Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eluvyel

That has nothing to do with shaders at all, it's compression artifacts because the resolution of those textures is tiny. I wish people would at least not speak so confidently about things they don't understand.

---

I was lied to then. My bad for trusting a Friends word i guess. I changed my Statement. The fact that some skins look like they have rashes all over the skin persists though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Araxes

I guess i was lied to then. My bad for trusting a Friends word i guess. I changed my Statement. The fact that some skins look like they have rashes all over the skin persists though.

---

Oh yeah, it's awful. We're in full agreement there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BeoCat

Calling low res shitty skin textures better is wild

---

Texture resolution and artistic quality are two very different but similarly important thing- frankly, I'd say the latter is the more important of the two. There's also just all the technical stuff behind it with the shaders and stuff. Even if the new texture is higher in resolution, the loss in artistic quality can outweigh it.

Admittedly I'm having trouble noticing model/texture changes on my characters, however +1 for being frustrated about the 'bugged' eyelids and how different expressions/adventurer portraits look.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LuciaMirain

Sorry for rant:
I think I would actually be happy if they fixed the mouths. Then I could ignore the ugly, lumpy eyelashes, the thinning eyebrows and the weird shadows on the nose that has completely removed any semblance of previous shape on my viera. The mouth is the worst though, the nose I could handle in gpose and try and direct the light in a way that it gives the correct shadows. But the mouth is so awful and plump that the only expression that works is /ponder. My character used to /beam but that is unusable now due to the weird banana shape that happens.

They shouldve just said that they were doing a graphical update and that some characters would probably change alot but here is a free fantasia and then just left it at that. The problem from the start has been that they said that we would put in work to make our characters not change too much and then that fell through so hard.

---

This. Neither of my Hyurs saw any changes, and the mouths are the worst part across the board. I’m not sure if this is the last “fix” they have planned or not, but I’m tired of waiting. My Midlander is going to be a Miqo, and the Highlander is going to be an Elezen. I’m just giving up at this point. At least they didn’t mess up my Lala!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daralii

They added catchlights to some eyes but not all of them for some reason. The male miqo'te comparisons a few pages back shows plenty of options that still look like they'd be at home on a corpse.

---

please for the love of the twelve can they give this treatment to the male miqo'te ;AAAAA; i tried to bite the bullet and change the eye shape on my character to one of the two options that don't look like a walking corpse but it just doesn't look like him anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gaddes

They're just never going to touch the mouths, are they?

---

I really truly massively hate the changes to the mouths.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hatsuoki

For the most part, I could live with the graphics update if all they fixed were the mouths+expressions but it seems to be the only thing that they haven't worked on/made progress on. I just want to know that it's something that's coming.

Picture added for the people who thinks we're being picky about the graphics update:

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

Regarding the ponder emote, I hadn't spoken up about how anything looks on the female au ra face 2 because the midlander was butchered so much worse but if possible, I would like the emote to be adjusted to be closer to the old "ponder". It used to also look like a cute pout but now the eyes are comically enlarged. I understand it's supposed to look like an eyebrow is raised/one eye is squinted but it just looks completely unserious. There's a clear difference in impression between the two as well. The old one looks introspective while the new one looks like she's not comprehending.

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

---

Use it outside of gpose to get a proper look.

Here's how it looks for me on face one:
https://i.imgur.com/ChQs9bw.png

Anything that requires face or eye tracking in gpose, portraits, or when targeting other characters is fundamentally broken right now and you will not see the emote in its proper implementation. Your second shot is clearly in gpose or with you facing the camera, which we know has issues as of this patch as eyelids are broken and will not move the way they are supposed to; almost like the bones are improperly rigged or having no parenting with other facial bones. When you use it untargeted your eyes will look to the left everytime and it actually looks more annoyed now than contemplative or curious like it used to be in the past. So still broken, but the issue you're referring to is specifically due to camera tracking for the eyes/eyelids being busted.

The eyes are only comically large because the eyelids for all associated emotes are broken.
Taunt is utterly horrifying when you enable facial tracking and move the camera.

