We need to compromise as a player base

[Evergrey]

Then I'm not quite sure why you thought your input was needed. I understand that you don't think it's a big deal, but a lot of folks who play this face immediately noticed the difference and objected to it.

But what about people who might like the changes?
Some dislike the update for a certain face while others are happy with the same face.
Who should SE listen to?
Which side is more "right" than the other?

I understand that change is difficult. More so for some than others.
Especially when it comes to something that's been part of oneself for a long time.

I don't side with either side on this topic.
I just understand that everyone's effected by this, some negative while others positive.
I'm just happy that I'm not the one who has to sit there and make a decision that'll benifit one side while damning the other.

Edit:
There are ofc things that I don't see much reason to change to begin with either.
But I am not working in this type of field so I'm sure there are reasons as to why some changes were made.
If it was due to technical reasons or the developers vision, I can't tell.
But there are underlying reasons nontheless.

[Nebty]

But what about people who might like the changes?
Some dislike the update for a certain face while others are happy with the same face.
Who should SE listen to?
Which side is more "right" than the other?

I understand that change is difficult. More so for some than others.
Especially when it comes to something that's been part of oneself for a long time.

I don't side with either side on this topic.
I just understand that everyone's effected by this, some negative while others positive.
I'm just happy that I'm not the one who has to sit there and make a decision that'll benifit one side while damning the other.

The lip/mouth changes are affecting more than just face 2 au ra. It's affecting a whole lot of people and seems tied to the changes they've made with facial rigging. Those changes also resulted in stuff like this:



Show me the person who wants this to stay the same. If you revert the elezen mouths then it only makes sense to fix the au ra duckfaces too.

[Kindred008]

I don't trust screenshots from the character creator. Here's a technical explanation of why I think this happens: there's two ways to illuminate a surface, direct lighting and indirect lighting (all the parts not hit directly by a light source). The later is very expensive and complex to simulate and in the olden days it was very crudely approximated by what was called "ambient lighting", an omnipresent, constant amount of light applied to anything not directly hit by a light source.

Now when it comes to skin, it is translucent, so part of the light that hits the skin gets inside, bounces around and comes back out some distance away. This is called sub surface scattering and is what gives skin a softer lighting than hard surfaces. It is part of the indirect lighting that affects skin (the other part is light bouncing around the environment aka global illumination). Modern games, including dawntrail, approximate the effect of sub surface scattering. But it means that it does a part of the job that ambient lighting did before, so the later has to be toned down.

And I don't think the necessary tweaks have been done in the character creator background scenes (yet), because they look unchanged in general compared to the live game.

I'm going to be honest. As a player, I don't care why the characters look so different. All I care about is that they do look different and not how they did before.

It's up to the developers of the game to work within the limitations to update the graphics while keeping characters identities.

Maybe that is really hard to do. Maybe it's really easy to do. That's not our problem as players.

[Evergrey]

The lip/mouth changes are affecting more than just face 2 au ra. It's affecting a whole lot of people and seems tied to the changes they've made with facial rigging. Those changes also resulted in stuff like this:



Show me the person who wants this to stay the same. If you revert the elezen mouths then it only makes sense to fix the au ra duckfaces too.

I understand that this is important to you, as it is to many others.
But I am not saying that Every change is a good one.
And I specifically said "certain face" and not "all faces" for a reason.
But it wouldn't surprise me if there might be a individual out there who might like.
Everyone's different and I won't shut out the possibility that there might be those who either like/dislike anything.

[Ath192]

I’m sorry, but I don’t agree. People have every right to express their upset, and it is not our job to tone police ourselves so that the devs don’t get scared of trying new things. Many people, myself included, are extremely unhappy with how our characters look, and nebulous ideas about “bringing the game into the future” are not worth the heartbreak of feeling like you’re losing a character you’ve grown attached to for years. Update the graphics, sure, but don’t take our characters from us.

They didn’t take your character from you. When looked at objectively, if you showed the two pictures of your character to a third party that does not play this game and told them they were the same character they would believe you without thinking twice. People are just pixel peeping. So yes, there are subtle differences but I do think they were trying to be faithful to the original low res character.

Further more, it is absolutely worth the heart break of losing a low resolution character when the new one looks similar enough if it means the game will look better over all and attract new players and stay fresh. After all very few people would keep playing the game if everyone quit, and that’s exactly what happens to most outdated games.

So again, provide your feedback about what you would like to see but look at the larger picture. They are VERY similar. If they had to rework assets in the characters I’m sure there were reasons for the differences, adding polygons will slightly alter looks, the person who designed some features originally may no longer be there and the new designer rebuilt the asset in a way they thought was similar, etc etc…

The characters look undeniably similar. I saw you on another page here accusing someone else of being rude, all that’s being asked is that you don’t be rude to the devs and be understanding.

