Will the missing idle facial animations ever be fixed?

[Kami Sama]

Since around february I believe (shortly after beta ended), a bunch of facial animations which would play out while idling have no longer been working.

There's been multiple posts about it which were buried and forgotten about.
I'm sure a great deal of players have no idea they're even missing these animations (which make their character a lot nicer to look at while idling to be honest).

Anyone who's played on the other regions will definitely notice it though.

 

On NA our characters faces remain expressionless with a blank forward stare, and only change during the full body idle animations.

Example: on the left is how the face will often appear on other regions, they smile and their eyes/eyebrows move, on the right is how it always is on NA.


I've tried messaging support about it, but that has become a lost cause.
First support tells me to set my graphics on maximum (which they always are), after telling them that isn't the problem, they asked me to send in detailed screenshots/video of the issue.
After replying back to them with both screenshot and video evidence, along with forum threads that already discussed the issue showing that it affects all players, they replied telling me to post about it on the forums. (lol???)
Then they asked me to do a file repair, a day after I told them I did a full reinstall of the game client. (seriously?)
and now they've replied asking for screenshot/video again, which is just insulting because if they would have just read my other replies in that same ticket, they would have those.

 

I've completely given up on blade and soul support at this point.


So i'm hoping this thread doesn't die like the others did, and hopefully the missing animations actually get fixed.

For older characters created when those animations were working, a lot of them don't appear quite as their creators intended anymore due to being expressionless.
 

[TigerKFM]

There was a thread on this a month or so ago, I miss my character's facial animations.

[Kami Sama]

8 minutes ago, TigerKFM said:

There was a thread on this a month or so ago, I miss my character's facial animations.

ty tiger!!
I hadn't even seen that one lmao, there was like 3 other threads i'd seen about it.

Man it's just unsettling, wondering how much better everyones characters would look.

[H2H]

Is it just a few chars or all? because i still see summs falling asleep while standing up at the dragon trader. They get drowsy, eyes droop,  go closed etc.

[Kurokazu]

16 minutes ago, H2H said:

Is it just a few chars or all? because i still see summs falling asleep while standing up at the dragon trader. They get drowsy, eyes droop,  go closed etc.

It's all.
The physical body movement animations are still there (the face does move when that happens), but all the rest of the idle face animations are gone. So your character will be stone faced if they are standing still instead of blinking, smiling, eyes moving, sniffing (male lyn), raised eyebrow (male gon), etc.
They just stand there with eyes wide open and 100% zero movement in their face until they go into their timed body movement animation.

[Kami Sama]

10 hours ago, Kurokazu said:

It's all.
The physical body movement animations are still there (the face does move when that happens), but all the rest of the idle face animations are gone. So your character will be stone faced if they are standing still instead of blinking, smiling, eyes moving, sniffing (male lyn), raised eyebrow (male gon), etc.
They just stand there with eyes wide open and 100% zero movement in their face until they go into their timed body movement animation.

I think since those animations haven't been working for so long, a lot of the current players don't even realize what they're missing

[Daktaro]

I can back this up too. 
Looking through old screenshots my character used to do faces like this below - slightly closing eyes and smiling. Also blinking and some other expressions.

Now all he does is this below - only blank stare until he goes into the full-body idle animation. Even when he switches to looking at the camera, it's only ever a blank stare.

It wouldn't bother me if the blank stare is just included as part of the cycle, but it's the fact that all the other expressions and blinking is now completely gone.
I take a lot of screenshots and it's definitely noticeable and a disappointing issue.
Really hope this can be fixed :'(

[Inugami]

I've been fighting the same war with support as you, OP and got very similar replies where I just couldn't jam into their heads what was actually wrong, in spite of giving them detailed descriptions of the missing animation cycles and providing screenshots. It really is a big problem, especially since older characters have a considerable amount of distortion and stretching in the eyes and lips because of it. My male blade master's face was ruined by the problem, and only looks normal in the hongmoon store/wardrobe preview windows, where the normal animations are still present. Otherwise his eyes look as though someone has take the lids and stretched them up, while his lips have been widened. He is permanently stuck like this.

 

I have noticed that there are some spots in game (like the steps in front of the bank at hogshead) where blinking will spontaniously return, but the animation cycles are still glitched and the eyes will move in the opposite direction of the lids, creating a very distorted appearance. I have several images of my warlock (created after the glitch began) getting stuck with his eyes in a strange position.

 

 

 

 

[Kurokazu]

21 minutes ago, Inugami said:

It really is a big problem, especially since older characters have a considerable amount of distortion and stretching in the eyes and lips because of it. My male blade master's face was ruined by the problem, and only looks normal in the hongmoon store/wardrobe preview windows, where the normal animations are still present. Otherwise his eyes look as though someone has take the lids and stretched them up, while his lips have been widened. He is permanently stuck like this

YES!!! Thank you for saying this because I have noticed something off about my characters aside from the missing animations, but I just couldn't place it. What you're describing is spot on. The character faces are designed to move. Without that motion and the stone-faced expression, certain features look stretched or just off in general.

