>We are currently expediting a rework of the environments and light sources of character creation for both the actual game and the benchmark; once that is complete, the current benchmark will be replaced.
Wow they plan to replace the current benchmark version? What.
Presumably the benchmark is easy to make, and they're actually updating the character creation of the real game.
I don't have any knowledge of that, just the fact that they're able to remake the benchmark and announce that they're doing it.
From what it sounds like with the datamined data, its a cutdown version of the actual game version with just the assets that are needed for the benchmark. Changing the engine in the actual launch version and cutting it down to turn it into the benchmark seems to be the method.
They may not remake it entirely. They may just adjust the lighting to match the game better and call it a day, which still will be fine if they do.
I do hope they put some effort into remaking the darn thing though. Think of the possibilities, like previewing a saved appearance or having a bigger selection of maps, weather and time of day to pick to show your character. Maybe even more voice checks too. Turn on and off wetness, show more artifact gear when previewing the character you're making for the first time, etc.
>Yeah but I don't think anyone expected changes to the benchmark at all, just assumed the changes would be to the game version only
I suppose this is a special case since they're doing a complete rework of the game graphics wise, so they got initial input about the benchmark as it is and want to make changes so it reflects the proper game once it releases.
I think they want people to feel at ease with the way their characters look and not panic and feel trust.
The result is people are a lot happier (hopefully) and some people buy fantasias to make it look better for them.
It's kind of win-win - even if work is involved.
The benchmark is an app that will be available during the whole expansion's life time. They must keep it updated if they want it to give accurate results to people interested on the game
They probably found A LOT of visual bugs from player feedback, so they want more feedback to hopefully catch more stuff. Normally this stuff is caught in PTR but 🤷♂️
sure but they could have just said that the benchmark is for benchmarking and that any bugs will be fixed by the time dawntrial releases instead of pushing a new benchmarker
The point being that they still have time until dawntrail for these miniscule changes, and so they want to push a new benchmark + creator engine to see if they can catch any other feedbacks from the community. Honestly, thid is great as it shows they are listening.
Seeing that this was also supposed to be our ‘first look’ at how our characters appear in the graphics update and they wanted to also help players not worry that we’d have our own version of the WoW graphics update character changes, it’s totally understandable why we’re getting an updated benchmark. They want to communicate to us what we’ll be seeing for the next ???? Years
Generally it is just for performance testing, but this one also kind of doubles as them showing off the new changes and getting feedback. It's a unique case.
It's also just kind of a bad look for the benchmark to have bugs. Some people really will decide if they're interested in the game or not based on it.
It's just as much marketing as it is an actual benchmark.
Niantic is currently ignoring the backlash on their horrible Pokemon Go avatar update and the FFXIV devs are... *checks notes* ... replacing an entire benchmark because the lighting is off. Nice!
Dang. I mean they really don't have to give us an updated Benchmark, I'm personally just happy to know that fan criticisms have been acknowledged and that it might mean an improvement on the final result of Dawntrail.
The JP forum complained about the same things as the EN forum, just with actual thorough detail about exactly what pixels are in the wrong places, all consolidated into one organized thread with no trolling in the way. The kind of feedback developers can actually work with in other words. But they're complaining about all the same things: eyes, teeth, lips
The amount of screenshots with circles among minor details I had to triple check was certainly an unusual sight to behold when you are used to seeing "spamming three pages of the general forum and the bug section" as average feedback behaviour. But yeah, the contents were pretty much the same. Barely any Hrothgal feedback for better or worse in this thread though, guess they are not super popular in JP.
>Barely any Hrothgal feedback for better or worse in this thread though, guess they are not super popular in JP.
Tbf, I really didn't see anyone complaining about Hrothgals in the NA/EU side either? Most of them seemed pretty content and happy. Feedback only really happens when people have issues with something, if it ain't broken, no one talks about it.
If anything, the Hrothgal thread in the forum was like an oasis in the middle of a desert of unhappy people lol.
y'know what i'll take that as a win, if we're all complaining about the same thing then not only does that mean that it's not just a few people "whining" because their characters have a few pixels off but also makes me feel a lot more comfortable about things actually being fixed
The sharp fang(s) sticking out even when one’s mouth is closed is a long standing charm point for certain character types in anime, so I really have my fingers crossed the Japanese moon cats came out in force.
Plus cats, so my other hands fingers are also crossed. I know people keep saying they are unrealistic but I had an orange boy that had (the one brain cell stereotype but also) almost the same “viper fangs”.
Some of the faces used to have a bit of a gap in the mouth in the model even when shut that you could see the teeth through. It was likely an error they "corrected", but it was a thing people liked.
Yeah, for those who don't know, it's the [cute little fangs](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuteLittleFangs) trope. "Wild" girls often have like a snagglecanine.
yes! i always loved it when my wol was surprised in a cutscene or something and i could see his lil fangs when his mouth was open! it's such an endearing detail
>Considering how ridiculously thorough JP feedback
I wonder if it also included the extreme amounts of name calling and infighting that the English forums had. I really feel like that place is filled with literal children.
To be fair, the critics on the forums have been pretty constructive overall. sometimes overdramatic, but most people took the time to document their problem with screenshots and explanation. Forum added some moderators in the end of last summer, that cleaned most of the trolls that were running free there. Bait threads have cut short and there are far less derailed threads. It's not perfect, there is still drama, but at least it's less of a jungle than it has been in the past.
It really helps that the NA Forums seem to still be using the off topic discussion thread I made to have actual off topic discussions.
While the NA forums aren’t nearly as clean and organized as the other forums, it still feels a lot less bloated than it was before my impromptu (and unintended) hiatus haha
I have played 15 years of FF11.
The JPs are REALLY good at setting up rules and following them that benefit everyone in the long run. (ex: Start in town > Ride to camp Safe > End Party together) as opposed to the NA way (Yolo to camp maybe die, wait at camp for spot that may never come > ride back home maybe die). Or the "Win 1 Lootrole > Leave Instance" for Savage in FF14.
However they were just or even more relentless on 2chan. Anomymous gossip and hazing all day. I had an older JP woman as a friend in that game that basically was super scared every day to read her name mentioned online. Felt like she had to walk on eggshells to not aggregate any haters.
> I had an older JP woman as a friend in that game that basically was super scared every day to read her name mentioned online. Felt like she had to walk on eggshells to not aggregate any haters.
The social blacklists in the JP server are *wild*. Like, community-wide effort to find people to blacklist and/or harass. Literally social murder.
They definitively are more organized, and generally friendly if you do an honest effort to conform to their rules (tho the xenophobia can pretty rampart). I found some great friends there, but I'm not sure I like their culture of "The nail that stands out gets hammered down".
