Thread: The 7.0 Graphical update preview is an objective failure

Originally Posted by hymmeli

I'm not making a disagreement with you in these last few comments, to be honest. I'm genuinely trying to engage with you in a discussion since my initial comment, and in the following responses from you, I get the impression that you're frustrated because you've gotten negative reactions somewhere or somehow. Again, I don't mean to be rude, but your tone in your comments tends to, like in this response to me alone, doesn't come across as you engaging in good faith. Anyway, that is it from me since, to be honest, there is nothing else I can add that would contribute anything to the discussion of this thread in particular.

It's all good. Things have been heated the past few days. I genuinely hope everyone's voices and concerns are heard and that the development team takes it seriously. I think we're on the same side about this. Misunderstandings happen. Sorry if I wasn't more clear. <3

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.

Overall I am very happy with the graphical changes, all I have to complain about is that they have missed a great opportunity to fix flaws that have been in the game for the longest time.

Eh, as long as the overall graphichs improve I don't mind if people need to use their free fantasia to fine tune their characters.

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.

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.