Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Circonflexe]

Back to the actual topic, I thought more carefully about the approach, whether there might be something to it that the new lighting of the eyes could be realistically correct and why it still doesn't look right.

I think it could be because the new lighting is not consistently realistic, but rather realistic approaches collide with completely unrealistic approaches. In this case, it is very specifically about the fact that this blurry cloud over the eyes simulates a kind of shadow and there are no highlights if the light source for it is missing. In fact, that is exactly what would happen in reality - but the point is that for this circumstance to happen in this striking way, there would actually have to be no light source in reality. So it would be dark - dark dark.

However, we don't have real darkness in the game, we only have the absence of what appears to be natural daylight or another lightsource. So I would say that the new lighting could actually look good - but in my opinion only if the realistic approach is actually fully implemented, which includes real darkness.

Would it overall look good, if we had real darkness? I don't know - could be possible that at that point our characters would look like puppets in a too realistic lighting - wich possibly is the point why some players liked the old lighting better that more matches the character style. Nonetheless could it be worth the try if it's purely for testing-purposes untill it get's anywhere good.

[CidHeiral]

Honestly this leads to a hole different topic about empathy - sure you can handle it like that, but I wouldn't describe it as polite, if that person is sad about an outfit, that was in their eyes beautyfull looking by choosing it and is very different (negatively different in their oppinion) the other day. It gets nastier if I choosed the same outfit, that I now like more than before and tell the person how beautifull it is and how much an outfit _should_ look like this to be pretty, while she/he is very sad. That's not respectfull, that's sassy.

There are very different ways to talk about the topic - phrases like "in my oppinion" don't change the massage in any way. You could say very nasty things "in your oppinion" but it would stay nasty things.

Your view seems to be that everyone should always agree with everyone else regardless of what they actually think just to avoid ruffling any feathers, which I would have to disagree with. We're on a discussion forum which by its nature is going to result in a mix of different opinions, but any stable adult should be able to discern between someone being nasty and someone simply not agreeing with them. As long as everyone is polite it's okay to disagree.

I apologize if you didn't mean it in the sense of "nah it's fine git gud lol", but I still have no other interpretation for it, no matter how many times I read your original post.

Not much I can do for you there unfortunately but I appreciate the apology.

[Circonflexe]

Your view seems to be that everyone should always agree with everyone else regardless of what they actually think just to avoid ruffling any feathers, which I would have to disagree with. We're on a discussion forum which by its nature is going to result in a mix of different opinions, but any stable adult should be able to discern between someone being nasty and someone simply not agreeing with them. As long as everyone is polite it's okay to disagree.

Oh wow, at this point you really wanted to misunderstand me, right? You don't have to agree with someone to take his view serious that you asked for Oo

[CidHeiral]

Oh wow, at this point you really wanted to misunderstand me, right? You don't have to agree with someone to take his view serious that you asked for Oo

How was I not taking them seriously? In fact, why don't you tell me in specifics the proper way you think I should have responded to the post you're referring to and maybe I'll understand your point better. I feel like I've been more than polite while you're seeing what you want to see in my posts and chastising me for it. You tell me what you think is the correct reply, I'm happy to listen.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Any bets they’re throwing old faces into mogstation eventually? Lmao.

They've already said they're working on an updated character creator for the future that will allow more control over how our characters look; stated in the previous Lodestone post about the graphical changes they did in 7.1 and later reasserted in various interviews. So no, stop with the cynical nonsense. The Cash Shop isn't even run by the main development team, nor does the item team working on the game work on items for the shop, they are separate entities entirely and that is by design. It should be pretty easy to understand; to the extent that you can't joke about it, that you will never see something as intrinsic as character basic customization; face models and the like, show up for sale.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

They've already said they're working on an updated character creator for the future that will allow more control over how our characters look; stated in the previous Lodestone post about the graphical changes they did in 7.1 and later reasserted in various interviews. So no, stop with the cynical nonsense. The Cash Shop isn't even run by the main development team, nor does the item team working on the game work on items for the shop, they are separate entities entirely and that is by design. It should be pretty easy to understand; to the extent that you can't joke about it, that you will never see something as intrinsic as character basic customization; face models and the like, show up for sale.

I mean, I don't know about you. To my eyes, they can say all the things they want to say just like anything they've spouted in the past about other facets of the game, but they are… talks. Nothing else. They may go back eventually to disprove what they’ve said themselves (took like, what? Almost 10 years since they said how transparent cape was impossible before Panthean Fending appears in 6.1?), or they may not at all (hrothgar hats lmao). After witnessing what they've done to the characters that I poured my love into, I will stop being cynical when they roll up their sleeves & actually update the real thing into the game, pronto.

