Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

Really happy for anyone using female Miqo'te Face 2, I hope they actually resolved your issue.

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An issue wherein bangs were not displayed correctly when equipping certain headgear with certain hairstyles.

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Too good to be true.

EDIT: Of course, expect nothing.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...a9decda60d.png

It sure would be nice if, gee, I don't know, they actually communicated with us about this instead of vagueposting in their patch notes to string people along still with false damn hope for any fixes. The thing the community have been asking for, especially heavily on the JP side, since the first rollout of adjustments after Dawntrail launch.

Performing an ancient sumerian wish-granting rite rn so that the eyelids are fixed when I enter gpose after maint is over

https://i.imgur.com/cOM6p8E.png

https://i.imgur.com/3EB5hkV.png

Welp, whaddya know, they didn't fix it. Guess we gotta wait another four months for another chance, don't we?

I'm... done.
I'm done.

https://i.imgur.com/3gnDRDv.jpeg

Zero changes. They've given up on character updates.

I can't do this anymore.

I feel like I've lost a decade of love and life forever. I've been begging for a fix for the eyes since 2023's first preview and they just don't care.

Look forward to the expanded CC in 8.5 (expected 8.0 but pushed back because of ~issues~) where each character can have four more tick boxes of random face marks, or whatever stupid meme suits. I hate everything about this timeline and I hate that I've had to give this stupid company money to even have an avenue to provide feedback for something I loved with so much of my heart that they don't listen to.

The lack of transparency is the most annoying part about this. They could come out and say "We're doing our best and we have to delay any big changes in character models to 8.0" or whatever, or don't even commit to the expansion's release. Just say 8.X and you have 3 years' worth of time to fix this mess. This is just ghosting the community and hoping it'll shut up about it. The skinwalkers look close enough, alright? So just go buy those new Fantasian outfits, and if you're sad we didn't fix your character?

Well, we just put fantas on sale *wink*

I feel like we've got a long, long year of silence and being utterly ignored ahead of us

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Originally Posted by lunartears

Really happy for anyone using female Miqo'te Face 2, I hope they actually resolved your issue.


Too good to be true.

EDIT: Of course, expect nothing.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...a9decda60d.png

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Not much of a surprise, out of all the hairstyles in Dawntrail that one got the least love. Most others were redone, that one simply got upscaled.

No changes on my Au Ra or my friend's Miqo'te. On top of that, while it isn't the subject of the thread, they've removed even more job flavour this patch, and I've overall lost confidence in this development team. I've decided to unsubscribe. This is my final update.

Well, I had hopes that SE stealth-fixed my character's eyelids when his eyes are shut and also the smiling animation, especially when he is talking. Well, I should have known better /sigh.

I just wish that he won't smile in the Patch 7.4 story, or it will ruin all immersion for me.

P.S. This is my test picture to see if the situation with smiles has improved (ARR patch 2.3 spoilers).

1.
https://i.postimg.cc/vQnyqQGM/Captur...-13-43-214.png

2.
https://i.postimg.cc/VYtwGYzw/Captur...19-13-41-1.png

3. This is the pre-DT version of the same cutsene.
https://i.postimg.cc/KzRc4T3C/Captur...-28-19-167.png

Gods, this poor Midlander NPC got butchered.

Source: https://youtu.be/zCrZJ5JKWO8?t=1550

No, it hasn't. The only difference with the patch 7.2 picture is that Thancred got a little bit more tan.

Yeah... you know they didn't do any actual changes because they didn't even offer a fantasia this time.
Mouths are still terrible. Eyelids are STILL broken... didn't they accept bug reports for this? Where the hell is the fix?? It's really embarrassing at this point... do they think the problem will just magically go away? Or that people will forget that this nonsense is still present?

https://i.imgur.com/NxZa8to.png

Miqo eyebrows barely changed, fixed half the aspect and completely ignored the other. Honestly just getting sad. Seemingly ain't getting my character back.

"Fixed issues" being thrown out casually here.

http://i.imgur.com/ERVOO7w.png

Yeah, there we go, lips are still huge, eyes are still vapid, brows are still sparse. Skin and hair look nice and all, but the facial features belong to some stranger. It's even more of a shame because I've been stupidly excited about the glam changes, and I can't fully enjoy them with B^} face here looking like he's going to fall asleep out of sheer excitement and like his brows might fade out of existence if there's too much lighting. Cutscenes can be painful to look at, is what I'm saying, and that's a bit of a downer in a cutscene-heavy game. I'm even more tired than my WoL looks now.

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Originally Posted by Argantaelle

Well, I had hopes that SE stealth-fixed my character's eyelids when his eyes are shut and also the smiling animation, especially when he is talking. Well, I should have known better /sigh.