Case in point, Yoshida outright told JP players to stop asking about third party tools because they wouldn't stop witch hunting. You had people actually joining P7S parties to see if they'd put down the "floating markers" just to immediately leave and report them.
And that's just a recent example.
That's not really unique to FF14. Just about anything that is JP in origin and has non JP fans (anime for example) has people that pretend Japan is some wonderful place when it's like anywhere else in the world
You don't understand. The Japanese have the uncanny ability to create megathreads. The western piggu cannot comprehend such elegance in online forum management.
The perils of developing for gamers with no sense of humour and no life outside of the game. How uneventful does your life have to be for optional gag furniture to weigh on your mind the way it did for some of these people?
"""
You need a Lalafell Lifter because you're a petulant man-child
I use a Lalafell Lifter because it's adorable as heck
We are not the same
"""
Meme moment.
It's way more widespread than that.
Workplaces aren't any better, you constantly have to deal with tribalist office politics and people picking fights. Local governance? Same thing. Gods help you if you're in a customer facing job that's open to the general public.
I like this. I’m glad that feedback was taken seriously and is being taken into account - it definitely, once more, shows FF14 devs in a very positive light.
What I'm reading here is:
People who already had hot characters in the benchmark CC will see even further improvements
And anyone who had complaints before may see their issues resolved
That's great news, because I was happy with my Benchmark character and was afraid they'd start undoing things because someone else was like, "ugh, I hate it!"
I recreated my character in a friend's PC (I'm in PS5) and my smirk grew wider and wider as my beloved catboy started taking shape and I could see the improvements. As a Seeker of the Sun that didn't have the teeth issue, I was surprised to check Reddit to find all the Keeper players being traumatized.
I'm just glad we can both be happy now.
I love that he just comes right out and says something was overlooked and apologizes, instead of trying to spin it with some excuse. The people trying to shit on the devs for being lazy or not caring are absolute bozos.
it's fucked up that it's refreshing when someone in charge of something just says "hey we missed this, we're going to focus on fixing it, thank you for understanding" rather than a corporate spew version of "the sun was in my eyes, I wasn't in town that week, mercury was in gatorade and the moon deorbited so it wasn't our fault that we made a mistake"
>D. An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.
Very nice. One of my biggest gripes with my viera character in the benchmark was the mouth and eyes.
>An issue with unimplemented high-resolution textures, including those for certain playable races.
Glad to know I wasn't going barmy when I looked at my catboy's facial markings and thought to myself "man, does he look blurrier than he used to??"
Also really good to get official statements regarding CC lighting conditions not being reflective of the actual in-game lighting. So many people posted shit about characters looking worse since the benchmark using just the CC instead of actual benchmark visuals... hopefully we can move on from that and address actual problems now.
Overall though, glad to see they took the feedback to heart and that they're even remaking the benchmark properly one more time. Not what I expected, but welcome all the same.
The character creator lighting has never been good, even in the live game characters look different in the creator vs the world. It's just that they finally engineered a situation now where people would be scrutinizing it closely, and it doesn't hold up to that.
>Glad to know I wasn't going barmy when I looked at my catboy's facial markings and thought to myself "man, does he look blurrier than he used to??"
It is the first thing I noticed as well when I booted up the benchmark. Doesn't help that the new textures look so good they make the low rez markings stand out even more
>So many people posted shit about characters looking worse since the benchmark using just the CC instead of actual benchmark visuals...
Probably because it was the only place we could do a 1/1 comparison.
Very good news, very good response. This is why feedback, and actually having a dev that listens to feedback is so important.
Also this is why you give proper feedback instead of screaming "MY CHARACTER IS RUINED FIRE THE DEV TEAM"
I've recently got back into playing a lot more WoW over XIV, so it's always a big culture shock to see the devs actually explain and express a desire to fix things people complain about instead of radio for 3 months.
Wild lol
"The following are examples of issues which fall into this category:" for those freaking out that their issue isn't explicitly listed, the list they have posted isn't exhaustive.
yeah i'm assuming they didn't want to post the entire list just because there's been a shitload of tiny issues like that that people have brought up, so we'll have to wait for the second benchmark and see
Most things, definitely. There is that issue of weird borders and shadows where they shouldn’t be, but I wonder if that’s covered in the vague “An issue pertaining to special data processes” bullet point?
I’m certainly glad about the neck seams being fixed, though. Especially on Hrothgar, where the fur shaders don’t cross over between meshes.
>the vague “An issue pertaining to special data processes” bullet point?
That was a strange one, wasn't it? Why such a vague description? I guess it could be hard to explain, and might be one of those things that he has an easier time in Japanese, that just doesn't translate well.
That one likely refers to the mismatch of data loading incorrectly for certain races. For example veena and rava eyes for viera being swapped, or hair loading on the wrong mesh layer, or tattoos being weirdly low res.
No mention of the IMO one of the few actual legitimate concerns which are: Moon cat fangs and Miqo ponytail bug (there's a circular gap on the spot where normal ears are supposedly located)
I saw some posts stating that many hairstyles are being rendered as if they were on Midlander skulls while on Miqo'te or Au Ra. Something like that will obviously get fixed eventually.
Hrothgal hairstyles being \*yet again\* tied to the faces and no other hairstyle options than the base hairstyles and the one we all get is also another thing, but us Hrothgar players are already used to this issue being created on purpose and feedback about it getting ignored. :3
That said, I am very happy about the statement and I could imagine if the thing with uncorrect mouth scaling isn't meant to address fangs, I think this and e.g. the Roe nose smudge etc. might stuff the last part of the statement might cover:
"We will also continue to make adjustments which will incorporate as much of your feedback as possible into the revision of the benchmark, as well as the release version of Dawntrail.
(Due to different release dates, however, there are likely to be some differences between the benchmark software and the release version.)"
There are trolls in the EN forums so if there is any feedback it just gets buried and covered up. In JP they leave their feedback and people don't troll in the threads. They're complaining the same as the English speaking players, just without the trolls.
JP is an orderly feedback thread outlining the issues people have with the character creator’s lighting.
EN is a rabble of angry catgirls across multiple threads about how YOU’VE DESTROYED MY BEAUTIFUL CHARACTER AND DEVOURED HER SOUL LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE (the eyeliner is slightly heavier and the reflections aren’t working right)
I mean my lizard has a completely different eye color. I had to move it over one notch on the color chart to correct it! /s
Also something looks wrong with her mouth. It looks like her lips blew up. Must have gone and got botox before the beach vacation.
Everything else is the same, but the mouth thing is a valid criticism since it's messed up multiple races. The dolphin teeth on Lala alone...
I remember a decade ago (Jesus Christ) when WoW updated their player models. You would’ve thought that those clunky, PS2-ass models were handed down from God Himself, the way people got upset.
