7.0 Graphical Update - Hair Highlights Feedback

Hi everyone,

First time posting on the forums, so I hope I do this correctly! I've seen a lot of discussion posting on here regarding character appearance changes in the Dawntrail benchmark due to the 7.0 graphical update and wanted to add my own feedback.

Here's an image comparison of my character (Raava Viera, hairstyle #10) as she currently appears in the game, as well as how she appears in the character creator for the benchmark:

https://i.imgur.com/fns7co3.png

As you can see, there is a drastic change in hair highlight patterning between the two. This is pretty disappointing to me because I adore how her hair highlights look currently with the lighter fringe and especially the lighter strands in her braid, and the graphical update appears to be removing both of these elements. If the changes had been more slight I think I wouldn't have minded it as much, but it seems like the new version of her hair has highlights significantly focused on the back of her head rather than the front, which is a pretty jarring change.

Has anyone else had similar issues come up with their hair highlights due to the update? I'm conflicted because otherwise I generally like how my character looks in the benchmark, so maybe this is just something I'll have to get over and make my peace with LOL.

Please let me know your thoughts!

Seeing this I can only say that I like the Benchmark version a lot more.

Why would they even do this?
It's not a matter of the asset being remade from scratch and understandably being a tad different.
This is like they just told someone to do whatever they wanted with the highlights.
For something that was advertised as not wanting to change the feel of our characters it sure as hell doesn't look like they tried.

Okay, so they are just changing things at random for no reason. This wasn't what you promised, Squeenix.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

Seeing this I can only say that I like the Benchmark version a lot more.

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To each their own! I may grow to like it more, it was just such an appreciable change that it was pretty jarring to see when I loaded her in. I mostly wish there was still a little more highlight to her braid, because that's the one feature that differs between the otherwise identical F!Viera hair #9 and 10.

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Originally Posted by HollowedDoll

Why would they even do this?
It's not a matter of the asset being remade from scratch and understandably being a tad different.
This is like they just told someone to do whatever they wanted with the highlights.
For something that was advertised as not wanting to change the feel of our characters it sure as hell doesn't look like they tried.

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Yeah, it was pretty much the first thing I noticed the second I loaded her into the benchmark and has kind of made me crestfallen about the update in general, even despite the fact that I like many of the other changes especially regarding lighting/resolution.

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Originally Posted by Tethan

Okay, so they are just changing things at random for no reason. This wasn't what you promised, Squeenix.

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I feel like I'm being so dramatic by feeling this disappointed by a change in hair highlighting pattern but it really just makes me so sad. I do digital art as a hobby and have drawn a LOT of my girl, so I'm pretty attached to her main appearance traits LOL

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Originally Posted by catjacket

To each their own! I may grow to like it more, it was just such an appreciable change that it was pretty jarring to see when I loaded her in. I mostly wish there was still a little more highlight to her braid, because that's the one feature that differs between the otherwise identical F!Viera hair #9 and 10.

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Indeed, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Still, I am surprised that they even alter color patterns of hairstyles.
As far as I understood they were just going to up the graphical quality of the hair.
I don't use highlights myself so I would've never noticed without anyone bringing it up.

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Originally Posted by catjacket

I feel like I'm being so dramatic by feeling this disappointed by a change in hair highlighting pattern but it really just makes me so sad. I do digital art as a hobby and have drawn a LOT of my girl, so I'm pretty attached to her main appearance traits LOL

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I don't think so, it's a matter of principle. They said they wouldn't change things too drastically and try to preserve people's characters. This makes it clear they either lied, don't care or there is a rogue artist at SE freestyling for kicks.

I’m so glad you made this thread because I came here to bring up a similar issue! My boy uses an older hairstyle and the update has made his highlights look like he was practicing pictomancy all day and needs a shower. Currently it’s a soft, blended kind of highlight, but with the update it’s randomly spotty? I’m not even that attached to his highlights but the tail he uses is the color-tip and if I want a white-tipped tail then I have to have white highlights.

Note: I would include pictures but I honestly don’t know how anymore. orz

Edit: Pictures!

https://imgur.com/06Z6f1U.jpg

As you can see, they’re much sharper and less blended now, some of the streaks have moved or disappeared, and the bangs are spotty like there’s paint splatter. It looks Very Bad.

We have this same issue with my partner's fem Roegadyn...
She is supposed to have wine colored hair, and with the new options it looks either purple or plainly red. Not wine anymore, like that color hue totally dissapeared

if this is exactly and final as they plan to release, its pretty bad in the sense, that it is not what was said to be.

maybe one day we'll have a highlight slider/adjustments and toggles.

but bare minimum, your look has changed.

i made a post before realizing this one was already here, so hopefully this will help with visibility, but there's big problems with the consistency of highlights. here's my miqo'te's before and after

https://i.imgur.com/c7nUTDr.png
https://i.imgur.com/tSYHluO.png

i'd probably be happier with the change if it was way more of a middle ground or at least the highlights looked more like streaks rather than a block of color, they just look so off and unnatural

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Originally Posted by angstgremlin

i made a post before realizing this one was already here, so hopefully this will help with visibility, but there's big problems with the consistency of highlights. here's my miqo'te's before and after

i'd probably be happier with the change if it was way more of a middle ground or at least the highlights looked more like streaks rather than a block of color, they just look so off and unnatural

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Can I ask you what's that yellow color inside the left ear of the bottom picture?

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Originally Posted by Aco505

Can I ask you what's that yellow color inside the left ear of the bottom picture?

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honestly i didn't even pay attention to that at first, i was about to say i have no idea since it looked like that when i loaded the saved appearance in, but after fiddling around a bit it seems that that spot just takes the same color as the skin tone you have selected for the miqo

edit now that i'm looking at it, squinting at the ew benchmark screenshot you can kind of see that it's also a thing there, so i would think it's an existing feature that is just a lot more noticeable now or the light itself is making it stick out weirdly

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Originally Posted by angstgremlin

honestly i didn't even pay attention to that at first, i was about to say i have no idea since it looked like that when i loaded the saved appearance in, but after fiddling around a bit it seems that that spot just takes the same color as the skin tone you have selected for the miqo

edit now that i'm looking at it, squinting at the ew benchmark screenshot you can kind of see that it's also a thing there, so i would think it's an existing feature that is just a lot more noticeable now or the light itself is making it stick out weirdly

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Yeah, I just checked. It's a combination of the angle in your picture and the background you chose. The color of the skin inside the ears varies a bit depending on your skin color and here it just somehow got so prominent that one part looks yellow and the other pink. I can reproduce a similar effect in those conditions but not as marked as in your example.

Just giving this a bit more attention as I've run across the glaring highlights issue as well.

https://i.imgur.com/R0P4DGa.png
In the benchmark.

https://i.imgur.com/WzSSDZX.png
Exact same settings in Live.

I'd like to add onto this as well, I've noticed something weird with light highlights on dark hair. In dark / indirect lighting, there appear to be splotches of the highlight colour all over the hair, and it honestly looks like a bug to me.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...08288471f4.pnghttps://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...a423dd2e46.png

Or maybe these splotches were present in the old textures as well, and are simply now visible with the higher resolution. I think I can spot them on the front of the hairstyle here in the older version too.
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...cad104d437.png
And new for comparison
https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...02e48b2933.png

From a cursory check, this appears to be an issue on several Keeper of the Moon hairstyles (mostly those with longer hair), I haven't checked the other races. I assume this is what the other user meant when they said it looks like their character had been a pictomancer all day.


(First time posting, I apologize if I don't know some of the ettiquette rules!)