New Benchmark (June): Au Ra Feedback

[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.

[Irishfae]

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.

Please just stop! Do you even play Au Ra? Your main looks like a miqo'te.

Notice how these videos barely have any dislikes and more likes and in the comments you see people praising au ra.

Why do you care? Really? Likes don't necessarily equate to 'I like how that looks." I like things that people I know post when they are happy about something, but I might not agree with them. So, please, it isn't a good data point on what people actually think. It could also be likes by people who don't play Au Ra and who never intend to. Likes mean nothing without having the actual motivation behind them.

But I do want to make it clear me saying this isn't dismissing anybody feelings or concerns.

It really does seem that way. Just stop, please. Posting all the 'But here are all the people who have 'liked' social media posts' isn't good feedback. It just seems like you like to argue and try to convince people that they are wrong to be concerned about THEIR characters.

I'm not going to go into other forums (or the mega thread) and tell those players they are wrong to think what they think and I'm not going to point out that 'see here, all these other people like the changes.'

I do like a lot of the other changes, in fact I like some of the changes to other Au Ra heads, but my fellow Au Ra players don't, and since I don't play that specific model, I'm not going to to try to counter their concerns.

Please take a step back and read the room. This isn't helping anything what-so-ever.

[Plushy]

snip

Yes I play au ra. I just don't showcase it on the forums for protection, why I use alts to post. I can post a picture of my au ra later if you wish though.

second; likes do matter in this context. The chances of someone liking a post or video(or disliking) just for the sake of it is really low since it could show that they do like the changes and agrees with the person is saying. If likes don't matter then we use the comments and in that case, the X/twitter posts I provided have plenty of people saying they like the new au ra changes.

third; I never said anybody was wrong nor am I trying to counter anybody. As I said in my previous posts. I'm only posting feedback from other social media sites and you don't seem to like that I'm doing that for some reason (My guess is you and other people trying to deny these posts is because since they're highly popular and liked, you think SE won't change anything now when there is a 100% SE seen them anyway. Remember, companies like SE have an entire team that collects feedback and this includes from sites like X and facebook.) and I'm sorry but who are you to call that "social media posts isn't good feedback"? SE seems to think so since yoshi-p said they look at other places than just the forums. That tells me you only think the feedback is good based on your own ideals, standards and if you agree with it, sorry but I disagree with you. If you think feedback from anywhere else but the official forums isn't good feedback then I don't know what to say other than I think you're being disingenuous and just trying to deny it because its popular posts and you don't know what to say other than it doesn't count?(It does).
But either way I don't want to argue so I'll leave it at that.

You already agreed at this point its better for SE to just add more options later down the line so lets just leave it.
If I seemed aggressive or seemed like I was denying your feelings I'm sorry. Just understand I just like the changes and I'm trying to cover that others do too by providing proof, if I'm seeming too passionate I'm sorry and don't mean to come off that way. Good day though and hope you enjoy dawntrail.

[Sekhar]

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 ...

Similar to your twitter likes, you are once again doing things such as equating likes on a general video of 2 hour length that goes through every single race where people give a like which can mean any sort of thing "I like the lighting changes", " I like hrothgar changes", "I like that you show me these changes" with "People really love the new Au Ra things".
The same is true for the negative things of course, that is exactly why I tried to explain to you that not all feedback is equal.

Also I do kind of agree, you using some off character here ,however inadvertently, makes you look like a troll trying to bait people. But you know, Hanlon's razor.

There are many good things in these changes. Such as the improved textures, higher polygon count, better lighting etc.
Some people might also honestly prefer the eye bags and the puffy faces. That is perfectly valid.

However, they themselves early on said that they will not go for hyper realism in parts because it is not possible for an MMO, but also because they do not wish for the identity of characters to be lost. In that sense they are failing with quite a few of their changes and we are simply pointing out where it is.

Beyond that there are also just things that quite frankly look amateurish.

• Optional scales having a different resolution from the standard ones
• Horns in the hairstyles have super low resolution
• Some horns and hair parts that are often hidden (such as the neck scales) can look low resolution

These just objectively say "someone didn't really put in enough effort"

Should we commend them for doing changes on an old game?
Yes!
Should we commend them for a job that does not fulfill their own stated goals and standards?
Hell no!