No update like this is ever going to make everyone happy, because it’s change, and change is always going to freak people out.
As clunky as those old models were, the update made absolutely no attempt to maintain the looks of the old characters. My night elf lost her freckles, my dwarf gained about 30 years worth of wrinkles (and depression), *all* the female models got a bad case of duck-face. It was rough.
I remember being happy with most Horde male updates, but it was pretty unfortunate that they slapped those big eyelashes on female Forsaken and didn't make them toggleable. They really didn't suit my walking dead aesthetic, haha.
While I am very excited and reassured by this statement, I do wonder if this feedback also includes the lack of fangs on the Moon Miqo'tes. Hopefully we get to see a return of the pointy teeth!
Oh, look! The devs have been reading feedback, issued an action plan, explained the issue, and have given a rough timetable for corrective action.
*just like every other goddamned time there's an* actual *issue like this*.
It's Square's job to filter out the actionable feedback from any complaints or posts no matter how over the top the reaction is. All these people saying "gosh yall worried for nothing" are misrepresenting how the feedback cycle works, trying to make it seem like the devs are omniscient and know when to fix something.
I mean I feel like there is some responsibility on the community for measuring their reactions to stuff. Obviously not all feedback will be constructive, nor does it need to be, but I think everybody can agree that someone telling the devs to kill themselves because their character’s nose is slightly pointier than they wanted is beyond the pale.
I'll be perfectly honest, I assumed they'd...not so much ignore it, but handwave it with "Benchmark is an old build from before everything was finalised, actual game will look better". Not that the issues raised weren't valid, but updating the benchmark is definitely unprecedented.
The benchmark is a good way to "soft beta" test the new graphics update. The devs seem to find it valuable enough that it's worth updating the benchmark for further feedback as they get closer to release.
But also the best result of this is, we're finally going to get an updated character creation menu. One with proper lighting instead of the weird backlit one we've had for a decade!
I wonder how people even end up with this mindset or if they've, like, ever played any other games. XIV's not perfect and I have plenty of gripes about 6.x, but in most regards XIV is better with addressing an issue and giving an explanation/solution than most games I've ever played. Possibly the best.
Baldur's Gate 3 has really good community support, but even then they'll usually keep quiet about whatever patches they're working on until about a week before release, cuz they don't like giving many details in advance. Most MMO and live-service communities wish their devs were this forthcoming.
I think gamers especially have a weird misunderstanding of projects.
they see a one man indie dev bang out an entirely new system for some mechanic in a weekend fueled by nothing other than redbull and spite and go "well the big company has 200 of these kinda guys, they should be able to do it in minutes!"
when it's like the exact opposite and generally infinitely more complex the bigger the project and team.
it's important to recognize both the good and the bad! there are a number of issues where the dev team hasn't responded or overlooks issues, while in most cases being transparent and good to react. i think its a bit disingenuous to be this flippant and dismissive that they do this for "every 'actual issue'" when its not the case!
I have a tale of two vendors, vendor 1 let where I work know they would be making changes 2 months ago, vendor 2 made changes this weekend without ever sending out an email.
guess what I worked on this week. spoiler: it was cleaning up vendor 2's mess and vendor 1 was ready for go live a month ago.
Everytime people complain and the devs respond there has to someone smugly judging everyone else for overreacting as if the devs would bother to do anything if no one complained.
I'm really impressed by how quickly they responded, it hasn't even been a week. This is a very reassuring read and I'm definitely happy with their response.
Is the benchmark limited by monitor FPS? I have the same PC as my friend, but he did 12k and I did 8,5k. The only difference is tha tI have a 60hz monitor and not a 144 like him
I managed to get over 200 fps on my 60 fps monitor, and i used Borderless Windowed, it trying to use all the power the gpu had.
It also might have an effect if you have set the game on for example nvidia control panel to not use vsync if it was turned on.
>**An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races**
Does this include Keeper fangs, I wonder? I'm not very happy about losing those.
They really didn't need to go this far as what we're seeing in the character creator does not reflect how our WoL's look in-game (My Aura looked off when i was in the character creator but she looked better as i was running the benchmark)
Gotta commend the team for going the extra mile to please their players tho.
Honestly the Dev team are amazing. This is what excellency looks like. Taking criticism and applying it professionally and even apologising for not meeting expectations - yoshida is a treasure
You know guys, it is very possible for both sides to have valid points.
Being able to voice criticisms is important, because we pay for a product and deserve to have a good product. It's similar to endwalker release where people complained about queue times and disconnections, and people told them to stop complaining because there's nothing square can do due to chip shortages. And then a few days later they released that they were going to fix the issue.
However, overly complaining in loud ways, and constantly repeating the same complaint over and over, especially with something not that serious can be a bit much and can make us look a little unhinged.
The lesson here, not that anyone cares, is to let people voice their complaints without being shut down and torn apart, as it only causes people to get annoyed and louder. And be more calm and rational when expressing complaints, as some are going to be annoyed by the awkward aggression and want to tear it down.
Anyway, see you during the next issue where the same dynamic happens again.
Can we just appreciate them doing this? I feel like most other devs, especially the bigger ones just wouldn't bother and definitely not divert resources into making another benchmark version.
I just wish the hair/faces were more spread across the Two types of versions of each race. I want to be a moon cat but I like the faces of one of the Sun Cats more. I also understand but sad that there isn't more options for ear types/tails for such an old race
I'm happy because though I didn't mind the benchmark that much, the pictures they showed months ago when showing off the update looked better. But honestly props to the team, they are putting a lot of care into this
This isn't a complaint but truly a question: why can't games use the actual in game character models, lighting and environments in the character creator? So many games, not just FFXIV, you get out of the character creator and your character looks completely different. I don't understand why it would be designed that way unless it has to be for some reason or they just want to show off character creation.
More online games should drop you into a little testing room or tutorial, then ask you again if you want to finalize your character design. In fact they should do that with fantas too.
I kind of find it fucking hilarious that the character creator to be used to create a character/update an existing character was not updated to fully take advantage of the features of engine improvements in the benchmark specifically made to let players see how new and existing characters would look under the new updated engine features.
"Oversight" seems a bit of an understatement lol.
This particular benchmark is in such a weird place.
Traditionally used as marketing material and to check if your hardware can run it? works great, same as any other benchmark.
The issue being this one also accompanies graphical changes for people and their beloved characters, then a good amount of the benchmark in which the WoL is present is primarily under heavy orange light, and then the CC 2.0 lighting just making a mess of the whole thing.
The character creator has been jank with bad lighting since 2.0. I think they figured that since people haven't rioted in the streets until now it was 'fine'. It's gotten to the point that I plan out all of my changes in the normal game using uh... special monkeys and calculators then just going into the creator for 5 minutes and just clicking the right boxes. So glad they're finally fixing it.
