[Character Graphics Update]: Second Benchmark Worries

[Plushy]

Prioritizing the players that currently player au ra and like their smaller pupils is the correct decision.

However, an even better decision is to allow the OPTION to have bigger pupils if we want to have them. If the devs decide to make the bigger pupils default and have no option to make them smaller, the people upset with this would be well within their right to be upset as the image of the character has clearly been altered from the original. Not everyone wants to make their au ra a cute doll character and so the change is jarring. Further, because the pupil is so big, less of the umbral rings colour can be seen.

I'm glad you like the look, but the priority should always be to please the current playerbase who play that race. The same is true for the lighter eyebrows/eyelashes etc.

I hope they revert those changes at the very least, but the best case scenario is that they make it an option and have it default to small pupils as that was the only option before.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
But just for clarity. My main is a au ra female, one of them anyway but its basically my actual main and my girlfriend she's au ra majority of her playtime, she just has a fantasia addiction and swaps between viera and au ra many times, but she's mainly an au ra player. Sorry for the confusion to you and others saying they should please current au ra players as I am one and her as well basically.

[CecMiller]

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
But just for clarity. My main is a au ra female, one of them anyway but its basically my actual main and my girlfriend she's au ra majority of her playtime, she just has a fantasia addiction and swaps between viera and au ra many times, but she's mainly an au ra player. Sorry for the confusion to you and others saying they should please current au ra players as I am one and her as well basically.

Thats fair and I hope they're able to make both areas of the playerbase happy. I still think that the pupil size should closely match what is currently the default of EW (where bigger pupils are not at option). Forcing au ra players to be bigger pupils when they may have designed their characters look over a specific eye setup/eye stare is not ideal given that they want to make sure characters look as close as possible.

But for sure, my ideal world is we get to choose so we can all be happy with our choices. I just don't think it was a good idea to change the pupil size with seemingly no input from the playerbase as it does not match the current au ra look, though I do appreciate that many find the look ideal and will want to use the bigger pupil option.

[SongOfTheWind]

Thats fair and I hope they're able to make both areas of the playerbase happy. I still think that the pupil size should closely match what is currently the default of EW (where bigger pupils are not at option). Forcing au ra players to be bigger pupils when they may have designed their characters look over a specific eye setup/eye stare is not ideal given that they want to make sure characters look as close as possible.

The issue with the bigger pupils is also that they are making 2 colour option kinda nonexistent. I think devs made the pupils redesign when they were going to get rid of the limbal rings, but then based on feedback returned the rings, while also didn’t rethink the effect. As a result limbal rings plus enlarged pupils are covering “base” colour almost entirely.

[Plushy]

The issue with the bigger pupils is also that they are making 2 colour option kinda nonexistent. I think devs made the pupils redesign when they were going to get rid of the limbal rings, but then based on feedback returned the rings, while also didn’t rethink the effect. As a result limbal rings plus enlarged pupils are covering “base” colour almost entirely.

I have to respectfully disagree when it comes to not being able to see the eyes well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ew_au_ra_eyes/
I think it really depends on the color of your eyes I believe and also the lighting which I hope serves well in the update.

Sorry if you feel like you’re being dog piled here, but I have to agree with everyone else in here so far. I understand where you’re coming from though, I really do. You’re happy about the changes. Your character looks better to you now. That is great! I truly want that for you. Understand though that while these changes have made you happy, the same changes have made a lot of people very sad. When you have some people that are happy and some that are upset, and both sides feelings are valid, it becomes a matter of priorities and intent. The developers have to weigh the options and decide which group to satisfy (I’m assuming they can’t just add more facial options and make us both happy. The CC limitations probably need their own huge effort to update)

So on one hand you have players who have gone from content to upset. The face they grew attached to changed too much and looks like a stranger to them now. Many of them will have carried the same character through the whole games story. (The changes aren’t limited to what’s caused by lighting as many detailed comparisons of the character mesh have been made both here and on the JP forums.)

On the other hand you have players who have gone from content to even more content. They were already using the faces as they were, or they like the new look of a face and want to switch to it. They weren’t as attached or invested in their characters previous appearance as the other group. They also don’t have years of attachment to these new features like the other group has to the old ones. They are upset by the idea of not getting the new features but were not upset prior, and would not have been upset if the new features remained the same but higher quality.

It makes more sense to prioritize the first group here. You can aim to keep things in a place where everyone was mostly content, or enter a new place where some people are really happy but others are really sad. But if that’s not as clear cut a choice to you, then you have to consider what the developers intent has been through this process:

It’s pretty clear what the intent of the dev team was, and that further adds weight to prioritizing the first group. We’ll see what happens, and I would love more than anything to just get an expanded CC with both closer matches to old features and new prettier features for those that want that. Realistically unlikely though.

I’m of course biased because I’m of the group who is unhappy with what happened to my characters features, but I’ve tried to explore this as objectively as I can and I feel the conclusion is pretty obvious. I don’t have any more control over the situation than you and I doubt I have any influence on it either. This is more a general appeal to other players. While I want you to have new facial features you like more than the existing ones, all things considered it just makes more sense for those to come further down the line with a proper CC update.

No worries I understand people are upset so I can understand seeing people happy with the changes can make people not happy.

[CecMiller]

I have to respectfully disagree when it comes to not being able to see the eyes well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ew_au_ra_eyes/
I think it really depends on the color of your eyes I believe and also the lighting which I hope serves well in the update.


No worries I understand people are upset so I can understand seeing people happy with the changes can make people not happy.

Unfortunately, this can go both ways.

Here is a before and after for Male Au ra where most of the main colour for the eyes is lost:




The issue also is that the colours have become more muted as you can see from this detailed JP response with 115 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6446796


Or another example with 229 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...24#post6440724

[Plushy]

Unfortunately, this can go both ways.

Here is a before and after for Male Au ra where most of the main colour for the eyes is lost:




The issue also is that the colours have become more muted as you can see from this detailed JP response with 115 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6446796


Or another example with 229 likes:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...24#post6440724

The level of detail is honestly scary of people pointing out what is different that I don't even notice.
The only clearly noticeable thing when it comes to au ra is just the pupils were bigger when I first saw my au ra!

Impressive honestly, but in regards to the male au ra. Yeah I can see what you mean now. Though hopefully with the change in lighting this will fix this as I seen some nice male au ra that you can see their eyes fine. I also think people might need to do some tweaking like yoshi-p said which is why we're all getting free fantasia to adjust colors. Him saying that makes me think that fixing the colors isn't possible and just a difference in lighting rather than the color palette changing/have changed. The first post also says they'll wait until the update to see if it fixes so guess we'll see.
But overall I can see what you're talking about since male au ra overall eye size is smaller than female au ra, theirs seems more blended in and darker though ironically I think it looks really cool, though I don't play male au ra so my opinion on the matter doesn't carry much weight.