Quote Originally Posted by CidHeiral View Post
I wasn't making a commentary on the contrast between his eyes and his otherwise real face, I was just saying the old eyes reminded me of his.
But why do they remind you of his eyes specifically, and not of any cartoon or anime character with red irises, white scleras and painted eye highlights?
Why was this the first example you had in mind to describe what you didn't like about the eyes prior to the graphical update?
Is it not because, even unconsciously, that contrast and sense of discomfort left an impression on you that you were trying to convey by sharing this example?

I'm sorry if asking somewhat provoking questions instead of "agreeing to disagreeing" is interpreted as being rude and snarky, but I'm legit trying to understand where the people who have opposing opinions come from (it's quite difficult when people only say "idk what you're all complaining about I think it's better xD"), and sometimes when I come across inconsistencies like "I didn't like the stylized anime eyes in this stylized anime(ish) game" it can be quite confusing.

Like, I came to FFXIV from another MMO with a fairly stylized animeish style, knowing that it was a FF title, a franchise known for its stylized animeish style, and knowing to expect a stylized animeish game.
I would be interested in trying out FFXI for the same reasons, even if it's a game that came out 20+ years ago with PS2 era graphics (the only things that are holding me back are the time restriction on the free trial, the outdated UI, and I heard that the game systems are a lot more cryptic than FFXIV and I don't know if I have the patience for it)
On the other hand, I've never played WoW because I could never get past the art style (the characters and environments look too bulky and "painted on" for me, in a Games Workshop kind of way, which I imagine was the intention).

So, genuinely, I have a hard time understanding why you would play a game for so long if everytime you looked at your own character or NPCs in cutscenes, you had issues with the stylized eyes, or you would think "what's with these soulless automatons that look like they just got back from war".

I can also say that I did feel that way back in ARR when looking at my own character, but that's because in ARR cutscenes the player character barely has any facial expression (at least prior to 7.0, now they added an extra smile in the intro cutscene in Gridania, so maybe they improved other cutscenes too), and if I hadn't pushed through until the end of Heavensward (where your character becomes a lot more expressive, for obvious MSQ reasons) I would have probably dropped the game because of that.