Thancred's new face

[Kytrin]

Just keeping this bumped - even though the bug report has been moved to "Confirmed/Planning to Address", that isn't a guarantee of a fix and I want to make sure this doesn't disappear into the ether! Let's keep fighting for Thancred!

EDIT: Just saw that it's now been moved to Working as Intended. I'm devastated.

HOW can this be working as intended?! What else can we do to bring this to the devs' attention? It makes NO sense that Thancred should be changed in this way at all!

This is both devastating and maddening news. Thancred is NOT working as intended! The graphic updates absolutely destroyed him, and the fact that the devs can't seem to recognize that fact is beyond frustrating!

[Tahli]

It's really concerning how that could even happen. It got moved to Accepted, sat there for a while, and eventually someone qualified to confirm or deny those bug reports marked it "Confirmed". They had to investigate and test to get to that conclusion. Reports marked confirmed shouldn't go anywhere except "Fixed" once it eventually gets fixed.

And it was marked Confirmed for several days, so it wasn't a brief misclick. How can they just "change their mind" after it was examined and confirmed something was wrong?


I don't know, you could try submitting it again... Or submitting another report asking why it was moved when it was marked Confirmed. Or submit a support ticket to speak to a GM about it ingame, though you may not get anything productive from that.

[Turethir]

It's really concerning how that could even happen. It got moved to Accepted, sat there for a while, and eventually someone qualified to confirm or deny those bug reports marked it "Confirmed". They had to investigate and test to get to that conclusion. Reports marked confirmed shouldn't go anywhere except "Fixed" once it eventually gets fixed.

Correct - if you read the bug report flow, at no point does it say that anything in Confirmed/Planning to Address should move back to Working as Intended. I don't understand it at all.

I feel like I've been on a rollercoaster of emotions and it's genuinely made me cry. We put so much effort into documenting this and it hurts to not even get a single word to explain why he has been left in this state... but the fact that we had so much hope only to have that ripped away feels like such a gut punch.

I'm going to contact customer support to ask for answers, even though I doubt that will get anywhere. Other than that I am not sure what I can do. I think submitting another report would just go to Duplicates... I'll keep bumping this forum thread of course, but otherwise I am at a bit of a loss, and that makes me so, so sad.

I just want my favourite character to look like himself again. I want to look forward to him appearing, not dread how strange and uncanny he looks.

[SKAshe]

Honestly I think it would be important to give Thancred's face another look over and edit/recreate as well. Thancred's a very important main cast member so would definitely be worth the time and effort spent looking over his face and making the necessary adjustments, time consuming though they may be to tweak the vertices, facial skeleton, rigging weights, normal maps, and textures. His face does really stand out against that of the other npcs, whose faces otherwise look really close to their pre-dawntrail appearance.

Really though it's those lips, mainly, I think, just like the other heads/face models that didn't do so well in the update. My characters lip corners look a bit different post-dawntrail. I wonder if it's something topological or what but it's interesting how many face models were done extremely well considering the changes made to the mesh, textures, and facial rig, and how some face models have eye shapes and lips that look completely different... Like Thancred.

The most minute lip differences can make someone look completely different so it's important for square enix to pay extra close attention to mouths, I think.

[LathyrusLoon]

This is really disappointing, I loved Thancred 's face. His sharp eyes and little smirk. And especially his bumpy nose!

[Gaddes]

Really though it's those lips, mainly, I think, just like the other heads/face models that didn't do so well in the update. My characters lip corners look a bit different post-dawntrail. I wonder if it's something topological or what but it's interesting how many face models were done extremely well considering the changes made to the mesh, textures, and facial rig, and how some face models have eye shapes and lips that look completely different... Like Thancred.

The most minute lip differences can make someone look completely different so it's important for square enix to pay extra close attention to mouths, I think.

If there's one thing the devs definitely refuse to touch, it's the lips. No one's concerns about lip shapes have ever been listened to.... if there's even the slightest of changes it's usually to something with textures or eye pupils or more minor stuff that doesn't directly affect meshes. I dunno what we can do to make them re-evaluate mouths, but the DT mouth changes are all awful across the board.

[Turethir]

The thing is, since Thancred is an NPC and not a player character, you would think it wouldn't be too much of an issue. I can understand, to an extent, the hesitancy around changing player's faces (as some people will like it and some won't) but Thancred's a one-off and won't affect any other players - assuming they give him his custom face back!

[moodud]

I recently start 7.0 msq and it’s been very long since I saw Thancred face and when he first appeared, my first thought is ‘Is this Thancred?’.
Ul’dah is my starting city, I’ve known Thancred for the longest time, and now he looks very different . Other npcs are fine, it’s very weird. I wish they do something about it.

Regarding the bug reports, I’d say they cannot really be trusted. I had a case of Accepted > Fixed , without fixing anything. Then when I reported again it became Working as intended. And guess what? They actually fix them in the end, silently. Took over a year.

I don’t want everybody to give up. Keep bringing up the issue, be loud enough and they won’t be able to ignore any longer. I will go raise my voice in the JP side too.

[Turethir]

I recently start 7.0 msq and it’s been very long since I saw Thancred face and when he first appeared, my first thought is ‘Is this Thancred?’.
Ul’dah is my starting city, I’ve known Thancred for the longest time, and now he looks very different . Other npcs are fine, it’s very weird. I wish they do something about it.

Regarding the bug reports, I’d say they cannot really be trusted. I had a case of Accepted > Fixed , without fixing anything. Then when I reported again it became Working as intended. And guess what? They actually fix them in the end, silently. Took over a year.

I don’t want everybody to give up. Keep bringing up the issue, be loud enough and they won’t be able to ignore any longer. I will go raise my voice in the JP side too.

Thank you, moodud! I admired your persistence in getting the fix you wanted for your character. Really appreciate you fighting for our cause as well, that means a lot!

[Turethir]

I'm feeling encouraged by a few people to keep pushing this, so my next steps are going to be:

1) To contact Customer Support
2) To log a new bug report clearly stating why we do not believe this should be marked as 'Working as Intended'.

I'd really appreciate some input from everyone as to what reasons I can list, as I intend to make this very comprehensive.

My thoughts are:

• Thancred should not be treated any differently from the other NPCs.
• This does not align with the aims of the graphical update as Thancred looks very different from his pre-DT self.
• There are several pieces of in-game media, for example stills on quest previews, which are now out of sync with how Thancred currently looks in-game.
• The mobile version of XIV uses the original Thancred model, and the two should be consistent with his original look.
• We are not requesting a change to the player models, but instead for Thancred to have his own custom face textures back. This is not something which should be controversial among players as a whole.
• This is not just one person requesting this - the numbers of likes and shares across all sites has numbered in the thousands. Almost every Thancred fan I know dislikes the change and I know several people for whom this has caused significant upset.

Does anyone have anything else I can add?