Character graphical changes are NOT in an acceptable state, please make it optional

*sits in a corner, eating popcorn* I played WoW for almost 13 years, but boy oh boy, the drama in this forum is a whole other class. I love it.

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Originally Posted by LlymlaenGreene

I do not dispute that there are those who are satisfied with this, if you carefully read the forums, that is, those who have not been affected by the changes, or those who have become really more beautiful, let's be honest : 3 and there are those who did not win this lottery *, including me*

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No no, that's precisely my point. I've been trying to remain fair to people that are unhappy with what they've got and asking for a compromise, so it's just frustrating when you group everyone who likes the update under the statement "They don't care about their characters". Just refrain from making such general statements in the future, please.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

No no, that's precisely my point. I've been trying to remain fair to people that are unhappy with what they've got and asking for a compromise, so it's just frustrating when you group everyone who likes the update under the statement "They don't care about their characters". Just refrain from making such general statements in the future, please.

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I want to clarify, I mean, I'm glad that there are people who like their changes and I confirm that there are those who really got better or changed and people like it and it's wonderful! I'm not saying that everyone who accepts these updates does not care about the character or is not attached, I'm sorry, with my A2 English level it's not too easy to talk about abstract topics, yes, it really may be so in that message, but I don't mean it by any means!

Speaking as someone who loves the updates, I really don’t like how dismissive some of us who ended up enjoying the changes are being. It’s entirely fair for people to be upset and to ask for change.

Granted, there’s bad faith arguments on both sides, but still.

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Originally Posted by Eluvyel

You're objectively wrong though? JP players especially have been very diligent in documenting the changes and wherever something looks off, the topology of the asset is significantly altered.

I've also already look through the new face UVs and you can clearly see that the lip shapes aren't even remotely the same. That's...not something up for debate just because you can't tell. They're demonstrably different enough that the isolated asset side by side has close to no similarities.

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Obviously, it's a graphic update, changes are expected. What I was trying to say is, even if I notice your character today and in three months it still looks pretty similar, those changes are so minor that stressing over them seems unnecessary. At the end of the day, worst-case scenario, you can switch up your hairstyle, maybe even the color, you know, assume your character's just aged a bit. It's been quite a while this game has been released after all. And hey, think about it, you've probably changed your real-life haircut since this game came out, right? Does it still feel like 'you'?"

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Originally Posted by Embran

The character creator isn’t the final product. They have a disclaimer saying this stuff is still a work in progress. The build from the benchmark itself could be months old.

It hasn’t passed any checks yet because the game is still in development. It’s important to point these issues out, but I don’t think it’s fair to drag the devs for these issues when the product isn’t final. It's entirely possible they fixed this very issue weeks ago internally.

Now, come 7.0 release day and these issues are still there, drag them all you want.

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That is in fact the exact OPPOSITE of the mentality to have with design. You can work of feedback before release, but once your product goes gold your mode of development shifts.

They released the benchmark EXPLICITLY as a look into what changes are being made. It's not a finished product because THERE IS STILL TIME TO ACT ON FEEDBACK, but that time is very limited which is why we are all arguing about this with such urgency.

Plus, quite frankly, I've been through this song and dance enough times with enough games that I know it's only "It's not a finished product, just calm down and wait" doesn't stop at release, it just changes to "You should have complained when you had the chance, it's too late now."

So pardon me if I don't get down from atop my soapbox quite yet.

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Originally Posted by Ceetee

That is in fact the exact OPPOSITE of the mentality to have with design. You can work of feedback before release, but once your product goes gold your mode of development shifts.

They released the benchmark EXPLICITLY as a look into what changes are being made. It's not a finished product because THERE IS STILL TIME TO ACT ON FEEDBACK, but that time is very limited which is why we are all arguing about this with such urgency.

Plus, quite frankly, I've been through this song and dance enough times with enough games that I know it's only "It's not a finished product, just calm down and wait" doesn't stop at release, it just changes to "You should have complained when you had the chance, it's too late now."

So pardon me if I don't get down from atop my soapbox quite yet.

