We need to compromise as a player base

[Grinnaux]

They're not just 'lighting changes'. I have yet to see a single character that hasn't at least had the textures around the eyes or shape of the lipstick/lip skin changed enough to make a noticeable difference. Examples other threads:

Here SE made the nostrils bigger, the philtrum smaller, the lips no longer have the tubercles, the oral commissure is less pronounced/barely visible, the bridge of the nose has changed entirely, the nostrils are wider and rounder, epicanthal folds were shortened and receded.
He looks soulless, aged, unhappy, like he's had blepharoplasty and rhinoplasty by force at the hands of some Steppe butcher. It's as if all of the characters' happiness and spirit was sucked out of them and shoved into their nostrils.
This is a character my brother helped design before passing away, so I'm especially displeased with how he's so drastically changed. It's not just different textures, his facial structure is affected. He looks similar, yes, but it's not the same character.
Also, his eyelashes are gone.. why?

Here's another picture of the same face, both using nose 6- before and after 7.0's changes.

【目】
上の画像の四角いバーは瞳の中心部から下部までを切り取ったものです。
瞳孔の拡大＋虹彩の強さにより瞳の半分程が黒く見え、選択した色が反映される範囲が極端に狭くなっています。そのため明るくしたくて明るい色を選んでも暗く濁って見えます。
瞳孔がくっきり小さいものからぼんやり大きいものになった事で、焦点があっていない、凛とした意志を感じられない漠然とした視線に変化して見えます。

アイラインだけ環境光の影響を受けないのか、変に浮いている場合があります。


【唇】
ベタ塗りのマット感とかまぼこのような曲線のくっきりしたアウトラインは、従来の逆さ富士のシルエットとやわらかいぼかし表現からすると膨張しぼってりとしすぎて見えます。くっきりしているのにシルエットの中で色のメリハリがないため印象はぼんやり弛緩して見えます。


【鼻】
黒い線で描写されていた鼻が薄い色の大きめの穴になった事と小鼻の膨らみが顕著になった事で、すらっとした細いラインだった鼻筋がずんぐりとした団子鼻になっています。


【鱗】
顔の鱗の先が丸みを帯びた事で従来のすっきりしたシャープな印象が失われ、もたついた感じがします。



【全体】
瞳孔の拡大、鼻の拡大、唇のベタ塗り、鱗の丸々した形状。以上の影響で、全体的にずんぐりむっくりもったりした印象になりました。薄い刃のようなシャープな雰囲気や、影のある少年のような凛々しさ、神秘的な美しさを感じてアウラの顔タイプ４を愛用しているのですが、新版からはそのような鋭さは皆失われたように思います。

個々の顔パーツが拡大し顔のデフォルメ感漫画感平面感が強くなった一方で、小鼻・人中・口の端のような本来形を消したい部分にリアルめな凸凹の陰影がつくようになり、不自然さの原因になっています。

実際のゲームプレイのライティングに関してはまだわかりませんが、パーツの形、大きさ、バランスに関してはライティングの環境如何でどうにかなることではないと思います。

肌の質感テクスチャ＋目まわりのコントラストの弱さが原因ではと思うのですが、ぱっと見たとき逆に「あれ？顔面の解像度低くない？がびがびしてるな…」という印象を受けることがあります。また、おそらくモデル自体のテクスチャへの描き込みや影・ハイライト等による立体表現が顕著に減っているせいで、色々な比較画像を見ている中ライティングが弱い状況の場合なんだかPS1かPS2のゲームのキャラクターを見ているような感覚になってくる事があります。

全体的に環境光や反射光を反映しすぎなのか、肌色が黄ばんだり緑がかって濁って見えがちです。

広角レンズで撮ったような、顔のパーツが外側に広がるような印象があります。鼻の下は間延びして見えます。目頭から瞳までの白目の幅が広くなっていて、瞳がわずかに外側を向いています。

【要望】
・元に戻すために必要な措置として
　　瞳孔　70％程度の大きさに
　　リップの形　かまぼこ型から逆さ富士型に
　　リップの質感　グラデぼかしや艶感で情報量を増やす
　　鼻　ずんぐり団子鼻になっているので小さく細く
　　顔の鱗　鋭く
　　デフォルト表情の視線を鋭いニュアンスに
　　下がった目尻を上げる

It's okay to be faceblind, but don't take it out on others by gaslighting them so you can defend a multi-billion dollar company from the player feedback they asked for.

[Puddor]

The problem with the compromise attitude is that this is a poor time to ask people to make compromises. We're coming off of some deeply unengaging patch content and a lot of people who have continued to play have been focused on GPOSE and storytelling. People are hyper-focused on their characters right now because stuff that usually pulls attention, like relic grind or trial series or even glam grind, aren't present in post-EW patches (raiders are in their own hole and I guarantee most of them don't care). The compromise you're speaking of will not be people just 'getting over it', it will be people not playing Dawntrail at launch or leaving the game permanently. And you can 'ha ha let them leave then I can log in on launch', players leaving the game is detrimental to the health of the game on a global scale, especially when we're apparently getting a new limited job and field expedition.

Sure, tell people to compromise; because accepting it and moving on has benefitted us so well in the past, right?

[KhujaRela]

It's my first time posting in forums (from yesterday) and I really don't understand why it's written the same over and over in different threads...

I believe people who is not conforming has the right to give feedback and ask/hope for an improvement. It's being asked, not imposed... In fact many people has stated the possibility to make it a toggle option, so the ones who really like the new features can keep them.