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.

I find it hilarious that you play the "SE/FFXIV team has more data" card.
Then why is stuff like low resolution horns and scales still a thing? They have been working on this for more than a year after all.

Also I feel a thing that often gets ignore by people with alts or fantasia addicts. It is kind of ridiculous that these changes (I mean expressive changes such as sculpt and eyes not lighting and textures) are forced upon everyone without options. They are changing the feel of characters that might have looked the same for almost a decade at this point for some people.

[Irishfae]

However, they themselves early on said that they will not go for hyper realism in parts because it is not possible for an MMO, but also because they do not wish for the identity of characters to be lost. In that sense they are failing with quite a few of their changes and we are simply pointing out where it is.

Just to add to this, from the Tokyo Fanfest

The eyes seem to have changed quite a bit since fanfest

Information on the eyes from London Fanfest

And most importantly from Las Vegas - Not changing the image you have of your own character

[Plushy]

snip

Since you think I'm a troll this is my last reply to you and I'm putting you on ignore after this, its clear you're pretty disrespectful.
First, you don't get to decide what type of feedback is good.
You don't work for SE, you don't know what type of feedback they want and you don't know if the feedback people are even giving is useful to them. They could think someone pointing out the smallest detail of their character is useless feedback because they're not going to adjust the character just to move the eyelid folds slightly towards the left or add barely noticeable eyelashes, you don't know and I don't know. So stop being so arrogant in acting like SE agrees with your own personal standards on what is considered good or bad feedback.

Second, if you actually watched the video you would see it has shortcuts and secondly you would see that the people in the comments(on the video screen since it was a repost of a stream) were all saying they liked the au ra, some said it looked weird too but it was mostly positive, you can also checked the other video of the person that didn't like au ra, you would see that it was very much split meaning not everybody agreed with her saying that au ra's looked bad and once again that youtuber is pretty big for a ffxiv youtuber so to have that big of a split when her videos normally have high likes and low dislikes. Common sense should tell you a lot of people like the au ra change.
Its clear you didn't even look at the comments on the X/twitter posts as well because they're all focused on au ra and people praising it.

Third: I think you need to recheck what hyper realism look like. Being hyperbolic isn't going to help you. I suggest looking up "The Last Of Us 2" if you want to know what hyper realism actually looks like.
Also if you actually paid attention to your character, you would know au ra have always had eyebags (face 3 being really shown) and you can see it clearly in certain lighting.
Funny fact, it was actually gone in the first benchmark but since people wanted their characters to look closer to the 6.58, the devs redraw the maps like the 6.58 and now you have your eyebags back and now you(and others) don't like it. This should tell you that a lot of things do not translate well from the old model to the new model with the better lighting, shadows, higher polygons and sub surface scattering something to think about.
You guys asked for this, so lay in the bed you asked for. Enjoy your more noticeable eyebags.

Also please stop bringing up what yoshi-p said in the past regarding trying to keep characters the same because he quite clearly said there will be differences later. Which is why they're giving everybody a free fantasia. You people keep ignoring him saying that because you don't want to accept the changes and you cling on those words as an argument to anybody that says they prefer the changes.
It was in the benchmark follow up.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ecd574ad0d397a

Here I'll even just grab section because its clear you click links but don't actually read them.
Even so, we imagine the subtle differences in nuance will inevitably cause some characters to look ever so slightly different compared to before.
So stop bringing up yoshi-p saying "we'll try to make characters look the same as before".

Lastly lets not act like they wouldn't have fixed the broken scales and seams before launch, yoshi-p even said "obviously these problems would have been fixed for the release version" so not sure why you're even bringing that up as if they would really launch with clear obvious things like that. The benchmark isn't the final product in case you didn't know that.
I get I shook you with the feedback I gathered because they're extremely popular and positive and you're going in full deflection mode so you feel better about having a chance about things getting changed but SE would have already seen this feedback anyway, so trying to deflect the feedback I gathered and trying to pretend SE won't look at it isn't going to help you.
Your bad faith arguments are taxing so as I said I'm just going to ignore you now. Have a good one.

