DT releases in TWO MONTHS - they aren't going to overhaul the graphics update now.

You all realize they aren't going to toss out years of work because you all are screaming on the forums, right? It's understandable after 10 years with the same graphical style, changes are going to be alarming and jarring, and not everyone is going to be happy. But they aren't going to suddenly in the next TWO months rework everything based on forum complaints.

These are the updates. They might be able to do minor tweaks here and there, but I am seeing folks demand the update be option, they toss the entire thing out and start over or just flat-out delay Dawntrail to redo it and that is NOT happening.

You're going to get your fantasia, you will make the new graphics work for you...or you won't. It really is that simple. I understand many folks are upset, but to expect the FF14 team is going to do some massive changes in just two months isn't realistic. They have the benchmark because this is how the characters are going to look.

Also, to judge based solely on the CC and a benchmark and not actually be in the game world to take advantage of the new lighting and how things interact is a bit jumping the gun. I am sure they will release tweaks in post 7.0 patches as well, but nothing is going to be massively drastic. This is what the devs went with. End of story. Some of the changes I am seeing folks demand on here could take MONTHS. We don't have that kind of time.

Also, it seems like its only the official forums everyone is screaming with torches and pitch forks - Twitter, Reddit everyone else is responding with people much more positive and happy, so don't think the forums are the majority and everyone hates it. And attacking the devs and Yoshi P won't solve anything. Media tour is starting. Get on the train or get off.

People should still leave their feedback though. The graphics overhaul is being done in stages and will be complete by/with 8.0 (which also includes things such as enabling two dyes for all pieces of gear etc). Even if something isn't ideal when 7.0 releases in a few months, it could easily be fixed in the patch cycle.


EDIT

One thing I'd like to point is that the default gamma correction is 50 (in the live game and DT benchmark) which completely washes out the colours. Set this to 0 and everything looks much better, especially with the lighting overhaul. Doesn't address everything but looking at some of the screenshots on Twitter/X, the lighting can be really poor at times because of the gamma correction setting (plus that blue background in the character creator is also just a poor reflection of real world game zones).

What else should we react to? There is literally nothing else to react to, and this is in fact why people offered feedback on the previews when those were all that we had to react to, and we still had people telling us to wait for the benchmark then. I've seen problems brought up then that still haven't been addressed, in fact!

I'm very firmly of the opinion that if the player faces can't be fixed in time for DT, it should be kicked down the road at least a major patch. The current quality is completely unacceptable and it's precisely because I don't think it'll be fixed in time that I don't think it should be included at all.

Everyone just becomes a male Roegadyn; "problem" solved.
They look amazing. Really looking forward to Dawntrail.
https://i.imgur.com/MtiahRm.jpeg

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I was invited very early on into the closed alpha of FFXIV 1.0.

It was a mess.

After participating in so many MMO beta tests (First one was either FFXI PS2 beta or Anarchy Online, can't remember) I've found that the amount of impact testers have on the final product is directly related to interaction by the development team on the beta forums. EvE's beta for example had a shit ton of interaction by the devs and they incorporated our rallies for change into the golden master. Age of Conan's however, simple ignored the beta forum altogether, the only dev post for 3 months was the sticky that read, "Welcome to Age of Conan's beta forums".

FFXIV 1.0's beta forum was the later. There were 100 page threads discussing how bad the UI was alone without a single post from the developers. It was just as bad on the Japanese side. There were only a few stickies regarding planned changes, but there was virtually NO developer interaction what so ever.

At one point someone made a "Lets test how often this forum is read" thread that was page upon page of ascii art, just to see if anyone was even reading our suggestions. It was there for weeks. It was obvious no one was listening.

"Beta's are just for bug reporting" is a correct statement, but the forums are the direct line from the top to even describe exactly what the focus is. This time around you can see that clear as day. There is a scope of what the test includes and what exactly you should be doing. For instance this last phase was all about the Duty Finder.

I am using the forums as a example of the vast differences between the two releases, but would you be surprised to hear that what we saw in Alpha for ver 1.0 was basically exactly what was released as a finished product? We were not surprised at all.

This time around, each phase, each post on the beta forums has shown a very dedicated team of developers that are actively progressing the final product in each step. It is night and day and I have had my faith restored that there are enough people listening that any problem can actually be addressed this time around.

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- A reddit user 11 years ago, prior to the launch of ARR

It's almost like forums are an important tool for communicating with the devs so that certain... incidents... best left to history, do not repeat themselves.

