Was This Graphical Update Necessary?

[RulerKelso]

I'm not opposed to the update.

And, considering the fact I'm playing as a FemHroth, I'm generally apathetic toward how characters will change from Endwalker to DawnTrail.

But I'm wondering if it was needed and is it a solid selling point for the game? The game already looks quite lovely from my perspective considering its age. And I wanted to politely inquire as to why the time and effort taken to tune up the graphics wasn't instead invested toward expanding upon character customization, making mount movement more dynamic - which they showcased, yes - improving upon character movement, puzzling out how to improve housing and apartments and so on.

Yes, the grass is prettier. The water does the thing.

Maybe I'm entirely ignorant and I've been living in a cave - but was the update a big ask in the community?

Depends which part of graphical update.
-New enviroment, object details, water, effects, certainly yes!. Sceneries in benchmark are really beautiful, looks like a new game. Im excited how they update older cities too. Age of the game is certainly begins to show

-Characters rework - not so sure - probably not (need more time to polish for sure or postpone if necessarry).
This may be subjective depending on which race(s) you plays. Some races benefited from this, such as Hyur, Pototoes and Miqotes, but the little visual upgrade we see is just not so big to justify that our faces just looks unrecognizable.
And most other races just look different wihtout any great visual upgrade. I would consider only a really big visual uplift to justify the risk of changing our old characters beyond recognition and piss many players. And I dont consider higher ress textures and a little more polygons in face as big graphic uplift
In case of M and F Viera, these look even worse compared to original, on top of butchering our old faces.
I think devs are reworking and fixing races one by one, with Hyur and Miqote being complete or almost completed and the rest of races still need some more polishment... and not enough time to polish everything in a little time we left until 7.0

-New animations as shown in benchmark cinematics - certainly yes!. Till now our WOLs did what? just nodding their head or making basic emotes in cutscenes. You can see our character showing new facial emotions, turning head to look around and behind, using attachments such as compass/map, etc. Im glad to see the game set the course for the 21th century in its more cinematic feel.

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