This is taunt:

https://i.imgur.com/OwB5uKM.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/Xy2HbJ6.png

These are, supposed to be, simper:

https://i.imgur.com/QtO1GkV.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/EgoSygW.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/KR3zdAk.png

As you can see, the eyelids aren't following the eyes like they used to unless a character isn't targeted onto or forced to look directly at anything. Its a pretty big, far reaching glitch and I would encourage everyone to go into the bug reports forum and upvote the heck out of the player that already reported this as it has fundamentally changed how every character looks when emoting and cannot at all be intentional, nor is it really good for us when comparing things from this patch to those previously as the face is literally broken in a way it wasn't, and has never been, before, altering most expressions and emotes.

Personally, I've been fine with the graphics update for the most part; as I've made apparent many times in here, but this really upset me.
Emotes have been fine for years, the faces properly rigged, sure the shape changed and altered the look slightly, but to literally break the eyelids and eye tracking?

That's just crazy to me and I question how that even happened between patches.

So I decided today to properly look at my viera in the daylight and compare with the picture I took the other day and.....
They actually changed alot of the things I was annoyed with. It isn't perfect, but it is getting there.
Before graphical update:
https://i.imgur.com/vbVb386.png
After Graphical update:
https://i.imgur.com/dwjXT9q.png
After this weeks patch
https://i.imgur.com/2xt323z.png

The lips still lack the cupids bow, but I can see that have made some changes, mostly on how the shadows fall but also on the shape of the mouth. It isn't as stretched out anymore. The nose seems to have gotten a highlight to make it appear more narrow. The eyelashes are still bad but I can cover them with viera eyeliner. Her eyes also don't feel as vacant as before. All in all: it isnt perfect but I feel like she might actually be playable now.

Random thought. Seen screenies of updated Aymeric and Emet and curious how they both got upgrades and didn't get changed at all, like those two are PERFECTLY upgraded with zero changes, look fantastic and still look exactly like themselves, and a perfect example of what everyone was expecting with the character updates, but that same care wasn't put into the player characters.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HawkeScream

Random thought. Seen screenies of updated Aymeric and Emet and curious how they both got upgrades and didn't get changed at all, like those two are PERFECTLY upgraded with zero changes, look fantastic and still look exactly like themselves, and a perfect example of what everyone was expecting with the character updates, but that same care wasn't put into the player characters.

---

It's because both of these are custom rigs to begin with, and don't need as much work because they're one-offs with a single set of features each. The ones for our characters have 4-6 options per feature (face, eye shape, eyebrow, mouth, nose, etc.) that they have to test for every single possible combination to make sure it looks right. I'm not saying this to excuse the piss-poor quality of the implementation of these "upgrades," just to say that it is unfair to compare apples to oranges in this case. That's why they're changing the rigs so that every single player option has the same UV map across the board—to cut down on the amount of work it takes to work with them. Unfortunately, as we've seen, the options for race in player characters are so diverse and unique from each other that unifying them all under the same UV map is just a recipe for disaster and they should have known better that this is how it would turn out.

ETA: if they HAD given the same amount of care to our player characters, and the results we got with Aymeric and Emet were what we got with our PCs, this would be a non-issue and people would be jumping for joy with the changes—because that is ultimately what they promised at the first fanfest in Vegas in 2023, and ultimately what they failed to deliver. They vastly overestimated the capabilities of their developers' skill and the engine itself, unfortunately.

I was testing a couple of different faces with a friend in regards to the eyelids not properly closing and... yeah. its kinda bad actually - and whats more confusing is that it seems like its a bunch of different races too, i wonder what exactly happened for this change to affect so many different races/faces? It's not *every* face across the board (which I initially thought was the case), but only some. The ones we saw affected were for example M Viera 1 and 3, but not face 2. (didn't check 4). Similar thing with M Miqo'te's as well, my character (face 3) had the same problem, but my friend reported seeing no changes on face 4. I genuinely am kind of fascinated at how this exactly happened lollll i hope this is something they fix sooner rather than later...