I just wish that he won't smile in the Patch 7.4 story, or it will ruin all immersion for me.

P.S. This is my test picture to see if the situation with smiles has improved (ARR patch 2.3 spoilers).

1.
https://i.postimg.cc/vQnyqQGM/Captur...-13-43-214.png

2.
https://i.postimg.cc/VYtwGYzw/Captur...19-13-41-1.png

3. This is the pre-DT version of the same cutsene.
https://i.postimg.cc/KzRc4T3C/Captur...-28-19-167.png

Gods, this poor Midlander NPC got butchered.

Source: https://youtu.be/zCrZJ5JKWO8?t=1550

No, it hasn't. The only difference with the patch 7.2 picture is that Thancred got a little bit more tan.

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They really ruined face expressions. :C
During 7.4 MSQ I also always thought: Oh please stop smiling, it looks so weird and false.

I don't expect any comparisons for this patch to be noticeably different, to be honest. The fact that they went out of the way to specify a miqo face 2 feature indicates to me that nothing else was changed so long as it wasn't a minor mesh issue e.g. clipping or rendering problems (I noticed a lot more floating eyeball rendering on PS4 during 7.3 but that's just my perspective, could be any number of causes). I'm just a bit confused on the logic for this though. Is it that the eyebrows are a flat texture and thus can be changed without worrying about bones/weights as much, and in that case why specifically that faceplate repaired? A little more transparency would really be appreciated. There's been a number of new sculpts that simply do not match the shape of what they were meant to replace. Can we please get a proper list of what the team considers to "differ from their appearance prior to patch 6.58" and plans to change in the future? Just off the top of my head, two examples I would consider to be differing:

f!Miqo'te, face 4, nose 4. The ridge has flattened, glabella/bridge area is less inward, the tip is less rounded, nostrils are less defined and positioned lower.

f!Viera, face 4, lips (all sculpts, 4 and 1 pictured respectively without and with dark lip color). Corners are tilted more downwards, cupid's bow has become flattened and wider, fuller vermilion, an "overlined" appearance on the bottom lip, older philtrum is angled slightly outward while the 7.x one is straight.

https://i.imgur.com/8qCz2Do.png

A "laundry list" type of communication would go a long way in making our feedback seem like it isn't just screaming into a void. JP is claiming EN gets preferential treatment and vice versa, many people are moved to the point of quitting the game over this, and the userbase does not understand why certain decisions are being made. Blind faith in 8.0 can only get us so far. Using machine translation on interviews to find out we potentially might be getting more options/toggles is the most the needle has moved in months over this. If we didn't care, we wouldn't be tracking these things. I don't come here to vent or hate, I really do want to be able to communicate what the issues are and would like to either hear that a) they are planning to fix them or b) they do not consider it an issue and consider xyz solution to be a suitable alternative.

I enjoyed 7.4 a lot, but the problems with character lips were still really distracting. It's not so bad on bespoke NPC models with unique faces, but everybody else's mouths became poorly drawn, the animations are still awkward to look at, and there's been no changes in over a year. More than needing any one thing changed, I'd like to understand more about what's being done, if anything, to character creation and player models in the future.

I also don't like how unique traits like Femroe's pupils or Fem Au Ra's eye textures were basically removed from the game. Character creation is already so limited that I don't want unique traits and design choices for different races/clans/faces to disappear forever. I appreciate the other quality of life features that came in the recent patches, but I can't say I'd trade my character's eyes for them. To me, that's still more important than more hats or outfits or w/e.

Little update for the Miqo Eyebrows, with more details in its thread:

Half the problem with the brows was fixed, but the other half that makes them short and straight remains.

7.3 on left, 7.4 on right. Eyebrow #2, which is the "gentlest, most neutral" of the options.
https://i.postimg.cc/pVj8hXrW/7-3.png https://i.postimg.cc/SQ982NRx/7-4.png

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Originally Posted by KihyiFelhede

why specifically that faceplate repaired?

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I can only assume it was because the thing they fixed with the face 2 brows was an actual unintended bug (also why no Fantasia was given for it), and they considered that separate from the graphics update inconsistencies.
I don't know why they worded that patch notes sentence that way though when they still didn't fully return them to their original shape.

It is an improvement, I'm grateful for that, but it would be really nice to know if they plan on doing more updates to match features with their original impressions better, or if they plan to include more accurate versions as additional options in the future.