Edit:
I'm going to post this thread in here as well. I added a new thread in the Bug Report section of the forums. Hopefully between these threads, we will get some acknowledgement from the NCwest team.
 

 

[Inugami]

You are welcome! There are many subtle muscle movements that made the characters faces seem alive, so it is difficult to pinpoint everything that is wrong, but those are two of the major visible flaws.

 

Here are some screenshots of my blademaster. It's very difficult to capture exactly how bad the distortion is in a screenshot, especially in his lips, but it is definitely there (I will say that the absence of animations also causes some characters faces to appear wider and fatter than they should be). Please forgive me for the different lighting in the second comparison shot, I really should take him over to bamboo village and replicate the screenshots I took when I first made him. And sorry the images are big x.x

 

These are screenshots I took of him shortly after creation, as you can see his face was extremely expressive from multiple angles.

 

 

And these are screenshots taken after the animations went missing in one of the early maintinences. Note the pupil being in the wrong position, the stretching and distortion in the shape of the eyes, and the "lift" in the eyebrow that causes the entire eye to appear pulled up because the brow muscles are no longer twitching and moving as they should. The lips are also puffier and seem stretched, and the corners of his mouth are permanently pulled down, though that is hard to see unless you are in game (Again, sorry for terrible lighting differences) And, of course, he stares into space like a zombie.

 

 

And here is one of my Warlock (Created after the glitch) Displaying a more extreme version of the eye glitch.

 

[RyuueLaview]

30 minutes ago, Inugami said:

You are welcome! There are many subtle muscle movements that made the characters faces seem alive, so it is difficult to pinpoint everything that is wrong, but those are two of the major visible flaws.

 

Here are some screenshots of my blademaster. It's very difficult to capture exactly how bad the distortion is in a screenshot, especially in his lips, but it is definitely there (I will say that the absence of animations also causes some characters faces to appear wider and fatter than they should be). Please forgive me for the different lighting in the second comparison shot, I really should take him over to bamboo village and replicate the screenshots I took when I first made him. And sorry the images are big x.x

 

These are screenshots I took of him shortly after creation, as you can see his face was extremely expressive from multiple angles.

 

 

And these are screenshots taken after the animations went missing in one of the early maintinences. Note the pupil being in the wrong position, the stretching and distortion in the shape of the eyes, and the "lift" in the eyebrow that causes the entire eye to appear pulled up because the brow muscles are no longer twitching and moving as they should. The lips are also puffier and seem stretched, and the corners of his mouth are permanently pulled down, though that is hard to see unless you are in game (Again, sorry for terrible lighting differences) And, of course, he stares into space like a zombie.

 

 

And here is one of my Warlock (Created after the glitch) Displaying a more extreme version of the eye glitch.

 

Impeccable character design! I shall look into this too. I'm not sure if my boy is glitched. I do notice the full body stuff but need to pay attn to the idle faces. 

[Kurokazu]

59 minutes ago, Inugami said:

-cut-

Great screen shots! Yes I definitely see what you mean. It's frustrating seeing my old characters not look like they originally did, and not knowing why.
I kid you not, I remade my warlock over 100 times (making and deleting) because the finished product did not look right due to lack of animations. His face kept looking distorted in game. Now I'm sure if and when (PLEASE) they ever fix this bug, I might have to buy a character alteration voucher for my warlock to make him look like he should.

29 minutes ago, RyuueLaview said:

Impeccable character design! I shall look into this too. I'm not sure if my boy is glitched. I do notice the full body stuff but need to pay attn to the idle faces. 

I'm positive your character is glitched as well. Every single person I've talked to has noticed the same issue. Most people don't realize it though until you point it out. And new players will never know the difference because they didn't play the game from the start before this bug happened.

Your character's idle face should be the same or very close to what it looks like in the wardrobe preview.

This post has two videos comparing before and after the patch that removed the animations:

On 3/29/2016 at 2:03 PM, Yoitsu said:

I have Optimize for combat deactivated and all the Advanced Setting set to quality 5 and Anti-aliasing to FXAA to 4.

 

See the difference yourself with before:

 

 

 

And after the patch:

 

 

Idle emotes are clearly gone :(

 

This is a great disappointment to me, especially as those emotes really made the difference when looking at your character. Now there are as lifeless as in Black Desert...