I am using my old laptop to run the benchmark. I love the hair and I love some of the changes only thing I wish is for me to be able to have some gloss on my lips and a bit of red/pink. I know I will wait until I get on my PS5 and get into the game before I might change.

I know when I logged into ARR and others too they where like what happened to my character? Mine looked nothing like what I had been playing or so it seemed from 1.0. I changed and never played that face again. They gave us a free fantasia and that was that, like it or lump it.

Looking at the post above I was also a closed Alpha tester the first day March 2010. Nothing was listened to and I am still never suprised lol by the lack of things that are asked for or mentioned, they have improved but there is room for improvement still. The devs are much better at listening now and that is a good thing. I am sure they will be looking at a lot of feedback good and bad.

The page to download the benchmark says that it's the first stage of incremental improvements. Welcome to the open beta. Keep sending feedback. Just try not to be an overdramatic dick about it.

I just like how this one article from 2023 states;

"The goal is to improve the overall look you know and love, rather than to change things to meet a certain threshold. Players have been playing for 10 years, so they want to prioritize and take care to avoid situations where people don’t feel their character looks theirs."

"Yoshida says the final version will be of higher quality, but they really did take care to make sure that your impressions of the characters wouldn’t change. The hair texture, eyes, and skin were ones they paid particular attention to."

I've been on games where they had to completely rework the save system two months before release.

Quite a lot can be done in the last two months, especially for a game where a day 0 patch is not just expected, but can be made mandatory.

While I don't think that they'll overhaul the game in 2 months I still think it's important for players to give their honest feedback. There is a reason why we have male Viera and female Hrothgar. It might now happen in the 2 months leading up to the launch, but we might eventually get some updates or at the very least an option to toggle off the new graphics update.

As it is right now I don't think the upgrade is great. Some faces did receive a very noticeable glow up. But the only thing they did was to smooth out all the textures at the expense of sacrificing detail. I don't think that it is too difficult to go back and add some more detail to some of those faces.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

I've been on games where they had to completely rework the save system two months before release.

Quite a lot can be done in the last two months, especially for a game where a day 0 patch is not just expected, but can be made mandatory.

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I sincerely cannot remember the last time I bought a game that didn't have a day one patch that I had to install before I could play it. Probably back on PS3 at least.

Well, it doesn't hurt to try does it :)

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I sincerely cannot remember the last time I bought a game that didn't have a day one patch that I had to install before I could play it. Probably back on PS3 at least.

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There's always that pesky handful of people who don't have their consoles hooked up to the internet for whatever reason that get the 1.0 experience... well, them and speedrunners.

Players are voicing what's wrong with it now because this is literally the time to do it. If you don't like that players are pointing out how they feel about a character they've been playing for years, then you don't have to read the forum posts about it. Telling players to keep quiet or to just sit down and play regardless is a terrible critique.

This is when SE needs to know that players aren't happy - especially after being told that the company was taking measures to ensure when we turned on our games a character some of us have had for 10 years will still look recognizable to us.

Yes, some things can be tweaked with the gamma settings or altering slightly like skin tones. The creator's lighting was never good and is still not great, but even when viewed in the benchmark itself there are things that don't look right about the character.

Setting down options for SE to look into is exactly the sort of critiques they need regarding the game. Simply ignoring it and never criticizing is what leads to issues.

Its because you all are posting it to general threads that NOBODY READS.

You should make a duplicate of each new graphic issue in bug forums so that human being will see it.

this update is not WIP but release candidate. You either start reporting it as bug with small chances of getting fixed/updated or will will be told "sheesh you players are never happy" until 2036 for next closest visual update.

Our character's appearance is something we see often playing through the MSQ, it is completely justified for people to react and feel the way they do and hope for changes or delays. I understand if your character isn't super important to you or if you got the better end of the stick, but try to understand that other people are not in the same boat.

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

Its because you all are posting it to general threads that NOBODY READS.

You should make a duplicate of each new graphic issue in bug forums so that human being will see it.

this update is not WIP but release candidate. You either start reporting it as bug with small chances of getting fixed/updated or will will be told "sheesh you players are never happy" until 2036 for next closest visual update.

