[Graphic Update Feedback] Beautifying =/= Updating. Character identity lost.

Hey everyone. Sorry ahead of time for how long-winded I'll be. As an idiot with OCD, I've noticed a lot of little details changed across many face options and many races--but not all of them--that make this a bit difficult for me to organize.

I'll preface this by saying that I've been very much looking forward to the visual update, and I have several characters I do enjoy the changes for, but I feel like many others have details that were weirdly overlooked, or touched up too much for the sake of looking even more "conventionally beautiful" despite not needing it.

A stark, immediate example I can think of that apply to a large handful of female faces across several races: permanent makeup being applied on faces that used to have the option to be "plain".

I'm going to admit this right away even though it embarrasses me: I have thirteen alts of varying gender/race/clans (I've been playing for 10 years and like RP!!!). So, uh. I'll be using those for my examples.

ANYWAY, for example for real: Here's a Face 1 female Highlander with and without the eyeliner option in the current engine: https://imgur.com/a/7kJ5WFD

And here's the same face, at the same angle, with and without the eyeliner option: https://imgur.com/a/WUwL6tV

This isn't the only face this happens to, and I think it's an aggravatingly confusing choice when the option to put makeup on these already anime-styled faces has always been there. The vast majority of female faces, in general, get their own specific options in the Facial Features tab! So why get rid of the option to be just slightly plainer looking?

Hell, female Viera have been like this from the start, but, well, I didn't mind it since they were simply always like that. But for some reason they just...intensified their baked-in eyeliner? When they already have the option to intensify it?

What I mean is in this link: https://imgur.com/a/MBgzwqC
I currently have grey eyeshadow on her to make her eyes just a little less intense. In the 7.0 version, the baked-in eye makeup is darker and thicker for some reason, keeping me from being able to cover up the same amount. ...There's another change in there that I hate that I'll get to.

This is far from the only thing I mean by "beautifying." A lot of facial features aren't updated--they're straight up changed to be, I guess...better(?) (???) It's, again, hard to collect them all because it really does vary from face to face regardless of race. But a TON of lip shapes have changed, like with them making lips that didn't previously have an upward tilt, well, have one (Male Midlander Face 1 and fem Elezen Face 4 come to mind, & male Miqo'te Face 4 in some lighting, somehow). Or COMPLETELY changing the lip shape and emphasis. (Fem Viera Face 2 changes shape, and male Viera Face 3 and male Au Ra Face 3 has the balance of colors between its upper and lower lips completely changed).

Ugh...sorry for continuing on a second post, but I swear this'll be it.

There are some other things I think are a little grating, like the pupils getting significantly larger on the vast majority of faces, darker lash lines, and nose shapes changing in surprising ways after polygons got smoothed out, generally making them rounder and thinner. Even Lalafell noses getting less dark, lol. It just all feels so...artificial, like everything's more perfectly doll-like, rather than anime.

I honestly wonder if some of these are just straight up mistakes, because they're so odd? Like, Midlanders generally seem...fine across the board, even if I feel like some character was lost. It's more difficult for female Midlanders to look androgynous but whatever. I can get over it. But that female Viera lip change is laughably bad, and some of my characters straight up become whole-ass different people 'cause of it. Fem Xaela, for example: https://imgur.com/a/O4dY5C8

On the other hand, I know the new lighting can affect a lot of things, but, at least in the specific features I picked for example images, none of these are lighting issues. And while I do hope some of these are mistakes, for now I'm assuming they're not.

Again, sorry for how wordy this is. I hate talking on forums but wanted to try getting it out. There are other little things I think are annoying, but I know those are me just missing 'mistakes' from the old models. (Rest in pieces my Elezen's blind pupil looking grey...) Although on the other hand I think male Au Ra limbal ring size should be adjusted if they're goin' to keep those big-ass pupils!!!

OKAY, anyway. That's all. For real. I'm not expecting anything to get changed, but, uh, still, thank you for your time.

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Originally Posted by Doopliss

many others have details that were weirdly overlooked

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They didn't do drastic changes, which they could have, because people are attached to their characters. For example, a modern lalafell probably would not look like they do, but people have become attached to that simple head shape and how they walk like toddlers.

But they did try to get rid of the obvious polygons that made things not look smooth, such as the triangle bumps on Elezen chins, noses and faces.