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You wear a mask so why do you care? jk jk

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Originally Posted by SaberEx

Obviously, it's a graphic update, changes are expected. What I was trying to say is, even if I notice your character today and in three months it still looks pretty similar, those changes are so minor that stressing over them seems unnecessary. At the end of the day, worst-case scenario, you can switch up your hairstyle, maybe even the color, you know, assume your character's just aged a bit. It's been quite a while this game has been released after all. And hey, think about it, you've probably changed your real-life haircut since this game came out, right? Does it still feel like 'you'?"

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If you woke up one day and looked in the mirror, and the corners of your eyes were slanted up or down by one millimeter, or your nose bridge was one millimeter wider or thinner, or your philtrum was one millimeter longer, you would immediately notice something was off, even if you couldn't put a name on it. Human brains are attuned to noticing tiny details of the face, and the more familiar we are with a given face, the more acutely we notice anything being different.

What are you trying to accomplish here? For those of us who are upset, telling us that "stressing is unnecessary" isn't going to help or change anything. Emotional reactions aren't something you can just flip on and off like a lightswitch.

Then again, I shouldn't assume that you're acting in good faith or trying to help when one or two pages ago you were telling people to touch grass and making fun of them for being upset.

"Tags for this Thread:
crying will help , criticism isn't crying, crying won't help, rude people , crying is helping"

Bruh... we really need to learn with the JPN section... it's amazing: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...見・要望・議論/page66

I absolutly love how my miqo'te look with the new graphics on they fixed the lighting on dark skin it more uniform and mate I love it. I can't wait to see how he look in more goth outfits

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Originally Posted by coffeepotz

You wear a mask so why do you care? jk jk

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I mean you aren't entirely wrong.

This is just my PvP outfit. My normal outfit DOES make use of the garlond goggles tho, which means I really do care less about the 'dead eyes' issue compared to others. In fact, my main looks fantastic! I'm so happy with how she looks! Some small tweaks to her makeup and removing the weird forehead jewel they turned into an LED, and I'm good to go.

But also, at the end of the day I'm a human being capable of empathy and my heart breaks for the people with their own issues. I have no interest in ever playing a mooncat. However, that doesn't mean I'm gonna sit here and roll my eyes when people who rolled mooncat specifically for the fangs end up losing them. I personally think a lot of the characters DO look better after the update. But that's because they changed stuff I personally didn't like about the models, but those exact features might be EXACTLY why someone picked them in the first place. I have a character I did that for, and it's absolutely devastating to see the changes. That character is the entire reason I came to the forums. I designed that character to look older by picking a rounder face that had the least natural makeup on it. It is now a slender face absolutely caked in makeup. A character designed to be my WoL's mom now EVEN YOUNGER THAN MY WOL.

It's an incredibly frustrating change to encounter, and I can only even begin to imagine how much more awful that feels when it happens to a character that IS your main. So yeah. I do care quite a bit. Even if you were looking at it from a purely selfish perspective, we all have to share a server together. And I dunno about you, but for me, people who are enjoying themselves are far more fun to be around than those who are miserable. I'd rather the changes make them happy.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

Yeah, I was there for this and some of the new models looked really rough at first. Rougher than FFXIV's new ones. There were numerous graphical glitches and some of them looked just plain bad and/or suffered from something we called "same-face syndrome" back then (different faces lost their unique "look" and all kind of looked the same with minor differences)

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Haha yeah, I remember that. Orcs (which is what I played) had the "same face" issue as well until they did a pass to do different sculpts for each face. I think trolls had a problem with their tusks as well? I don't recall if those were actual mistakes or just something they hadn't gotten to yet when they first showed them off.

In any case, it's perfectly fine to bring up issues with the models and this is the time to do so. My comment was more directed at people who simply cannot accept anything that isn't exactly their current model down to the last pixel. There's always going to be some degree of change with an upgrade like this. I'm sure the devs will get them as close as they can and make tweaks over time but at some point they're going to be done and everyone will have to move on in whatever way they feel is appropriate.

Sorry, I legitimately just chuckled cause I read your post and saw you wearing the mask. Didn't mean much by it.

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Originally Posted by Tethan

Lack of eye shine
It seems that the static "eye shine" spot was removed, to be replaced by dynamic lighting. This is an issue as if the lighting is anything less than perfect (so most of the time) it just makes our characters look dead inside.