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So if i redo a post there explaining how the face is wrong and providing screenshots and edit to show what can be improved, the post will be read?
My post in general received many reactions of people agreeing the new face is off, but one of the moderator tagged it as a "crying post" where there is in fact a lot of feedbacks that can help the dev updating and give back the vibe it use to have

I just hope it won't lead be to a ban or something, thank you for your input

Nobody's asking them to overhaul the entire graphics update lmao. Peoples issues here are far smaller in scope.

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Originally Posted by Rawazh

So if i redo a post there explaining how the face is wrong and providing screenshots and edit to show what can be improved, the post will be read?
My post in general received many reactions of people agreeing the new face is off, but one of the moderator tagged it as a "crying post" where there is in fact a lot of feedbacks that can help the dev updating and give back the vibe it use to have

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I think it's good that you put attachments with pictures to prove your point.
I think forum tags are available to people so it's most likely someone else doing some mischief with thread tags.

If you believe the change features something not intended, I think its justified to post it also in bug forum and wait for reply. They usually move it, but at least it forces a real breathing human to react and reply on your post.

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

I think it's good that you put attachments with pictures to prove your point.
I think forum tags are available to people so it's most likely someone else doing some mischief with thread tags.

If you believe the change features something not intended, I think its justified to post it also in bug forum and wait for reply. They usually move it, but at least it forces a real breathing human to react and reply on your post.

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I'll prepare a mega post then, thank you very much ♥

Yeah, they give us a fantasia but what if the change is race wide? Do we just throw the character we've grown to know and love away and make a new character because Square decided having a more angular fem au ra face actually wasn't good after all (as an example)? I've had my character the way she is right now for eight years, unchanged. Now she looks soft and cutesyfied, like all the other fem au ra faces, when I built her to not be mega cutesy. Am I supposed to just throw away an almost decade old character, or should I come give feedback like they asked for?

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I sincerely cannot remember the last time I bought a game that didn't have a day one patch that I had to install before I could play it. Probably back on PS3 at least.

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I don't remember Sekiro having one, but then again, everything has to install nowadays, and so I don't pay attention hard enough to remember anyway.

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As far as the graphical update goes, I suspect with the amount the forums have blown up they may issue a statement and give more free fantasias out. Mainly because the JP forums are also blowing up. They're more likely to interact with the playerbase when that happens, though not guaranteed.

Exactly what the OP said. Well said.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

It's understandable after 10 years with the same graphical style, changes are going to be alarming and jarring, and not everyone is going to be happy.

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Change is a part of life. Humans don't like change but it helps to accept, and embrace it. Not being able to adapt to change is why we still do ancient traditions from centuries ago for the sake of it. At a certain point, we just need to look at the technology we have now and move forward.

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But they aren't going to suddenly in the next TWO months rework everything based on forum complaints.

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Although there is a chance they could change something minor before or after it, I think it's unlikely it would happen before release just because the benchmark is meant to allow us to create a character ahead of release.

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flat-out delay Dawntrail to redo it and that is NOT happening.

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No chance. :D

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You're going to get your fantasia

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This fantasia was in anticipation of the reaction as well. So you can find a new look for a new decade if needed.

I have never once felt like my feedback has been taken in to account in any capacity for this game as a whole, I just post because I'm bored.

I don't think anyone(or very few) is expecting them to overhaul the graphic update completely. Most people just have a very criticisms which are completely fair on a lot of cases.

Expressing our opinions on the forum is literally how the dev team knows how we feel. It's how they knew a lot of people didn't like how shiny au ra horns were in a previous show of the new graphics and most likely how they came to be aware of how dark skin looks bad in a lot of lighting in the game.

We shouldn't be putting anyone down for expressing their opinions.

They've already stated they were going to continue to make improvements to the game's visuals so it doesn't hurt to say something about it now. Unfortunately, a lot of issues players have too a fantasia won't help - no doubt many of them have fiddled with what limited options there are in the character creator to try and find things they like. The current threads on both NA and JP are pointing out flaws to hopefully adjust before the release.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLKI5mEb...jpg&name=large

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Originally Posted by Azhyk

They've already stated they were going to continue to make improvements to the game's visuals so it doesn't hurt to say something about it now. Unfortunately, a lot of issues players have too a fantasia won't help - no doubt many of them have fiddled with what limited options there are in the character creator to try and find things they like. The current threads on both NA and JP are pointing out flaws to hopefully adjust before the release.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLKI5mEb...jpg&name=large

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Oh boy that high lighted line screams more complaints. People are going take that line as SE saying we will fix all issues before launch..

