As a Roblox developer, it is not possible to create powerful avatar customization experiences because of arbitrary and inconsistent platform limitations.
As a Roblox player, it is currently too hard to customize my avatar to the fullest extent possible due to avatar limits that are needlessly restrictive.
I made this reply a little while ago, this is a reiteration of that.
Accessories currently are hard-limited by total number, and limited by number within a narrow range of categories.
The number of polygons, memory impact, etc. in any particular accessory has no relationship with the accessory’s category, so limiting the number of accessories per category does not make any sense. Further, as far as I know, UGC Accessories have a limit on the maximum number of polygons, but this still allows UGC creators to overuse geometry where it is unnecessary, making the total accessory limit also ineffective. Thus, limiting the number of accessories in categories or in total does not benefit performance, user experience, or resource use in accessory creation.
If the per-category limit is for UX / ease of use, it has the opposite effect. Players don’t care about category, they want to equip what they want to equip, and UGC is often designed to be layerable (see hair extensions). Being unable to equip what I want to equip due to arbitrary limits that break multi-part UGC expectations is more frustrating than needing to unequip an item to equip a different one.
Limiting accessory amount by their category is a crutch for bad design. You can have a powerful and simple to use avatar creator without chopping creative possibilities in half by forcing arbitrary limitations.
A better solution is to replace current accessory limits with an “accessory cost” system. Assign accessories an auto-generated “cost” that is proportional to their performance impact ingame (i.e. a score calculated from texture requirements and mesh complexity), and impose a limit for total accessories equipped around that cost instead. Get rid of the per-category limits entirely because they hurt user experience because of things that can be solved without limiting creative potential.
This would allow people to have multi-part accessories (i.e. 2-part swordpacks, hair extensions, etc.) without wasting accessory slots and making players micromanage the number of accessories they have equipped, and without killing game performance due to multi-part UGC accessories each possibly maxing out their polygon limit. Accessories should be designed with the minimum number of polygons required, and not designed to sneak under the tri limit.
A system like this would encourage UGC developers (often non-technical people) to make low-cost accessories because players would be incentivized to buy accessories with a low cost so they can wear more of them. This also enables them to make even more granular multi-part accessories for greater customizability. This leverages the economy to encourage good UGC practices, and removes limitations on player creativity, while still preserving any limits in place for performance reasons.
Everyone in the equation benefits from this change. Players get more freedom of expression (very important with recent avatar improvements), developers have to worry less about avatar impact in their games, and UGC creators would be encouraged to use better practices and would be less restricted in how they break their accessories apart.
Thanks for the response.