Also, Plushy, respectfully, please just stop now, this back and forth is going nowhere. You made your point so let's stop. And you're burying our posts in your flood of comments and THAT will not help the FFteam to see our problems. We took time listing the differences and editing pictures to calmly and rightfully show our points to the devs and stuff. Please.

I'm not sure why you people keep acting like what I'm doing is getting in your way (and the same people are bumping this thread anyway) and honestly people were replying to me trying to deny me and the feedback I gathered(I wouldn't have even said anything if people didn't reply to me). But I'll obey your reply and leave this thread since its getting a bit too hostile for my liking when I didn't even do anything and I don't like being called a troll when I didn't even do anything to warrant that. It really just tells me most of you hate that I shown extremely positive feedback because you think it lessens your chance for change and I'm being called a troll for it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ew_au_ra_eyes/ 466 likes
posting one last thing from reddit this time and this is clear indication of people liking it and its specific this time(au ra eyes).
Notice how the most disliked comment is someone saying it looks terrible. (this is also from the old benchmark).

[Tarath]

Also if you actually paid attention to your character, you would know au ra have always had eyebags (face 3 being really shown) and you can see it clearly in certain lighting.
Funny fact, it was actually gone in the first benchmark but since people wanted their characters to look closer to the 6.58, the devs redraw the maps like the 6.58 and now you have your eyebags back and now you(and others) don't like it. This should tell you that a lot of things do not translate well from the old model to the new model with the better lighting, shadows, higher polygons and sub surface scattering something to think about.
You guys asked for this, so lay in the bed you asked for. Enjoy your more noticeable eyebags.

Despite them saying they've left the thread, I'm taking the bait to show that this is completely false and dismisses the previous given feedback.
The reason people are critiquing the eyebags in the benchmark is because they're actual changes to the face sculpt. There's now an indent for the lower eyelid, making it much more pronounced compared to the current version where they are practically nonexistent. It has nothing to do with texture maps.

I'm guessing the intention behind the change is to have the eyelids more defined and to even the gap when they're closed, but it's definitely taken a bit too far.

However I want to take this opportunity to highlight the weight painting of the eyelid rig on a face type where it is more subtle, compared to male Au Ra face 2 seen earlier in this thread.

Including a gif again as it's more noticeable in motion.


This is probably happening to the majority of the faces, and albeit it being subtle, I can't "unsee" it now that I'm aware of it.
The reason I'm bringing this up again is to highlight that different face types are affected by this, and because I worry this will also impact other facial expression involving eyelids.

[Plushy]

Despite them saying they've left the thread, I'm taking the bait to show that this is completely false and dismisses the previous given feedback.
The reason people are critiquing the eyebags in the benchmark is because they're actual changes to the face sculpt. There's now an indent for the lower eyelid, making it much more pronounced compared to the current version where they are practically nonexistent. It has nothing to do with texture maps.

I didn't want to reply to this thread again but I want to make it clear when I was talking about the eye bags I wasn't talking about whatever you just highlighted. That looks like a bug/mistake and you should probably submitted it as such rather than posting it in a feedback thread since that's obviously not intentional.(Because I have to be clear. I'm saying post in bug forums for better visibility and pretty much confirmation that the mods seen so it it goes into accepted bugs and at that point we know it'll be fixed.)
What I was talking about when I said eye bags I was referring to the lines under the eyes(that makes it look like youre sleepy). Every au ra had it and the reason you barely noticed it is because the shadows and lighting were bad. Trying going to the inn or pretty much anywhere were it has harsh lighting or when there is a mix of sunlight and shadows(like rival wings or thanalan) you'll see it. Its more noticeable in dawntrail because the skin textures and shadows and lightning are better, if you still have the old benchmark you will notice they're gone but they're back again because they redid the normal maps to match the 6.58 normal maps.

Also about the face sculpt, its the same. Just more added facial bones compared to the old model (lips, eyes, cheeks, teeth and tongue).
If you don't believe me, take the model out benchmark and look at it in blender. Its the same sculpt, only thing that changed is there is more bones which could effect some things.
Now when it comes to weight paint. I didn't look and compare both models weight paint but if I had to guess its probably the new bone, that's making the eyebrow freak out a tad when blinking, which hopefully will be fixed by release or future patch.