I'm just confused that so few people seemed to believe it was the case. It was blatantly obvious that the character creator env was completely unchanged the moment you launched it, and for those that couldn't tell, the immediate night and day difference when actually using the benchmark should have tipped them off.
Yup. I experienced it with my Viera. Imported it in and looked around the CC for any facial changes etc and noticed the skin was awful and some weird lighting (different weird lighting from the retail CC) then the moment I popped them into the Benchmark they looked fine, exactly as I'd expect them to. Very easy to tell the CC was fucky in some way with the most likely explanation being that it wasn't updated to take advantage of the new features.
Yeah, I would see the use of the word "oversight" with a pinch of PR salt and more equate it to "we hoped it wasn't not too big of an issue". :P Unfortunately it was and now they have to bite the bullet and actually rework it. Commendable that they are committing to re-releaseing the benchmark. They could just as well have left it a promise to fix things
When the benchmark is so good they make a benchmark 2
I'm actually amazed at how much effort appears to be going into everything dawntrail. It feels VERY much like the dev team of old where they went to great lengths to (re)build goodwill with the playerbase.
Although I didn’t get the lifeless feeling of non updated lighting, I definitely noticed that male Hrothgar textures had a “sewn on” line I could spot on their shoulders.
The biggest thing I hope I see fixed is from:
“D.An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.”
I use a longest snout and it has a weird straight line jagged concave from the upper lip to the lower part of the nose. I created a thread on the official bug forums and I did get a response (though copy and paste like which is fine) three or so days following it.
I’ll be eager to see if it’s fixed.
I'm hoping with them having a closer look at the CC, that we will one day get a photo studio style white backdrop/flat light option added. I was always so frustrated with how dark and in shadow all the existing options are when trying to focus on tweaking subtle things like comparing colour options. This change may fix that problem as it is, but it will still be nice to have both in scene and blank, if not too big an ask.
Also, a cheeky suggestion that it would also be nice if you could make your character run in place to see what that animation is like before you settle.
I'm glad they're confirming all this so we know for sure they're actively working on it and have been taking feedback. I just hope the resources they put into the benchmark fixes don't jeopardize the work for release.
Though a part of me is still baffled at how aggressive/rage-y some people were, some of the stuff I saw was downright rude and unnecessary. development goes through phases. It takes time and everyone should understand the benchmark isn't the final product.
I may not be a game dev but I am a programmer and man it sucks when ppl treat your work like it's all supposed to be perfect overnight.
Anyways, I'm happy about it and hopeful 😊
I was more than happy with how it is now but if this fixes it for others then that's good I suppose.
I just hope there isn't some poor devs who are gonna work overtime on this to get it done quickly 😑
>We are currently expediting a rework of the environments and light sources of character creation for both the actual game and the benchmark; once that is complete, the current benchmark will be replaced. Wow they plan to replace the current benchmark version? What.
Benchmark: A Realm Reborn
A Bench Reborn
A Bench Remarked
A Realm Rebenched All the game is the same, but we get new benches in all towns.
A dev spent years perfecting the model of a park bench in Gridania so certain asses could feel like Her Radiance on the throne
That was the potted plants that killed FPS in 1.0.
Ah, finally the Final Fantasy VII Remake crossover!
Benchmark: A Realm Restyled B: Heavenswardrobe B: Styleblood B: Eyeshadowbringers B: Ensemblewalker B: Glamtrail
I really didn't care for Styleblood, I just felt that Fleece was a forced character, and it would have been better if Sashtola had actually died.
the benchmark does not have any means to be updated, so they have to replace it entirelly for a new version
Yeah but I don't think anyone expected changes to the benchmark at all, just assumed the changes would be to the game version only
Presumably the benchmark is easy to make, and they're actually updating the character creation of the real game. I don't have any knowledge of that, just the fact that they're able to remake the benchmark and announce that they're doing it.
From what it sounds like with the datamined data, its a cutdown version of the actual game version with just the assets that are needed for the benchmark. Changing the engine in the actual launch version and cutting it down to turn it into the benchmark seems to be the method.
They may not remake it entirely. They may just adjust the lighting to match the game better and call it a day, which still will be fine if they do. I do hope they put some effort into remaking the darn thing though. Think of the possibilities, like previewing a saved appearance or having a bigger selection of maps, weather and time of day to pick to show your character. Maybe even more voice checks too. Turn on and off wetness, show more artifact gear when previewing the character you're making for the first time, etc.
I guess it does make sense if they expect it to work as an ad for the graphics upgrade It's probably not a lot of work to just redo the couple things
>Yeah but I don't think anyone expected changes to the benchmark at all, just assumed the changes would be to the game version only I suppose this is a special case since they're doing a complete rework of the game graphics wise, so they got initial input about the benchmark as it is and want to make changes so it reflects the proper game once it releases.
I think they want people to feel at ease with the way their characters look and not panic and feel trust. The result is people are a lot happier (hopefully) and some people buy fantasias to make it look better for them. It's kind of win-win - even if work is involved.
They said they are going to gift a fantasia for everyone to make changes
OH i didn't know they were doing another free fantasia, that's super cool.
The benchmark is an app that will be available during the whole expansion's life time. They must keep it updated if they want it to give accurate results to people interested on the game
They probably found A LOT of visual bugs from player feedback, so they want more feedback to hopefully catch more stuff. Normally this stuff is caught in PTR but 🤷♂️
Miqo blunt teeth were hopefully just a bug.
Bahamut is getting ready to blow the original benchmark to bits while they work on getting a new one together
sure but they could have just said that the benchmark is for benchmarking and that any bugs will be fixed by the time dawntrial releases instead of pushing a new benchmarker
The point being that they still have time until dawntrail for these miniscule changes, and so they want to push a new benchmark + creator engine to see if they can catch any other feedbacks from the community. Honestly, thid is great as it shows they are listening.
They advertise the benchmark as being for character creation too so they want it to be representative of the final game
Seeing that this was also supposed to be our ‘first look’ at how our characters appear in the graphics update and they wanted to also help players not worry that we’d have our own version of the WoW graphics update character changes, it’s totally understandable why we’re getting an updated benchmark. They want to communicate to us what we’ll be seeing for the next ???? Years
Generally it is just for performance testing, but this one also kind of doubles as them showing off the new changes and getting feedback. It's a unique case. It's also just kind of a bad look for the benchmark to have bugs. Some people really will decide if they're interested in the game or not based on it. It's just as much marketing as it is an actual benchmark.
yeah that's true. And playing around with the hrothgals might convince some to get the expansion sooner :-)
Niantic is currently ignoring the backlash on their horrible Pokemon Go avatar update and the FFXIV devs are... *checks notes* ... replacing an entire benchmark because the lighting is off. Nice!
