Yoshida gives update on the benchmark/character creator

Looking forward to all the posts from people who insisted their characters were mutilated unrecognizable freaks and it wasn't the lighting suddenly totally fine with their character when the only thing that has changed is the lighting. :p

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I'm not sure if we are actually getting a fantasia or that's what a lot of people think is what Yoshida said.

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He explicitly said "we're giving everyone a free fantasia" during the Japan Fanfest keynote. There's really no other wait to interpret that.

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Originally Posted by Rudje

This is likely referring to things like the buggy rigging seen in Elezen.

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That what I personally thought it was about too.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

The issues people are having with lips goes beyond their scaling, they were remodeled and are just different models. Them saying it's just scaling issues would imply the change in mouth style is intentional and going to be kept.

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I guess Mr. Producer din't want to address everything that went wrong in Detail.
But, it's very possible that you are right.

I would just like to see more customization options and allow multiple face paint options (i.e. eye shadow + other options)

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Looking forward to all the posts from people who insisted their characters were mutilated unrecognizable freaks and it wasn't the lighting suddenly totally fine with their character when the only thing that has changed is the lighting. :p

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If I understand it correctly they are not only changing the lighting but also scaling issues, particularly some issues related to mouths, a major point of criticism. I don't know how far these scaling issues go but they might also influence some observed changes in facial proportions.
So if people are happy afterwards I'd argue it may very well be due to those other issues being fixed and not necessarily them being wrong about the lighting.

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Originally Posted by xirune

I did see that part of the post - it does make me hopeful, but as others have pointed out, it may not address all of the issues. The wording is a bit vague so it’s hard to tell just from that one sentence whether the things many players are concerned about WRT mouth shape will be fixed. Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see what the second version of the benchmark is like.

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I really hope for every Player that all the things that went wrong will be fixed.
As other allready pointed out. Fantasia wont fix that.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

He explicitly said "we're giving everyone a free fantasia" during the Japan Fanfest keynote. There's really no other wait to interpret that.

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For some reason I distinctly remember him saying they were going to "try" to give everyone a free Fantasia. Maybe I'm misremembering or something.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

The issues people are having with lips goes beyond their scaling, they were remodeled and are just different models. Them saying it's just scaling issues would imply the change in mouth style is intentional and going to be kept.

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Big this. The mouth dint on my characters face is just unreal, it's not a scaling thing but a model thing

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Originally Posted by Doozer

For some reason I distinctly remember him saying they were going to "try" to give everyone a free Fantasia. Maybe I'm misremembering or something.

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There is a gamerant article from late January about getting a free fantasia. And another gamerant article from 4 days ago that makes mention of it.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

For some reason I distinctly remember him saying they were going to "try" to give everyone a free Fantasia. Maybe I'm misremembering or something.

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That's what I feel he said that they were going to try. Not that they were. I'm not against them giving everyone a free fantasia. But there have been other times where Yoshida has said one thing only for us players hear something else or misinterpret what he said and then run with it. Only for a lot of people later becoming highly upset that the thing they think they heard wasn't exactly what had been said. I would really love it if he did say that we would be getting one. I haven't watched the Duty Commenced that would have aired post Fan Fests as that would be the 1st place they would have restated if we would be getting one. As I'm fairly certain h Yoshida hasn't mentioned anything about a free fantasia since then. I doubt no one would have not asked him about it in any interview post JP Fan Fest.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

There is a gamerant article from late January about getting a free fantasia. And another gamerant article from 4 days ago that makes mention of it.

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Oh good. I'm glad that it was restated somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

If I understand it correctly they are not only changing the lighting but also scaling issues, particularly some issues related to mouths, a major point of criticism. I don't know how far these scaling issues go but they might also influence some observed changes in facial proportions.
So if people are happy afterwards I'd argue it may very well be due to those other issues being fixed and not necessarily them being wrong about the lighting.

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There were real issues here and there but by and large people complaining about "dead eyes," "flat face," etc. just didn't understand how lighting works and would jump down the throat of anyone who suggested that might be the problem. I can already see some of those people backpedaling and it's a hoot.