Keeper of the Moon fangs downgrade
Thread

Lip shape changed on many race/gender combinations
Post
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...e6b27b97ee8be&

Certain miqote hairstyles missing ear patterns
Post
https://i.imgur.com/rAQWJUs.png


Lips are a downgrade across the board
This one is honestly baffling. How this texture passed quality control is beyond me, and lip glossiness is now a thing of the past.
Thread
https://i.imgur.com/Jk1O9Kb.png

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These are the ones I noticed in like the first 10 seconds of the benchmark. "What did they do to the face??", but at first I couldn't put my finger on it. So since I have all the benchmarks on disk I went back and looked at it. The benchmark is representive of the "Final state" of the game, but not necessarily the costumes. Yoshi-P and the team can push changes to costumes at any time, but the base models have to be in the initial download, because it will be retroactive all the way to the 2.0 content.

Honestly the eye teeth ("fangs") changes to me suggests they overhauled how mouth and lower-jaw work. Because if they did what I think they did, it's very likely all characters now have the same teeth, and there's just a tunable for the eye teeth size somewhere so the cat-like races can have them more or less visible, and male characters could have bigger ones.


The eye shine is concerning because it's an anime aesthetic. I no doubt that that the game probably looks better than the benchmark, since they'll never update the benchmark. However if that's how it ends up looking in the game, people are probably going to riot (metaphorically.)

https://i.imgur.com/U6EZ2i3.jpeg

The update has its problems but I am really glad how it turned out for my Hyr.
Yes, he looks different now, and I am happy about it. Because I really hoped that it will be so!

I also hope for new voices or body types. At the moment there is no voice option that really matches with this Hyr baseface in my opinion. Also the body is a little bit too massive for this face. It's the same situation with the younger Elezen face compared to the body.

They said that they want to add more options after the graphics update. So lets see when and what it will be. : )

*edit
I also tried with just other cosmetics and really loved it. : D

https://i.imgur.com/tDQB3tC.png

While I am in the crowd of people not entirely happy with the change to my character (bun-girl using face 4, for some reason they completely changed the shape of our lips), in general the update looks pretty good (the textures on the clothes look so good, for example). I'm also one of those people who find the creative thought process quite interesting so I would be curious to know what prompted some of the more dramatic changes. ie, the shortening/blunting of the moon kitty fangs I keep hearing about. Or in more personal instance, the change in the shape of bun-girl face 4's lips - did they perhaps feel that face 4's lips were too similar to face 1's and they wanted to difference between the two to be more obvious?

And while it's awesome that they're giving us all a free fantasia at launch, judging from a lot of the comments here on the forums and on discord, it kinda seems like little more than a band-aid. It's great if you wanna have a fresh new look, but for the people who are only wanting to make small tweaks it's not as useful with the current customisation system (having features locked to a specific face).
Using my bun-girl as example again, I love how she looks in the benchmark, except for the new lips and sadly there is no amount of fantasia that I can throw at her that will allow me to slap face 1's lips onto face 4.... do you think they will ever give us a little more freedom/flexibility with facial/body customisation (like being able to pick eyes, lips, horns (if you're an au'ra), etc separate from face shape)?

edit: oh, and just for reference, here's the before and after:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLMHMTgb...g&name=360x360 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLMHMTgb...g&name=360x360

I fully agree with you here. The graphics update for a majority of the models really isn't up to par yet (M Au Ra is the only one that looks like an overall huge improvement) and so close to the expansion release I really hope that they give us an option to opt out of the character model update until they can actually fix all of the numerous things wrong with them.

I don't recognize my WoL at all. That's not Persephius, that's Ser Phephius, the imposter...

I also did a full critique on the M Viera model here if anyone would like to read and add on.

https://i.imgur.com/SbY12Yn.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/s61ha51.jpg

The main thing that I want to point out specifically that I think are possible to change in time for Dawntrail release are the lip edits. Unfortunately in a lot of cases a character's default emotion looks different. I just think that the shapes were changed a bit too much. Below is my character and my husband's character.

Lalafell, which lost their upper lip:
https://i.imgur.com/A64FzEd.jpeg

Au Ra, which got plumper and not as long:
https://i.imgur.com/rYJcrmv.jpeg

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Originally Posted by Doopliss

It's been difficult to log in knowing so many of my characters may be changing in ways I can't even correct in just two months...