I'm tired of feeling gaslit by their vague responses when all they could've said or imply was "It was a design choice we consciously made", then I'll concede and stop being a prick about it. At least that proves they have a direction in mind when they've decided to 'Meteor'-fied/age my character 15 years older for no reason. Of course, by doing so they would've lied a year ago when they stated they do not wish to change our characters during the first showcase of the graphical update, but that's their problem for cornering themselves.

Better yet? Prove me wrong entirely by adding said options to keep my old looks. But it won't happen, so whatever... /shrug

EDIT: Does that mean I actually really think they would put the new faces into mogstation? Very unlikely, for now. The joke was to poke on how mogstation receiving waaaay more care updates vs a lot aspects of the game, with character creator system not being an exception to that.

[Heavenchild]

They've already said they're working on an updated character creator for the future that will allow more control over how our characters look; stated in the previous Lodestone post about the graphical changes they did in 7.1 and later reasserted in various interviews. So no, stop with the cynical nonsense. The Cash Shop isn't even run by the main development team, nor does the item team working on the game work on items for the shop, they are separate entities entirely and that is by design. It should be pretty easy to understand; to the extent that you can't joke about it, that you will never see something as intrinsic as character basic customization; face models and the like, show up for sale.

Oh, hi whiteknight :x
In my experience..., they are not known for keeping promises. They did not even mention the problems regarding to the graphical changes during the last Live Letters. They are silent about it. And most of the time, when they are silent about something, than nothing will happen or change. When they just talk about things when they get asked directly and can't avoid an answer, everthing in that answer is mostly obsolete, because it's nothing that we can await to see in a proper time, or even ever. Or did you ever saw the special stuff for Viera that should be added later, as compensation for the limitations? As far as I know they spoke about a better editor for characters looooong time ago. And did not happen until today.

Sadly DT destroyed my last litte trust in them. Togehter with the faces of all my characters. :c
Maybe it was silly in the first place to trust someone who is not even able to implement a simple thing like chatbubbles over many years. ^^"

[Iscah]

Or did you ever saw the special stuff for Viera that should be added later, as compensation for the limitations?

I'm 90% sure that was a wishful misinterpretation of the devs demonstrating the "unique" design choices already incorporated into those character models, like ear shape and hairstyle variants, and fur patterns for Hrothgar.

[Circonflexe]

How was I not taking them seriously? In fact, why don't you tell me in specifics the proper way you think I should have responded to the post you're referring to and maybe I'll understand your point better. I feel like I've been more than polite while you're seeing what you want to see in my posts and chastising me for it. You tell me what you think is the correct reply, I'm happy to listen.

In case we really just don't understand each other - you wanted to hear from others what they're unhappy about, only to then tell them that their opinion is fine, but they're not right (I'm paraphrasing again). I mentioned that this very approach leads to nothing because it's not real discourse - you felt personally addressed, I tried to make it clear to you how the nature of your comment prevents discourse (as it repeatedly appears in this thread) - and at the same time, I tried to return to the original topic.

And at this point, I'm supposed to explain to you how to better handle such a situation? Just imagine someone goes dress shopping with their girlfriend, as you yourself used as an example earlier - and then consider what they shouldn't say to her if they don't want to sleep on the couch - and how they might have handled the misfortune better.

Or just imagine someone who finds the new lighting horrible - but still takes into account that others seem to like it in order to think about how to improve the situation for everyone.

But that really was my last post on this.

They've already said they're working on an updated character creator for the future that will allow more control over how our characters look (...)

Oh really? That sounds interesting. Do you remember when/where they said that? I'd like to look into that statement in more detail.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

They've already said they're working on an updated character creator for the future that will allow more control over how our characters look; stated in the previous Lodestone post about the graphical changes they did in 7.1 and later reasserted in various interviews.

I'm very curious about those interviews, do you have a link?
I haven't seen any mention of the updated character creator outside of the Lodestone post you mentioned, which I also interpreted as an incredibly vague promise. In fact, from the interviews I read, there's been almost no mention of the negative feedback or requests about the graphical update, just that it was very expensive to produce, that it was a very ambitious challenge (and that Yoshida received many internal emails from employees expressing their views on the matter, although the sentence was ambiguous enough that it's not clear what the employees were saying exactly, but it's still raising flags), and that they're very sorry for the first benchmark having the wrong lighting.
I'm not following the topic as actively as I used to, so if I somehow missed any mention of further updates that are a bit more concrete than "maybe someday", I'm definitely interested in reading more about it.