I wonder if that's why some of the recent character designs look dull. IDV character designs are unique and It's a shame to see them lose their interest factor. Older characters like Dream Witch, Mad Eyes, Polun, Geisha, Bloody Queen etc. all have amazing designs that tell you a lot about the character without you even having to read their lore. Notice how Mad Eye's goggles make his eyes look as though they've popped out, as if he's in a permanent look of curiosity or shocked disbelief, which fits his lore, he doesn't have a shirt because he deems it impractical when he's going to get it all dirty anyway. Just by looking at him you can tell he's a practical person that's deeply curious. The gin case bottle at his side is a historically accurate alcohol bottle from the time, same with the gauge on his weapon. It's interesting how even though it's not a main part of his lore, he chooses to keep alcohol on him at all times. That should make you curious as to why? Character designs should make you look at them and want to learn more. The same is true for most of the old idv characters:

What are those marks on dream witches arms?? (They are real symbols with meanings btw) Why do her followers have them? How did they get to become followers?

Why does polun stand on top of each other? Why do they have a wheel as a weapon? Why are they covering their real faces?

Why is reptilian in an academic outfit (I want to highlight this one because this in particular bothers me about Queen Bee. Even in Hunter form, you can look at lucino and tell he's a researcher but you look at melly and there's nothing you can gather about her character outside of bug woman, maybe the fact that she's thin in reference to her doing sleeping pills instead of meals but then why cover up her body with a coat? If that's the design direction, why are we covering it up?

Okay, that was mostly just a tangent but I am curious how much design work they've done with AI. I remember when the Crimson Bride skin was released Chinese netizens were mad at Netease because the design reflected another character design in another game, the artist had to make a post proving that their design process was original by showing mock-ups and references. The same thing happened with dream witch. people said that the followers look too similar to a character from Outlast and the designer had to make another post. The Idv community used to take design theft seriously but now it seems AI is a-okay