Yoshida gives update on the benchmark/character creator

[Yencat]

It's because of you and other folks that Dawntrail is most likely going to be delayed by 3-4 months with all of these demands. Just waiting for the announcement any day now.

Chill. They might be open to all feedback but that doesn't mean they're going to do anything with all of it, that'd be impossible.

[Doopliss]

At least in my case, there was nothing added deliberately.

Here is my character as he is now:



Here he is in the benchmark:



I did choose some facepaint to give the eyes more of a "glow" - I did not, and would not, add eyeliner. It would pretty much contradict the whole aesthetic around the eyes I was attempting to create. But yeah, not a case of the makeup I added being too dark. It's dark makeup added baseline. And that's not something I'm a fan of.

To be clear, I love 99% of what they've done. But this was enough of a dealbreaker to have me come to the forums to complain about it.

I apologize for not being clear, but this is what I meant. I should have specified "baked-in" makeup, in particular, has been added on or increased to a lot of races/genders, and that has been, thankfully, noted and criticized by many! I'm with you in thinking this is an unnecessary change, as there are already generally options to make a character's eyes pop out more by using contrast. I don't believe it's fair to make the more "natural" look impossible in turn. Like you, I also have characters that I feel this change affected negatively.

[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."

[faiarrow]

It's because of you and other folks that Dawntrail is most likely going to be delayed by 3-4 months with all of these demands. Just waiting for the announcement any day now.

This is not the take you think it is.

Criticism is important to address issues, the developers have noted they have wanted feedback from the start when they began showcasing the updates last year.

The alternative is we could've just gotten a real big ol' surprise when it hit retail with no ability to provide feedback and a heap of changes. Which do you think would be the easier situation to manage from a community and PR perspective, along with a workflow for the team point of view?

[Isurith]

I am going to be so upset if they end up delaying Dawntrail because of all of this. And don't mess with the female hrothgar. I made the perfect one with Face 4 and I don't want them to overly change anything.

( Yeah, i know, some miss steps on characters doesn't make the game bad, but crying at a delay to fix things is pueril )

[Loggos]

This is heartening. I’ll continue sharing my concerns not addressed in the message. Afterall, it’s what he WANTS us to do, and has asked us to do everytime something new is implemented into the game. I’ve personally not seen anyone give feedback that isn’t constructive criticism, that would count as “doom and gloom”. We’re doing exactly what the devs want and we need to continue doing so. But we also need to temper our optimism. There’s no guarantee any changes will put things back to a state where we’re completely happy, and honestly that’s to be expected. I only wish I could contribute to the JP forum too, so I’d feel more confident about being heard (or could at least see if some of my unmentioned concerns are shared with that side of the playerbase).

Some people have given successful feedback by using translators it seems. Apparently even google translate does an ok job in that regard. I don't know how well it works personally but apparently some of the auto-translated feedback still got a seizable amount of likes.

Here are some posts talking about it:
1
2
3

[Raim]

Remember to keep posting feedback on things like changed eye and nose shapes, Moonie fangs and the eyeliner stuff.

[Swordsman]

Does SE plan on paying us? This crowdsourced quality assurance testing is going quite well for them.

[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.

[Ath192]

Some people have given successful feedback by using translators it seems. Apparently even google translate does an ok job in that regard. I don't know how well it works personally but apparently some of the auto-translated feedback still got a seizable amount of likes.

Here are some posts talking about it:
1
2
3

You do know they listen to the English forums too right? There’s no need to jump through hoops.