Really sorry for this dump. I love the art style of this game, and, admittedly, am very attached to it. I've accepted long ago that the character update would happen whether I wanted it to or not...but I'd appreciate if they tried more to stick to the art style, in terms of character features and expressions.

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No need to be sorry, and I really hope the devs are reading.

I feel the same way. If we're really stuck with these alterations to our characters then some of my characters will be gone, and instead of the time I was planning to prepare for Dawntrail on my main character, I feel like I need to spend it all on these secondary characters who are going to be lost to me.

It feels silly to compare it to mourning, but I think my brain is processing it like that nevertheless.

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Originally Posted by Shiro-Marusu

Came to this thread looking for solidarity, lol. My mooncat sadly no longer looks like the same person. I think the eyes are the biggest factor, but I'm not sure.
I actually feel some texture changes could already do a lot to get the old impression back, even for the remodeled lips.

Slider 1
Slider 2
Slider 3

[...]

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Going to continue from this because I made more comparisons. They aren't all lined up perfectly, but I think it's enough to show the differences in textures/shapes.
Another thing I noticed is that the eyebrows sometimes seem to sit on weird, and depending on the angle or emote it doesn't look that appealing to me. Sometimes they curve weirdly.

https://i.imgur.com/hg3dOmL.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/RyRPvT0.gif
https://i.imgur.com/KliQgK2.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/8Jq4tZV.gif
https://i.imgur.com/9DOArAB.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/jTskMi7.gif
https://i.imgur.com/naoQfoJ.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/SDRNOZP.png
https://i.imgur.com/mostiTc.gif

Disclaimer; I am aware that perhaps not all of this can be changed. Some issues look like they are inherently structural and possibly too complicated to retcon. But As for spacing between the eyes, eye-shape, mouth-shape. Eyebrows that curve or sit strangely. I feel like some changes could be made to make it resemble the old features more. In some angles my cat still looks like his old self, but in many others he seems like a different person.

Maybe some people will think I am exaggerating, but I really truly hope some changes will be made. I'm really worried about this.

hello, just wanted to point out that i'm pretty sure the way our characters look in any background/setting preview other than the aetherial sea one is probably not accurate as i don't think they have been updated with the lighting etc, so it probably won't look as bad in actuality, but other things - totes valid, gj, am also not psyched about everyone's lips changing the way they have and they kinda look a lil awkward sometimes?

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Originally Posted by Iscah

No need to be sorry, and I really hope the devs are reading.

I feel the same way. If we're really stuck with these alterations to our characters then some of my characters will be gone, and instead of the time I was planning to prepare for Dawntrail on my main character, I feel like I need to spend it all on these secondary characters who are going to be lost to me.

It feels silly to compare it to mourning, but I think my brain is processing it like that nevertheless.

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If it’s any consolation, you aren’t alone in comparing how you’re feeling to mourning. I didn’t go to sleep the night I checked out the benchmark because of how upset it made me, and I still don’t feel like I’ve emotionally recovered even 2 days later.

Something that makes me wonder how up-to-date the benchmark actually is is that I didn’t really see any complaints about characters looking the way they do during all of the previews — even stuff like the Pictomancer/Viper trailers, I don’t recall people being like “that looks nothing like miqote face 4 or middie face 2,” etc. — though there were certainly concerns over the lack of viera noses and au ra rings, etc.

It makes part of me believe the benchmark truly is scuffed or an old build or something. I hope they address it in the next live letter, whatever the truth of the matter is.

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Originally Posted by Embran

Something that makes me wonder how up-to-date the benchmark actually is is that I didn’t really see any complaints about characters looking the way they do during all of the previews — even stuff like the Pictomancer/Viper trailers, I don’t recall people being like “that looks nothing like miqote face 4 or middie face 2,” etc. — though there were certainly concerns over the lack of viera noses and au ra rings, etc.

It makes part of me believe the benchmark truly is scuffed or an old build or something. I hope they address it in the next live letter, whatever the truth of the matter is.

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If the graphical update is not a current build, it should not have been implemented imo. Combined with the fact you can't necessarily replicate things like the character lighting, it seems misleading.

On the other hand, some things like forced makeup, expression changes (primarily by changing lip shapes and angles, eye angles, etc.), removing features that were fine (glossy lips) etc etc are problematic imo. I'm uncertain if those things would be based on old builds or if they are structural.