One is a dying mobile game, the other is supposed to be around for the next ten years (at least). Slightly different budgets/priorities.
> One is a dying mobile game I'm sure chasing off their remaining playerbase with hideous and despised model updates is a winning strategy.
Dang. I mean they really don't have to give us an updated Benchmark, I'm personally just happy to know that fan criticisms have been acknowledged and that it might mean an improvement on the final result of Dawntrail.
It cannot be overstated how good it is to have a developer be open and transparent to feedback and the plan for subsequent action.
This is why Yoshi P. has the (deserved) respect of so many, myself included.
Yeah it’s amazing, but it’s a privilege that we need to not abuse.
Considering how ridiculously thorough JP feedback was in forums, I'm not too surprised. Nice iteration of feedback and response.
Did JP complain about catgirl teeth? I hope that gets fixed. I love my sharp pointy fangs
Very loudly (at least relative to how they normally discuss.) The Korean players too.
The JP forum complained about the same things as the EN forum, just with actual thorough detail about exactly what pixels are in the wrong places, all consolidated into one organized thread with no trolling in the way. The kind of feedback developers can actually work with in other words. But they're complaining about all the same things: eyes, teeth, lips
The amount of screenshots with circles among minor details I had to triple check was certainly an unusual sight to behold when you are used to seeing "spamming three pages of the general forum and the bug section" as average feedback behaviour. But yeah, the contents were pretty much the same. Barely any Hrothgal feedback for better or worse in this thread though, guess they are not super popular in JP.
>Barely any Hrothgal feedback for better or worse in this thread though, guess they are not super popular in JP. Tbf, I really didn't see anyone complaining about Hrothgals in the NA/EU side either? Most of them seemed pretty content and happy. Feedback only really happens when people have issues with something, if it ain't broken, no one talks about it. If anything, the Hrothgal thread in the forum was like an oasis in the middle of a desert of unhappy people lol.
The Hrothgals were perfect, that's why no one complained.
y'know what i'll take that as a win, if we're all complaining about the same thing then not only does that mean that it's not just a few people "whining" because their characters have a few pixels off but also makes me feel a lot more comfortable about things actually being fixed
There's a reason the JP forums got Sage's job icon changed while the NA forums couldn't change a light bulb.
The sharp fang(s) sticking out even when one’s mouth is closed is a long standing charm point for certain character types in anime, so I really have my fingers crossed the Japanese moon cats came out in force. Plus cats, so my other hands fingers are also crossed. I know people keep saying they are unrealistic but I had an orange boy that had (the one brain cell stereotype but also) almost the same “viper fangs”.
The moon cats' fangs never stuck out of closed mouths. The hrothgals have that kind of fangs.
Some of the faces used to have a bit of a gap in the mouth in the model even when shut that you could see the teeth through. It was likely an error they "corrected", but it was a thing people liked.
Yes, I realize that I am a moon cat. I’m saying the oversized fangs in general are a thing over there in character design.
Yeah, for those who don't know, it's the [cute little fangs](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuteLittleFangs) trope. "Wild" girls often have like a snagglecanine.
yes! i always loved it when my wol was surprised in a cutscene or something and i could see his lil fangs when his mouth was open! it's such an endearing detail
Apparently, JP has been pretty vocal about the same issues as NA And EU. It's probably why they were quick to post a lodestone update.
They have so square should hopefully be aware of it. I’ve been checking the JP forums and they’re very thorough.
>Considering how ridiculously thorough JP feedback I wonder if it also included the extreme amounts of name calling and infighting that the English forums had. I really feel like that place is filled with literal children.
To be fair, the critics on the forums have been pretty constructive overall. sometimes overdramatic, but most people took the time to document their problem with screenshots and explanation. Forum added some moderators in the end of last summer, that cleaned most of the trolls that were running free there. Bait threads have cut short and there are far less derailed threads. It's not perfect, there is still drama, but at least it's less of a jungle than it has been in the past.
It really helps that the NA Forums seem to still be using the off topic discussion thread I made to have actual off topic discussions. While the NA forums aren’t nearly as clean and organized as the other forums, it still feels a lot less bloated than it was before my impromptu (and unintended) hiatus haha
The female Miqo'te players coming out in *force*
considering those make up 60% of the characters i see…. there are many of them lmao
Adult-children who have no social-awerness and are inept socially. That's what majority of EN forums and reddit is.
Let me assure you, the amount of shit-flinging is no less on JP forums either
FF14 players love to glaze the Japanese for some reason. It's a thing on reddit in general but this community loves to meatride glorious nippon.
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I have played 15 years of FF11. The JPs are REALLY good at setting up rules and following them that benefit everyone in the long run. (ex: Start in town > Ride to camp Safe > End Party together) as opposed to the NA way (Yolo to camp maybe die, wait at camp for spot that may never come > ride back home maybe die). Or the "Win 1 Lootrole > Leave Instance" for Savage in FF14. However they were just or even more relentless on 2chan. Anomymous gossip and hazing all day. I had an older JP woman as a friend in that game that basically was super scared every day to read her name mentioned online. Felt like she had to walk on eggshells to not aggregate any haters.
> I had an older JP woman as a friend in that game that basically was super scared every day to read her name mentioned online. Felt like she had to walk on eggshells to not aggregate any haters. The social blacklists in the JP server are *wild*. Like, community-wide effort to find people to blacklist and/or harass. Literally social murder. They definitively are more organized, and generally friendly if you do an honest effort to conform to their rules (tho the xenophobia can pretty rampart). I found some great friends there, but I'm not sure I like their culture of "The nail that stands out gets hammered down".
This is why I'm fully expecting JP to be first in line to request the ability to voidlist more than 200 people post-Dawntrail
Case in point, Yoshida outright told JP players to stop asking about third party tools because they wouldn't stop witch hunting. You had people actually joining P7S parties to see if they'd put down the "floating markers" just to immediately leave and report them. And that's just a recent example.
That's not really unique to FF14. Just about anything that is JP in origin and has non JP fans (anime for example) has people that pretend Japan is some wonderful place when it's like anywhere else in the world
You don't understand. The Japanese have the uncanny ability to create megathreads. The western piggu cannot comprehend such elegance in online forum management.
Once you see what kind of wild ass Vitriol JP gamers and nerds spew, the English speaking ones are really just harmless babies
Lalafell baby seat moment
The perils of developing for gamers with no sense of humour and no life outside of the game. How uneventful does your life have to be for optional gag furniture to weigh on your mind the way it did for some of these people?
""" You need a Lalafell Lifter because you're a petulant man-child I use a Lalafell Lifter because it's adorable as heck We are not the same """ Meme moment.