Hats off to the developers for being communicative and transparent with the community even when the community is being ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

For some reason I distinctly remember him saying they were going to "try" to give everyone a free Fantasia. Maybe I'm misremembering or something.

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He said they're "still working out the details" which is probably what you're thinking of.

https://www.youtube.com/live/9A2ljmm...awC2PPt&t=8115

The free fanta will cost them nothing and will be able to calm down some people displeased with the graphics update.
After mentioning it multiple times, there is no more going back, it's a given now.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

There is a gamerant article from late January about getting a free fantasia. And another gamerant article from 4 days ago that makes mention of it.

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Can you actually link it instead of making anyone wanting confirmation to go look for it? I also don't trust a "gamerant" article unless it specifically quotes Yoshi-P correctly (with a source of their own, probably).

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

He said they're "still working out the details" which is probably what you're thinking of.

https://www.youtube.com/live/9A2ljmm...awC2PPt&t=8115

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I believe that is what I was referring to, thank you.

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Originally Posted by smashBG

I want to believe that the issues with player characters can be fixed with some new lighting and bugfixes, but I remain immensely skeptical. Many of the changes (particularly those made to au ra face models) seem to be the result of artistic intent rather than technical need, and by definition cannot be "fixed". Maybe it really is as simple as tweaking the scaling of face bones- there are 3rd-party tools capable of that, and gpose enthusiasts are not shy about demonstrating their capabilities. But I wouldn't put money on that possibility. Two months is the blink of an eye in gamedev time, and I have the sinking feeling that a lot of the changes people have expressed their concern about are already baked in.

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I suspect this is the case. A *lot* of the problems people are pointing out will be washed away with better lighting, but not all. The devs added quite a lot of polygons to the models. They had to do something with them other than, "perfectly mimic a lower-poly model." In the case of my specific WoL, they added enough to his nose to make a subtle but noticeable difference; however it doesn't bother me because it is also clear to me everything that was added is in places that completely lacked polygons before and the result is a subtly different but much better looking nose. I also have a face 4 female Au Ra, and I can 100% see the difference in her mouth--I more or less chalk up the differences there to the same thing, a clear addition of polygons that add definition that otherwise the devs could not achieve with the lower poly model. I understand people being bothered by it, though, it does make her look a little less severe. For the sake of people truly bothered by this I hope the devs tweak it a little.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

There were real issues here and there but by and large people complaining about "dead eyes," "flat face," etc. just didn't understand how lighting works and would jump down the throat of anyone who suggested that might be the problem. I can already see some of those people backpedaling and it's a hoot.

Hats off to the developers for being communicative and transparent with the community even when the community is being ridiculous.

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Yeah I can agree that the dead eyes and a general feeling of "flatness"/lack of dimension in a face is most likely going to be fixed with the lighting. In the end, I'm happy for everyone whose character looks good to their respective players again in the second benchmark so i'm curious to see how everything turns out. Hoping for the best.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Can you actually link it instead of making anyone wanting confirmation to go look for it? I also don't trust a "gamerant" article unless it specifically quotes Yoshi-P correctly (with a source of their own, probably).

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Here is the one from January:

https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-1...aphics-update/

They need the eyebrows for male highlanders. It been 10 years. I'm on lucky side of benchmark because current miqote will have the tifa jaw and mouth from ff7 remake/rebirth so im hype about it.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Here is the one from January:

https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-1...aphics-update/

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"As reported by Square Enix fan news and resource site Nova Crystallis" is not a direct source from Yoshi-P himself. The tweet they're referencing from Nova Crystallis is from the same day as the JP Fanfest when the previously mentioned quote from Yoshi-P was from. The tweet itself does not contain a source or quote from Yoshi-P saying it's certain. I'll believe it when he says "you are all getting a free Fantasia" or I get one in my in-game mail.

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Originally Posted by Zarkovitch

They need the eyebrows for male highlanders. It been 10 years. I'm on lucky side of benchmark because current miqote will have the tifa jaw and mouth from ff7 remake/rebirth so im hype about it.

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Is there anything else we Miqo'te might get from Tifa?