Encountered a case with a relatively unpopular face on a relatively unpopular playable race that seems like it's possibly unintended- I don't know if it's a bug or an oversight or what, but.

Male Elezen Face 3 has a specific issue compared to every other Elezen face option, male or female. It's also not an issue I can see with any other playable race that isn't covered in fur, for that matter. It looks like it's just missing the portion of the texture that gives characters proper pores, specifically around the nose and cheeks. They look very shiny and blurry, almost stretched-out, and have a distinctly lower resolution impression than other options.

https://i.imgur.com/duXw1Si.png
(Face 3 with a light skin color)

https://i.imgur.com/DZOaJnX.png
(Face 3 with a darker skin color)

https://i.imgur.com/MRx67Wm.png
(Face 2 with a light skin color)

https://i.imgur.com/0ZsKerY.png
(Face 2 with a darker skin color)

It's also more pronounced with noses that have a more angled tip- which is to say every nose other than type 1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

It's because both of these are custom rigs to begin with, and don't need as much work because they're one-offs with a single set of features each. The ones for our characters have 4-6 options per feature (face, eye shape, eyebrow, mouth, nose, etc.) that they have to test for every single possible combination to make sure it looks right. I'm not saying this to excuse the piss-poor quality of the implementation of these "upgrades," just to say that it is unfair to compare apples to oranges in this case. That's why they're changing the rigs so that every single player option has the same UV map across the board—to cut down on the amount of work it takes to work with them. Unfortunately, as we've seen, the options for race in player characters are so diverse and unique from each other that unifying them all under the same UV map is just a recipe for disaster and they should have known better that this is how it would turn out.

ETA: if they HAD given the same amount of care to our player characters, and the results we got with Aymeric and Emet were what we got with our PCs, this would be a non-issue and people would be jumping for joy with the changes—because that is ultimately what they promised at the first fanfest in Vegas in 2023, and ultimately what they failed to deliver. They vastly overestimated the capabilities of their developers' skill and the engine itself, unfortunately.

---

Tysm for the explanation, that makes sense and helps me be a little less salty about it. And also helps me understand the issues/what's going on with the UV maps better too. Imagining what could have been though, ugh lmao

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

Snip

---

A few posts above my quoted post was me talking about the eyelid bug so I knew about it.

Unfortunately:

1 - Ponder being like this has been since 7.0, not just 7.2.

2 - The picture of your character outside of gpose also has her eyes like mine except your hair is covering the enlarged eye. To be extra clear, this isn't about the eyes looking to the side as that was normal even in 6.58. The issue is the enlarged eyes making a "raised eyebrow" expression rather than the original "deep in thought" expression.

3 - Of course I'm going to want to use it in gpose. While the picture of my au ra was with eye tracking, it also does it without eye or head tracking. In a couple of hours, I can take pictures outside of gpose without any tracking and update my post.

Edit: Here it is outside of gpose.

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gaddes

They're just never going to touch the mouths, are they?

---

https://i.imgur.com/ZpCY7ew.gif

I cannot believe this gif I made in September is still relevant. The philtrum depth has since been corrected, but the lip/lip gloss shape disparity is still exactly the same. Why??

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by noumen0nn

https://i.imgur.com/ZpCY7ew.gif

I cannot believe this gif I made in September is still relevant. The philtrum depth has since been corrected, but the lip/lip gloss shape disparity is still exactly the same. Why??

---

Your gif perfectly illustrates my frustration, here's my lips:

https://i.imgur.com/d8Xam0G.gif

like really look: they're not even the same lips at all! For some people, at least some portion of your lips were similar to how they were before, but maybe just a little less curvy or subdued.
But this entire mouth/lip shape was completely changed. And now there is no mouth type that comes close to looking like the more large plush lips from before. Every mouth type for my Elezen is either very vertically thin lips or small ones, and all tapered at the corners the same way.
Unlike what Yoshi-P claimed, there was clearly no effort made to retain the original style and they threw it out completely to homogenize with the other races' mouth shapes.

