DT releases in TWO MONTHS - they aren't going to overhaul the graphics update now.

[DynnDiablos]

You all realize they aren't going to toss out years of work because you all are screaming on the forums, right? It's understandable after 10 years with the same graphical style, changes are going to be alarming and jarring, and not everyone is going to be happy. But they aren't going to suddenly in the next TWO months rework everything based on forum complaints.

These are the updates. They might be able to do minor tweaks here and there, but I am seeing folks demand the update be option, they toss the entire thing out and start over or just flat-out delay Dawntrail to redo it and that is NOT happening.

You're going to get your fantasia, you will make the new graphics work for you...or you won't. It really is that simple. I understand many folks are upset, but to expect the FF14 team is going to do some massive changes in just two months isn't realistic. They have the benchmark because this is how the characters are going to look.

Also, to judge based solely on the CC and a benchmark and not actually be in the game world to take advantage of the new lighting and how things interact is a bit jumping the gun. I am sure they will release tweaks in post 7.0 patches as well, but nothing is going to be massively drastic. This is what the devs went with. End of story. Some of the changes I am seeing folks demand on here could take MONTHS. We don't have that kind of time.

Also, it seems like its only the official forums everyone is screaming with torches and pitch forks - Twitter, Reddit everyone else is responding with people much more positive and happy, so don't think the forums are the majority and everyone hates it. And attacking the devs and Yoshi P won't solve anything. Media tour is starting. Get on the train or get off.

[Johners]

People should still leave their feedback though. The graphics overhaul is being done in stages and will be complete by/with 8.0 (which also includes things such as enabling two dyes for all pieces of gear etc). Even if something isn't ideal when 7.0 releases in a few months, it could easily be fixed in the patch cycle.


EDIT

One thing I'd like to point is that the default gamma correction is 50 (in the live game and DT benchmark) which completely washes out the colours. Set this to 0 and everything looks much better, especially with the lighting overhaul. Doesn't address everything but looking at some of the screenshots on Twitter/X, the lighting can be really poor at times because of the gamma correction setting (plus that blue background in the character creator is also just a poor reflection of real world game zones).

[Rudje]

What else should we react to? There is literally nothing else to react to, and this is in fact why people offered feedback on the previews when those were all that we had to react to, and we still had people telling us to wait for the benchmark then. I've seen problems brought up then that still haven't been addressed, in fact!

I'm very firmly of the opinion that if the player faces can't be fixed in time for DT, it should be kicked down the road at least a major patch. The current quality is completely unacceptable and it's precisely because I don't think it'll be fixed in time that I don't think it should be included at all.

[Benjo]

Everyone just becomes a male Roegadyn; "problem" solved.
They look amazing. Really looking forward to Dawntrail.

[Tethan]

I was invited very early on into the closed alpha of FFXIV 1.0.

It was a mess.

After participating in so many MMO beta tests (First one was either FFXI PS2 beta or Anarchy Online, can't remember) I've found that the amount of impact testers have on the final product is directly related to interaction by the development team on the beta forums. EvE's beta for example had a shit ton of interaction by the devs and they incorporated our rallies for change into the golden master. Age of Conan's however, simple ignored the beta forum altogether, the only dev post for 3 months was the sticky that read, "Welcome to Age of Conan's beta forums".

FFXIV 1.0's beta forum was the later. There were 100 page threads discussing how bad the UI was alone without a single post from the developers. It was just as bad on the Japanese side. There were only a few stickies regarding planned changes, but there was virtually NO developer interaction what so ever.

At one point someone made a "Lets test how often this forum is read" thread that was page upon page of ascii art, just to see if anyone was even reading our suggestions. It was there for weeks. It was obvious no one was listening.

"Beta's are just for bug reporting" is a correct statement, but the forums are the direct line from the top to even describe exactly what the focus is. This time around you can see that clear as day. There is a scope of what the test includes and what exactly you should be doing. For instance this last phase was all about the Duty Finder.

I am using the forums as a example of the vast differences between the two releases, but would you be surprised to hear that what we saw in Alpha for ver 1.0 was basically exactly what was released as a finished product? We were not surprised at all.

This time around, each phase, each post on the beta forums has shown a very dedicated team of developers that are actively progressing the final product in each step. It is night and day and I have had my faith restored that there are enough people listening that any problem can actually be addressed this time around.

- A reddit user 11 years ago, prior to the launch of ARR

It's almost like forums are an important tool for communicating with the devs so that certain... incidents... best left to history, do not repeat themselves.

[Luluna]

I am using my old laptop to run the benchmark. I love the hair and I love some of the changes only thing I wish is for me to be able to have some gloss on my lips and a bit of red/pink. I know I will wait until I get on my PS5 and get into the game before I might change.

I know when I logged into ARR and others too they where like what happened to my character? Mine looked nothing like what I had been playing or so it seemed from 1.0. I changed and never played that face again. They gave us a free fantasia and that was that, like it or lump it.

Looking at the post above I was also a closed Alpha tester the first day March 2010. Nothing was listened to and I am still never suprised lol by the lack of things that are asked for or mentioned, they have improved but there is room for improvement still. The devs are much better at listening now and that is a good thing. I am sure they will be looking at a lot of feedback good and bad.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The page to download the benchmark says that it's the first stage of incremental improvements. Welcome to the open beta. Keep sending feedback. Just try not to be an overdramatic dick about it.

[Anzaman]

I just like how this one article from 2023 states;

"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."

[hiedra]

While I don't think that they'll overhaul the game in 2 months I still think it's important for players to give their honest feedback. There is a reason why we have male Viera and female Hrothgar. It might now happen in the 2 months leading up to the launch, but we might eventually get some updates or at the very least an option to toggle off the new graphics update.

As it is right now I don't think the upgrade is great. Some faces did receive a very noticeable glow up. But the only thing they did was to smooth out all the textures at the expense of sacrificing detail. I don't think that it is too difficult to go back and add some more detail to some of those faces.

[Sindele]

I've been on games where they had to completely rework the save system two months before release.

Quite a lot can be done in the last two months, especially for a game where a day 0 patch is not just expected, but can be made mandatory.