New Benchmark (June): Au Ra Feedback

[Irishfae]

I appreciate all of you who tried while I was called away to work. <3

[Kuro_Matsu]

Sorry for the slightly off-topic interjection but since you post on the Japanese side of the forum a lot could you perhaps post the link for the Japanese benchmark player feedback thread again? I lost it unfortunately. orz
Are they still using the old one or have they started a new one for the 1.1. benchmark?

Forgive me for butting in though the question wasn't pointed towards me.

On the JP side they have made a mega thread. Page 116 starts the feedback for Benchmark v1.1.

Thread: グラフィックアップデートに関する意見・要望・議論

[Loggos]

Forgive me for butting in though the question wasn't pointed towards me.

On the JP side they have made a mega thread. Page 116 starts the feedback for Benchmark v1.1.

Thread: グラフィックアップデートに関する意見・要望・議論

Thank you so much!

[Irishfae]

On the JP side they have made a mega thread. Page 116 starts the feedback for Benchmark v1.1.

Thank you!

From what I'm seeing they are saying the same thing that the EN forums are saying. So, hopefully, we'll see some of the changed elements reverted back. /fingerscrossed

[Egggi]

Modeling the subtleties of forms in 3D is actually quite hard, so I sympathize with the challenge. If I could pick one thing to fix though, it would be the mouth & cheeks.

That's all!

This perfectly captures my biggest issue still with my Xaela. Given the state that the updated benchmark came in and that there seems to be less discourse about it in general, I think this is a stylistic change they're not interested in doing much about. I mean they've shown a ton of changes to some other races but it's like us Au Ra are getting the cold shoulder. Seems 'pudgy doll face' is the new normal Face 4 and my character aesthetic isn't something they're interested in preserving after all.

[Asteri]

I went through yet another round of comparison and yep, I'm strongly hoping there will be some changes before Dawntrail releases because the more I look at it, the less I recognize my character on the Benchmark. :<

Lips were easy to spot with how different they looked, but comparing the images made me realize the eye shape is wildly different and the nose is shorter/narrower as well. It's really draining my hype for Dawntrail, I don't want to do MSQ on a stranger.

[Kuro_Matsu]

Thank you so much!

You're welcome.

Thank you!

From what I'm seeing they are saying the same thing that the EN forums are saying. So, hopefully, we'll see some of the changed elements reverted back. /fingerscrossed

I'm keeping my expectations tempered. These changes seem to be of stylistic nature and not "errors". But I keep my fingers crossed that they change at least some of these things, too. I don't think it'll be in Dawntrail though, even with enough of us putting in our concerns.

I've done what I can to change my Au Ra main, but that was limited to just the eye color. The reshaping is another thing entirely. I'll either come to the end of the acceptance phase or change to another look entirely. I hope it doesn't come to the latter. I'll be sad to lose a character I've loved and barely changed for the last 8 years.

[Plushy]

Thank you!

From what I'm seeing they are saying the same thing that the EN forums are saying. So, hopefully, we'll see some of the changed elements reverted back. /fingerscrossed

I'm only saying this not because I want you to lose hope but because this mind set NA players have that if "JP complains things will change" is really odd and silly...Just because the jp players complain doesn't mean things will change. If that was the case we would have kaiten back because they complained about as hard as NA did.

There are other regions than just NA and JP.
There is South Korea, China, Germany and France.
The reason why au ra had minimal changes is because compared to something like moon/keepers miqo'te fangs being shorter which was pretty universal, the complaining about au ra wasn't as big as some people really liked it and some didn't and it also didn't help that most the complains were from mostly type 4 au ra (the horn type you have) or something like the colors being off and other minor things.
More people liked the au ra changes than disliked. I've already shown X/twitter posts of it being extremely liked, having 5-5.9k likes with almost half a million views and lots of praises.


