Yoshida gives update on the benchmark/character creator

[Scintilla]

JP:

Person 1: I have a problem.
Person 2: I have another problem.
Person 3: I have the same problem a person 1.

EN:

Person 1: I have a problem.
Person 2: I don't have a problem.
Person 3: There is no problem.
Person 4: Even if there is a problem, you should stop complaining.
Person 5: Problem isn't worth addressing.
Person 6: I have another problem.
Person 7: No, you don't.
etc etc

Far more like -

EN:

Person 1: I have a problem.
Person 2: I have another problem
Person 3: I have a different problem
Person 4: I don't have a problem and, if it makes you feel any better, I quite like how your character looks now
Person 5: If you have a problem, try this: xxx
Person 1: Stop trying to help me, this doesn't work. You're dismissing my problems. I don't care what you think
Person 2: Don't feed the trolls, just ignore them
Person 5: What did I do?
Person 1: *Resort to insults*

[Loggos]

Far more like -

EN:

Person 1: I have a problem.
Person 2: I have another problem
Person 3: I have a different problem
Person 4: I don't have a problem and, if it makes you feel any better, I quite like how your character looks now
Person 5: If you have a problem, try this: xxx
Person 1: Stop trying to help me, this doesn't work. You're dismissing my problems. I don't care what you think
Person 2: Don't feed the trolls, just ignore them
Person 5: What did I do?
Person 1: *Resort to insults*

I'm sorry but this is incredibly disingenuous and simply warps a lot of what has been said.

1. Many people have tried many things. Shaders, lighting, different angles etc. etc. "Stop trying to help me" is just a strawman to infantilise a big chunk of the people who you disagree with by painting them as stubborn impulsive toddlers who put their hands over their ears while the wise and mature adult says "but have you tried this". When in reality many people have meticulously documented differences, tried many different settings and possess knowledge in areas like lighting effects and 3D modeling. Some have even gone so far as to data mine to prove certain things.

2. "I think your character looks nice" is also quite dismissive because it doesn't help anybody if someone else thinks a character looks nice. The player in question has to think their character looks nice. I also personally think a few benchmark characters look nicer according to my taste.
However telling them will most certainly not make them feel better. It might come across as pretty patronising if someone explains in detail why they are dissatisfied and what changes they have observed only to be hit with "Why do you complain, I think this is nice." when the broader context of the discussion is "It's not that bad/It's not there. You are exaggerating/you have rose-tinted glasses on". That is just another brand of "you are being irrational".
It can also come across like "Now your character looks better. If you like your old one then you have bad taste bc the old one is objectively worse."

[Catwho]

I'm sorry but this is incredibly disingenuous and simply warps a lot of what has been said.

1. Many people have tried many things. Shaders, lighting, different angles etc. etc. "Stop trying to help me" is just a strawman to infantilise a big chunk of the people who you disagree with by painting them as stubborn impulsive toddlers who put their hands over their ears while the wise and mature adult says "but have you tried this". When in reality many people have meticulously documented differences, tried many different settings and possess knowledge in areas like lighting effects and 3D moddeling. Some have even gone so far as to data mine to prove certain things."

The thing is, I noted that stuff like eye-shines, hair shine, and lip shine worked in aetherial sea, but didn't work that well in the outside zones, which matches pretty much what Yoshi P said about the character creator lighting not being updated. The vast majority of the before/after shots we saw as the "apples to apples" were done in Ul'dah outside zone, and if that outside zone had lighting optimized for the old characters but not the new ones, it explains quite a few of the issues.

[Loggos]

The thing is, I noted that stuff like eye-shines, hair shine, and lip shine worked in aetherial sea, but didn't work that well in the outside zones, which matches pretty much what Yoshi P said about the character creator lighting not being updated. The vast majority of the before/after shots we saw as the "apples to apples" were done in Ul'dah outside zone, and if that outside zone had lighting optimized for the old characters but not the new ones, it explains quite a few of the issues.

I'm not saying lighting has absolutely no influence on certain changes. Lighting is of course very powerful and I don't mean to dismiss that at all. But over the course of this discussion "you just have not tried xyz" has become a bit of a blanket statement towards many points of criticism even when people had already proven that their points of contention were in fact not caused by lighting (e.g., showing features had been remodeled) and that they had tried out the proposed solutions (shaders, lighting).