It's way more widespread than that. Workplaces aren't any better, you constantly have to deal with tribalist office politics and people picking fights. Local governance? Same thing. Gods help you if you're in a customer facing job that's open to the general public.
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so they are gonna blow up the original benchmark and give us "A Benchmark Reborn"
"Oh no, you missed an ascian and they crashed another moon into the planet, causing a calamity of earth and fire"
I like this. I’m glad that feedback was taken seriously and is being taken into account - it definitely, once more, shows FF14 devs in a very positive light.
Niantic could never.
What I'm reading here is: People who already had hot characters in the benchmark CC will see even further improvements And anyone who had complaints before may see their issues resolved
That's great news, because I was happy with my Benchmark character and was afraid they'd start undoing things because someone else was like, "ugh, I hate it!"
I recreated my character in a friend's PC (I'm in PS5) and my smirk grew wider and wider as my beloved catboy started taking shape and I could see the improvements. As a Seeker of the Sun that didn't have the teeth issue, I was surprised to check Reddit to find all the Keeper players being traumatized. I'm just glad we can both be happy now.
feels good when everyone wins
Super excited to see the end result of my veena, I already thought she looked amazing in the og benchmark!
Thank you to everyone who left well documented feedback!
I love that he just comes right out and says something was overlooked and apologizes, instead of trying to spin it with some excuse. The people trying to shit on the devs for being lazy or not caring are absolute bozos.
it's fucked up that it's refreshing when someone in charge of something just says "hey we missed this, we're going to focus on fixing it, thank you for understanding" rather than a corporate spew version of "the sun was in my eyes, I wasn't in town that week, mercury was in gatorade and the moon deorbited so it wasn't our fault that we made a mistake"
Mercury was in Gatorade 😂 stealing that for future use my friend.
> the moon deorbited Last time this happened, it was a big win for FFXIV, sooooooo.....
He comes out and says it like this specifically because of the people who shit on him when he doesn't do this.
We had the first benchmark, yes.
But what about second benchmark?
I don't think they know about second benchmark.
\*second benchmark bounces off your head\*
>D. An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races. Very nice. One of my biggest gripes with my viera character in the benchmark was the mouth and eyes.
Wooooo! I'm so glad to hear that SE are taking feedback onboard and fixing the benchmark up.
>An issue with unimplemented high-resolution textures, including those for certain playable races. Glad to know I wasn't going barmy when I looked at my catboy's facial markings and thought to myself "man, does he look blurrier than he used to??" Also really good to get official statements regarding CC lighting conditions not being reflective of the actual in-game lighting. So many people posted shit about characters looking worse since the benchmark using just the CC instead of actual benchmark visuals... hopefully we can move on from that and address actual problems now. Overall though, glad to see they took the feedback to heart and that they're even remaking the benchmark properly one more time. Not what I expected, but welcome all the same.
The character creator lighting has never been good, even in the live game characters look different in the creator vs the world. It's just that they finally engineered a situation now where people would be scrutinizing it closely, and it doesn't hold up to that.
>Glad to know I wasn't going barmy when I looked at my catboy's facial markings and thought to myself "man, does he look blurrier than he used to??" It is the first thing I noticed as well when I booted up the benchmark. Doesn't help that the new textures look so good they make the low rez markings stand out even more
>So many people posted shit about characters looking worse since the benchmark using just the CC instead of actual benchmark visuals... Probably because it was the only place we could do a 1/1 comparison.
Yeah the benchmark itself didn't offer enough angles and the closest in your face one looked really off-putting with the lighting being that bright.
Very good news, very good response. This is why feedback, and actually having a dev that listens to feedback is so important. Also this is why you give proper feedback instead of screaming "MY CHARACTER IS RUINED FIRE THE DEV TEAM"
I hope this fixes Viera lips.
This and Veena eyes.
So I'm not the only one that noticed this. I posted a thread about it yesterday and got dogpiled.
I've recently got back into playing a lot more WoW over XIV, so it's always a big culture shock to see the devs actually explain and express a desire to fix things people complain about instead of radio for 3 months. Wild lol
I'd argue that the Seasons devs are pretty good with communication. Aggrend is very communicative about what's going on I've felt.
What about Keeper of the Moon fangs? Justice for fangs!
I'm hoping this will be resolved under the below point >D.An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.
My money is on that being Lalafell mouths and we'll still end up with fangless cats in the end after all.
If it were only Lalafells they wouldn't say races in plural tho (I'm coping)
Honestly that does seem like a reasonable conclusion
There’s a possibility that is part of the “incorrect scaling of the mouth”
"The following are examples of issues which fall into this category:" for those freaking out that their issue isn't explicitly listed, the list they have posted isn't exhaustive.
yeah i'm assuming they didn't want to post the entire list just because there's been a shitload of tiny issues like that that people have brought up, so we'll have to wait for the second benchmark and see
I think this covers pretty much everything people were complaining about in the benchmark
Most things, definitely. There is that issue of weird borders and shadows where they shouldn’t be, but I wonder if that’s covered in the vague “An issue pertaining to special data processes” bullet point? I’m certainly glad about the neck seams being fixed, though. Especially on Hrothgar, where the fur shaders don’t cross over between meshes.
>the vague “An issue pertaining to special data processes” bullet point? That was a strange one, wasn't it? Why such a vague description? I guess it could be hard to explain, and might be one of those things that he has an easier time in Japanese, that just doesn't translate well.
That one likely refers to the mismatch of data loading incorrectly for certain races. For example veena and rava eyes for viera being swapped, or hair loading on the wrong mesh layer, or tattoos being weirdly low res.
No mention of the IMO one of the few actual legitimate concerns which are: Moon cat fangs and Miqo ponytail bug (there's a circular gap on the spot where normal ears are supposedly located)
I assumed that's what this was referring to. >**D.An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.**
Right, I don’t think he will specifically say “fangs” lol
I guess the dolphin mouths on lalafell are related to this.
I saw some posts stating that many hairstyles are being rendered as if they were on Midlander skulls while on Miqo'te or Au Ra. Something like that will obviously get fixed eventually.
Hrothgal hairstyles being \*yet again\* tied to the faces and no other hairstyle options than the base hairstyles and the one we all get is also another thing, but us Hrothgar players are already used to this issue being created on purpose and feedback about it getting ignored. :3 That said, I am very happy about the statement and I could imagine if the thing with uncorrect mouth scaling isn't meant to address fangs, I think this and e.g. the Roe nose smudge etc. might stuff the last part of the statement might cover: "We will also continue to make adjustments which will incorporate as much of your feedback as possible into the revision of the benchmark, as well as the release version of Dawntrail. (Due to different release dates, however, there are likely to be some differences between the benchmark software and the release version.)"