[Fuyume]

But what about people who might like the changes?
Some dislike the update for a certain face while others are happy with the same face.
Who should SE listen to?
Which side is more "right" than the other?

I understand that change is difficult. More so for some than others.
Especially when it comes to something that's been part of oneself for a long time.

I don't side with either side on this topic.
I just understand that everyone's effected by this, some negative while others positive.
I'm just happy that I'm not the one who has to sit there and make a decision that'll benifit one side while damning the other.

Edit:
There are ofc things that I don't see much reason to change to begin with either.
But I am not working in this type of field so I'm sure there are reasons as to why some changes were made.
If it was due to technical reasons or the developers vision, I can't tell.
But there are underlying reasons nontheless.

I just don't understand why they thought changing a face's shape, in some cases quite drastically, would be well received. Those of us who chose that face did so for a reason. For an example, for myself, if I wanted dimples and round cheeks and a pouty mouth, I would've just made a face 1 au ra, why'd they have to hit face 4 with the cutification beam? I've always had a problem with how much more soft and delicate fem au ra look versus how aggressive and strong male au ra look, and "beautifying" the only face that didn't look like a perfect doll just made it worse.

[Nebty]

I understand that this is important to you, as it is to many others.
But I am not saying that Every change is a good one.
And I specifically said "certain face" and not "all faces" for a reason.
But it wouldn't surprise me if there might be a individual out there who might like.
Everyone's different and I won't shut out the possibility that there might be those who either like/dislike anything.

Sure. There are some changes I like a lot (I think they did a good job with the limbal rings). But again, I'm trying to draw attention to and give feedback on the difference that I think is noticeably an issue - i.e. the mouths.

Ultimately, I think we agree that some of the changes have been for the worse and should be reexamined by the team before release, and I am hopeful they will do so.

[Evergrey]

I just don't understand why they thought changing a face's shape, in some cases quite drastically, would be well received. Those of us who chose that face did so for a reason. For an example, for myself, if I wanted dimples and round cheeks and a pouty mouth, I would've just made a face 1 au ra, why'd they have to hit face 4 with the cutification beam? I've always had a problem with how much more soft and delicate fem au ra look versus how aggressive and strong male au ra look, and "beautifying" the only face that didn't look like a perfect doll just made it worse.

Yeah, who knows as to why some changes were made as they did.
Some are very minor and mostly just touched up the textures and polygons while others are more extreme.
I can only guess that seeing how some faces got altered more than others that there has to be some underlying reasons as to why.
Otherwise why would they go such lengths to do so?
Still sucks that peoples beloved faces they've used for ages changes like that.
If we at least knew as to why some changes were more drastic than others, if it had to do with technical reasons like it'll help with ingame animations, perhaps it could help with accepting such drastic changes.
But right now we are just greeted with something that to many effected feels completely unnecessar and I can agree with that.

[Taliriah]

A bit rich coming from someone that's happy with the changes. I also use face four au ra like the person you responded to and she absolutely doesn't look like the same character. If I wanted round cheeks and dimples and a pouty mouth I would've used faces one or two when I created her back at HW launch. She's meant to look tough and stern, not soft and cutesy, and yet I'm having soft and cutesy forced on me and there's nothing I can do unless I want to try to ham fist *another* fantasia into her lore to be something else. After eight years of not changing her.

I'm glad some people only see their characters as an avatar and don't care about the personality portrayed by the face they chose, but I write and make art about my WoL. And this new face 4 is not who she is.

ETA: https://imgur.com/a/ne2RiCu top photo is now, lower two are the benchmark. My tough, stands in the front, weilds a greatsword or a scythe girl now has puffy cheeks, pouty lips, and dimples. I hate it and nothing fixes it. Even if I compromised on the horn shape the other faces are just as soft or softer.

That's a good example of how there is simply no objective reinterpretation of the old characters: all those flaws you point out, to me they were already there in the original version, just a little less defined. To you they were a defect to be ignored and hopefully fixed in the new version, and evidently to the artist who did this they were a part of the character that needed to be brought out.

Likewise I used to play a miqo'te and one of the thing I didn't like was how the cheeks and lips looked a bit puffy. I knew the upgrade could go two ways about it: either remove it and "streamline" the face to something more classical, or on the contrary consider it part of the character and define it better so it was no longer possibly to overlook it. The later is what happened. But I can't say the character is different, it's just that a detail that I didn't like and could pretend didn't exist has become impossible to ignore.

[Evergrey]

Sure. There are some changes I like a lot (I think they did a good job with the limbal rings). But again, I'm trying to draw attention to and give feedback on the difference that I think is noticeably an issue - i.e. the mouths.

Ultimately, I think we agree that some of the changes have been for the worse and should be reexamined by the team before release, and I am hopeful they will do so.

I'm sure that with the huge backlash from all regions that they'll have some serious internal discussions as to how to go forward with this.