[Ath192]

I'm not saying lighting has absolutely no influence on certain changes. Lighting is of course very powerful and I don't mean to dismiss that at all. But over the course of this discussion "you just have not tried xyz" has become a bit of a blanket statement towards many points of criticism even when people had already proven that their points of contention were in fact not caused by lighting (e.g., showing features had been remodeled) and that they had tried out the proposed solutions (shaders, lighting).

Ok but this has to be said. Given the amount of changes and desires you do know they can't leave each character exactly like everyone likes it right? Even as we speak they are probably rolling back changes others liked and now they will be disappointed too.

This is where the playerbase needs to compromise and say, okay this is not the same but it's pretty good, maybe they can also do "X"

If you have a picture from 10 years ago that you love, but the paper and image is getting old, and you ask the creators to draw it again for you, it's going to be similar, but I think people can agree it will never be the same because it got redrawn. They didn't go to MS Paint and resized the image to 150% and added a sharpen filter in photoshop. They actually redid the characters.

[HollowedDoll]

Ok but this has to be said. Given the amount of changes and desires you do know they can't leave each character exactly like everyone likes it right? Even as we speak they are probably rolling back changes others liked and now they will be disappointed too.

This is where the playerbase needs to compromise and say, okay this is not the same but it's pretty good, maybe they can also do "X"

If you have a picture from 10 years ago that you love, but the paper and image is getting old, and you ask the creators to draw it again for you, it's going to be similar, but I think people can agree it will never be the same because it got redrawn. They didn't go to MS Paint and resized the image to 150% and added a sharpen filter in photoshop. They actually redid the characters.

Please don't equate 2D artist using 10 year old faded TP as a reference to 3D artists using 3D reference, it's embarassing. There will be some changes due to higher polycount but that would mostly be reduction in super sharp edges on jawlines and such, not completely a different shape. That said most of the actual issues people have bought up are on the texture side of things, some of which it does look like references weren't as heavily used. It's worth noting that the texture resolution has not drastically jumped up, so it's not exactly a guesswork of what was the original intention with said shapes. Another thing is that they cut down some unique features; like eye textures are frequently shared now between different races and clans, while as previously this wasn't the case. There's also the forced eye makeup and such that would be great as new options, but as it is I think they should just stick to their earlier promise and try to change as little as possible, then they can worry about people who want something else than what we had.

[Ath192]

Please don't equate 2D artist using 10 year old faded TP as a reference to 3D artists using 3D reference, it's embarassing. There will be some changes due to higher polycount but that would mostly be reduction in super sharp edges on jawlines and such, not completely a different shape.

Please open your eyes to reality and realize there was minor changes in shape, and anyone with a benchmark can run them and see them, it's embarrassing.

[Scintilla]

snip

It very much doesn't. It certainly wouldn't be hard to find examples of exactly this, given that forum is full of it at the moment.

1. People have tried many things, it's true. But it continues to remain the case that at any mention of the word 'lighting' or any slight suggestion from a kind-hearted user trying to offer help (who for all we know may not have been closely following the very active threads to realise it's already been suggested in the past), they are instantly labelled as 'troll' and bombarded with posts on how their views and opinion is irrelevant - with this quickly descending to outright insults just a few posts later. Which is quite funny given that 'lighting' and 'shaders' are mentioned repeatedly throughout most of the benchmark update post... but that's diverging from the point of my response.

2. Does it fix the problem? No. Is it rude or offensive? Also no. It is a perfectly understandable way for someone to try to offer reassurance to someone who is clearly quite emotional about a current change. Whether it's the best way to phrase it is debatable, I admit. But it certainly doesn't warrant the far overblown responses they've received in return. It's solely patronizing because you interpret it as being patronizing. Intent matters and many of these comments were not made with negative intent in mind. Practically anything can be read an insult if the 'victim' interprets it that way. It still does not mean it was.

There is little surprise that even the most understanding and empathic posters have quickly lost what patience they had with some of the players here.

[Loggos]

It very much doesn't. It certainly wouldn't be hard to find examples of exactly this, given that forum is full of it at the moment.

1. People have tried many things, it's true. But it continues to remain the case that at any mention of the word 'lighting' or any slight suggestion from a kind-hearted user trying to offer help (who for all we know may not have been closely following the very active threads to realise it's already been suggested in the past), they are instantly labelled as 'troll' and bombarded with posts on how their views and opinion is irrelevant - with this quickly descending to outright insults just a few posts later. Which is quite funny given that 'lighting' and 'shaders' are mentioned repeatedly throughout most of the benchmark update post... but that's diverging from the point of my response.