But some people seems to treat this complains as crazy or some kind of harassement, I really don't get why, we all here love the game the same; if we didn't we wouldn't stress as much about this update.

Also, I believe that people who actually likes the changes, is in their right to go and post it, in fact I've seen a lot of 'I love the new face!' and nobody went to these people and said them 'oh well you shouldn't'. But a lot of people went and say 'you don't like it? well I DO like it'. Come on, it's not even your character...

Also, if developers say there is nothing to be done, that's it, but for now we don't even know about it. I don't know how hard or easy would be to change this stuff. Please be respectful on people opinions and feedback; Dawntrail is definitely not going to be delayed for something like this, so I don't think it's necessary this confrontation over and over.

[Ceetee]

Well let me clarify what compromise in this post means so we're clear. We wanted a graphics update and its happening, but some things may look different, and we need to take the pros and deal with the cons while providing feedback on what to work on. I'm not happy about some things, but they are so, so minor in comparison to the overall improvement.

Here is something I don't like, I agree they nerfed my moon Miqos fangs. But its okay, its been made known here, and despite that, I am still ready to go forward into dawntrail and accept this compromise. Hopefully they see this feedback and fix it, but I am ready to compromise and accept this trade off if need be.

No, I understood you perfectly. You are happy with the changes, and think the pros outweigh the cons, and think other people should be as well, which is what I said.

I DON'T actually think this graphics update was needed at all.

I've seen people make false equivalence arguments about how we got this instead of more content. I know that isn't how game development works, and the teams handling the update are not the ones designing content. However the ones modeling our outfits and characters ARE, in fact, the ones modeling our outfits and characters. I would much rather the time they spent plastering unremoveable makeup on my characters face and completely changing its shape, to have instead been spent actually making Modern Aesthetic's catelogues work on Hrothgar and Viera, and removing gender locks on gear instead.

Instead of a graphical update that every time the devs previewed it they preemptively said "I know it doesn't LOOK like a big change BUT..."

But if it was just stuff looking better, whatever. That would be fine. But it ISN'T that. It's complete changes to people's characters with no regard for why people might have picked those options in the first place, which honestly ISN'T something I want to support actually.

All of this on top of the actual cost of the game requiring more resources to run now. This isn't FFXVI. It's not a single player experience that I want to be a beautiful spectacle as I play. It's a multi-player game. People being forced out of the game because they can't run it anymore DOES actually affect the experience for me.

So again, this isn't a compromise. This is "Some people get what they want and everyone else just has to deal with the consequences", and I don't think expecting people to not get upset at that is a reasonable expectation.

[Ath192]

All of this on top of the actual cost of the game requiring more resources to run now. This isn't FFXVI. It's not a single player experience that I want to be a beautiful spectacle as I play. It's a multi-player game. People being forced out of the game because they can't run it anymore DOES actually affect the experience for me.

Didn't they just say the number of preorders already blew past Endwalker? Let me tell you the graphics update has been the biggest selling point of this expansion, meaning you can thank it for bringing in tons new people, more than ever before, to play a multiplayer game that is no longer stagnating and getting modernized.

So, it seems like the experience is getting better for you, based on this comment, and the stated facts they just mentioned in the PLL.

[Scintilla]

In fact many people has stated the possibility to make it a toggle option, so the ones who really like the new features can keep them.

Who is to say that this is even remotely possible? I would imagine these changes are integral adaptions to the current system and, I admit, I struggle to see how a simple toggle would be a plausible option at all. Great if it is - those who hate the new look can opt-out of it and those who like it can keep it. But I don't think it's likely. I can't help but think that, again, people are setting unrealistic expectations which will end in disappointment.

[Windfire]

And sales being "greater" have totally NOTHING to do with the influx of xBox players ammirite? (remember in corporate speak greater could be 200, technically true but worded to sound better then it is)

[AirisRay]

I'm really wondering what kind of compromise I should agree to when my character was simply broken?
Here we are not even talking about changed facial features (even despite the fact that her lips have changed beyond recognition).

All Miqote faces are affected by this. Least affected - face 4. Most affected - face 3. Her face.

If you remove the lower part of the face, it looks great. Better than I could have expected. I really like it. The top is perfect.
But the lower half of her face is simply broken. This is not light. Over the past few days I have looked at her from all angles before and after. I looked at her frame by frame in the benchmark, when the light falls on her entire face. No other race has this, I checked everyone.







I found the root of the problem, I understood what was changed. The middle of the mouth and surrounding areas are simply pressed inward for reasons unknown to me. I wrote about it in several topics on the forum and I will write about it in Bug Reports. Perhaps I will try to write about this on the Japanese forum. I don't know what else I can do to get this noticed.

And what kind of compromise can there be? Silently agree to play a broken character who becomes a freak when the light shines on her face? Fantasia will not help here. Any lips on her face look the same. Not even in terms of aesthetics or similarity.

I don't want any compromises. I want this to be noticed and fixed before 7.0 release. Because it's not a matter of aesthetics. This is a matter of error in physical model.
Honestly, I can hardly imagine how this could have gone unnoticed...

[Fawkes]

I think we probably need to hear from Yoshi-P, since it's clear a lot of the problems are definitely goof ups, so maybe most of the difference are. Like the moonkeeper fangs are probably a mistake and not on purpose, but if they can screw something like that up maybe they screwed up some other things like some lips.

It would be really bizarre if they said all that stuff about not wanting to ruin anyone's image of their character, only to then completely donk up like 1 in every 6 faces on purpose.

[Wyssahtyn]