regional location? It states the location on the select screen so it has data to extract from. Just have a different artwork for each different region.

Or you could gain artwork based on maxing out a Guild skillline?

A lot of my characters aren’t strictly alliance-based anyway. I’d rather be repping the Mage’s Guild or the Psijic Order.

Guild or factions or current location would be a nice change too. Anything but the default starter island screen, really.

Elwendryll

Carbonised wrote: »

I suggest that either you could choose from several possible backgrounds for your character selection screen (like new DLC and Chapter zones, for instance), or your character background would follow your race instead of your alliance.

I personally consider that the race is more relevant than the class. I mean, I play a Khajiit, it's a sorcerer, but he's mainly a khajiit. And I have to play stamina to be somewhat competitive, so my gameplay is more defined by my race than by my class. I'd like race related backgrounds, or like someone suggested on a similar thread, why not place the view somewhere in one of your houses?

rootimus

Green screen background option, please.

Carbonised

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Some great suggestions have come up already, personally, I think I like the idea of your primary house coming up as your background the best.
It already fits the theme, you choose a pet and a mount for your character, and they both show on the character selection screen, why not show your house of choice as well as the background, instead of those outdated starter island.

To make it less complicated, each house could have a default furnished look, sort of like the loading screen already present for each home in the game, and your character would just be shown with this default home look in the background.

Perhaps something to look into?

Chaos2088

Yeah sounds like a cool idea, could have all sorts of backgrounds, different landscapes from all over Nirn, Oblivion and beyond. I would change them if I could.

Beardimus

Bleakrocks home!!

Aside from the fact its all on fire lol. I love it.

Id be happy with a choice for sure, but would hate to be forced to chapter background. I hate the summerset / Morrison's start screens, miss the old map!

SantieClaws

Khajiit is in great agreement yes.

Perhaps also allow us to scroll through our available emotes yes that we may seek a suitable pose?

Also the hiding of the mounts there too would be a nice option.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

psxfloh

the load time for character selection is something that really turns me off.

So I'd prefer a black background, no fancy stuff or mounts..
or better yet: a simple plain text list with only your character names!

Carbonised

psxfloh wrote: »

the load time for character selection is something that really turns me off.

So I'd prefer a black background, no fancy stuff or mounts..
or better yet: a simple plain text list with only your character names!

Just a clarification but the character selection screen has nothing to do with loading screens or loading time.

The character selection screen is where you select your character among the ones you have - when selected, you then proceed to a loading screen that gets you into the game.

The character selection screen already shows your outfit or costume, your personality, your pet and your mount, so showing your home (or something else) in the background instead of the default starter island backdrop doesn't make a difference whatsoever on loading time or performance or anything like that.

I don't know what loading time for character selection you're thinking of, I doubt that the time it takes to load up 1 character and a mount and pet is that significant, compared to the 50+ characters with mounts, pets and animation and movement that you can see in every big city or in Cyrodiil.

vometia

This is something I've wanted since I started playing (admittedly not very long ago). My usual breton looks a bit incongruous stuck in an arid desert and would be a lot more at home in the heaths and meadows of High Rock.

psxfloh

Carbonised wrote: »

psxfloh wrote: »

the load time for character selection is something that really turns me off.

So I'd prefer a black background, no fancy stuff or mounts..
or better yet: a simple plain text list with only your character names!

Just a clarification but the character selection screen has nothing to do with loading screens or loading time.

The character selection screen is where you select your character among the ones you have - when selected, you then proceed to a loading screen that gets you into the game.

The character selection screen already shows your outfit or costume, your personality, your pet and your mount, so showing your home (or something else) in the background instead of the default starter island backdrop doesn't make a difference whatsoever on loading time or performance or anything like that.

I don't know what loading time for character selection you're thinking of, I doubt that the time it takes to load up 1 character and a mount and pet is that significant, compared to the 50+ characters with mounts, pets and animation and movement that you can see in every big city or in Cyrodiil.

hey.. I'm not talking about (ingame) loading screens in general..

"the load time for character selection" I'm talking about is the time it takes to load the "character selection" you were talking about.
You might have realized that when you log out it takes quite some time until you're able to log in again (if you so wish)... I do that alot for riding lessons or to collect hireling mail and would love to log back in instantly after I logged out - no need for a fancy background or a zillion of things happening on the login screen for me.

Carbonised

psxfloh wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

psxfloh wrote: »

the load time for character selection is something that really turns me off.

So I'd prefer a black background, no fancy stuff or mounts..
or better yet: a simple plain text list with only your character names!

Just a clarification but the character selection screen has nothing to do with loading screens or loading time.

The character selection screen is where you select your character among the ones you have - when selected, you then proceed to a loading screen that gets you into the game.

The character selection screen already shows your outfit or costume, your personality, your pet and your mount, so showing your home (or something else) in the background instead of the default starter island backdrop doesn't make a difference whatsoever on loading time or performance or anything like that.

I don't know what loading time for character selection you're thinking of, I doubt that the time it takes to load up 1 character and a mount and pet is that significant, compared to the 50+ characters with mounts, pets and animation and movement that you can see in every big city or in Cyrodiil.

hey.. I'm not talking about (ingame) loading screens in general..

"the load time for character selection" I'm talking about is the time it takes to load the "character selection" you were talking about.
You might have realized that when you log out it takes quite some time until you're able to log in again (if you so wish)... I do that alot for riding lessons or to collect hireling mail and would love to log back in instantly after I logged out - no need for a fancy background or a zillion of things happening on the login screen for me.

