Thread: The 7.0 Graphical update preview is an objective failure

I think it's extremely interesting that two of the people who are downplaying changes are Face 1 Fem Highlanders--you know, one of the faces they used to showcase for the past several months, and had some of the least changes aside from how makeup contours around their eyes, lol.

"Negativity" is being posted on Twitter, Reddit, and the JP side of forums. You can easily figure it out even with subpar machine translations if you don't believe me. The expansion is not going to get delayed or face any real repercussions for this; people absolutely should continue to voice their criticisms regardless of how defensive one might feel for the multi-million dollar company's sake for some reason.

And regardless of semantics, they made a promise that character impressions would change as little as possible. These quotes are literally linked. It doesn't matter how it's said when the sentiment is the same regardless.

Several models were literally higher fidelity in 1.0 and kept their identities unscathed in the transitional "graphical downgrade" to 2.0. These things can be fixed and should be--especially when several new textures and meshes straight up appear to have placeholder quality or look like they were thrown into an AI upscale generator.

Originally Posted by Doopliss

I think it's extremely interesting that two of the people who are downplaying changes are Face 1 Fem Highlanders--you know, one of the faces they used to showcase for the past several months, and had some of the least changes aside from how makeup contours around their eyes, lol.

"Negativity" is being posted on Twitter, Reddit, and the JP side of forums. You can easily figure it out even with subpar machine translations if you don't believe me. The expansion is not going to get delayed or face any real repercussions for this; people absolutely should continue to voice their criticisms regardless of how defensive one might feel for the multi-million dollar company's sake for some reason.

And regardless of semantics, they made a promise that character impressions would change as little as possible. These quotes are literally linked. It doesn't matter how it's said when the sentiment is the same regardless.

Several models were literally higher fidelity in 1.0 and kept their identities unscathed in the transitional "graphical downgrade" to 2.0. These things can be fixed and should be--especially when several new textures and meshes straight up appear to have placeholder quality or look like they were thrown into an AI upscale generator.

I have said over and over again in my comments that there are LEGITIMATE problems that need to be addressed and that just because I am happy with MY character does not mean everyone should be happy with theirs. I preface all of my comments with this because I KNOW people are going to just look to get angry with me for liking the changes to MY character.

I don't know where I've downplayed any of this at all. I've said repeatedly that some of the changes I've seen to eyebrows, mouths, and other things like the Hellsguard smudge NEED to be addressed.

I have gone out of my way so many times to include this in my comments because people have been eager to be upset with me for daring to like the changes to my character. Please stop.

Originally Posted by Embran

I have said over and over again in my comments that there are LEGITIMATE problems that need to be addressed and that just because I am happy with MY character does not mean everyone should be happy with theirs. I preface all of my comments with this because I KNOW people are going to just look to get angry with me for liking the changes to MY character.

I don't know where I've downplayed any of this at all. I've said repeatedly that some of the changes I've seen to eyebrows, mouths, and other things like the Hellsguard smudge NEED to be addressed.

I have gone out of my way so many times to include this in my comments because people have been eager to be upset with me for daring to like the changes to my character. Please stop.

I apologize, I actually didn't realize how much more conversation happened in this thread from what I initially saw. I'll admit that I wrote this a while ago without pressing enter and then went AFK to get a sandwich, so I'll take that L.

Originally Posted by Doopliss

I think it's extremely interesting that two of the people who are downplaying changes are Face 1 Fem Highlanders--you know, one of the faces they used to showcase for the past several months

Well, I think it's "extremely interesting" that you lead-off with an ad-hominem attack.

Originally Posted by Doopliss

"Negativity" is being posted on Twitter, Reddit, and the JP side of forums.

If there's one immutable constant for FFXIV, it's that negativity is always being posted on Twitter, Reddit, and the JP side of forums. So that alone doesn't mean much -- especially when positivity gets responded to with personal attacks (see above).

Originally Posted by Doopliss

And regardless of semantics, they made a promise that character impressions would change as little as possible.

The controlling phrase there is "as possible." And only SE knows what that means.

Originally Posted by Embran

I have gone out of my way so many times to include this in my comments because people have been eager to be upset with me for daring to like the changes to my character. Please stop.

I for one am happy for you. My own characters (the eight I have at or near EoC) are a mixed bag, but the character I made specifically to turn into a fem-hroth (Kiitara, from Thundercat's "Cheetara") looks promising. OTOH my goal of a puma-esque character seems to face some obstacles, since a dark-gray face does not a puma make.

Now, having said all that, my own take:

Only a tiny minority of the 30 million player of FFXIV every post to any forum, and the sample that does post is self-selected and therefore cannot be relied on as representative of the larger population. SE should monitor the forums for what they can learn from it, but at the end of the quarter they'll use Dawntrail sales as the primary measure of success, and game-site reviews probably as the second one.

Even if some current players leave because their character doesn't look right to them -- and I haven't seen much of that sentiment expressed BTW -- if the number of subscribers increases with the Dawntrail launch, SE will take that as a win. Given how gorgeous the new environments look, and that new players have no investment in pre-DT character designs, an increase in subscribers seems likely to me.

But will Yoshi-p be satsfied with that? Maybe not: he freaking loves this game, it's his healthy little 10-year old child, and I'm sure he wants to see it hit a healthy age-of-majority. So I think he'll do whatever he can to make as many players as possible happy; that's who he seems to be.

Please look forward to it.

Originally Posted by Bun_Vivant

Theoretically possible, sure.
Possible to do and still release DT this year? You and I don't know the answer to that.

And the "multi-million dollar company" line of argument doesn't get off the ground with me:
I spent 30 years working for multi-billion dollar high-tech companies, including being technical lead of a microprocessor development team at Intel, and the fact that the company made billions every quarter didn't do us any good. Upper management gave us schedules and budgets, and we were expected to meet them. (Plus we had to compete with other projects for immutably-limited resources like wafer starts and C-suite mindshare.)

I'm unfortunately well aware throwing more money at a project doesn't actually make it easier. You're also right in that I don't know the answer to that question. I actually believe people would be feeling less frantic and scared if they weren't worried for the artists' management being compressed into such a short time.

However, I know that no scenarios are ever a perfect 1-1 either, and I often bring up Square Enix's status as a company because I feel like people frequently forget we are thousands of actively paying customers in a live service game, as if we should be simply grateful for whatever is thrown to us.

I've been playing for 10 years now, and while the team has a good track record, I'm unfortunately also equally familiar with many promises never coming to fruition (Personal and FC housing will be separate, FC alliances, the forbidden free third retainer promised in Heavensward launch, the announced plan to unlock racial hairstyles in Stormblood, RPR being an interesting and complex job, to name a few).

Regardless, I think sharing criticisms is more of a good thing than not, even if some aren't exactly eloquent or, er, entirely right with what they're describing. So, if they cannot manage everything straight at launch, I'd rather--and I assume many others--see people continue to speak up so that it's addressed sooner instead of later.

The last live letter showcasing characters literally had "while preserving the looks you all love and know!" plastered on its announcement panel. They've repeated this sentiment multiple times, and while I know natural human error will have an effect in everything, some of these changes seem a little sloppy for an update and make the advertising feel ingenuine. Still, along with you, I'm hoping for the best.