Either way releasing something old and incomplete is kind of a silly idea for something of this magnitude.

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Originally Posted by Embran

Something that makes me wonder how up-to-date the benchmark actually is is that I didn’t really see any complaints about characters looking the way they do during all of the previews — even stuff like the Pictomancer/Viper trailers, I don’t recall people being like “that looks nothing like miqote face 4 or middie face 2,” etc. — though there were certainly concerns over the lack of viera noses and au ra rings, etc.

It makes part of me believe the benchmark truly is scuffed or an old build or something. I hope they address it in the next live letter, whatever the truth of the matter is.

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I feel like there may not have been enough information to go off of. Not all faces/features have the same issues. But if anything, I would guess that perhaps the previews were earlier versions, for images only. Perhaps in some cases they deviated more and more from the original as they tried to (re)adapt it to animations etc. There's probably more going on there than we can even see.

Seeing some of the old models (and I have looked at mine more than any other), not all features are sculpted as 'realistically'. I wonder if they changed things because they worried that keeping the old shapes would look uncanny with the higher graphics... Just speculating at this point, though.

Hello! I wanted to give my own input after I saw the changes to Female Roegadyn and felt the same disappointment as a lot of people in this thread. I worry with DT so close to release, not a lot of these issues will be addressed in time (if at all), but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that something at least does change.

I took a few different shots in the different character lighting to emphasize my issues and made a comparison chart hoping it might help see the issues more clearly.
Like most, I have problems with the current lighting on characters, but I'm not too worried about it cause it seems like a rather high priority issue. If the devs didn't address it by the time DT is released, I'd be baffled. Anyway, here is what I got:
Endwalker (6.5.8) on the left, Dawntrail benchmark (7.0.0) on the right
https://i.imgur.com/slQEiyy.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/iDW7PX6.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/Gp2ScDl.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/fIEjkJE.png

As I hope people are able to see, there are definitely some changes. The most noticeable ones to me are that of the eye shape, the eyebrows, the nose smudge and the lips. I know a few people have commented on these before, but again, consider it some extra data.

Changes from 6.5.8 to 7.0.0 (benchmark)

• The biggest difference is the eye shape. A lot of WoLs look a lot more tired with big, heavy lids and my WoL is no different. I believe this is due to the upper lash line being quite a bit smaller, allowing for more lid space to open up. I also find the black makeup on her eyes (roegadyn feature) is lighter than it is on the left
• The eyebrows are thinner, resulting in a more down turned and angry look
• The nose smudge, like the makeup, is also lighter and I wonder if it is related to the colours or to the lighting
• The lips are missing their corners, and the lip colour layout makes the upper lip appear thinner and the lower lip appear larger

As an aside, it could be just the lighting or the shape of the eyes, but it seems to me like the nose shape is slightly different? I included it in my comparison chart below but I'm not 100% if it's a valid issue.

Here is my side by side of the two faces below, as well as a couple overlays for better comparison. If you can't read the text, it's basically the same list as above. Hope this helps somebody!
https://i.imgur.com/L0FRFM6.png

EDIT: if anyone, for whatever reason, wanted the comparison image at a higher res, you can grab it from https://imgur.com/a/1yHijca

Not a fan of how it makes his eyes softer, but I'm overall happy with the update

https://i.imgur.com/tnewure.jpeg

What all these threads are telling me is that a goodly proportion of the population have prosopagnosia. Some of the arguments about the faces has me wondering "how can you not see the blatantly obvious differences?"

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

What all these threads are telling me is that a goodly proportion of the population have prosopagnosia. Some of the arguments about the faces has me wondering "how can you not see the blatantly obvious differences?"

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that's the funny (not ha ha funny, more like. mmmm funny) thing to me. i HAVE prosopagnosia, but it doesn't really affect highly stylized art styles (for me, different people have different severity) ESPECIALLY when you isolate individual facial features on a drawing or 3d model. like. once its on its own its so obvious. I HAVE To assume its some sort of just willful attitude to make people feel like theres nothing they can do because people are i guess, annoyed that people aren't happy with what looks to be a slapdash, rushed job done on too short of a timeframe to do what was promised.

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Originally Posted by Scintilla

I'm curious and perhaps you could enlighten me, but where is the line drawn between 'make them better' and 'keep them the same'? Where is the limit? At what point are they no longer the same character?