This isn't character related but graphics update relevant. Is it just me or do overall colors seem even more eye-piercingly vibrant after this patch? I have an OLED, so the game is already vibrant, but someone was wearing a red outfit next to me in Solution 9 last night and the red almost burned my retinas out it was so bright. None of my settings have changed, so definitely not on my end, but some colors and environments be poppin'.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gaddes

Your gif perfectly illustrates my frustration, here's my lips:

https://i.imgur.com/d8Xam0G.gif

like really look: they're not even the same lips at all! For some people, at least some portion of your lips were similar to how they were before, but maybe just a little less curvy or subdued.
But this entire mouth/lip shape was completely changed. And now there is no mouth type that comes close to looking like the more large plush lips from before. Every mouth type for my Elezen is either very vertically thin lips or small ones, and all tapered at the corners the same way.
Unlike what Yoshi-P claimed, there was clearly no effort made to retain the original style and they threw it out completely to homogenize with the other races' mouth shapes.

---

Yours are even worse than mine tbh. The literal only reason I could think of for them to make a change like this is if they somehow think that the old lip shapes would look wrong somehow when rendered in more realistic detail?

But I don't want realism, I want faithfulness to the original look, which was stylized. As others were saying before, they did a stellar job with the latest round of NPC faces; the differences if any are so minor you can barely tell. Where is that level of care with our characters?

Yep, the lips issue has happened with Thancred too:

https://savethancred.carrd.co/assets/images/image40.gif

These are not the same lips in the slightest :(

(While I appreciate that it's not the same as player characters, us Thancred fans are quite unhappy at the moment that he has not received the same good treatment as other NPCs, so forgive me if I keep bringing this up!)

Since the lips haven't been fixed this patch, I'll post the Male Midlander Face 6 Lip 3 comparison again. The slightly pursed lips had so much personality.

https://i.imgur.com/GAMjG2l.gif

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hatsuoki

Since the lips haven't been fixed this patch, I'll post the Male Midlander Face 6 Lip 3 comparison again. The slightly pursed lips had so much personality.

https://i.imgur.com/GAMjG2l.gif

---

Seems they realy hate pursed lips. I'm too lazy to make a gif but that's part of the same thing I've been complaining about for male miqo face 1. Also I see derplander face 6 also has an oversized lower lip for absolutely no reason.

Maybe I've only just noticed this in 7.2 and it was present in 7.1, but while I was doing my Splendorous Fishing Relic I noticed my ears have some light bleeding through my ears (or what ever it's called), but the light doesn't bleed through my ears entirely and it looks so depressingly silly. I don't like this at all, I can't unsee it, and deciding to check one of the Viera I play in the same lighting... I know that Crystarium midday in fair skies is pretty intense for lighting, but this just doesn't look good at all even in normal lighting. After fishing in Il Mheg for 2 hours, I've been staring at this for a while and loathe it.
https://i.imgur.com/Zn5ThRo.png https://i.imgur.com/2iOvYP4.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheVegetable

Seems they realy hate pursed lips. I'm too lazy to make a gif but that's part of the same thing I've been complaining about for male miqo face 1. Also I see derplander face 6 also has an oversized lower lip for absolutely no reason.

---

Is the derplander you're referring to the male midlander? If so, to clarify, the darker image is the older, pursed lips. The older one has the larger lower lip except in the corners.

They also STILL haven't fixed this:

https://i.ibb.co/ctsqbqS/buggedhair.png

Certain Au Ra Hairstyles "break" when near multiple light sources.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hatsuoki

Since the lips haven't been fixed this patch, I'll post the Male Midlander Face 6 Lip 3 comparison again. The slightly pursed lips had so much personality.

https://i.imgur.com/GAMjG2l.gif

---

One of the key points they said they’d fix was the lips that were raised and lowered but it seems like they forgot that point, and it’s obvious everyone hates the way they currently look…

https://i.imgur.com/OI1HYMT.gif

Adding onto the lip discussion (though this is more of an oversight on my part): I came to the conclusion today that the majority of my problems with the mouth changes are due to the colour change rather than the shape change (though this does not mean the shape change hasn't affected me).