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Originally Posted by Doozer

"As reported by Square Enix fan news and resource site Nova Crystallis" is not a direct source from Yoshi-P himself. The tweet they're referencing from Nova Crystallis is from the same day as the JP Fanfest when the previously mentioned quote from Yoshi-P was from. The tweet itself does not contain a source or quote from Yoshi-P saying it's certain. I'll believe it when he says "you are all getting a free Fantasia" or I get one in my in-game mail.

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Well yeah, the "working out the details" part is a statement from Yoshida. Especially from that youtube link. As then you get a follow-up statement of what Yoshida said: "Obviously even though the update will overall raise the quality, there is still the possibility it won't give you exactly the look that you want right away. So we do want to give you that fantasia so that you can go into character creation to adjust your character to suit exactly what you imagine."

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Well yeah, the "working out the details" part is a statement from Yoshida. Especially from that youtube link. As then you get a follow-up statement of what Yoshida said: "Obviously even though the update will overall raise the quality, there is still the possibility it won't give you exactly the look that you want right away. So we do want to give you that fantasia so that you can go into character creation to adjust your character to suit exactly what you imagine."

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Keywords being "want to". There has not been a "we will" from Yoshi-P yet. That's my point.

A few things from me:

- I hope the changes help ease some of people's concerns.
- People truly underestimate how important lighting is for 3D graphics.
- I'm glad they're not reverting to PS3 standards.
- No matter what they do, someone's gonna be angry about it.
- People need to stop treating WIPs as finalized products.
- Can we keep this as the most literal reminder that they are listening to feedback?

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Originally Posted by Zarkovitch

They need the eyebrows for male highlanders. It been 10 years.

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+100

Did you guys know that one of the recent NPCs is a male highlander with actual eyebrows? His name is Durante. I wonder if they forgot to add actual eyebrows to the graphic update.

Here is a close-up screenshot of him:

https://i.imgur.com/oaM4YFT.png

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Originally Posted by Astronis

I suspect this is the case. A *lot* of the problems people are pointing out will be washed away with better lighting, but not all. The devs added quite a lot of polygons to the models. They had to do something with them other than, "perfectly mimic a lower-poly model." In the case of my specific WoL, they added enough to his nose to make a subtle but noticeable difference; however it doesn't bother me because it is also clear to me everything that was added is in places that completely lacked polygons before and the result is a subtly different but much better looking nose. I also have a face 4 female Au Ra, and I can 100% see the difference in her mouth--I more or less chalk up the differences there to the same thing, a clear addition of polygons that add definition that otherwise the devs could not achieve with the lower poly model. I understand people being bothered by it, though, it does make her look a little less severe. For the sake of people truly bothered by this I hope the devs tweak it a little.

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A problem I've been seeing (not from you, your post is reasonable, just in general across several topics) is people arguing against the people pointing out problems by saying that the altered traits are all old artifacting (they objectively aren't, especially in the newest faces, but that's the argument). The thing is, even if that was the case, those artifacts heavily influenced the flavor of the face and should have been preserved in some way, be it adding options that tweak the face a bit towards that old look or by preserving harsher looks in the upres. Neither of those things happened; instead, were being told that fully redesigned faces are what we look like now and there's no recourse due to how limited chargen is.

It's good to hear, I think the benchmark definitely served more than just a "can your computer run it" but also for things like this.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

- Can we keep this as the most literal reminder that they are listening to feedback?

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Yoshi P. had no choice. He had to react.
I doubt that he cares about what NA/EU has to say.
it's just that The Japanese Player would have ripped him and his Team appart. As they did in the past.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

A few things from me:

- I hope the changes help ease some of people's concerns.
- People truly underestimate how important lighting is for 3D graphics.
- I'm glad they're not reverting anything
- No matter what they do, someone's gonna be angry about
- People need to stop treating WIPs as finalized products.
- Can we keep this as the most literal reminder that they are listening to feedback?

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We do not have the final product. If the WiP is all we have to respond to, it is what we should respond to. As a freelancer, that is like not speaking up about a problem you notice in the sketch stage until the artist is finished with the work. If anything, we should have had the benchmark sooner to give them more time to adjust to changes and not two months to release.

Also, personally, my problems haven't been addressed in that post at all, because the Viera face 3 changes still look awful and not like the old ones in the benchmark itself, which is evidence that they're not lighting-related problems, and nothing there looks like weird mouth scaling or rigging problems like FElezen or some FAu Ra.

