Thancred's new face

The changes don't look bizarre at first glance for me, but the longer I stare at his face, the less I can recognise him.
It's especially obvious in certain lighting, and while we could dismiss it as lighting problems back then, we can't really say that now can we?

Let me borrow a friend's comparison image that shows ARR Thancred in Praetorium cutscene
pre 7.0, 7.0 and now 7.1
https://images.plurk.com/2Lz2Vv35pNG6lbxyhsVXsX.png

His contour is less obvious now and honestly it affects the impact of this cutscene.

Also, not sure if it's been mentioned before, but I think his smiles are more obvious now in 7.1? I think that heavily affects his overall impression, personally.
https://images.plurk.com/2bnVoUA1HfW2LQN8e4VRSN.png

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Originally Posted by Luthea

The changes don't look bizarre at first glance for me, but the longer I stare at his, the less I can recognise him.
It's especially obvious in certain lighting, and while we could dismiss it as lighting problems back then, we can't really say that now can we?

Let me borrow a friend's comparison image that shows ARR Thancred in Praetorium cutscene
pre 7.0, 7.0 and now 7.1
https://images.plurk.com/2Lz2Vv35pNG6lbxyhsVXsX.png

His contour is less obvious now and honestly it affects the impact of this cutscene.

Also, not sure if it's been mentioned before, but I think his smiles are more obvious now in 7.1? I think that heavily affects his overall impression, personally.
https://images.plurk.com/2bnVoUA1HfW2LQN8e4VRSN.png

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His smile has been bothering me so much ever since the update, his expressions were a strong part of his vibe and now it’s so different thanks to the new mouth shape.

He looks so similar to my WoL it's unsettling. This isn't Thancred anymore. This is Midlander 1, my own WoL's face (which I don' t like much anymore either, it's too puffy and his eyes are dead).

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I guess it must be hard being constantly annoyed at everything online if you go around taking anything someone says too literally or be bothered that someone out there might somehow not be feeling exactly the same way you are. Sorry you feel that way, can't be easy. My condolences.

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I'm just responding to that, because this type of ‘argument’ is always a bit strange: just because someone reacts to a topic doesn't mean they do the same everywhere. You know it, I know it, we can move on. What we both also know is that a forum is a place for exchanging ideas and that sharing your opinion online calls for reactions: if this rule isn't accepted, it's up to the poster to refrain. Not the other way round.

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Just looking through people’s pictures of their characters, it looks more like a rushed job or just plain lack of quality control, than any technical limitations.

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I hadn't seen your answer.

Rushed job, no, I don't think so. It's very likely that it actually required quite a lot of work: beyond the characters, there's a major change in the environment which is consequential. To answer the question: if there was a change of form towards something more HD, yes, that's an improvement. It's an improvement because technically it's better. The fact that people don't like it is another, separate issue.

Another thing that bothers me about threads like this is that people don't consider for a second that the change could have been made because the new ‘shape’ (I insist, but in most cases the famous ‘I can't even recognise my character’ is false) is more in line with what would have been expected if the game had the same technical possibilities when it was released. This is the case with many lips: people complain about it a lot, but the less angular curvature is actually much more in line with what you see IRL. An upper lip is not formed by a diagonal running directly to the corners of the mouth. It's a curve, curving slightly upwards.

In fact, there are quite a few cases where what's disturbing is something that is objectively more realistic, but is just shocking because of the change. Which brings me back to my first point: it's the change that disturbs, rather than objective quality control.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

I'm just responding to that, because this type of ‘argument’ is always a bit strange: just because someone reacts to a topic doesn't mean they do the same everywhere. You know it, I know it, we can move on. What we both also know is that a forum is a place for exchanging ideas and that sharing your opinion online calls for reactions: if this rule isn't accepted, it's up to the poster to refrain. Not the other way round.



I hadn't seen your answer.

Rushed job, no, I don't think so. It's very likely that it actually required quite a lot of work: beyond the characters, there's a major change in the environment which is consequential. To answer the question: if there was a change of form towards something more HD, yes, that's an improvement. It's an improvement because technically it's better. The fact that people don't like it is another, separate issue.

Another thing that bothers me about threads like this is that people don't consider for a second that the change could have been made because the new ‘shape’ (I insist, but in most cases the famous ‘I can't even recognise my character’ is false) is more in line with what would have been expected if the game had the same technical possibilities when it was released. This is the case with many lips: people complain about it a lot, but the less angular curvature is actually much more in line with what you see IRL. An upper lip is not formed by a diagonal running directly to the corners of the mouth. It's a curve, curving slightly upwards.