2. Does it fix the problem? No. Is it rude or offensive? Also no. It is a perfectly understandable way for someone to try to offer reassurance to someone who is clearly quite emotional about a current change. Whether it's the best way to phrase it is debatable, I admit. But it certainly doesn't warrant the far overblown responses they've received in return. It's solely patronizing because you interpret it as being patronizing. Intent matters and many of these comments were not made with negative intent in mind. Practically anything can be read an insult if the 'victim' interprets it that way. It still does not mean it was.

There is little surprise that even the most understanding and empathic posters have quickly lost what patience they had with some of the players here.

We will have to agree to disagree.

It is interesting that you portray people feeling patronised as "interpreting it that way" when you do quite a bit of interpreting when it comes to others' feelings yourself.
You call it "clearly quite emotional because of current change". But perhaps that's an interpretation, and one that overlooks the fact that people are not averse to change but have valid concerns regarding existing issues and bring up lots of sourced constructive criticism.

You also call it "overblown responses". But perhaps that is an interpretation itself. Perhaps you perceive the responses as overblown when they might in fact be understandable frustration stemming from the issue that the sourced constuctive criticism is often dismissed and pushed into the "exaggerated, haven't tried this or that, rose-tinted glasses" corner.

The lighting thing is a good example. Several people have tried to point out that we don't think the current lighting is awesome and more flattering. It's not. What we tried to say is that there is congruence in our characters' features across all current lighting conditions, no matter how horrible, and that in the benchmark this congruence is not there. And some of that lack in congruence is not due to lighting but due to remodeling. Yet this explanation is mostly ignored and the much simpler narrative of "people are allergic to the lighting word" remains.

Anyways, it's clear we will not end up on the same page about this, since it seems we are not able to change each other's perspective.

[Scintilla]

We will have to agree to disagree.

It seems we will

You call it "clearly quite emotional because of current change". But perhaps that's an interpretation, and one that overlooks the fact that people are not averse to change but have valid concerns regarding existing issues and bring up lots of sourced constructive criticism.

No, far from being 'my interpretation' that point comes directly from the complaints within forum (I have removed the names for the posters anonymity, but feel free to search them if you don't believe me):

I'd like to think these emotional responses stem out of a deep love for their character

It's honestly been an emotional experience for me.

I think a lot of the more elevated emotional response is also born from the fact that every live letter we were constantly reassured that things are not going to be drastically changed and that spirit would have special care taken for it and yet here we are.

You're not a weirdo, you do not need to touch grass and you most certainly aren't "taking it too seriously" just because you have grown attached to your virtual avatar.

Absolutely golden words. Thank you for this wisdom.

Including your own:

From a realistic business point though I do think it's a risky move to actively resculpt certain features that have always been there and that, in a character driven game, players have grown attached to

All including highly emotive words like 'love', 'attachment' and, of course, 'emotion' itself. There will be many more out there if you care to look.

You also call it "overblown responses". But perhaps that is an interpreation itself. Perhaps you perceive the responses as overblown when they might in fact be understandable frustration stemming from the issue that the sourced constuctive criticism is often dismissed and pushed into the "exaggerated, haven't tried this or that, rose-tinted glasses" corner.

There appears to be an element of frustration, no doubt. But should this frustration be taken out on other posters purely because they have tried to innocently offer some good-willed advice or kindly reassurance?

And even in the event that it was made in retort to a user expressing their opinion that they personally feel that changes are minimal and acceptable. That remains their opinion. As long as it is done politely, they have just as much right to voice it as you have to voice your thoughts that changes have been made.

The lighting thing is a good example. Several people have tried to point out that we don't think the current lighting is awesome and more flattering. It's not. What we tried to say is that there is congruence in our characters' features across all current lighting conditions, no matter how horrible, and that in the benchmark this congruence is not there. And some of that lack in congruence is not due to lighting but due to remodeling. Yet this explanation is mostly ignored and the much simpler narrative of "people are allergic to the lighting word" remains.

Again, as above. You share your thoughts and opinions. They share theirs. I don't see why this is an issue purely because their opinion doesn't meet with yours?