I was thinking about the lip gloss conversation from a few months ago and decided to go through the colours in the CC to see how other colours appear because on my character the lip gloss is practically non-existent post-EW graphics, I noticed (as many already know) darker colours do get a resemblance of gloss but it's significantly toned down. I was able to more clearly see the changes for Face 1's mouth (Mouth type 1) using a darker tone as well, which I should've done way sooner but because I'm so used to the way my character was borderline lip-less in EW I kind of just... forgot.

Anyway, a similar problem with the mouth corners as seen on other player model faces here is present here as well: the corners are widened out and the lips have been vertically flattened (this is what causes the duck lips).

Lip Colour: Black (Dark option) / Lip Colour: White (Light option)

https://i.imgur.com/Ml9GpRa.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/Y3tN2s1.gif

In regards to my character settings in particular, like I said before a key part of my problem arises from how the lip colour is handled in DT. I specifically designed my character in mind to have significantly reduced lip colour, I suppose much like how an anime character would look, a fixation on the mouth line (so, not realistic). Now when comparing against the dark lipstick, the upper lip on my character became pronounced in DT whereas before it wasn't nearly as present in most environments (see photos below).

https://i.imgur.com/m166y2t.png

I don't know what the resolution to this could be, maybe allowing the lip colour to have a density slider or a menu of selectable options could do the trick (as my lips have gone from matching my skin tone to a pale pink) and allowing the option for a more intense lip gloss effect like in EW could probably help as well (I liked this effect).

In regards to all faces/options, the mouth line shadow(?) (or lack thereof) being reduced is still another large contender for why the appearance is so off. I think this is what could be causing the centre "M" shape to look reduced on my lips, some other character examples are fundamental sculpt changes.

Addendum:

https://i.imgur.com/DWEUrs9.png

I think there's been some slight improvements in how skin itself looks (at least on my face 5 male midlander) but again, no changes have been made to the lips. like everyone else, his lost some of the original shape and fullness, which is a shame. They were my second favorite part of his face. Another thing is that the "line" of his mouth used to extend out past his lips, and now that's gone. I used to think that might be a general feature of the graphics update, but emet retained his lip shape pretty astoundingly well post graphics update, so I feel like it should be doable for player characters too lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lunartears

I don't know what the resolution to this could be, maybe allowing the lip colour to have a density slider or a menu of selectable options could do the trick (as my lips have gone from matching my skin tone to a pale pink) and allowing the option for a more intense lip gloss effect like in EW could probably help as well (I liked this effect).

In regards to all faces/options, the mouth line shadow(?) (or lack thereof) being reduced is still another large contender for why the appearance is so off. I think this is what could be causing the centre "M" shape to look reduced on my lips, some other character examples are fundamental sculpt changes.

---

Yeah I've been struggling with that too, the contrast between the skin color (and its rendering method) of my character and the lip color is a lot stronger than it used to be, and under certain lighting conditions it makes her look kinda sickly (I'm assuming it's because as usual they're using Meteor to test all their stuff so what works for his skin tone won't work for paler and darker characters, like this wonderful example of the Dawntrail opening cutscene). I'm still able to go one shade paler for the lips, but it's still not the right shade, and obviously it just reminds me of how frustratingly limited the character creator is. And I miss the gloss too...

As for the mouth line, I completely agree with this, and it took me a while to realize that it played a bigger role in the character appearance than I thought, especially since I use the thickest lip option on Au ra F1, and without that shadow she just looks like she's been stung by a bee lol.
Some people have also reported that when the mouth is open in a portrait, under a certain angle you can see a faint line of where the texture of the lip ridges ends and where I assume the lip shadow would start, and it really adds to the strangeness.
But I don't really know how to bring it up because it's obviously a "hand-written lie" on the same level as the eye highlights, and if it was restored as it is it would probably look strange with how everything is rendered now... It could be baked directly into the texture (tons of makeup techniques use a similar effect to give more volume to the lips, I'm pretty sure that's why Aymeric's lips look intact post update), but then it might look weird under other lighting conditions, so I don't know.