It's really frustrating to see how the response to this update has been handled. You get acknowledged, get empty promises, they say they'll make adjustments but no matter how much you post, how much you ache over it and how much you try to be positive absolutely nothing happens or if it does then it's like someone spent 10 minutes half-adjusting something. I want to be wrong, I want to believe that there's something within the game's management or maybe even a set of rules that prevent them from actually tackling the issue but when hobbyists can resolve or create something to shoulder the burden I just don't know what possible excuse there is.

I saw how female Miqo'te Face 2 players fought to be heard, fought longer than we did for our "acknowledgement" and how the issue was meagrely approached and how they still want a resolution. What of the Thancred thread? Are they ever going to get a response? If they do, will the development team just shift his chin up half a cm and consider the grander issue checked off? Why is the graphic update so inconsistent to begin with? What was the point of putting out an update where the majority of character models have been deliberately warped from their original design, commodified or have notable bugs? I theorise that the update was a request from someone with a lot of power within the company for my own sanity. Maybe they saw the 10th anniversary come and started to think "Well, the game is 10 years old now. I suppose we should replace these old PS3-era graphics so it can appeal to a new audience." likewise with the further push of aesthetical jargon we've been getting with Dawntrail and Solution Nine. It's just to appeal to a new playerbase, isn't it? There's not a lot of consideration for the varied group of existing players, just the ones who felt this game was ugly or yesman every last thing that this game does.

Well, I guess it's fine now to have some rest from the meticulous effort put into preserving the character models since they didn't put that iconic footnote in the 7.4 patch notes. A job well done, eh?

"Graphical adjustments have been made to player character models based on feedback from the community."

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...40/075/90f.png

My apologies for being absent from this thread too long, health issues.

I continue to be astounded by how poorly this is being handled. And for one reason: the pattern of lack of transparency. We're seeing this with the possible recast of G'raha in another thread, which I do hope will be addressed soon by somebody.

Listen, we're not unreasonable. We *know* this stuff takes time. We'd all feel loads better if we got a simple timeline of what's being worked on and a general when. 7.4 needed all hands on deck for environmental stuff or (dare we hope) the expanded CC for 8.0 that will make our dreams come true? Great, so tell us, please!

(Look, I know the latter would be saved for Fanfest Keynote, but surely they can cook up some white lie in the meantime that just says 'we still hear you and are working on it!')


The Japanese thread is still of the same mind, all they want is that simple transparency. I am willing to give the dev team the benefit of a doubt if all of this is to save face with the suits and it's genuinely not their fault, but come on, Square Enix. Do better. Deliver the product you promised, that you SUCCEEDED in even during the transition from 1.0 to ARR, and even the Tencent mobile game! It also still beggars belief that we're *still* dealing with silly issues like the new facial mesh being a mess with smiling of all things, the eyelid bug, and even the normal map on femroe face 2. (And pupil size and opacity on roes in particular as well). Even the combined limbral rings/Ancient eyes!

Once again, whoever is hearing this, I am on my hands and knees begging. You need time, I get that, we all do, and we'd all rather not this be continued to be rushed. All you need to do is sit us down and give us a timeline. Please.

The insane thing is that there used to be more transparency about this very thing! I was going through some very, very old patch notes (like, ARR era, because I'm insane but I'm also very interested in the way the game was historically) and not only are there mentions of when they've made graphical changes and adjustments, even when the changes are minor they're even specifically detailed as to what was changed along with before/after shots. Yet somehow a decade later with presumably a much larger team and definitely with a much larger playerbase, some of which have been around for that entire decade, the best they can manage now for such a massive overhaul that's set off a 300+ page thread of feedback is... a single line with absolutely no explanation of what has been changed or where.

The thing is, the recent patch where they specify "female miqo'te, faceplate 2, eyebrows", clearly shows that they can specify such things, and this was good communication. Why they choose not to, to me, is entirely unclear. A functional art team should have a list of action items and the devs should know exactly what was deployed in their latest patch. Hopefully they aren't spread so thin that to attach such notes to a patch would be so burdensome. Would the art team lack capacity to communicate directly? Is the internal list of finished/in progress/to-do/dismissed vis-a-vis the graphics update project completed, and why can it not be shared with the userbase, even in part? I understand that "this looks bad/good" is not helpful feedback but there have been several folks who have given detailed descriptions and even mockups of their critiques and changes they would like to see, as well as what they like; We can only get so far with giving useful feedback to the team if we don't know what they plan to do, are currently doing, or do not consider to be a necessary change. Let's just use a fake example, say noses 2 and 3 on xyz face become nearly identical after a patch. If we get dozens of posts and new threads/comments asking if anyone else sees this, is this intentional, will this be fixed, etc etc it just becomes redundant and no longer helpful. Until the team clearly says "yes, that's a mistake, nose 2 will be reverted" or "no, it's on purpose because of xyz, no changes will be made", or even "we are aware of what you are saying, await further communication about noses", everyone is wasting their time talking about noses when the team already communicated internally when the issue was noticed. We want to help, so please, let us help.