Ultimately, the changes appear to have been made in order to make the characters look more real - the same characters, just made to look more realistic. But all of these realistic features have been pointed out by different players to be features they dislike and that have to be reverted:

Skin texture and pores? - presumably to give a more tangible appearance, rather than cartoon-ish. A matter complained about by some.

Removal of a permanent eye glint and instead adding light reflection based on environment? - again, more in keeping with real effects of environment and lighting. But again, complained about by some as leaving their characters 'empty and soul-less'.

Extra detail to facial structure - dimples being one example. Look in the mirror. Smile. You'll see dimples! Some may be strong, others more subtle, but they'll be there. Yet some complain this goes too far and prefer to return to the more solid, doll-like appearance.

While there are more, I would think each of these would be perfectly understandable ways of trying to make the characters 'better' while still being the same character. Yet each of these have been complained about. So I ask, where is the limit? Exactly what would you be looking for?

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An excellent question. I'll bite.

By "better," I mean higher resolution textures, more polygons, and more sophisticated lighting effects, all of which are intended to reduce the appearance of jagged edges and pixely shadows. That can be done without making arbitrary, uncalled-for character design changes, such as changing the shape of a character's eyes, shortening fangs, completely altering facial expressions, or changing the shape of the lips, nose, or mouth.

Another suggestion for everyone: Please remember to use the UNIQUE animation when previewing your character, and snap a few screenshots with the different patterns of shadows and light. The sparkle came right back into my Highlander's eyes (and lips and hair) once I did that. The high noon fair weather light is atrocious for showing off some of the textures.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

What all these threads are telling me is that a goodly proportion of the population have prosopagnosia. Some of the arguments about the faces has me wondering "how can you not see the blatantly obvious differences?"

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to me it seems like tons of ppl actually cant tell that the lighting is different. there are some obv changes like eye and mouth shapes but some are like bro turn ur character around

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Originally Posted by seolhyun

to me it seems like tons of ppl actually cant tell that the lighting is different. there are some obv changes like eye and mouth shapes but some are like bro turn ur character around

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"Only looks good in the right lighting" is not a solution. I don't want my character to look like someone else every time they turn around or step into a shadowed area.

https://i.imgur.com/7r0khk0.jpg

I'm really disappointed with the way the update impacted my character. I honestly feel like the older visuals (left) look much better than the newer ones (right). All the life is gone from my character's eyes. The older hair seemed much more detailed and layered, and the two color tones blended together much better with the original art. The lip shape has changed and become larger (particularly the upper lip), and the painted on eyebrows have moved to a higher location on the forehead. The chin has been shortened. The ridge of the nose has been widened. The skin tone has changed.

The quality of the lighting seems to also have taken a hit in the update as that's the same settings/angle/location/time in both captures.

Personally I'm not a fan of sharpening up the detail on the textures for the clothing without updating the model as well, as it just highlights the low-poly nature of it even more.

I really wish you were giving us the option to use the older art assets, although I doubt that's practical. I prefer that you reduce the instances of dramatic difference, as some faces (like Highlanders) were hit very hard by the update. I went from being excited about this update to dreading it the moment I saw how my character from the last 10 years has turned out. I don't recognize the character I'm looking at any longer.

I think, while there are some actual changes that need to be addressed such as texture opacity and lips, saying you're "mourning" a videogame is generally just indicative of an overly unhealthy attachment to an ephemeral concept in your computer. What will you do, 10 years down the line, when XIV shuts down?
Either way, there's changes to be addressed, but this thread is a crash course on how not to do it. Look at the JP masterpost of criticism. Civil, proper with proper alternatives.
Please remember, it's only a videogame. Go outside and take a deep breath. Things will be ok, just a little bit different.

Hello again. I was originally going to post this error in the Elezen thread, but felt here would be better, since the first post of this thread has done a good job at collecting some errors.

