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

[LlymlaenGreene]

and this is funny about jp forums, be honest, these forums do not have 3 angry people for any post with criticism :3

[twobear]

Seriously, I'll be very surprised if you say that. I will be very surprised if anyone even says this. And I’m most surprised that whoever did this to her didn’t see it himself. Perhaps he did it blindfolded, with his left leg? I don't know.
I'm surprised I have to even be here on this forum trying to get my posts noticed so they can fix it. I'm shocked that the people who do this work did it so mediocrely in my case.

Yes, they did the environment beautifully, as far as I can tell from what I've seen. For example, the flowers are beautiful. But I don't play for the flower. I played my character, who is now objectively broken and disfigured.

I'm sure our characters should have been a priority during the graphics update. For many of us, this is the most important part of the game. They said it was just as important to them. That they will approach this issue very delicately and will attach great importance to it. I believed them and did not doubt their words for a second. But at this point, I no longer trust a single word they say.

I've been looking at this. If I had to guess, the reason they've made the dimples at the end of the mouth deeper is actually an attempt to make the face a bit more 'realistic' (for want of a better word). The face on the left is basically smooth and flat right up to the mouth. But faces don't look like that. You have musculature and fat under the skin that don't lie completely flat. It may also be that with the old lighting, such a shape would be emphasised more and the character would look worse. So they've taken the opportunity to slightly tweak the shape with the new smoother lighting.

Is that the right decision? I don't know. It's possible that without the dimples, the character might start to look uncanny, with the combination of improved lighting and skin with a shape that is physically impossible. But I can't say.

[LlymlaenGreene]

and yes, I've read the whole Japanese topic and I know what I'm saying :3

[Rueby]

Hello if you want to know my opinion, i think your new character looks another, this is not your character anymore in my opinion, she looks like she have botox, lol, but i am not an artist and i can not to say any about the characters *this is a joke, because some people say, what if you not an artist, you do not know anything about art* :3

Hello amateur artist here to chime in and say that I think people who say that are wrong. You could know something about art and not be an artist. It just means you have very good observation/eye skill.

There are two things...Your eyes skill (observation, eye for detail etc) and hand skill (technical ability/execution)

Think of your eyes (observation/eye skill) as something that can level regardless of your technical ability (ability to draw, translate what's in your mind/imagination into something). I believe it's why sometimes artists hit a plateu of 'something feels off but I don't know what it is', it means your observation/eye is ahead of what you're currently able to produce. Or why at times someone would draw something and after finishing it starts noticing the flaws- all of which I find are amazing things because while discouraging it means that you're improving as an artist.

There's this euphoria when your eye skill and technical skill meet and you're actually content with the result.

I'm not sure if I made much sense but there it is. I think it's also why you see plenty of 'something is off' and 'something doesn't feel right' as a feedback here. People are seeing something is wrong but can't put a finger on it/unable to express it.

[Anarnee]

Hard agree. I feel like alot of people come in with 'it looks the same to me' meanwhile playing a whole different race- provides no feedback and just waters down any feedback thread into an argument on whether or not it is the same. There has been some helpful posts about gamma etc, but most issues seem to stem from SHAPE changes- the light could be hot pink and neon blue and I'd still notice the changes. How would anyone be able to make sense of anything when potential feedback is buried under a mountain of petty arguments. More and more I feel really discouraged by the coming of DT.

Don't feel discouraged. I was getting really stressed by this circus over here so I took the time to go into the JP thread and they have absolutely been giving the same feedback as us. Even me, who has a very specific complaint about Face 2 femroe, found multiple people that made posts about my worries that got a relatively high amount of upvotes. I'm sure that everyone from the more played races will have their complaints either addressed or at least acknowledged. I only went out of my way to read the Roegadyn posts, but I saw so many of other races with detailed pictures and drawings.

My best advice is to report the people being willfully antagonistic, don't reply to them. Upvote folks with good well thought out posts that have shown the issues to make sure those posts get the devs attention, and take care of yourself by walking away from time to time cause it's mentally taxing in here.

[Duskane]

Back on topic, for everyone still blaming the negative reactions on subjective tastes, here's a comparison of the male viera face 3 textures someone posted in the general viera feedback thread:



Live on the left, benchmark on the right.

You can see how drastically this affects my own character here.



This is a full redesign of the entire face texture. This is not a lighting difference or a minor smoothing of the face sculpt or a slightly more detailed version, and I'm yet to see a single person with this face who doesn't think it's been butchered. SE has absolutely changed things just for the sake of change, regardless of how you feel about said changes. It is not a subjective opinion.

yeah there is something wrong with the textures i'm not really sure what they did

my preset in Dawntrail vs current game


its overall just darker like the lips and its kind of strange, while i don't think this face is butchered there is still some work to be done to eye brows,eyes itself and the lips
(also this specific hair style has light peeking through it at certain angles)

this is same preset no features changed but changed Eye color and skin tone also added lip stick,
yet it looks closer to the original than what was ported to the benchmark.



but he looks fine in the benchmark outside of the eye brows

[Scintilla]

Anyway, this is where a lot of ppl are getting the most frustrated. Yes, there are some ppl who are making judgements on their immediate reaction to the changes. But a lot of us have tried tweaking settings, gamma, waiting til they see it in the actual benchmark, etc & have tried to explain & demonstrate repeatedly that what we are talking about is actual structural changes to the models that no amount messing with gamma, lighting, etc is gonna fix & yet these same ppl keep insisting that we're wrong.

Compromise. Many are looking at the existing models with heavily rose-tinted glasses. Under certain lighting in the existing game, characters look bad. More than bad, they can look terrible. The same still applies in the benchmark to some extent, hence my most recent post - there are still some unflattering lighting angles which affects our characters appearance. Now, if we selectively focus on the worst in the benchmark, for fair comparison alone, the same strict rules should be applied to the existing game. But in some cases, that's not the case. This is what is being disputed.

