Thread: The 7.0 Graphical update preview is an objective failure

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

I don't think hyperbolic click-bait is very helpful and just dilutes genuine concerns raised by other people.

I did notice all the default Male hyur selections didn't look good. I don't know if they did before.

But part of it is the smoothing out of the models to remove polygons; high-definition textures revealing detail that couldn't be seen before; light reflecting more and doing shadows properly adding more shine to places. I do think lips have changed.

One of the main differences I notice is just that the look some people were attached to was the fact it was low res. Once it is more real looking, it's not always the same and the only way to get the look back would simply be for it to look less realistic.

If there is an actual bug I think it should be put in the bug forum though, because we have to separate feedback and opinions from objective bugs such as clipping issues.

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Tbh, these threads aren't generating tons of likes and posts, from what I've observed. On other social media I see a lot of flattering photos and people pleased with their character.

I'm going to say there's a bit of the usual forum change resistance happening right now, mixed with some actual poor design decisions like making lips duller, making eyes look dead inside, etc. I'm not saying there isn't real criticism but it's buried under a certain segment of the player base that craves outrage and just like up the echo chamber of outrage posts to varying degrees of success depending on the topic at hand.

Tldr Objective failure is a reach. A lot of characters do look better and people just don't like it. But yes, some have problems.

Yeah... there are also those that just really dont care what they do with any graphical updates, me certainly being one, good graphics, bad graphics, meh, personally more curious on any content improvements from whats been mentioned only ever briefly...

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on the changes and they should definitely leave their feedback, but using the place everyone comes to complain as proof everyone hates the update is confirmation bias. People that are pleased as punch with the update aren't typically going to come here just to say "I love it, good job!"

Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on the changes and they should definitely leave their feedback, but using the place everyone comes to complain as proof everyone hates the update is confirmation bias. People that are pleased as punch with the update aren't typically going to come here just to say "I love it, good job!"

More than that, I’ve already said I liked the updates in other threads and I’ve just gotten pushback like “good for you, nobody asked” from people who are frustrated by them. I understand why others would want to drown out the positive sentiment regarding the updates in hopes that they don’t go through, but expressing positive sentiment here usually paints a target on your back. I dare not say that I enjoyed Endwalker’s MSQ.