I'll start by saying that I have both the live version and the benchmark at the default gamma (50), and the live version with character lighting set at 100, which I believe the current benchmark is running at, and the cause of characters appearing to glow. The previous two benchmarks had character lighting at 0, for reference.
https://i.imgur.com/eyWZ0KM.png
I believe certain hair colors aren't displaying correctly for several race/gender combinations. I don't want to fill this with even more screenshots, though, so I'm using my main for reference.
https://i.imgur.com/vU9pqVi.png
At first I thought it was just the new lighting messing with my eyes, but I believe it looks substantially different enough from the live version that it is a mistake.

https://i.imgur.com/LgXsPop.png
https://i.imgur.com/iyoreFT.png
If I move the hair color just one slide over, it appears much more in line with the current version. However, you can see that her Duskwight earclasps change color according to the way they do in vanilla, so they're darker than current. I also think this is a problem because this means some race/gender combos who have the darkest shade selected can no longer achieve that look. This is likely why some characters with jet black hair appear dark grey, instead.

I'm not sure what would cause this specific issue, but I believe it's part of what's affecting Gyson's Highlander above. However, this seems to be far from only a hair issue, as others have also reported Facial Feature, Tattoo, and Facepaint color differences that appear independent from lighting changes.

https://i.imgur.com/e0g0FDY.png
For further proof--and Elezen women are very convenient in this case, having four variations of the same hairstyle--you can see the color changes a shade between these two different, yet fundamentally same hairstyles. I did not select a different color here. It's more difficult to discern in a side by side screenshot, but looking for one's self between fem Elezen's hairstyles #13 & #14 may make it easier to discern.

With everything considered, I fully believe there is some coloring bugs all throughout the benchmark's build.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Or maybe some of us are just legitimately happy with the changes? I've been playing this game for over a decade, I love my character, and I love the graphical update.

I get why people are upset about some things, but stuff like this is why I sometimes wonder why I bother trying to remain fair...

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It's hard to remain fair and level-headed when everyone feels strongly about the changes to their character (myself included). I commend you for that. I've played over a decade as well and ironically find myself relating to both sides of the topic. In some pictures I love the changes and in others I don't. The physical features of my character's face changed quite a bit (as someone else mentioned for male hyur face 4) but depending on the lighting and angles he still looks great.

Here's an example of one I dislike (creepy eyes, no nose bridge, flat pasty lips, weird eyeliner, reduced cheekbones/jawline, etc.). All valid reasons to hate the update in my mind.
Current = left, updated = right
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...7ba8004c58881&

But here's an example of a picture where I do like the changes. A lot of those negative features were improved by the angle/lighting, even though the character settings are identical.
Current = left, updated = right
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...49b9ffaa56d53&

The more I mess around in the character creator and benchmark the more I notice how different the updated characters look based on the environment, and it can be pretty jarring. Hopefully SE will receive this feedback well, despite how polarizing and heated it can be. I love the dev team. They're far from perfect but I appreciate that they are open to feedback and want to give people what they want. Making an effort to remain fair about all this will definitely help them move forward in the right direction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

What all these threads are telling me is that a goodly proportion of the population have prosopagnosia. Some of the arguments about the faces has me wondering "how can you not see the blatantly obvious differences?"

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I think most of us who think you guys are wildly overreacting can see the differences, we simply disagree that they are 'huge' and 'completely ruin' the character, who is now 'unrecognisable'. If I have to look at two more pictures of 99% identical catgirls and be told that they 'don't even look remotely similar' I will spontaneously combust.

So many side by side sreenshots and people still talk about "upgrade". This is not an upgrade, this is mostly a redesign nobody asked for. And thats the whole problem. If they wanted to redesign they should have give us more options. Besides light and shadow are "upgraded" but buggy as hell and need fixing on technical levels. We are 3 months away from release.... this means THIS IS IT. Thats what we are getting at launch.... are they mad?
Where is QA? Still alive?

Sorry for posting something cluttered again so soon. I'm sure many can tell by now I'm not very good at condensing my words. I had some other errors I wished to address, though.
https://i.imgur.com/ugl21vF.png
As you can see here, there is very obvious artifacting going on with certain tattoos, that become much more clear when changed to black. I believe a player with a male Highlander character posted a thread highlighting this same issue some time earlier, as well.

I also want to mention I believe female Elezen are far from the only ones with rigging issues. Certain races now have smiles that look like they're being held up by strings, and Lalafell show a slightly uncanny amount of gum when smiling, without even mentioning the far uncannier "realistic" placement of their new teeth.
https://i.imgur.com/HmMFquS.png
For a more obvious, different example: F4 male Miqo'te eyebrows can now perform the worm.