Character graphical changes are NOT in an acceptable state, please make it optional

[Zaniel]

And this is from Benchmark (copied 1 to 1 from saved appearance feature in login screen):


I... am speechless. He's like a totally different character.
[-] Eyes missing today's catchlight texture would left him looking 'soulless' in places without proper lighting.

This is a good example of how something that is technically correct actually gives a worse result than something that is technically wrong. The eye glint texture is needed to avoid the uncanny dead look, it doesn't matter that the new system "is more realistic". It doesn't work with the brain's expectation of how it should look.

[Shiro-Marusu]

I... am speechless. He's like a totally different character.

Oh man, the differences are quite noticeable indeed!

Maybe I am weird for thinking this, but the new one reminds me a little bit of David Bowie, lol

[xbahax92]

That they decided to release the character creator (benchmark, whatever) this late just proves how detached they are from the community. Being quiet for so many months only to reveal a messy character creator and now, having less than 2 months to fix so many issues, I cannot describe my feelings about this.

So many issues, so many errors and bugs, yet so little time. I wish SE would be more forward and actually allow people to provide more feedback way earlier..

[Mihka]

That they decided to release the character creator (benchmark, whatever) this late just proves how detached they are from the community. Being quiet for so many months only to reveal a messy character creator and now, having less than 2 months to fix so many issues, I cannot describe my feelings about this.

So many issues, so many errors and bugs, yet so little time. I wish SE would be more forward and actually allow people to provide more feedback way earlier..

CBU3 has never been particularly good with listening to and taking feedback tbh (still waiting on them to address how bad MCH is with high ping). But JP players are also unhappy with a lot of these changes, so there's at least a chance they'll listen. I doubt it'll be fixed up and perfect by 7.0 release, but hopefully it doesn't take until 8.0+

[Hejligan]

I agree on many points.

My female Miqo'te really has quite a different feel, which does not feel as good in my opinion. If it was merely due to how lighting interacts with more high-polygon models it would be more acceptable, but they hugely changed certain models, like eyelashes, eyebrows, certain skinfolds, et cetera. Why was that necessary? Those changes to eyebrows and eyelashes made my character look less cute and more sultry, as far as I can tell so far.

[Zaniel]

1) Literally NO ONE has the right to tell someone to "just get used to it". These are characters that we've spent watching through hundreds of hours of cutscenes and thousands of hours of gameplay and FF14 is one the most main-character-centric MMOs in history. The attachment people have to their characters is cosmic level. Yeah, I look at some of these pictures and think "that looks the same to me" but to their player that isn't the case, even some tiny adjustment is enough to throw it all off. In any case some of these differences are pretty radical and it's impossible to not see that if you have functioning eyes.

2) It's a lottery, some people got lucky, others did not

3) Some of these changes are egregious and completely UNNECESSARY. It isn't some trick of the lighting or whatnot, they've fundamentally altered some of the presets and/or not accounted for how some the settings work with the new engine (like light coloured hair). It also doesn't matter if they've updated the facial rig, it's resting state should resemble the original preset in all respects (chin, cheeks, mouth, nose, spacing, etc)

4) Fantasia won't solve these problems because of the limited character creator. This isn't Black Desert Online where I can tweezer out individual hairs and curl a lip end or meld multiple lip glosses or resize my cheek bones to rebuild each element. A face preset is a face preset and you're stuck.

[Loggos]

1) Literally NO ONE has the right to tell someone to "just get used to it". These are characters that we've spent watching through hundreds of hours of cutscenes and thousands of hours of gameplay and FF14 is one the most main-character-centric MMOs in history. The attachment people have to their characters is cosmic level. Yeah, I look at some of these pictures and think "that looks the same to me" but to their player that isn't the case, even some tiny adjustment is enough to throw it all off. In any case some of these differences are pretty radical and it's impossible to not see that if you have functioning eyes.

2) It's a lottery, some people got lucky, others did not

3) Some of these changes are egregious and completely UNNECESSARY. It isn't some trick of the lighting or whatnot, they've fundamentally altered some of the presets and/or not accounted for how some the settings work with the new engine (like light coloured hair). It also doesn't matter if they've updated the facial rig, it's resting state should resemble the original preset in all respects (chin, cheeks, mouth, nose, spacing, etc)

4) Fantasia won't solve these problems because of the limited character creator. This isn't Black Desert Online where I can tweezer out individual hairs and curl a lip end or meld multiple lip glosses or resize my cheek bones to rebuild each element. A face preset is a face preset and you're stuck.

Completely agree.

Plus, we have not only invested lots of time into them, it's also a lot of money. Being forced to change our avatar, our anchor of identification, that we have paid for for years, can be quite upsetting. This is not the same as class changes. This is "me" (or my OC, etc.) and making "me" look different beyond what is necessary to upgrade the graphics has no positive or balancing impact on the game (necessary lighting changes vs. completely changing the shapes of facial features for no discernible reason).
But it will leave me without the "product", i.e. the personification I carefully crafted over the years, that I've paid for.
I understand some changes have to happen. I have not seen any convincing reason why actively remodelling the facial features we've grown to love into something different has to happen though.


If you now add to this that in the future I will also have to pay quite a lot of money to play this new avatar, that I did not choose and that was forced onto me to replace what I had actually originally chosen, it feels quite bad.
I will play Dawntrail, though I'll remain annoyed that a part of what I pay is for an avatar that doesn't represent me anymore and that I quite frankly don't really want. Other people might vote with their wallet and not feel like wanting to pay for this new avatar at all.

[Hejligan]

Here are the changes to the eye-area that I was talking about:



Left is old, right is new.

As you can see, the eyebrow is pretty much a different model, much wider and a completely different colour.

The eyelashes are massively more thicker, which darkens the upper part of the eye quite a bit. The eyelashes also essentially add a different perceived shape to the eyes.

There are also different skin folds where the eye ends in the direction of nose, or rather a lack of those folds.

Of course, the lighting in eyes are a different, but that I at least can accept more as a consequence of a different approach to the way graphics interact.

But the point is: why change models? Who asked for this? We have had these characters for a decade in some cases, and grown very attached to them. Who asked to be forced to suddenly have massively thick eyelashes? Who asked to be forced to have different eyebrows with a different colour?

Square Enix themselves stated:

"The goal is to improve the overall look you know and love, rather than to change things to meet a certain threshold. Players have been playing for 10 years, so they want to prioritize and take care to avoid situations where people don’t feel their character looks theirs."

Yoshida says the final version will be of higher quality, but they really did take care to make sure that your impressions of the characters wouldn’t change. The hair texture, eyes, and skin were ones they paid particular attention to."

Please Square Enix, strive to maintain that philosophy, which you yourselves stated you would! The benchmark is not upholding it...

The eyes are a window to the soul, I am not happy about these changes at all.

[MsQi]

Here are the changes to the eye-area that I was talking about:



Left is old, right is new.

As you can see, the eyebrow is pretty much a different model, much wider and a completely different colour.

The eyelashes are massively more thicker, which darkens the upper part of the eye quite a bit. The eyelashes also essentially add a different perceived shape to the eyes.

There are also different skin folds where the eye ends in the direction of nose, or rather a lack of those folds.

The eyes are a window to the soul, I am not happy about these changes at all.

Yeah those new eyelashes are way too uniform. They look fake. It would be fine to have a fake eyelash option, but I wish makeup would not be forced on us.

[cutestfox]

"graphical upgrade"?
the benchmark cinematic only highlights how even more distorted the face model has become in all aspects
I wish they didn't touch the faces at all