Months ago I made a quick edit of a random screenshot I saw on Twitter to see how things would change if I roughly added the missing mouth line to the lips:
https://i.imgur.com/Q5HmFPv.gif

And yeah idk, to me it feels like an integral part of the appearance that had been missing. But I really doubt they have any intention to restore that extra mouth line, because of realism suddenly being important or whatever.

I agree that having that shadow (and gloss) helps with the illusion and although I know it was mentioned earlier, I want to stress for any devs looking at this that for my example in particular, the shape is actually different (look for the line where the color ends on the lower lip corners).

Male miqo face 4 definitely has the eyelid bug going on. Several of my portaits are messed up due to it and I've tried replicating the effect to unfortunately positive results - it's gotta be across the board.

https://i.imgur.com/eh7xwVh.gif

Decided to add a gif for my Duskwight's lips too. They blend into his skin, are extremely shiny, and the rounded corners are just bleh. I miss the thinner corners creating a proper grimace.

I know its a lot to ask but can we tone down the covered in oil muscle builder look for darker skin tones too please? The harsh white line of his nose highlight looks ridiculous. I swear he gets shinier every update.

Edit: The gif also really brings out how different his nose is too. >_> The bulbous tip in the new graphics is awful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lunaru_F

One of the key points they said they’d fix was the lips that were raised and lowered but it seems like they forgot that point, and it’s obvious everyone hates the way they currently look…

https://i.imgur.com/OI1HYMT.gif

---

My biggest problem is that this particular Miqo Face looks like the Guy is stoned since the update.

They changed the lighting again and ruined the eyes. This time my cat's eyelid got caught in it too. When will this stop? I'd just adjusted to the minimally acceptable look in 7.1, and now 7.2 made everything worse than 7.0. What's the point?

I do like the improvement to vast numbers of NPC outfits. Was really tired of guards looking like they hacked their own belts etc. Even Kan-E-Senna's necklace no longer looks like it was painted on.

Face 2 roegadyn is still borked.

Guess I'm just gonna have to accept that I'm gonna be a highlander forever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dazedu

They changed the lighting again and ruined the eyes. This time my cat's eyelid got caught in it too. When will this stop? I'd just adjusted to the minimally acceptable look in 7.1, and now 7.2 made everything worse than 7.0. What's the point?

---

They initially said that they'd be working to address issues raised by players through 7.2, but they've obviously done very little to address the comprehensive breakdowns of the things that are obviously broken or dramatically changed for the worse. I'm fully expecting the next LL to include them saying that they're done and pat themselves on the back for what they did in 7.1 and 7.2.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lunartears

Lip Colour: Black (Dark option) / Lip Colour: White (Light option)

https://i.imgur.com/Ml9GpRa.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/Y3tN2s1.gif

---

Edit: I read too fast and didn't see that you and SchwarzwälderTorte already discussed this very issue (reading is hard). :'D
I'll keep the post up though as an extra reminder for the devs, hoping they'll pick up on this particular point of feedback because I agree the missing line is a big problem.

----

Looking at those comparisons something that I was never really able to put into words suddenly became clear to me.
(I can't edit any images right now. I hope I can explain it well enough.)

In addition to all the criticism people have pointed out, 6.x mouths have a much deeper shadow around the line where the upper and lower lip meet, leading to a darker "line" between the upper and the lower lip.

So even if the shape itself may be similar (e.g. both versions have the slight "downwards dip" of the upper lip in the middle of the line where the upper and lower lip meet) the visual effect is completely different due to the weak, almost non-existent, shadow between the upper and the lower lip.

This strong shadow adds a lot of character and quite literally defines the shape and the expression much better, resulting in a more striking and pronounced appearance.

