Holy wall of text, Batman

First,
My character is largely unaffected by the update. Any changes, I don't really notice.

Aside from the waxy/plastic looking skin, and the darkening, deadening of eyes, I am personally not really bothered by the changes made by the update. For this reason, I would like to believe myself to be at least somewhat unbiased.

I am not considering feedback posted to other websites.

Additionally, the environmental updates look great, and I cannot find any fault in them myself. I am not talking about the environmental graphics update, only the character updates.

And, finally, I'm an idiot that doesn't think good and I word things bad. I'm probably gonna regret posting my thoughts.

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The subjective opinion of individuals (me, you, anyone) on whether the character graphics update is good or flawed is irrelevant.

I don't believe it to be a matter of subjective opinion.



During the Live Letter LXVIII, the following goal was stated:

"Overall appearance of player characters will be altered as little as possible."

https://youtu.be/N2TWmsce_eg?si=UMOpWU-rIAgkFgAf&t=4423

In the Las Vegas Fan Festival 2023 presentation the following was said, paraphrased:

"We want your characters to still look the way you enjoy them now"
"We're really taking care to make sure you don't look at your updated character and think 'That's not what I thought it'd look like at all'"

https://www.youtube.com/live/--_vb2j...zzXx_bD&t=6360

These are the words and stated goals of Yoshi P and CBU3.





I've been reading the feedback posted on this forum on what was shown in the benchmark. While there are ups and downs, the general sentiment looks to be that the characters have been altered beyond what is considered "as little as possible."

What is relevant is the fact that people are dissatisfied with the changes in many aspects.

I have noticed people stating that core reasons for why they chose a particular race, subrace or gender had been removed or significantly altered in the graphical update, that the overall character and charm had been destroyed. I recall one person even mentioning that they might stop playing FF14 as a result of the changes (though I can't find that particular post right now).





Maybe CBU3 believes their changes to not be significant. I believe that they failed in their stated goals based on the feedback I have read.

It is my hope that work on this is being continued and that the development team is reading the feedback on this forum and taking it all into consideration.

As it stands now, if what was shown in the benchmark is indicative of the final product, then the 7.0 graphics update is an objective failure, based on the goals stated by Yoshi P and CBU3.

These things may not be permanent, but if they are, at least my character isn't harmed by the update in a way I care about