I don't think anyone is disputing obvious alterations:

If they have physically shortened the fangs on moon kitties, there's no amount of tweaking gamma, etc that's gonna extend them to the length they were before. (And it's understandable that ppl are upset about it when it was a defining feature - sun kitties get the cat eyes, moon kitties get the fangs)

By all means, search back through my post history. Find an occasion I have had a discussion with anyone over their complaint of this.

There are some structural changes across some races, not just the Keeper of the Moon fangs, but eyes is another common one. I don't think anyone has disputed that, have they? But rather than have an open discussion, many seem to take any counter point as being instant victimization and become highly rude towards anyone voicing their thoughts, offering suggestions, or putting forward such daring ideas as 'lighting'

Also, tangent and genuine question, you don't think I was being objective in my OP?

Oh, I didn't mean it against anything you or anything you said in particular. It was more a general comment that far too many are quick to become hostile towards anyone who puts forward a different line of thought:

"They changed my character. It's totally different. It's ruined."

Try to suggest that there may be remedies either now or in future, or try to politely discuss reasons for this differing appearance which don't involve SE maliciously modifying characters, and prepare for a rude response. Sadly, far too many people are unwilling to have a polite and respectful discussion

[WiccaP]

I think the reasons I dont have a problem necessarily with the graphics changes, and I'll admit there are some issues, is based on 2 things.

1. I have never put that much weight into what my WoL looks like. Yes I want the character to look good, but the minute details, like the whole lip seperation straight line vs curved that we're seeing now doesn't bother me. My WoL changes its appearance based on how Im feeling at the time. I phantasia probably every few months, so I dont think Im doing what it appears that some people are, which is hyperfocus. Which is not to say others are wrong to want every detail exactly how they want it. Also the characters I've done in the benchmark dont seem to have the issues like waxy/texture skin that some people are having or Im not noticing it; and I like the depth they've put into the eyes without the static white cartoon dot.

2. I ran the bench mark a few times with other character models before making one that resembles my current WoL, which I feel like eased me into the new graphics. I think there's a level of uncanny valley going on with a lot of players. For the most part, photo's and vids of characters Ive seen on here and other platforms look very similiar to the current models but there is something slightly different. And for people who are very tied to their WoL looking a specific way, its jarring and I think part of the discourse around it is because of that Uncanny effect.

I do believe that what we're seeing in the Benchmark, is not the fully flushed out and finished graphics we'll see at launch.

Also with the lips, I personally prefer the newer graphics. I found that one option, the larger lip(I think 2), always looked like they were stuck on the face and didn't move right and reminded me very much of those people who have a lot of lip filler that looked too large and overly shiny for the face. I just wish they would make the dark lip options more pigmented. Like if I choose black lip color and dark, it shouldn't be a dark gray it should be black and give the option of matte or shine.

I also think there may be quite a bit of over dramatization going on in the forums on all sides of the spectrum. People are allowed to have their feelings and they aren't wrong for not liking something, but I dont understand the mentality that these graphics changes have "ruined the game". I guess because I've been playing since HW and every expansion or update, there's always those people who say that and that their unsubbing and want a refund. And Im sitting here like if you've stuck around through the good, the bad and the ugly that we've had in previous expansions, this graphics update aint anything. Lets be honest with our feedback, but lets give them something they can actually use, not just "All of this is crap and IM quiting"

[Loggos]

Not that I agree with that person's attitude, but the gif is also just the Jenova Limsa Plaza.

I know this is primarily a meme/joke but I would still like to argue that uniqueness in terms of "my char looks different from everybody else" is not really the point of contention.

But rather certain features are unique within their race. For example, most female au ras don't look super unique because many people play female au ras but face 1, 2, 3 and 4 are currently still very distinct from each other. And that has been partially homogenised. Right now you still have a range from super cute to quite edgy. But the edgy face is basically just cute in DT.

And even (or especially?) if lots of players choose a certain face/feature because it has a very certain charm then it being popular doesn't take those charm points away.
And it might also mean that in fact a lot more people will be affected and upset if that beloved charm point is removed or at least decreased because so many have been using and loving it until now.
So those charm points might be particularly worth preserving.

[LlymlaenGreene]

now I want to ask those people who look up to the Japanese forum, you claim that they just post constructive suggestions and that's it, and we just complain and that's it. But that's not the case, go read the topic carefully again, users often say that they are surprised, stunned, do not want to play their new characters, want to cancel pre-orders and so on.

Yes, they have less of it, but they get well-deserved approval *likes* for these messages, but what about us?
For every critical message you receive a message in the spirit of don't like - don't play!
This is the same character, I am an artist and I know better!
And I like everything, so you have to use your fanta to adjust your character(I'm fine and I don't care what you have is. *she or he thinking to himself*)!
The company should not make concessions to everyone and so on.

Of course, again, I don't mean everyone, there are those who are happy and happy and want others to be happy with the upcoming updates, and so on, they are great!

I can continue this list indefinitely, but why would I do that? You already know all this. And that's why I think you should also look at your behavior, and not poke us into their forum. Everyone's mentalities are also different, the Japanese are very modest and even they allow themselves some emotions that I wrote about above.
The Japanese are mostly secretive people. Unlike, for example, other countries, they do not express their feelings openly.
And yes, regarding emotionality, for example, I am a very emotional and sentimental person and I do not know how to hide my emotions, and when I do this, or others do too, then why do you forbid us to do this? After all, I am talking exclusively about myself and in no way offend other members of the community and just write as it really is!