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

[CidHeiral]

I'm sorry I have used the word perceive a gazillion times in this post but that is really what it boils down to.
Small objective changes are indisputably there (the mouth is very different for example).
For you and other people those small (objectively existing) changes don't alter how they perceive the character. That is fine and fair.
But please understand that for other people this effect is there. Neither of us is wrong when it comes to subjective perception.

This raises an interesting thought. If you and someone else have the same character look, and you perceive it negatively while they perceive it positively, who is correct? Who do the developers listen to?

I'm not saying you're wrong or even referring to you specifically, I'm just thinking about being in the dev's shoes and it seems like quite a pickle. How do you design around individual perception, which is different for every one of the millions of people playing the game?

I certainly don't envy being in their position right now. lol

[Mouthbone]

This raises an interesting thought. If you and someone else have the same character look, and you perceive it negatively while they perceive it positively, who is correct? Who do the developers listen to?

I'm not saying you're wrong or even referring to you specifically, I'm just thinking about being in the dev's shoes and it seems like quite a pickle. How do you design around individual perception, which is different for every one of the millions of people playing the game?

I certainly don't envy being in their position.

I've been thinking about this ever since I've noticed the outpouring of feedback.
Poor Intern-kun that has to comb the forums and choose what to pass onto the devs must be going bald by this point.

[SongOfTheWind]

This raises an interesting thought. If you and someone else have the same character look, and you perceive it negatively while they perceive it positively, who is correct? Who do the developers listen to?

I'm not saying you're wrong or even referring to you specifically, I'm just thinking about being in the dev's shoes and it seems like quite a pickle. How do you design around individual perception, which is different for every one of the millions of people playing the game?

I certainly don't envy being in their position right now. lol

No one would be right or wrong there, but it is exactly why it was important to carefully preserve the existing feature sets. And present all alterations as optional features, not changing the bases. Otherwise they are robbing people of characters they might have known for years in exchange for something new, people just found out they actually like more.
There should not have been such a choice to begin with. It’s rather sad.

[Loggos]

This raises an interesting thought. If you and someone else have the same character look, and you perceive it negatively while they perceive it positively, who is correct? Who do the developers listen to?

I'm not saying you're wrong or even referring to you specifically, I'm just thinking about being in the dev's shoes and it seems like quite a pickle. How do you design around individual perception, which is different for every one of the millions of people playing the game?

I certainly don't envy being in their position right now. lol

That is a very good point and I'd say (in an ideal world where it would be possible): don't put away with old options but keep the new ones too. Like this players who prefer their old look are happy and people who prefer the upgrade are happy.

From a realistic business point though I do think it's a risky move to actively resculpt certain features that have always been there and that, in a character driven game, players have grown attached to. I can totally live with the lighting changes and how it would affect my char. But I see no reason to go out of their way and completely alter established features. So many people love m!viera face 3's mouth for example. So is it a good decision to resculpt it? Or would it be better to keep something so beloved and add more options (since the new mouth has now already been created anyway).

No one would be right or wrong there, but it is exactly why it was important to carefully preserve the existing feature sets. And present all alterations as optional features, not changing the bases. Otherwise they are robbing people of characters they might have known for years in exchange for something new people just found out they actually like more.
There should not have been such a choice to begin with. It’s rather sad.

You said it better but by that point I had already posted haha. I completely agree!

[Evergrey]

So many people love m!viera face 3's mouth for example. So is it a good decision to resculpt it? Or would it be better to keep something so beloved and add more options (since the new mouth has now already been created anyway).

My guess is that changes to mouths must've had to be done to compensate for higher quality animations where the old ones just didn't met the new requirements to animate them.
That's the only logical reason I can think of.

[HermitUK]

My guess is that changes to mouths must've had to be done to compensate for higher quality animations where the old ones just didn't met the new requirements to animate them.
That's the only logical reason I can think of.

