The Graphics update was unnecessary

[Taliriah]

I just wonder how much of the dev time was wasted on something that doesn't really improve the game when all that time developing a new lighting engine could have been spent on better mechanics for play or more importantly imo fixing the garbage movement in the game so you character actually collides with terrain instead of sliding along the ground plane, that's probably the biggest barrier to entry for alot of new players.

Game developers are specialized. The graphics programmers who worked on improving the lighting would not have otherwise worked on gameplay features, because that's the job of gameplay programmers.

The graphics update was needed. Not only because quite a few aspects of the game were starting to look dated, but also because those flaws (such as the lack of subsurface scattering) made characters a lot uglier than necessary, and in FFXIV people are really connected with their character. The changes to characters are objectively minor. Of course when you are used to things being one way, flaws and all, upgrades bring a feeling of unfamiliarity that can be unsettling, but it will pass a lot quicker than people think, and character that look better are simply better in the long term, regardless of whatever temporary subjective misgivings people may have.

The people who complain should ask themselves this: if they didn't play the game before the graphics update, how would they feel about the characters appearance?

Another reason the graphics update was necessary is because at some point it can become really bad for your technology to stay behind the times. It means that new people you hire may not know how to work with it (unfamiliarity with old, deprecated methods), it means people are starting to get worried that their skills are not up to date with the industry, etc. I think Yoshi-P explained this.

[aiqa]

Adding subsurface scattering doesn't require new meshes. And new meshes don't require changing the overall shape of the lips.

[Taliriah]

Adding subsurface scattering doesn't require new meshes. And new meshes don't require changing the overall shape of the lips.

No. But improved rigging may require both of these things.

[Zairava]

Disagree, even for someone more gameplay focused than graphically focused such as I, even I have wanted it upgraded for a while now. It's starting to fall behind if it hasn't been behind already.

[Rudje]

It doesn't require completely eliminating the aspects of the lips that people chose a face/mouth combo for. Many are not even remotely similar even if they were brought up to the same quality—they're completely different mouths and that shouldn't have happened.

[Taliriah]

It doesn't require completely eliminating the aspects of the lips that people chose a face/mouth combo for. Many are not even remotely similar even if they were brought up to the same quality—they're completely different mouths and that shouldn't have happened.

A lot of the mouths looked the way they did due to excessive contrast caused by the poor lighting. If you fall in love with a part of your character that is essentially a rendering artifact, that's kind of on you.

[Rudje]

A lot of the mouths looked the way they did due to excessive contrast caused by the poor lighting. If you fall in love with a part of your character that is essentially a rendering artifact, that's kind of on you.

Besides how absolutely asinine that statement is (how fucking dare people value harsher features, in a game where those features are scarce on the ground), have you actually looked at the shape changes made to some faces? Constantly pursed lips and complete removal of the cupid's bow aren't rendering artifacts, it's arbitrary changes made to faces in a system so limited that it ruins entire characters.

[Ardeth]

It is what it is. We have zero control over what they want to do, but in saying that, I don't think it was necessary either. It looks better, sure, but this isn't some crazy graphical update. It messing up loads of players changing cpu and gpu requirements for a paltry change. And even after all of that, it still looks flat and lifeless. The textures are just better. I started playing Classic Wow with my friend, and it feels more alive graphically. More than 14 does now, and after this update. It's like those developers back in 2004 had a better idea of working less into more. Sorry for the rant, but it reminds me of a first-generation Xbox 360. It's shiny, but all the cracks are still there. Anyway, that's how I feel about the whole thing. It seems unessarry, but I'm not gonna stress about it.

[Malthir]

Game developers are specialized. The graphics programmers who worked on improving the lighting would not have otherwise worked on gameplay features, because that's the job of gameplay programmers.
.

The work required to create a new lighting and shading solution inside the engine would 100% be the exact same devs that would be working on a movement system. The role is usually called Engine Developer or Engine Programmer but realistically in tech every company changes the titles slightly. But again it's not just about those specific Devs.
Ultimately though my point is not just about the sucky movement in the game.

For an MMO in order of importance:
Setting and Art Style
Core Gameplay Loop
Movement and combat
UI design
Story
Community
Graphics quality

I was initially using movement as an example, but if I was going to tier list the high priority issues in the game, the more important barrier for new players is the new player experience being awful, if you were going to play this game and your particular class fantasy is say a Samurai, only to be told O you will have to go through 3 expacs, about 100 hours of play time, as a class you don't want to play before you can play the class you want to play. You would probably just bail on playing. From their you need to look at the server tick rate being crap, and the movement system. Then the overall reduction in mechanics the games gone through in the past couple expacs, what I mean by this is you used to play with your mechanics alongside your standard rotation, now they are merging more and more the mech into your rotation to fit into the 2m burst window which is favoured by people who want to do world firsts, that's the largest gameplay issue they have. At the bottom of that list is HD and graphic overhaul.

Think about it this way, if you ordered a burger and it looked great on the plate but when you it bit into it, the cheese hadn't fully melted in places and their were bits of gristle and bone in the meat, you wouldn't care how good the burger looks.
Where as if the burger looked ok not terrible but not great, but when you bit into it, it tasted great you wouldn't give a crap what it looks like on the plate.

It's not that graphics don't matter but the game has some serious gaping holes in it especially when it comes to being able to add new features and gain new players that updating the graphics wont solve.

Adding new classes that feed into the other jobs and letting all jobs unlock from level 30, with new low level story quests made for said jobs, fixing the terrible tick rate and making it so movement is collision based would allow for alot of future development with new features

[Banriikku]

Berating people on how they "should feel" and telling them "youre opinion is wrong, mine right. be silent." is beyond silly.
I repeat it: This is a redesign in many areas. This was not asked nor was it announced or shown. We got shown upgrades. This is a redesign. Not what we wanted. Not what they said would be done. If you like it cool but stop telling me "i like it and because of that youre argument is invalid". I dont want to take away youre new options but i want the damn old options updated not the redesign.

BTW.: Our charcter model, i mean the rest of the body, is not changed. This is the same, from stiff movements, to animations and even some jarring bad textures or "seams".

I have no qualms with the new stuff, except not my cup of tea mostly and it would not be an issue if we got options.
But we lost options. Why?
Also the new light and shadows are buggy.... thats a problem too. And no there will be no changes in my opinion, we are too close to release.
This version in the benchmark is probably extremly close to what we will get at launch.
Also because of the absolute rigid patch cylce we will not see adressing this for a LONG time (4 to 6 months). Expierence from older Xpacs have shown this.
So yes, we need to be loud and clear for what we want or we will be waiting for 2 or more years for anything if ever.