Screw it, I'll also take the bait.



The face sculpt is not the same.
It's extremely obvious in Tarath's pictures (nice find!), but I'm looking at a tweet comparing the mesh of a M'iqote M face between 6.58 and the 1.0 benchmark in Blender that I bookmarked back then, and there are unquestionable changes in the 3D modeling. It's not just "we added more polygons", the topology of the whole face has changed, and the eye and eyebrow shapes are completely different and straying very far from their original design.
The only parts that haven't changed at all and only got more polygons are the ears, the neck, and the top of the head (which is great to make accurate comparisons).
Obviously, for ToS reasons, I'm not going to share those images.

I'm sure Plushy will have to say something about that, but then again I don't think it's smart to publicly announce on the official forums that you know the exact names of rig bones either.

Also rig bones and 3D meshes are two separate things, one has no consequence on the making of the other. They could have kept the old rig set and combined it with the new 3D model, they only decided to add more bones to allow for more animation opportunities in the future.

even after proving I seen whats under the hood you still trying to convince yourself its different? and your only proof is you seen some picture (which doesn't explain anything just by looking at it and you probably just saw the smoother model compared to the older model which has way less polygons) I'm not going to explain further as pretty pointless as you seem pretty set (also lol........adding more polygons is the same as adjusting the topology. Its one in the same...adding and curving in more polygons means you adjust the topology.....Not going to assume anything about your knowledge of 3d but the fact you don't know this makes me wonder why you're trying to talk to me about 3D models).
You'll only understand once you seen the models yourself. I sadly can't post pictures to make you understand for obvious reasons sooo..... Have a good one as I already said I will leave this thread so I'll just quote retweet instead because don't wanna bump further.
(Just for clarification, the eye brows are not part of the face sculpt. They're a texture -meaning its not a material- and the eye shape IS the same, about the only thing I can say is actually different is the eyelash mesh.)
I just wanted to clear a misunderstanding up.

(Also not sure why you're bring up bones and 3d mesh, also the two do actually greatly affect one another, not during creation but when in actual motion. Bones can distort 3d models/meshes depending how it was weight painted. Which is why we're seeing that weird thing with the eyebrows.)

Unrelated but since I noticed your main complaint was about the eye color and my S/O also uses the same eye color as you I decided to do some testing about why the colors are a bit different and I might be wrong but with the new lighting and how the game renders lighting I believe whats happening is the eye is basically taking in the surrounding light and changing the color, so basically this on top of why higher texture for the eyes (iris) and the subsurface scattering(yes this changes the lighting of certain parts)...so as you suggested the only way to fix this is the expand the color palette which I doubt they'll do anytime soon since that's been requested before so we can get true red and true blue for hair colors and they just never did it. So unfortunately I don't think we're going to get that crystal blue back since things are rendered different now unless they decide to expand the color range of what we currently have. (Btw again I could be wrong its just when I looked in blender the colors are as they were.)

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

Screw it, I'll also take the bait.

Also about the face sculpt, its the same. Just more added facial bones compared to the old model (lips, eyes, cheeks, teeth and tongue).
If you don't believe me, take the model out benchmark and look at it in blender. Its the same sculpt, only thing that changed is there is more bones which could effect some things.

The face sculpt is not the same.
It's extremely obvious in Tarath's pictures (nice find!), but I'm looking at a tweet comparing the mesh of a M'iqote M face between 6.58 and the 1.0 benchmark in Blender that I bookmarked back then, and there are unquestionable changes in the 3D modeling. It's not just "we added more polygons", the topology of the whole face has changed, and the eye and eyebrow shapes are completely different and straying very far from their original design.
The only parts that haven't changed at all and only got more polygons are the ears, the neck, and the top of the head (which is great to make accurate comparisons).
Obviously, for ToS reasons, I'm not going to share those images.

I'm sure Plushy will have to say something about that, but then again I don't think it's smart to publicly announce on the official forums that you know the exact names of rig bones either.

Also rig bones and 3D meshes are two separate things, one has no consequence on the making of the other. They could have kept the old rig set and combined it with the new 3D model, they only decided to add more bones to allow for more animation opportunities in the future.