 

Edit: And by the way, the same applies to cats :s

 

 

[Inugami]

Quote

Great screen shots! Yes I definitely see what you mean. It's frustrating seeing my old characters not look like they originally did, and not knowing why.
I kid you not, I remade my warlock over 100 times (making and deleting) because the finished product did not look right due to lack of animations. His face kept looking distorted in game. Now I'm sure if and when (PLEASE) they ever fix this bug, I might have to buy a character alteration voucher for my warlock to make him look like he should.

I actually did the same exact thing with my warlock when I made him because I knew this glitch was going to mess him up. I actually made a "junk" account where I would test my preset in game multiple times before the release of the class until I got him right. That "puffy lips" problem was something I struggled with immensely while making him. He's making a really weird, glitchy face in that screenshot, but when he isn't glitching he looks "normal" so I'm also very nervous that his face will need adjustment after the animations are fixed.

[Kurokazu]

These are 2 screenshots from when the game first game out in NA. My KFM and FM were lowbies at the time lol
But these are 2 idle expressions you will NEVER see currently until this bug is fixed:

Gon Male:
Wink with eyebrow raised and smirk. I caught him mid expression, but I loved when he did this. Made me faint haha <3


Lyn Male:
Nose sniff and cute smile.

[RyuueLaview]

Yo I think my toons do that 'blank face' too. They like do their idle 'moves' and then default to o.o. Like no expressions in the facial muscles. weird. altho I've never seen the 'before'. like they look around and stuff. but i think your talking about before that. 

[RyuueLaview]

I checked the f3 preview and its like what yall said. That's unfortunate that they glitched that. :( 

[Kami Sama]

Hey I just wanna say thanks for all the great feedback in this thread guys, I really hope our characters aren't stuck with lifeless blank stares for too much longer

[Inugami]

You're welcome! I was happy to see this thread pop up. I was close to making one myself that condensed all of the other threads together.

 

Also, @Kurokazuthat is a very attractive Gon you made XD I struggle to make Gon's look good x.x;

 

[Hinotama000]

I didn't really pay any attention to the face of my character. Then again, it doesn't seem like much of a problem. 

[Kohashi]

 

Looks fine to me oO

[Kurokazu]

17 minutes ago, Inugami said:

Also, @Kurokazuthat is a very attractive Gon you made XD I struggle to make Gon's look good x.x;

Aw thanks! <3 hehe
His name is Toraseishin (meaning Tiger Spirit). I tried to make him as tiger-like as possible xD


Yea Gons are very difficult to work with. I personally have the most trouble with male Jins, but in general I spend a disgusting amount of time working on character creation ><
I can't wait till they're all expressive again so I can go all paparazzi on them LOL
 

11 minutes ago, Hinotama000 said:

I didn't really pay any attention to the face of my character. Then again, it doesn't seem like much of a problem. 

I'm sure to a lot of people, the visual aspect of the game doesn't matter to them. But to most, it IS a huge deal. Especially since BnS's major selling point besides pvp combat is cosmetics.

5 minutes ago, Kohashi said:

Looks fine to me oO

Please watch the videos posted above that clearly show the difference. Yes the character will animate when they move their body around, but we're talking about the standing still idle expressions. Your character should look like it does in the wardrobe preview. 

[Kohashi]

Or MAYBE not all classes/faces/races suffers from this. I do know for sure mine looks fine while in idle.

[Belly Da Melly]

@OP , This is what they call "optimisation" aka removing game feauters

[Kurokazu]

9 minutes ago, Kohashi said:

Or MAYBE not all classes/faces/races suffers from this. I do know for sure mine looks fine while in idle.

I play all races and every person's character I look at has the same thing. You're actually the first person who has claimed it's fine. So I would appreciate a gif or video showing that what you see in the wardrobe is also visible in game.

I was also told by people who play the Taiwan version that they are having the same issue as well. So this is a server file issue an not the client itself.

Edit:
I would also like to note that when i spoke with support and gave them all the details (including everything I tried), they thanked me and said they were sending it to the quality assurance team for investigation. They also said they cannot give updates as they work on bug fixes. 
Unlike Kami, my support seemed to recognize what I described as a bug. What they have done with it within these few months, I don't know.

[Inugami]

You may think it looks fine, Kohashi, but I can definitely see trademarks of the distortion in your characters eyes especially (However this may appear normal to you, and that's fully understandable if you've either never seen the correct animations or didn't notice them before). Characters eyes will glance to the side still, but the set of the pupils is not correct and the outer lids tend to distort, as if the character is "trying" to make an expression, but the frames glitch. How old is your screenshot? Many characters can look "fine" (My warlock looks fine when he isn't standing in spots that make his eyes mess up, for example) but the animations are still missing and people don't notice that they are, especially if the character was made after this glitch. 

 

If you look at your character in the wardrobe preview, you will see the animations that should be there. Does your character cycle through those animations or only some occassional glancing to the side and movement?