For me fantasia is not the answer. There is nothing in the updated CC that gives me the current look of my WoL. They completely took all the sharp angles from elezen faces. It's abysmal.

This whole thing is coming off so half-cooked. I'm very disappointed.

EDIT: I don't give a hoot if -you're- fine with the changes. Good for you. The forums are here to leave feedback and I am leaving some for the devs. Thank you.

I'm more curious as to how the performance of the game will run on PS5 with this graphical update.

I do think there's a bit of over-reaction and nitpicking, especially because they told us this was going to happen. Characters aren't going to look the same. There is ways in which the face is rendered that are going to mean, there's trade-offs to the update. People have to deal with that reality.

However, I don't think that means they shouldn't improve, or cannot improve some of the aspects in this update. Some textures are poor, there's some other issues pointed out like lips and eyes. That kind of stuff can be worked on. Maybe not in the amount of time people are hoping, but if people keep up the feedback they are going to consider what can be done.

I think updating things that look so different from the original ones wont be that much of a task. So just a few face shapes, eyes, nose, and lips.

Freelancers can do that...

So were you not here for the EW benchmark, where they showed male viera having a *massive* slouch and everyone immediately started complaining about it? That was fixed before EW released. The feedback is important.

That being said, we're completely at the mercy of whatever the JP players complain about, because I'm sure they don't even look at the EN forums.

Oh and based on my experience with other games, you should definitely voice your concerns as soon as possible. If you do it after the launch then you will be saying it during their busiest period. They'll be busy with in game updates at that time for events, new store items, etc. In fact thats why most games do their graphical overhaul before new expansion, it just makes sense timing and resource wise.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...92/415/fe9.jpg

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...92/415/fe9.jpg

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Lmao, right? Getting very strong vibes of this in relation to the graphics update feedback.

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Originally Posted by SalamanderIX

I do think there's a bit of over-reaction and nitpicking, especially because they told us this was going to happen. Characters aren't going to look the same. There is ways in which the face is rendered that are going to mean, there's trade-offs to the update. People have to deal with that reality.

However, I don't think that means they shouldn't improve, or cannot improve some of the aspects in this update. Some textures are poor, there's some other issues pointed out like lips and eyes. That kind of stuff can be worked on. Maybe not in the amount of time people are hoping, but if people keep up the feedback they are going to consider what can be done.

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I do think there's always going to be some degree of this, but a lot of the changes aren't "We tried to get really close to the old/existing thing while also updating it. It looks a bit different as a result." but instead someone was like "You know, I never liked that anyway. Let's just change it completely."

The first one is fine and understandable to a degree. The second one is completely contrary to what they've said they would do and going to rightfully upset some people.

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Originally Posted by Diplopod

So were you not here for the EW benchmark, where they showed male viera having a *massive* slouch and everyone immediately started complaining about it? That was fixed before EW released. The feedback is important.

That being said, we're completely at the mercy of whatever the JP players complain about, because I'm sure they don't even look at the EN forums.

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SE,Blizzard,Nexon,etc. Companies that run mmos always treat their foreign consumers like middle red headed step childern. Nature of the beast..

Without getting into motivations, I think it's fine people are upset their characters are different and voice their concerns, it sucks that some things aren't going to be the same. I just worry those types of complaints are going to drown out the conversation about the quality, or lack thereof of the graphical update.

There's a chance the conversation becomes "xiv fans upset their graphics are being changed", when we could be having a more productive conversation about how to make these changes better, and issues with the quality. That was way might see the graphics update improve going forward. But asking them to put the genie back in the bottle isn't likely to change much.

To be fair, some changes can be made. Not huge mind you, but smaller ones. I just hope they take in the feedback (the polite feedback not the angry demanding feedback) and make what changes they can if it seems enough people want it and consider anything else for later.

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Originally Posted by SalamanderIX

Without getting into motivations, I think it's fine people are upset their characters are different and voice their concerns, it sucks that some things aren't going to be the same. I just worry those types of complaints are going to drown out the conversation about the quality, or lack thereof of the graphical update.

There's a chance the conversation becomes "xiv fans upset their graphics are being changed", when we could be having a more productive conversation about how to make these changes better, and issues with the quality. That was way might see the graphics update improve going forward. But asking them to put the genie back in the bottle isn't likely to change much.

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I would argue these things are part of the quality of the graphical update. Right now, it's a very mixed bag. There are some serious technical problems too like their DLSS implementation (which is really bad btw) but it's understandable the characters are the things people will notice most.