I try to convince myself to use "random appearance" in games that have it now

That's why I almost always hide helmets.

Most games don't give you the option sadly
- Buy a game.
  See if you can hide helmet.
  Refund if not.
  👍
- That's why you simply don't equip a helmet.
- Most crpgs do though

That's why mods exist. And some games have a setting to hide helmets.

- Video games are a fantasy and I want my character to look a certain way, fuck me right?
- You being downvoted is why I'm starting to hate lemmy.

That's why good games give you the option to remove helmets during cutscenes, or just hide them altogether.

ideally i'd want games to have NPCs react to if you're wearing a helmet or not, and a real risk of getting attacked when in populated areas, so you have a choice to make whether you want to keep your helmet on or take it off (and that should be a simple button press)
that way there's a bit of added flavour, and you have an actual reason to see your character without a helmet.
Seems like a logical fallacy to me.
No. I want to see my cool helmet. Games that remove helmets and (all customization) during cutscenes annoy me.
- option
  Good work reading their comment

The worst one I've experienced is EVE Online. They had such an extensive character creation system, and I spent ages posting for the player icon, only to be staring at tables and icons.

The sky box (space box?) is pretty though.

It's... Eve Online. Even I know what the gameplay entails, and I've never played it. What did you think you were getting into!?
- I kinda went in to it sorta blind. At the time there was development on features that lets you walk around space stations. Also I just kinda got lost in the process and got way too in to it for some reason lol
- I heard of it, never dig into it, I have no idea what it does except it had something to do with space and its a MMORPG

The NPCs won't know, but I will, and that matters.

Haha, hours spent making my Skyrim characters just the right shade of almost looking right...

I play exclusively in first person.

I usually rock the body armor + no helmet look, it's badass, unless the helmet has stats that are too good to pass up.

40k Astartes moment

I'd like to have the random appearance generator still generate reasonably realistic faces haha. Maybe a toggle box that just says, "Send it" if you don't!

My friend was shocked to hear I spent about 10 seconds in the character creator in BG3 and exactly 0 seconds concerned with dying my armor to match whatever theme.

I just don’t see the appeal, it’s not like I see the character’s face all the time, and I’m constantly swapping armor around for different situations.

I’d rather be playing the game than spending ages on making my character look a certain way just to never actually see them in game for more than a split second on screen during conversations.

A game like Elden Ring I could get, but the player character gets a lot of facetime in Baldur's Gate 3. Conversations/interactive cutscenes are a main pillar of that game.
Even if you wear a full helmet, of which there are relatively few compared to open face helmets, hats, circlets, etc., a lot of cutscenes still take place at camp or in other situations where your character takes off their armor and switches to casual clothing anyways.
And on top of that the game includes toggles to turn off headwear in cutscenes or always, which gives the character 100% facetime be they wearing a helmet or no. That's more than what I'd call "split second" at least.
- I recall seeing NPC faces a lot more in game than I saw my own PCs face, even with helmets hidden, but it’s very likely that is just confirmation bias on my part, since I invested nothing into the PC appearance, so nothing stuck.
  But that doesn’t discount your point, and of all the games I could have named, BG3 is probably the worst example.
Just FYI, you can make your helmet invisible in BG3.
- Your armor too!
I’d rather be playing the game
You realize that character creation and stuff like armor dying are part of the game, right? Maybe those aspects aren’t important to you, and fair enough, but someone who spends loads of time engaging with that side of the game is still playing the game.
I’d actually argue that someone who engages with those systems fully, as well as the rest of the game, actually plays more of the game than someone who doesn’t.
- That’s a fair point, someone took the time to code those aspects of the game, and if it adds to your enjoyment and engagement with the game, more power to you, it’s just not for me.
  Thanks for replying, it does give some context to why my friend enjoys those parts of the game.

This is one of the gaming things I've never actually done. I almost always just take the default character and jump into the game. The most I'll do is cycle through a few presets if they have it.

🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲... OK that looks good enough.
i'm amazed to see that there are people who don't just set the skin color to bright purple and move sliders all the way to either side
if i can't play as fuckhands mcmike what's the point?

I liked when in WoW you could turn off helmets in settings.

Just got fallout 4 the other day. Spent like an hour making the guy look like Geralt from the Witcher, then proceeded to play as the gal.

Such a shame that >!he died after like 10 minutes!<

I'm learning just now that you can even customize both of them. I never thought to do both, just whichever I feel like playing as for that playthrough.
- Wait, am I just learning now that you can customize both parents and then choose which one to actually play later?
Ooooh, you still might hear his echo :3

I spend most of my time constantly customizing my character in Fallout 4 than actually playing the game I've noticed. I like to switch out her outfits, her hair, eye colour, etc. from time to time depending in what's happening in game. For example, if she's in Nuka World as a raider then I put on a post-apocalyptic outfit or if she's in the institute I dress her as a covert assassin.

That's why you get sex mods.

But the helmet stays on.

I feel targeted and attacked personally.