E: I'm being rate-limited, but this would actively be solved by adding the changes as new options and not wholesale replacements like they currently are! This is not a difficult ask!

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

You literally don't know that. You seriously think you can just pop a PS3 model with half the triangles and make it work seamlessly with a new rig tailor made for a new model?

If we don't approach this topic accepting that what we need is compromise instead of our every whim accounted for and fixed to our specific taste, we're never gonna get anywhere, and people are gonna remain upset, no matter what they do.

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And now you're deliberately reading me in bad faith! The options I'm talking about would obviously be upgrades that actually loyally keep to the old features instead of making new ones that keep none of them and telling me to live with my character not existing anymore, but I supposed someone determined to dismiss sensible feedback in favor of building a house of cards wouldn't know that.

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Originally Posted by Ancalagon_Blacktalon

yeah like, if anyone says "it's not hard" or "it's not difficult" or "I'm not asking for too much" or any other awful dumb assumptions about something tech-related, at this point my reaction is to ignore them, because that kind of downplaying of the real effort it takes to do most things in tech is both endemic (and worse with Gamers) and also speaks to profound ignorance of the process.

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I'm literally in game dev. If you can make the changed version, you can make the version that more closely matches the old style and add it to the old Ui, especially if you aren't a two or three person team. We know they have space for more faces bc Hyur have several.

I spent some time reading the Japanese feedback using Google translate and I can see why they would listen to them. The feedback, even through the imperfect tool that is google translate, was excellent. It was really well stated, detailed, and civil.

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Originally Posted by Windfire

Because more then a few of us have been through this song & dance with other games before : "It's just the alpha, calm down!" "It's just the beta, calm down!", "It's the new expac, should have said something in alpha/beta!" and given that there have been a number of things said they would/wouldn't and didn't/did, I don't have a lot of confidence in them doing it right.

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Hell, I went through that with this game, sorta. I got into the beta for ff14 1.0 which took place about a month before launch. The beta forum was full to the brim with people saying that things could be fixed by release and to just have faith and lol.

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Originally Posted by Tethan

I am cautiously hopeful. I really want everyone's concerns to be addressed and that we can all go into a new adventure in Dawntrail with our heads held high.

I am still a bit skeptical, specifically is he implying that the issues are only on the character creator or also the Benchmark real-time trailer? Because while the Benchmark trailer looks better, I still have big concerns for how my character looked. Then again, he mentions and acknowledges the "dead eye" issue, which is in both the CC and trailer, so maybe it is both? But that really begs the question of why they would release the Benchmark if it is truly so unfinished.

I guess all we can do is wait and see. Hope we can all be happy in the end.

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Both. He says that things like the neck issue are just because the changes they have in place weren't implemented in the benchmark.

"However, these issues remained in the benchmark due to simple data-related errors or neglecting to reflect the upcoming changes to the benchmark environment."

So they pushed changes to dev but not their QA environment. Entirely possible something like that can happen.

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Originally Posted by Glenfiddich

I doubt that he cares about what NA/EU has to say.

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He does, but good luck extracting the valuable feedback out of this chaos.

There are many messages that bring nothing to the table and lead to harming other players or the developers themselves.

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Originally Posted by Glenfiddich

it's just that The Japanese Player would have ripped him and his Team appart. As they did in the past.

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And yet the current situation is totally different...

Typical message on a JP forum
- Hello
- Sorry to bother you while you are busy working on the DT release.
- Let me give you some feedback.
- <constructive feedback>
- Thank you very much for your efforts.

Personaly, I am very grateful for the behaviour of the Japanese community.
I am also very grateful for the hardwork of the development team.
And I am confident that most of the feedback will be taken into account.

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Originally Posted by Moshimoshikami

He does, but good luck extracting the valuable feedback out of this chaos.

There are many messages that bring nothing to the table and lead to harming other players or the developers themselves.

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This is their forum. It's their job to either know the cultural differences in NA/EU online discussion vs JP and figure out how to extract information from the threads, or to moderate properly and delete trolling messages, off topic mesages, and keep things on-topic.
If they can't then that's on SE and it should not be an excuse for them ignoring EN feedback time and time again to just focus on what JP wants.