In fact, there are quite a few cases where what's disturbing is something that is objectively more realistic, but is just shocking because of the change. Which brings me back to my first point: it's the change that disturbs, rather than objective quality control.

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I would like to see how you can argue that the new facial features being the same as the player character creation midlander 1 is a choice made because of the new "shape", when the original facial features are custom made just for the NPC. If they had done this to the other popular characters, like changing Aymeric's face into that of the average elezen player, could you still say so?

As for the 'rushed job', it's pretty obvious when they can't even be bothered to update Thancred's heavensward gear properly when it's outright listed in the 7.1 patch note as a feature (I double-checked the patch list to ensure it's really listed as improved). Just scroll up to check his choker, then look at the ARR gear, which is also listed as an improved gear; that alone speaks everything while I can also do other detailed comparison.

https://images.plurk.com/5Ic8QRNXGCWXtsvc4HB9iq.png

I'm not saying that they did the changes to his face because of the same reason, but at least they aren't paying enough attention to things before releasing them to public.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Luthea

The changes don't look bizarre at first glance for me, but the longer I stare at his face, the less I can recognise him.
It's especially obvious in certain lighting, and while we could dismiss it as lighting problems back then, we can't really say that now can we?

Let me borrow a friend's comparison image that shows ARR Thancred in Praetorium cutscene
pre 7.0, 7.0 and now 7.1
https://images.plurk.com/2Lz2Vv35pNG6lbxyhsVXsX.png

His contour is less obvious now and honestly it affects the impact of this cutscene.

Also, not sure if it's been mentioned before, but I think his smiles are more obvious now in 7.1? I think that heavily affects his overall impression, personally.
https://images.plurk.com/2bnVoUA1HfW2LQN8e4VRSN.png

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Oh, wow, the expression change in that HW scene is so noticeable. One of the (many) reasons why I so heavily disliked his new 7.0/DT face was because of what they did to his expressions, so it’s disappointing to see it going all the way back to his older models too. His expressions were so much a part of his character and now they’re entirely lost.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

To answer the question: if there was a change of form towards something more HD, yes, that's an improvement. It's an improvement because technically it's better. The fact that people don't like it is another, separate issue.

Another thing that bothers me about threads like this is that people don't consider for a second that the change could have been made because the new ‘shape’ (I insist, but in most cases the famous ‘I can't even recognise my character’ is false) is more in line with what would have been expected if the game had the same technical possibilities when it was released. This is the case with many lips: people complain about it a lot, but the less angular curvature is actually much more in line with what you see IRL. An upper lip is not formed by a diagonal running directly to the corners of the mouth. It's a curve, curving slightly upwards.

In fact, there are quite a few cases where what's disturbing is something that is objectively more realistic, but is just shocking because of the change. Which brings me back to my first point: it's the change that disturbs, rather than objective quality control.

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I just saw a perfect illustration of the problem from a post in the mega-thread, who was able to get better screenshots than I can. But tell me… which of these looks more realistic? And which one looks more like “diagonal running directly to the corners of the mouth”? Because my older lower-res lips looked more natural and realistic than the HD Pizza Hut logo ones the update gave me! lol

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

https://i.imgur.com/vMUKbys.png

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The new shape is not more realistic, nor is it preserving the “look and feel of the characters,” as was the stated intention, so yes that would be a problem with quality control. As I’ve said before, if the new system can’t give greater control over the curves than the older one, it’s either not really an upgrade. Either that, or whoever’s using it is unfamiliar with it to the point that they’re not able to use it to its full potential. It’s an oversimplification to reduce complaints to “I just don’t like it because it’s different,” rather than the real issue of “I don’t like it because it objectively looks like a different person.”

7.1, Thancred's face still not restored.

The lips are different, and a bunch of minor details. It's not Thancred anymore, also the Dawntrail trailer made them all so weird, it feels like some mobile game trailer instead of FF14.

A few of us Thancred fans have put together a comprehensive site demonstrating the issues with his updated face, and have collated several image and slider comparisons to show the differences in details.

Please check out the link below and feel free to share with your friends! If there is any way to get the word out it would be much appreciated. I will also post it in the general graphics update thread.

Save Thancred website

Is it worth raising a bug report, do you think? This is hopefully enough information.