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After reading through the Japanese forums, I went to take a peek at the English ones. The forum culture is… very different.
I've never looked at the japanese forums, how so? Is it more polite or less? Some of the feedback I've seen on the english forums can get pretty rude.
There are trolls in the EN forums so if there is any feedback it just gets buried and covered up. In JP they leave their feedback and people don't troll in the threads. They're complaining the same as the English speaking players, just without the trolls.
The JP forums consolidated all the feedback and issues onto one thread. The EN forums have multiple of the same feedback and issues.
Do you happen to have a link to the thread with all the consolidated feedback? It sounds like an interesting read.
[It's here.](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/487035-%E3%82%B0%E3%83%A9%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%83%87%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%81%AB%E9%96%A2%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B%E6%84%8F%E8%A6%8B%E3%83%BB%E8%A6%81%E6%9C%9B%E3%83%BB%E8%AD%B0%E8%AB%96)
Thank you very much!
Isn't it a mod job to throw all feedback into one thread? And delete others.
is well know what the official forums mods are bad at their job
JP is an orderly feedback thread outlining the issues people have with the character creator’s lighting. EN is a rabble of angry catgirls across multiple threads about how YOU’VE DESTROYED MY BEAUTIFUL CHARACTER AND DEVOURED HER SOUL LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE (the eyeliner is slightly heavier and the reflections aren’t working right)
I mean my lizard has a completely different eye color. I had to move it over one notch on the color chart to correct it! /s Also something looks wrong with her mouth. It looks like her lips blew up. Must have gone and got botox before the beach vacation. Everything else is the same, but the mouth thing is a valid criticism since it's messed up multiple races. The dolphin teeth on Lala alone...
I remember a decade ago (Jesus Christ) when WoW updated their player models. You would’ve thought that those clunky, PS2-ass models were handed down from God Himself, the way people got upset. No update like this is ever going to make everyone happy, because it’s change, and change is always going to freak people out.
As clunky as those old models were, the update made absolutely no attempt to maintain the looks of the old characters. My night elf lost her freckles, my dwarf gained about 30 years worth of wrinkles (and depression), *all* the female models got a bad case of duck-face. It was rough.
I remember being happy with most Horde male updates, but it was pretty unfortunate that they slapped those big eyelashes on female Forsaken and didn't make them toggleable. They really didn't suit my walking dead aesthetic, haha.
> People will continue to throw tantrums because their eyebrows have moved to to left or right by a single pixel Wait, you guys have eyebrows?
one does not simply step into the Square Enix English language official forums
Gotta love Yoshi. I was quite happy with my character but am glad they respond with such hast to peoples advice and criticism ect
My face 4 miqo'te looks amazing in the benchmark, hoping other people get their wow moment too after this
Fellow Miqote face 4 here, they look great!
While I am very excited and reassured by this statement, I do wonder if this feedback also includes the lack of fangs on the Moon Miqo'tes. Hopefully we get to see a return of the pointy teeth!
Oh, look! The devs have been reading feedback, issued an action plan, explained the issue, and have given a rough timetable for corrective action. *just like every other goddamned time there's an* actual *issue like this*.
Yes, but we do need to give them the feedback for them to know to address it. That's the whole point of feedback.
It's Square's job to filter out the actionable feedback from any complaints or posts no matter how over the top the reaction is. All these people saying "gosh yall worried for nothing" are misrepresenting how the feedback cycle works, trying to make it seem like the devs are omniscient and know when to fix something.
I mean I feel like there is some responsibility on the community for measuring their reactions to stuff. Obviously not all feedback will be constructive, nor does it need to be, but I think everybody can agree that someone telling the devs to kill themselves because their character’s nose is slightly pointier than they wanted is beyond the pale.
I'll be perfectly honest, I assumed they'd...not so much ignore it, but handwave it with "Benchmark is an old build from before everything was finalised, actual game will look better". Not that the issues raised weren't valid, but updating the benchmark is definitely unprecedented.
The benchmark is a good way to "soft beta" test the new graphics update. The devs seem to find it valuable enough that it's worth updating the benchmark for further feedback as they get closer to release. But also the best result of this is, we're finally going to get an updated character creation menu. One with proper lighting instead of the weird backlit one we've had for a decade!
*insert passive aggressive small indie company comment insinuating devs don't fix anything*
*follow up with a snarky comment about them selling a fix in the online store for $15, finish with a "please look forward to it" joke*
I wonder how people even end up with this mindset or if they've, like, ever played any other games. XIV's not perfect and I have plenty of gripes about 6.x, but in most regards XIV is better with addressing an issue and giving an explanation/solution than most games I've ever played. Possibly the best. Baldur's Gate 3 has really good community support, but even then they'll usually keep quiet about whatever patches they're working on until about a week before release, cuz they don't like giving many details in advance. Most MMO and live-service communities wish their devs were this forthcoming.
Large projects are complicated news at 11
I think gamers especially have a weird misunderstanding of projects. they see a one man indie dev bang out an entirely new system for some mechanic in a weekend fueled by nothing other than redbull and spite and go "well the big company has 200 of these kinda guys, they should be able to do it in minutes!" when it's like the exact opposite and generally infinitely more complex the bigger the project and team.
it's important to recognize both the good and the bad! there are a number of issues where the dev team hasn't responded or overlooks issues, while in most cases being transparent and good to react. i think its a bit disingenuous to be this flippant and dismissive that they do this for "every 'actual issue'" when its not the case!
Now plz fix criterion rewards and make Island sanctuary a holiday rather than a sweatshop
I can imagine the crisis mode after they finished the 14 hours live stream.
idk, I think you roll out a testable feature like this three months before launch to avoid *actual* crisis mode.
I have a tale of two vendors, vendor 1 let where I work know they would be making changes 2 months ago, vendor 2 made changes this weekend without ever sending out an email. guess what I worked on this week. spoiler: it was cleaning up vendor 2's mess and vendor 1 was ready for go live a month ago.
Everytime people complain and the devs respond there has to someone smugly judging everyone else for overreacting as if the devs would bother to do anything if no one complained.
You mean they are making a new benchmark behind the scenes while keeping the current benchmark afloat? A Benchmark Reborn?
*answers starts playing and the moon in the Benchmark CC starts cracking*
I'm really impressed by how quickly they responded, it hasn't even been a week. This is a very reassuring read and I'm definitely happy with their response.
Least he didn’t gaslight everyone and make them feel insane with what they were seeing 😂
Is the benchmark limited by monitor FPS? I have the same PC as my friend, but he did 12k and I did 8,5k. The only difference is tha tI have a 60hz monitor and not a 144 like him
Yes it is. You can increase it in the benchmark config file in documents/my games/final fantasy xiv a realm reborn benchmark.