I as a forum poster can't do anything about posts that have wrong information, drag the thread off topic, or concern troll. I just have to talk around them, but you seem to be pointing those out as a reason why we shouldn't be listened to, which is exactly what those people want.
SE should either learn to read around them or moderate the forums properly if it's that much of a problem.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

This is their forum. It's their job to either know the cultural differences in NA/EU online discussion vs JP and figure out how to extract information from the threads, or to moderate properly and delete trolling messages, off topic mesages, and keep things on-topic.
If they can't then that's on SE and it shoudl not be an excuse for them ignoring EN feedback time and time again to just focus on what JP wants.

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Sorry I think customers have responsabilities as well.

Also I would really like to know why you think EN is ignored. Because I hear that a lot, yet I have never seen a single example prooving it.

EDIT: Just noticed you edited your message

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

you seem to be pointing those out as a reason why we shouldn't be listened to

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I never said that it was a reason for the EN forum to be ignored, just that it was a lot harder to extract valuable information out of it.
There are indeed very valuable feedback here as well.

Ayo? I see proof that the squeaky wheel gets the oil in here, so I'm gonna keep on squeaking to make sure my voice is also heard >:)

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

This is their forum. It's their job to either know the cultural differences in NA/EU online discussion vs JP and figure out how to extract information from the threads, or to moderate properly and delete trolling messages, off topic mesages, and keep things on-topic..

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I agree. Inappropriate posts at the JP side were being removed almost immediately every time they happened. Here I have seen open insults being reported and ignored.

The members of the JP and even the NA/EU communities that take their time to clearly draw out and redline the specific issues people have are superstars. I think the main issue we're running into here is JP mostly has one big thread for feedback and it's primarily feedback that's done in a professional way. It's the kind of feedback teachers would give students in art school. Whereas here on NA we do have some awesome feedback with drawings and stuff too, but our problem is we have like 800 threads and some of them get buried by the "my character is ruined I am going to cry/I'm crying" hyperbole.

With that said they do listen to NA/EU. I mean, we got a new deep dungeon in Endwalker+the criterion dungeons specifically because NA asked for that kind of content. We just aren't currently making it easy on them with our 8 million topics.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

If we don't approach this topic accepting that what we need is compromise instead of our every whim accounted for and fixed to our specific taste, we're never gonna get anywhere, and people are gonna remain upset, no matter what they do.

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Why are you talking like this is a decision that we're all making together? *We* don't need to do anything but give our own feedback of our own playing experience. I could not care less what you like or dislike or who it upsets, I don't play this game and pay my sub based on anyone's interests but my own and I'm not interested in the devs listening to what anyone else has to say either. It's my own free time and I'm in it for my own entertainment.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

If we don't approach this topic accepting that what we need is compromise instead of our every whim accounted for and fixed to our specific taste, we're never gonna get anywhere, and people are gonna remain upset, no matter what they do.

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I think this is pretty much the inevitable outcome. I think SE will do everything they can to make the new characters look as close to the old ones as they reasonably can. I hope most people's complaints get addressed! But I find it super unlikely that most peoples characters come out of it with a truly 1:1 outcome and people should probably come to terms with that.

The benchmark was a bit of a self-own though. Really foolish to release it with the same outdated lighting that was already abysmal in the current game.

Edit: Like I've seen multiple people over the years who make something they are happy with in the character creator now who get out into the actual game and immediately have to blow a fantasia because the creator is twilight zone lighting. Vaguely hopeful that whatever they do for the benchmark re-release goes live.

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Originally Posted by Moqi

Why are you talking like this is a decision that we're all making together? *We* don't need to do anything but give our own feedback of our own playing experience. I could not care less what you like or dislike or who it upsets, I don't play this game and pay my sub based on anyone's interests but my own and I'm not interested in the devs listening to what anyone else has to say either. It's my own free time and I'm in it for my own entertainment.

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Remember what I said about concern trolling?
Coming into threads for feedback and saying "I support your feedback but what about the people who are happy but aren't giving feedback? Are you considering them when you ask for changes?" is exactly that.