My feelings remain much the same as most others posting in this thread currently. I just want to add that they still have not fixed this blatant bug that has been present since the initial Benchmark release.

Face 3 for Male Duskwights still possess the incorrect clan face texture as well. The egregious amount of bugs along with unmet requests and lacking communication only makes everything feel worse the longer time goes on.

The CC combinations I'm posting about aren't even ones I play, but even still it feels unprofessional and unfair.

Fix Thancred's Face, give him back his OLD FACE

Let us us our OG faces if we want! (just came back to pick up the gil bit/items from my house being demo'd) I really don't care care if if it's via more options in the CC or a toggle to keep all old graphics, I've said it once and I'll say it again "high end" graphics DON'T MATTER to me!

What I want is the character that I have been playing for YEARS! (bloody heck I still play 8-bit games, graphics are just low gravy for ANY game I play), I don't want my miqo to look like she's having an allergic reaction, I don't want my highlander and au'ra to look like she's strung out, I don't want my midlander to look like he's aged 15-20 years! Nor do I want my two elezen's "neutral" faces to be swapped (the one that was serious now has a slight smile and the slight smile is now serious :mad:), I don't want the flat, (and yet somehow)over-puffed lips on my viera. (Also why the heck did a lot of the lips glossiness or matte get switched for everyone, as far as I can tell? i.e what was glossy is now matte & vice versa?)

Go ahead and keep the "new & improved" models for those that like them but give the Option for old for those of us that HATE the "new" models to KEEP WHAT WE ALREADY HAD! There are many of us that had our characters just the way we wanted them, that's now GONE, and for me at least, it makes me say "You take my char away, I take away my money".

For those of you hanging on, good luck (not sarcasm), I'm just absolutely tired of this nonsense, boss, and have a lot single player to keep me occupied and happy. /salute

I keep inhaling gallons of hopium only to log in after every patch to see that the femroe faces are still completely ruined.

It really does seem like I'm never getting my girl back.

Just here to bump this pretty much

My old hair and lip color seem unattainable now and my lips shrunk, the 'angry' look I had looks like I'm tired instead and my skin seems plastic and shiny. Something is off with eyes too but can't quite put my finger on it, think they lost some glow or something.

opens door
peeks through slit

uh, fix the eyelids
and happy new year

closes door

Oh boy, love seeing the New Year message hard confirm patch 7.5 won't be until after NA FanFest, so we have a guaranteed four month wait for any possible updates!
But since they don't tell us if they're doing anything, I sure can't wait to have another nothing update! Thanks Yoshida! :)

I'm so tired. I just want her back.

https://i.imgur.com/VpuV1fc.jpeg

The mentioning of 'motion changes, and customization' makes me hopeful they could update combat animation blending so there's less scooting.

My guess is that SE will remove restrictions on gender-locked job stances, as there have been many requests for this change.

I hope the mention of skin color in some translations doesn't mean that they'll open up skin colors across a races 'main' and a 'sub'. Big fan of there being some distinction between them still, as much as it has been a struggle to upkeep with the questionable character graphics updates.

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Originally Posted by sintea

I hope the mention of skin color in some translations doesn't mean that they'll open up skin colors across a races 'main' and a 'sub'.

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What does that mean?

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Originally Posted by Iscah

What does that mean?

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Oh I was just going by how the races are represented on character selection where the alternative variety isn't immediately obvious by the listing and hidden behind confirm button but yeah, I used weird wording for it.

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Originally Posted by sintea

I hope the mention of skin color in some translations doesn't mean that they'll open up skin colors across a races 'main' and a 'sub'. Big fan of there being some distinction between them still, as much as it has been a struggle to upkeep with the questionable character graphics updates.

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At the moment, clan differences are so minor that only very dedicated players keep track of what the differences are
Removing the restrictions would simply allow the players to make more unique (if only slightly) characters and wouldn't really affect the game negatively, just like the glam unlock
Why would you want less variety?

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Originally Posted by Mouthbone

At the moment, clan differences are so minor that only very dedicated players keep track of what the differences are
Removing the restrictions would simply allow the players to make more unique (if only slightly) characters and wouldn't really affect the game negatively, just like the glam unlock
Why would you want less variety?

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I don't want them to remove one of the clan differences just because you can't tell the difference between a Wildwood and a Duskwight.