I also suspect it's about streamlining for cutscene creation purposes. A lot of cutscenes at present just use prebaked character emotes, but the stuff in the Benchmark looks a bit more bespoke. I suspect the reason everyone's mouth is suddenly a completely straight line is so that they can map the same animation onto every face without having to do any additional tweaking. Which is probably going to lead to some uncanny looking animations at times depending on your race / face.

[Evergrey]

I also suspect it's about streamlining for cutscene creation purposes. A lot of cutscenes at present just use prebaked character emotes, but the stuff in the Benchmark looks a bit more bespoke. I suspect the reason everyone's mouth is suddenly a completely straight line is so that they can map the same animation onto every face without having to do any additional tweaking. Which is probably going to lead to some uncanny looking animations at times depending on your race / face.

Yeah. Before the benchmark, as far as I can remember anyways, the player model dont do anything outside of basic ingame emotes/animations.
Where in the BM, like you mentioned, the animations were more bespoken.
And for that new riggings would be needed unless the old facial textures and bones would stretch and perhaps even clip into itself.
So ye, that's my only logical guess as to why some changes had to be done, some more drastic than others.

[Evergrey]

This raises an interesting thought. If you and someone else have the same character look, and you perceive it negatively while they perceive it positively, who is correct? Who do the developers listen to?

I'm not saying you're wrong or even referring to you specifically, I'm just thinking about being in the dev's shoes and it seems like quite a pickle. How do you design around individual perception, which is different for every one of the millions of people playing the game?

I certainly don't envy being in their position right now. lol

I said the exact same thing, not word by word ofc a day or two ago.
It's natural that people react on the emotions that effects themselves.
But there's always more sides than just one to a story.

In the end, I think that feedback is what can be done right now.
But in the end it's up to the developers.
It's their game and they have a vision for it.
If they can make changes to appease people and it's possible for them to do so then sure.
But if they can't I just hope that people can accept it and do the best of the situation and not keep on complaining for months or more once things are done and final.

[LlymlaenGreene]

This raises an interesting thought. If you and someone else have the same character look, and you perceive it negatively while they perceive it positively, who is correct? Who do the developers listen to?

I'm not saying you're wrong or even referring to you specifically, I'm just thinking about being in the dev's shoes and it seems like quite a pickle. How do you design around individual perception, which is different for every one of the millions of people playing the game?

I certainly don't envy being in their position right now. lol

sorry to interfere, but if perception is such a subjective thing and there is a very fine line between like and not, then maybe developers shouldn't change what people like, but add new faces, hairstyles, fangs and a lot of other cool things as a new feature, I mean face 7, lips 8, and not to change what people have loved for years, and then try to please everyone * which of course will not work*. And for existing models, just add HD textures. Of course, this is only if it is possible * because they could have rewritten the animation engine itself and therefore redesigned the textures properly. Just add new character types that the developers want to make for us, but also let us use the old ones that still look amazing in my opinion!

[twobear]

sorry to interfere, but if perception is such a subjective thing and there is a very fine line between like and not, then maybe developers shouldn't change what people like, but add new faces, hairstyles, fangs and a lot of other cool things as a new feature, I mean face 7, lips 8, and not to change what people have loved for years, and then try to please everyone * which of course will not work*. And for existing models, just add HD textures. Of course, this is only if it is possible * because they could have rewritten the animation engine itself and therefore redesigned the textures properly, which I have doubts about, because as far as I know the xbox s version and the ps4 version will be with old graphics. Just add new character types that the developers want to make for us, but also let us use the old ones that still look amazing in my opinion!

I don't think simply upscaling the textures would work or look as good. Take my guy (linked here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6443558). The reason his face looks so much better is because of the new shadows and the fact that they are not so dark. It gives a far better looking perception of shadows on the face than before. You can't get that just by upscaling the textures because the way the character is lit would still look the same as before, with harsh, black shadows all over the face.