This is a really important element for the unique look of the different mouths because even though the line between the lips itself may technically be similar if you look really hard you just don't properly perceive it if the defining shadows are lacking, robbing it of its characteristic impact.
The 7.0+ lips look so wishy-washy in comparison because the line between the upper and the lower lip is so weak and undefined that it just doesn't stand out as a feature and has no strong character.

This issue is not related to the lighting engine I think because this line's shadow is always weak and undefined.

This is why it's not enough to fix the outer shapes of the lower and upper lip (e.g., cupid bow), the expression (slight smile or frown) and the duckface/puffy cheeks (although all of them also need to be fixed!)
They also really need to add this definition between the lower and upper lip back in (e.g., by "hand-painting" the depth back in).

(Sorry for the formatting. Trying to grab the devs' attention without images.)

There is another general thing that bothers me about FF14 graphics!

Again and again we get NPC's that have totally different body types than we can have.
For example Ryne or Sphene. Both are technically Hyr. But both are muuuch slimer and more elegant than actual female Hyr bodies.

It's like they know that their models don't meet their own standards and so they make slimer versions for their NPC's.
Also we have not a single option to really play a small male and a little bit 'animelike' character. And now they threw Calyx in our faces! xD (awesome design btw!)

For female chars, I think Aura is closest to 'animelike'. But their males have not such an option. All just huge bodybuilders.
Aura were a good opportunity to make 2 really different subraces. A very small one and a big one, for both male and female. And both can choose between 2 horn colors.

At this point I just wish..., when they someday fixed the races that are already there, that they make some kind of half-celestrial race, maybe from another shard.
And that this one will finally get the option of really(!) handsome more elegant males, that are not bodybuilders, that can be actual really small and slim (e. g. like female Aura), OR slim and bigger, and more like we see it in all japanese/korean/chinese anime/fantasy series and games. And with elegant proper emotes and voices.

OR: Muuuch more options for face, size, body type, voices, emotes/poses for the existing races. But this would be maybe more work, than implementing one more, that meets the criteria mentioned. D :
If a lot of work would be fine, then it could also be like: That every existing race gets the option to be a half-celestrial being, and so have new options for faces, bodytypes, voices, and so on. Maybe there is a shard where such stuff happens! ^w^

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More ideas:

I could imagine maybe special celestrial eyes without a 'dark' pupil, but vibrant depht and options like glittering or shiny skin, or something like that. Huge differences in size, but always slim.
Please not that 1:1 sizeslider we do have now that scales like a vectorgraphic! Taller people are proportional not a 1:1 upscaled small person! They way it scales at the moment is also really a problem in my opinion. :3

They could give them some kind of wingmount as a collector edition 'plus' mount for the half-celestrial race, with just 'pure beautiful white wings'.
So that when you choose the race, and have bought collector edition 'plus' of the expansion in which they release, you can get auto.the mount 'my wings'. :O
(And of course there should be a normal collectors edition with a normal mount for everyone. 'Plus' would include both mounts. But just people who want the 'my Wings' would need to buy it.)

Most cool would be if it would be possible to 'not hide' the wings in cities (but not able to fly in the air and stuff). I have no clue if this would be technically possible.
Or if there would be a toggle on/off option, that the wings show when using sprint, that then flying just above the ground instead of using legs.
Or if there would be a toggle on/off option, that the wings show when using sprint, that then the char is flying just above the ground instead of using his/her legs. And wings hide again when the char stops to run.



I made a thread for it:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...lf-Celestrials

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lunartears

Lip Colour: Black (Dark option) / Lip Colour: White (Light option)

https://i.imgur.com/Ml9GpRa.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/Y3tN2s1.gif

---

Your pictures here are just another example of how there is actually less definition and detail in the newer lips, along with shapes being completely changed. Some people will say “but the graphics update gave us more fine detail!” and it’s obvious they haven’t looked at the lips at all! The older ones had much more detail, the new ones look almost blurry, along with the upper lips being mostly chopped in half on most faces!