In some cases variety leads to a visual mess that paradoxically gives the impression of overwhelming sameness; it becomes clutter rather than variety within an aesthetic. I would like it if the skin colors were loosened up into a color picker within their current spectra though. My WoL's skin color has never been quite right, but the 'right' color is in between two of the swatches so I can't use it!

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Originally Posted by Astronis

I don't want them to remove one of the clan differences just because you can't tell the difference between a Wildwood and a Duskwight.

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I can tell the differences, I still think it's stupid
Why can some vieras have bushy brows but some cannot? It's a really weird thing to gatekeep
Why can't we have mixed clan characters? Mixed race characters exist, so why is it such an outlandish concept that people of different clans but of the same race would make a baby? lol
It's really ridiculous that 100% of the playable characters in this game are purebred

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Originally Posted by Mouthbone

Why can some vieras have bushy brows but some cannot? It's a really weird thing to gatekeep

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The devs want a certain aesthetic. They want player races and clans to mean something visually. I happen to like it too. I don't want everything to be shoved in a blender and then hit puree. What tends to come out in that case is viscous grey goo.

I do agree that it doesn't make any sense that 100% of player characters are supposedly non-mixed by default, and in general I am for people being able to express themselves through customization more. However I do believe Astronis is right about what the outcome would likely be in this case.

For example: If anything, looking at the uh...third-party community of this game has only proven that point more true to me. In theory, having unlimited customization (as is such the case via third-party tools) allows more uniqueness, but the vast majority of adjusted character sculpts have tiny faces, large, low-set eyes, full heart-shaped lips, extremely similar makeup styling, and so on and so forth between both feminine and masculine models. Bodies both thin and large are still bombshell hourglass figured; pale unblemished skin is the default. Etc.
(This is not an invitation to continue talking about third-party stuff in this thread BTW; I just wanted to give an example of an outcome).

Realistically, if they unlocked race-specific & clan-specific skin tones we would probably just stop seeing green-skinned Roegadyn altogether, if you know what I'm saying.

That being said, I do think more skin tones in a general approach is objectively a good thing...

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Originally Posted by Doopliss

I do agree that it doesn't make any sense that 100% of player characters are supposedly non-mixed by default, and in general I am for people being able to express themselves through customization more. However I do believe Astronis is right about what the outcome would likely be in this case.

For example: If anything, looking at the uh...third-party community of this game has only proven that point more true to me. In theory, having unlimited customization (as is such the case via third-party tools) allows more uniqueness, but the vast majority of adjusted character sculpts have tiny faces, large, low-set eyes, full heart-shaped lips, extremely similar makeup styling, and so on and so forth between both feminine and masculine models. Bodies both thin and large are still bombshell hourglass figured; pale unblemished skin is the default. Etc.
(This is not an invitation to continue talking about third-party stuff in this thread BTW; I just wanted to give an example of an outcome).

Realistically, if they unlocked race-specific & clan-specific skin tones we would probably just stop seeing green-skinned Roegadyn altogether, if you know what I'm saying.

That being said, I do think more skin tones in a general approach is objectively a good thing...

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Agreed. More options is great but I also think that mixing and giving everything to everyone without much thought could dilute things too much. For instance, we could still have something like eyebrow thickness and more type options that are different per race, gender or face type without having to borrow them from one another. Although I wonder if the devs would be up to this since it would require more work.

Rather than blurring an already indistinct line between clans among races, I think there really should be more options and MORE differentiation.

This is how I'd tackle the character creator expansion from a "FFXIV is a cash cow for the company and we do not want to invest money into it" perspective

• Skin tones remain the same to preserve subrace identity. Eg for Viera: Veena skin is pale, Rava skin is dark. But they are expanded to allow for more choices within the same palette. This circumvents problems where people want to make, say, a dark-skinned character, but the exact hue they'd like isn't available atm.
• Hair and eye color are completely unlocked and turned into an RGB picker. The game is already built to support this.
• New subrace-exclusive option: pupil shape. Each subrace gets four different pupil shapes the other doesn't get, making them look more different with a simple texture change.
• Expansion to the face paint system. They are turned into decals that can be placed not just on the face, but the body itself, similar to tattoos. The number of tattoos that can be used is increased to three or four, allowing for instance having eye shadow, a facial tattoo and a body tattoo at the same time. Event quests and (let's be real) the online store now regularly feature new paints, ranging from tattoos to makeup options.
• Hairstyle implementation is much, MUCH, MUCH faster, with each large patch including at least four new options, not including online store purchases.

I'd also want gender unlocked animations as a toggle option within each race, but that could be a problem with the sexual dimorphism between Au Ra, Hrothgar and Roegadyn. I'm tired of women always getting all the cute versions of emotes (/visage is a travesty)