https://twitter.com/elimido12/status...45452600279183 5.9k
https://twitter.com/ppr_choco/status...44015141261431 5.7k Likes
https://twitter.com/kazula_ggnr/stat...92179143323929 2k Likes
https://twitter.com/Ms_irene8D/statu...82195567231397 1.8k Likes
https://twitter.com/monamomm/status/1797591808534565081 726 Likes
https://twitter.com/FF14_DAM_/status...38494518337772 435 Likes
https://twitter.com/cheliseul/status...31807631728770 358 Likes
https://twitter.com/rtn_ff14/status/1797610464484151617 488 Likes
https://twitter.com/bunnalien/status...57335541936579 1.5k Likes
https://twitter.com/JWFF14_/status/1797548707254243759 435 Likes
https://twitter.com/alicia_cresw/sta...27577999130802 432 Likes
https://twitter.com/yami_xiv/status/1797650861008801970 1k Likes
https://twitter.com/dawnmoon_ff/stat...90100186190140 724 Likes
https://twitter.com/Tsubaki422_ff14/...45236200767944 193 Likes
https://twitter.com/_ria_ff14/status...05862004572461 792 Likes
https://twitter.com/_ria_ff14/status...41511923495385 696 Likes
https://twitter.com/zer0wife/status/1797535040194388004 2.3k Likes
https://twitter.com/franandneo/statu...79029291372923 2.1k

I found something that's more geared towards being negative for au ra new look and its a youtube video and its from a decently sized youtuber from a ffxiv content creator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl2C8pD2TAc&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vlLSgZGnqs&t=145s
In case you don't have the tool to see dislikes. Her two videos being upset with the au ra changes are really split between likes and dislikes, compared to her other videos which are mostly higher in likes and low in dislikes. This should tell you that people just don't largely agree that the new au ra looks bad. Even in her comments you see people extremely mixed between agreeing or disagreeing which doesn't happen in youtube comments since people normally just agree with anything the creator says.
You see some people saying "I actually think the new au ra looks good" or "your new au ra looks better".

Other videos from bigger ffxiv content creators like zepla, ayycatt (didn't include xeno or arthers due to strong language but just know that both of them liked the new au ra but it was from a showcase 5months ago back in fan fest)
https://youtu.be/rxlXrYkeRc4?t=179 (from the older benchmark)
https://youtu.be/L1uJV7t5LeY?t=1212 (from older benchmark)
https://youtu.be/oWByvmJXBks?t=4018 (Newer benchmark)

Notice how these videos barely have any dislikes and more likes and in the comments you see people praising au ra.
So basically what I'm trying to say is....there is a lot of feedback SE looks at and if things didn't change its because there is a lot of things you're probably not aware of and seeing as other than face 4 having a ton of corrections because it was the most complained about, a lot of things people did like stayed the same. So I honestly believe the likelihood of things changing is really small. I think the best thing for you to hope is rather than asking for things to revert, ask for more options because just based on my findings. I'm just not seeing the dislike of au ra other than couple of people on the forums and even on the JP side its the same people repeating rather than new au ra players posting.

Its ultimately up to SE/FFXIV dev team to decide either way as, unlike me. They gather feedback way more than I ever could since they have an entire team that's job is to gather feedback and they don't just look on the forums.
But I do want to make it clear me saying this isn't dismissing anybody feelings or concerns.
Though its obvious I like the changes. I'm only saying this because most people here only see feedback from the forums (and have a weird mindset SE only listens to JP) and I just wanted to spread awareness, since people like me that are in favor of the new au ra. are not going to come to the forums or post since they're happy anyway.

[RhaesDaenys]

Personally I don't want them to make anymore changes unless its before DT - if they change things after DT, people who will have gotten used to the new stuff will be in the same boat the people complaining are right now.

[Plushy]

Personally I don't want them to make anymore changes unless its before DT - if they change things after DT, people who will have gotten used to the new stuff will be in the same boat the people complaining are right now.

Agreed. I don't want to get use to my new look only for them to change it come patch 7.1.

Just from yoshi-p wording on the benchmark he's aware of the small changes and characters won't look the same and he said they would change things but only if its necessary in future patches.
Which tells me they will change something if its clear bug but as of now. I believe they're done making big changes to characters.
But I like to think the dev team is aware making changes to characters mid expansion patch cycle might not be a good move....