Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[faiarrow]

Peace, enjoy. You won I'll leave this thread since clearly being upset isn't allowed.

[Doopliss]

... I'll still be hopin' that your Roegadyn returns to you safely, sooner rather than later. Please don't target one another like this, guys!

[Turnintino]

This should absolutely remain a place to continue airing grievances and criticisms on the topic at hand, and I don't believe anyone is suggesting otherwise. I also agree that we only set ourselves up for disappointment when we expect those grievances to be addressed at a publicity event. It's not unreasonable to want this to be addressed/clarified ASAP, especially when this shouldn't have been an issue to begin with, but I believe we should temper our expectations -- especially about special Live Letters like the one we just had.

That said, personally... I really don't much care what their spokespeople have to say about this either way lol. Yoshida has already demonstrated to me that he doesn't personally really understand the criticisms being raised (or he's playing dumb to publicly diminish the misstep for PR, as we've previously speculated), and I don't particularly expect that to change in future addresses. In fact, I expect to be further aggravated by more obfuscation and/or misfocus. Though I'm happy to be surprised! (Please, surprise me!)

All I want is results... And I'm happy to wait for them, on a reasonable timeline (I thought the one they suggested in the last address sounded fine), as long as we do get them.

[Sui-Kune]

Look, Iscah, no one expected going into the PLL that there'd be something substantial re: fixing the graphics update. But that doesn't mean we still weren't massively disappointed in it, and we're allowed to be. It's absolutely silly that you keep picking arguments when we all want the same thing!!

Look, I get that it's disheartening to see the can kicked down the road continuously, if not just plain glossed over, but with all due respect, you're the one who needs to check your emotions. You keep picking at people who are already really, truly, upset, and it's unnecessary, even if it's unintentional. Please be more mindful in the future.

(And before you go, 'but they picked at me too', you're the instigator. For one, the Hyurification comments were not confrontational/diminishing of what's happened to hyurs too, but a descriptor of races ending up looking more hyuran. You saw an argument when there was none, and then you did it again here. I'm sorry, it really takes a lot for me to be this directly confrontational, but I'm trying to get you to see our point here.)

[Turnintino]

With all due respect, let's stop protracting this particular derailment and get back to what this thread is here for. It's irrelevant and, regardless of anyone's intentions, inflammatory. If our goal is stop hurting each other's feelings, this isn't mitigating that.

I believe Iscah interjected (in both instances) in good faith, not to antagonize but to clarify. Some felt dismissed or hurt by that nonetheless, and I understand why. That's a shame, so let's stop the cycle here and now. We're all here for the same reasons.

Please and thank you.

[Iscah]

For one, the Hyurification comments were not confrontational/diminishing of what's happened to hyurs too, but a descriptor of races ending up looking more hyuran.

I had no intention of that even being an argument. I just think it's a mistake to portray the problem as "the races look more Hyuran" because I don't think that's the problem – and because I think phrasing it that way makes it sound like characters who are already Hyuran are therefore fine when they really aren't.

To be clear, I've been brewing thoughts on this for a while and this is not meant to be arguing back.

As I said previously, the actual problem seems to be that they are moving all characters towards one generic human face, or perhaps just did a poor job of moulding that face to match the individual face shapes, which is a problem for all character faces because it moves that character away from the character's individual (rather than racial) identity.

For some races like Roegadyn the individual and racial identities are linked because the only thing that defines Roegadyn as a race (besides their colour) is that they are humans with a particular subset of human features and moving towards the generic face moves them away from the features that define them.

For other races that's not the same problem. My Miqo'te and Au Ra haven't lost the non-human features that indicate their race, but they have lost the specific face shapes that defined them as individual people.

I just feel like it's really important to be clear on the problem, and not risk them interpreting it as "Hyurs are fine, only the other races have identity issues".

[Argantaelle]

In the corresponding Japanese thread, a player retold Mr. Yoshida's words that screenshots can lead to confusion. It seems like we'll receive another black bag without an opportunity to preview its contents and have to deal with the results. At least that's what Google Translate tells me.

I'm afraid there won't be anything substantial in the next PLL too, except maybe for a brief mention: "We are working on characters; please look forward to it.".

So we'll have to endure yet another month of waiting and uncertainty.

[Sui-Kune]

I had no intention of that even being an argument. I just think it's a mistake to portray the problem as "the races look more Hyuran" because I don't think that's the problem – and because I think phrasing it that way makes it sound like characters who are already Hyuran are therefore fine when they really aren't.

To be clear, I've been brewing thoughts on this for a while and this is not meant to be arguing back.

As I said previously, the actual problem seems to be that they are moving all characters towards one generic human face, or perhaps just did a poor job of moulding that face to match the individual face shapes, which is a problem for all character faces because it moves that character away from the character's individual (rather than racial) identity.

For some races like Roegadyn the individual and racial identities are linked because the only thing that defines Roegadyn as a race (besides their colour) is that they are humans with a particular subset of human features and moving towards the generic face moves them away from the features that define them.

For other races that's not the same problem. My Miqo'te and Au Ra haven't lost the non-human features that indicate their race, but they have lost the specific face shapes that defined them as individual people.

I just feel like it's really important to be clear on the problem, and not risk them interpreting it as "Hyurs are fine, only the other races have identity issues".

Aye, I get it. I do apologize for snapping, @faiarrow got really upset because they've already been hurting so much and it hit a nerve, so I was a lot more curt than I needed to be.

That does make sense what you're saying, and I do want you to understand as well what we meant by 'hyurification', and how we genuinely didn't intend for it to sound like hyurs didn't get major issues as well. That generic face however is, for all intents and purposes, meant to be human or something human-adjacent (like hyur, even if the result is hyur also got major issues), so would it be alright to then settle on 'humanification' for this phenomenon? Or something using the word 'generic', since like you said, miqo'te and au ra didn't so much lose the non-human features that set them apart but rather their face types in general. Would that be sufficient to clear the air so to speak, and avoid more unintentional arguing?

[Cheapshot]

You probably want the word homogenization, “the process of making things uniform or similar”. This has been a word I feel unfortunately describes a lot of recent design philosophy in ffxiv.

[azaleai]

I certainly wasn't expecting any considerable mention about the graphical update... or the ddos, or the eyestrain, or job balance, etc etc, since this was at a game show and it would be an incredibly bad look for them to say "we really effed up"... but I do think it would have been nice to have a slide mentioning that it will be covered in the next PLL at the end so we could have the translation right there, rather than hearing "graphical update" in amongst a sentence the vast majority of the English playerbase wouldn't understand and be left wondering what exactly was said until someone translated it for us... Since they already have an English translation for the points from all the previous slides, that's not too much to ask, right?

And FWIW, I don't think the phrase "hyurification" implies there's nothing wrong with the hyur faces - it simply implies the somewhat less human-looking faces are being moved towards this one generic human looking face just like you said. Since it appears Hyurs were the initial faces modelled and all other races were morphed from them, the rounding of the Roegadyn nose and the erasure of the strong brow are likely down to it being parented from this one Hyur model. There's other issues with the faces too which aren't linked to the morphing (like the lip normals being misaligned) so 'hyurificiation' (or 'humanification' or homogenisation, if you will) is just a way of classifying the issues that come from being morphed from the Hyur model, rather than all of the issues as a whole.