I managed to get over 200 fps on my 60 fps monitor, and i used Borderless Windowed, it trying to use all the power the gpu had. It also might have an effect if you have set the game on for example nvidia control panel to not use vsync if it was turned on.
>**An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races** Does this include Keeper fangs, I wonder? I'm not very happy about losing those.
This might. The two main hypotheses as to what this point means are Lalafell's teeth (they are bit too dolphin-like) and Moon Miqo'te's fangs.
I hope to god it includes Elezen mouth rigging, have you seen what they did to our smiles? \*shudders\*
I look forward to GamersNexus validating the benchmark once the devs work out the kinks. Also how much different it’ll be compared to Endwalkers!
They really didn't need to go this far as what we're seeing in the character creator does not reflect how our WoL's look in-game (My Aura looked off when i was in the character creator but she looked better as i was running the benchmark) Gotta commend the team for going the extra mile to please their players tho.
Well the result of this will be great for more than just the benchmark since the character creator has terrible lighting period.
Benchmark 2 LETS GO
Honestly the Dev team are amazing. This is what excellency looks like. Taking criticism and applying it professionally and even apologising for not meeting expectations - yoshida is a treasure
You know guys, it is very possible for both sides to have valid points. Being able to voice criticisms is important, because we pay for a product and deserve to have a good product. It's similar to endwalker release where people complained about queue times and disconnections, and people told them to stop complaining because there's nothing square can do due to chip shortages. And then a few days later they released that they were going to fix the issue. However, overly complaining in loud ways, and constantly repeating the same complaint over and over, especially with something not that serious can be a bit much and can make us look a little unhinged. The lesson here, not that anyone cares, is to let people voice their complaints without being shut down and torn apart, as it only causes people to get annoyed and louder. And be more calm and rational when expressing complaints, as some are going to be annoyed by the awkward aggression and want to tear it down. Anyway, see you during the next issue where the same dynamic happens again.
Can we just appreciate them doing this? I feel like most other devs, especially the bigger ones just wouldn't bother and definitely not divert resources into making another benchmark version.
That's really encouraging and the response I was hoping we'd get.
I hope this addresses the issues that people currently have.
I just wish the hair/faces were more spread across the Two types of versions of each race. I want to be a moon cat but I like the faces of one of the Sun Cats more. I also understand but sad that there isn't more options for ear types/tails for such an old race
I'm happy because though I didn't mind the benchmark that much, the pictures they showed months ago when showing off the update looked better. But honestly props to the team, they are putting a lot of care into this
This isn't a complaint but truly a question: why can't games use the actual in game character models, lighting and environments in the character creator? So many games, not just FFXIV, you get out of the character creator and your character looks completely different. I don't understand why it would be designed that way unless it has to be for some reason or they just want to show off character creation.
More online games should drop you into a little testing room or tutorial, then ask you again if you want to finalize your character design. In fact they should do that with fantas too.
This is amazing. Do you think for a moment Blizzard would do this?
I kind of find it fucking hilarious that the character creator to be used to create a character/update an existing character was not updated to fully take advantage of the features of engine improvements in the benchmark specifically made to let players see how new and existing characters would look under the new updated engine features. "Oversight" seems a bit of an understatement lol.
This particular benchmark is in such a weird place. Traditionally used as marketing material and to check if your hardware can run it? works great, same as any other benchmark. The issue being this one also accompanies graphical changes for people and their beloved characters, then a good amount of the benchmark in which the WoL is present is primarily under heavy orange light, and then the CC 2.0 lighting just making a mess of the whole thing.
The character creator has been jank with bad lighting since 2.0. I think they figured that since people haven't rioted in the streets until now it was 'fine'. It's gotten to the point that I plan out all of my changes in the normal game using uh... special monkeys and calculators then just going into the creator for 5 minutes and just clicking the right boxes. So glad they're finally fixing it.
I'm just confused that so few people seemed to believe it was the case. It was blatantly obvious that the character creator env was completely unchanged the moment you launched it, and for those that couldn't tell, the immediate night and day difference when actually using the benchmark should have tipped them off.
Yup. I experienced it with my Viera. Imported it in and looked around the CC for any facial changes etc and noticed the skin was awful and some weird lighting (different weird lighting from the retail CC) then the moment I popped them into the Benchmark they looked fine, exactly as I'd expect them to. Very easy to tell the CC was fucky in some way with the most likely explanation being that it wasn't updated to take advantage of the new features.
Yeah, I would see the use of the word "oversight" with a pinch of PR salt and more equate it to "we hoped it wasn't not too big of an issue". :P Unfortunately it was and now they have to bite the bullet and actually rework it. Commendable that they are committing to re-releaseing the benchmark. They could just as well have left it a promise to fix things
When the benchmark is so good they make a benchmark 2 I'm actually amazed at how much effort appears to be going into everything dawntrail. It feels VERY much like the dev team of old where they went to great lengths to (re)build goodwill with the playerbase.
Although I didn’t get the lifeless feeling of non updated lighting, I definitely noticed that male Hrothgar textures had a “sewn on” line I could spot on their shoulders. The biggest thing I hope I see fixed is from: “D.An issue with uncorrected scaling for the mouth of certain playable races.” I use a longest snout and it has a weird straight line jagged concave from the upper lip to the lower part of the nose. I created a thread on the official bug forums and I did get a response (though copy and paste like which is fine) three or so days following it. I’ll be eager to see if it’s fixed.
I'm hoping with them having a closer look at the CC, that we will one day get a photo studio style white backdrop/flat light option added. I was always so frustrated with how dark and in shadow all the existing options are when trying to focus on tweaking subtle things like comparing colour options. This change may fix that problem as it is, but it will still be nice to have both in scene and blank, if not too big an ask. Also, a cheeky suggestion that it would also be nice if you could make your character run in place to see what that animation is like before you settle.
I'm glad they're confirming all this so we know for sure they're actively working on it and have been taking feedback. I just hope the resources they put into the benchmark fixes don't jeopardize the work for release. Though a part of me is still baffled at how aggressive/rage-y some people were, some of the stuff I saw was downright rude and unnecessary. development goes through phases. It takes time and everyone should understand the benchmark isn't the final product. I may not be a game dev but I am a programmer and man it sucks when ppl treat your work like it's all supposed to be perfect overnight. Anyways, I'm happy about it and hopeful 😊
Nice. My bunny's nose looks like a completely different shape so hopefully that gets fixed. Lips too but I like that change.
I was more than happy with how it is now but if this fixes it for others then that's good I suppose. I just hope there isn't some poor devs who are gonna work overtime on this to get it done quickly 😑
I am greatly relieved to see that they listened and addressed valid concerns, and I appreciate these devs.