That still has nothing to do with the character selection screen, the game has to load to create a new instance for your newly selected character, and my suggestion has nothing to do with that.
Even with a completely empty screen with just character names you would still have loading time between jumping between characters.

psxfloh

uhm, I assumed your suggestion was:
"make the character selection screen somewhat customizable" or
"change it so the situation you described (all characters are in the same landscape) does not occur as often"

Good idea, yeah, let's do that!

But while they're at it, why not add an option to to get rid of that character/costume/mount/landscape display altogether and just use a list of plain text character names - that, too, should classify as "making the character selection customizable", shouldn't it?!

I made this suggestion thinking the loading of character, gear, mounts and landscape models has a significant impact on the time it takes to load and display the character screen.
Maybe it's instant on your platform, which would explain why you seem to have no clue what I'm talking about, but on PS4 it takes quite some time between "log out" and being able to select another character and "log in" again.

psxfloh

here's a video of someone logging out... you realize he presses "log out" around 8s and it takes about 17s until he's back at character selection? this is what I'm talking about..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El5i30GhZ0k

Carbonised

psxfloh wrote: »

here's a video of someone logging out... you realize he presses "log out" around 8s and it takes about 17s until he's back at character selection? this is what I'm talking about..

Ok this is going off topic, so I'm going to stop here, and hope the discussion gets back on topic which is changing the backgrounds from the default starter islands into something else.

I'm still quite confident that the objects shown on the character selection screen has little to no influence on the loading time you show in the video there. While I'm not aware of all the technicalities of the game, I'm assuming the loading time is related to behind the scene technical saves and loads, and not the actual loading time for rendering one 3D character and a mount against a predefined non-dynamic scenery backdrop.

Seeing that there IS a character selection screen that DOES include both a character, a mount and a landscape, my suggestion was to make the landscape at least somewhat more related to your character, such as their race, or your primary home residence, instead of simply a starting island that has long since become outdated.

If you wish to discuss how rendering the characters on the selection screen impacts on loading times, you're more than welcome to create another thread for that, but it's still off topic regarding this thread's discussion.

JKorr

You don't want to know how many times, after someone new joins one of my guilds, guildies trying to help them get set up need to ask which faction are you in, only to find out they have no idea. Being able to ask, "When you log in and pick your character, do you see snow, a boat, and a red banner with a black dragon head on it? Or do you see a different background and a yellow banner with a bird head? Or another background, and a blue banner with a lion?"

Starlight_Knight

Hell yes! and lets re-order them as well .. ahh we can dream

Carbonised

JKorr wrote: »

You don't want to know how many times, after someone new joins one of my guilds, guildies trying to help them get set up need to ask which faction are you in, only to find out they have no idea. Being able to ask, "When you log in and pick your character, do you see snow, a boat, and a red banner with a black dragon head on it? Or do you see a different background and a yellow banner with a bird head? Or another background, and a blue banner with a lion?"

Well if we're being specific, the Alliance banner can stay for all I care. It's just an "object", like the pet and mount, and I don't mind your alliance showing as a banner. The background itself, in this case the snowy landscape of Bleakrock and the wooden boat, that's what I like to be able to change.

Also, if you're wondering what faction your guildmates are in, just look at the icon right next to their name on the guild roster, it shows right there, quicker than asking them if they don't know it themselves.

Elwendryll

JKorr wrote: »

You don't want to know how many times, after someone new joins one of my guilds, guildies trying to help them get set up need to ask which faction are you in, only to find out they have no idea. Being able to ask, "When you log in and pick your character, do you see snow, a boat, and a red banner with a black dragon head on it? Or do you see a different background and a yellow banner with a bird head? Or another background, and a blue banner with a lion?"

Yeah... Or you can press "C".

BrightOblivion

JKorr wrote: »

You don't want to know how many times, after someone new joins one of my guilds, guildies trying to help them get set up need to ask which faction are you in, only to find out they have no idea. Being able to ask, "When you log in and pick your character, do you see snow, a boat, and a red banner with a black dragon head on it? Or do you see a different background and a yellow banner with a bird head? Or another background, and a blue banner with a lion?"

Just tell them to hit C (or the console shortcut for character screen) and check the upper left corner for dragon/lion/bird. I'm not sure if there's a special indicator in the Alliance War panel (the one that pops up when you press L on PC) if you're just a citizen, but I'm pretty sure anything volunteer/recruit and above shows as *Alliance* *Rank* *Grade* (I.E. Ebonheart Pact Sergeant Grade 2). Also, I think it shows current character's alliance by their name in the guild roster.

But yes, I'd love it if my toons could escape the "Bad Day at Bleakrock"- Stros or Alik'r- Auridon (High elven tower, bright green trees? Definitely Auridon) trifecta. It's just boring and has no great story significance. Plus, I've now been staring at the same 3 backgrounds for over a year. Time for a change.

Carbonised

BrightOblivion wrote: »

But yes, I'd love it if my toons could escape the "Bad Day at Bleakrock"- Stros or Alik'r- Auridon (High elven tower, bright green trees? Definitely Auridon) trifecta. It's just boring and has no great story significance. Plus, I've now been staring at the same 3 backgrounds for over a year. Time for a change.

Pretty much this yes. The login music changes with a chapter, the background at the login screen changes with chapters and DLC, but the character selection backgrounds are very outdated.