Reddit vs. the Forums in the Graphics War of '24

[JuicyHeals]

As trying to sound unbiased as possible the reddit sub will generally lap up most anything with glee. Any sort of disagreement will be blocked by as others have said the down votes preventing any sort of discussion

[Oizen]

Reddit is an echo chamber.

[CidHeiral]

Reddit is an echo chamber.

So is every complaint thread on the forum right now lol

[Duskane]

as bad as you might think this place is
reddit,/vg/,twitter and multiple discords will always be worse

[DiaDeem]

Generally, I trust these forums as much as I use Reddit: Very little.

I've seen people calling the new characters "abominations" and acting like the game is gonna become unplayable because their character's eyebrows are a bit thinner. NOT EVERYONE is doing this, but the general reaction in the Forums has honestly felt a bit overblown.

Also, and I'm gonna call out the Forum moderators and structure directly. Reddit doesn't let you create 200 topics to discuss the same thing over and over, where as here you can spam as many threads discussing the same things as much as you'd like. The only threads that should be open here should be the Before and After thread, and maybe one for Specific Comparisons/Feedback. A more modern (or better managed) forum would have a temporary section created specifically for the Visual Update, with moderator-created threads for each race, but this place very much so feels like the wild west, and as ancient other forums created in the early 2000s.

This is why they should be mailing out curated surveys for feedback instead of relying on an ancient php mess of a forum and some 3rd Party message board that the devs don't even control directly.

I think most people like the visual update, but some have concerns about some 3D assets affecting their characters. When you say it like that, it sounds rather reasonable and fair right? Yet look at the mess they've allowed to happen.

[CVXIV]

Snip.

I am someone who likes the visual update and thought that for the most part my character looked pretty good in the benchmark. Regarding the forums, it is pretty surprising that so many threads have been created about these issues people are having. I suppose I could understand a megathread and the threads about specific races but I don't use forums all that much so I wouldn't know how it typically goes.

The whole situation does feel overly dramatic and overblown to me, and I know it might seem mean to say as someone who does like what has been shown so far and I don't want to seem dismissive of the valid criticism being brought forward regarding the character creator.

There are issues with the benchmark that I am sure will be ironed out and fixed come Dawntrail, like any seams being shown or some of the textures being buggy like with male viera face 3's beauty mark that is just a line.

Though with some comparisons I have seen I really struggle to see a difference. To me, they look like the exact same character but with higher quality textures.

Another issue I've seen is with pale characters having bright hair so some of their features seem to blend in with their skin and idk it just seems like the solution is to adjust the colors.

I hope that SE takes a look at the threads being made and makes adjustments so that people can feel more at ease. I don't really enjoy that the benchmark is so close to the release date of the game, I feel like it should've been further back to allow more time for any issues to be addressed and potentially fixed in a reasonable timeframe.

[Roda]

I am someone who likes the visual update and thought that for the most part my character looked pretty good in the benchmark. Regarding the forums, it is pretty surprising that so many threads have been created about these issues people are having. I suppose I could understand a megathread and the threads about specific races but I don't use forums all that much so I wouldn't know how it typically goes.

As someone with a(n admittedly probably unhealthy) addiction to trainwrecks and dumpster fires, this is pretty par for the course for the (english) OF.
Creating a whole new thread for your own personal opinion, rather than joining an existing one, is kind of a part of the "culture" here (at least on GD). Screenshot dumps and group organizations are the rare exceptions.

The amount of options just exacerbates the issue. EVERY gender, EVERY race, EVERY clan, EVERY face, and even the different body parts and options within them apparently not only needs their own thread, but each individual person with their own opinion on their unique combination needs their own thread, not to mention the opinions on the technical changes, and of course the opinions on the ongoing discourse(we are here). Imo, it'd be cool if the mods were to undertake a cleanup operation and merge some threads to at LEAST be organized by race.


But yeah, just generally speaking, the graphical overhaul was very well done and most looks transferred over relatively well imo (tho full disclosure, my favorite looks have mostly came out of this unscathed so i'm biased). Like, there's a few issues that need to be ironed out of course (A few lips need to go through another round of polishing for example), but I think a large portion of the community has suddenly found themselves having to learn how to scrutinize a face in detail and are going through the learning process with that skill while also doing it with a subject matter that's deeply personal. You can definitely see this in the posts where the before and after are reasonably similar, the critique is usually to the tune of "My character is ruined/butchered/etc" with no extra details describing what actually changed and how it affects how they perceive the character, while the more "yeah that's definitely off" comparisons come with detailed breakdowns and discussions that contain like actual anatomical parts.

[Sebazy]

Any issues I have with the benchmark graphics will be swiftly solved via reshade etc.

It's not perfect by any means but it's a net win in my eyes.

[Freyt]

It isn't just reddit. Everywhere else everyone is mostly positive about the graphics changes. The number one place for anyone to complain about anything with the game is the official forum, and as a result that's mostly all you get.

[Freyt]

The graphic update isn't even completed yet. The release is less than 2 months away. They'd never delay the release unless they really felt it was absolutely necessary.

I feel that the graphical update backlash is mostly coming from a very small minority, like smaller than the amount of people who actually play Hrothgar, or maybe even Roegadyn.

The demands people have been making range from inconsequential to nearly impossible. From demands of adjustments based on observations caused by the new lighting, which people need to be able to actually play the game to get a good handle on, to demands of having an entirely optional graphical update opt in, effectively demanding the team develop two versions of the game at the same time while anticipating an unrealistic zero consequences for it.

Among actual design decisions there's some reasonable takes in a slew of hyperbole and narrow distinctions. A lip shape might take a 30 degree curve originally, and now it takes a 28 degree curve, and will be described as radically different and lore breaking. Some of the changes people are going crazy about I have to actually check 3 or 4 times to determine which is the new version and which is the old. Meanwhile the male viera face that actually looked quite different has been buried under all of this and I can no longer find that thread.