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or touched up too much for the sake of looking even more "conventionally beautiful" despite not needing it.

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I think this is just a side effect of upgrading the textures to 1080p and adjusting shaders to change how lighting reflects. Remember that the game uses reflective lighting, so the color changes a lot based on the area you're in, and that is only going to be more the case with the shader changes.

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a large handful of female faces across several races: permanent makeup being applied on faces that used to have the option to be "plain".

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It may have just not been apparent due to them not being 1080p before. Faces used to be extremely blurry to the point you couldn't even tell there were hair follicles.

Anyway, you are most likely getting a free fantasia to adjust your characters in anticipation of issues like this.

Never really a fan of the implicit "I sort of read your post and also decided it's in your head" type of replies, so, I'll opt out of replying to that.

Anyway, I'm sure people can check this out themselves or from the multitude of posts coming in, but seeing as Keeper fangs got scuffed, Au Ra scales get artifacts on darker skin tones, Rava & Veena now have the same eyes, there are hairstyles with broken highlights, and Elezen (and possibly other races) have had hair color values mixed around, I'm actually more willing to believe some details were very much overlooked now.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They didn't do drastic changes.

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People's characters look entirely different in some comparison photos I've seen. Some of the choices are honestly baffling as they look obviously more low-quality than what we have now.

Dead eyes everywhere
Low-end Sims 4-esque hair textures (coming from someone who makes garbage Sims 4 hair textures lol)
Keepers had their teeth pulled
Bun noses look more pig like than bunny like
They somehow managed to make lalas look younger
Limbals don't even glow anymore


$10 someone makes a mod to re-add the old stuff in anyway within the first month of the changes.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

People's characters look entirely different in some comparison photos I've seen.

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My point is, if people think this is drastic, they should be aware that if they were actually trying to make drastic changes, your character would look nothing like it currently does. I mean completely different. They just knew this was going to happen so these changes are at the minimum of what they could do.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

My point is, if people think this is drastic, they should be aware that if they were actually trying to make drastic changes, your character would look nothing like it currently does. I mean completely different. They just knew this was going to happen so these changes are at the minimum of what they could do.

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As I said, they do look completely different to me. I'm not comparing my own character, I'm looking at others "before and after" on this forum.

If some people are happy with the changes, Mazel Tov. I hope you enjoy them.
I completely understand why others feel the way they do though after seeing the photos. Some genuinely look sickly in the new light and that's depressing.

The graphical update is a mad joke in my eyes. I just loaded my fem Highlander and checked some hair-textures and found hilarious results. You cannot ship it like this. Extremely flat textures bent into shapes, shiny surfaces which looks like the character used an entire bottle of Got 2B Hairglue. Seriously one freenlancer graphicartists would've done a better job. I took a few screenshots to show what I mean. There's probably a lot more going wrong.

https://i.imgur.com/aYpnGrC.png
https://i.imgur.com/leUzjQE.png
https://i.imgur.com/wyUqoRZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/9mlq2xN.png

Veiras look bloated and streached on top of nose downgrade and dead eyes on top. The lightening also hasn't helped. My before and after for example

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...4f3b053ea0967&

result was me needing to completely change face to get somewhat decent look alike. where as my male hyur has barely any change bar some darkening required.

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Originally Posted by Salzkartoffel

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

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This is actually extremely sloppy from a technical perspective and I am stunned this made it through checks. Like....come on Square....

God, it's only been a few hours, but knowing what I do now I think I'd change this post. Most of this stuff doesn't feel intentional anymore. I've noticed that most Face 1s seem to have the most care put into them--and were the ones shown off during previous screenings--but even then some of those still look like the current impression is entirely lost. They just, for the most part, seem to be the only ones without a super sloppy lip shape & texture change. Aside from messing with Au Ra limbal rings and Viera noses, I actually get the impression these weren't worked on at all since their initial showings.

While I genuinely believe the developers do care about this, it remains so strange to me how little effort there appears to be to actually save the current looks of the characters. Things like pupils, brow density and shape, lip appearance, eyebags, eyelashes, makeup, contours of the nose, blemishes, cheekbones, the way light hits the face, etc, etc... These are all important aspects to a character design. Yet it feels like there was very little effort in matching those small details.

It's confusing. Why are all of the misshapen lips misshaped and flattened in the exact same way across different races? Why are there so many little broken things? Did a human actually look over this? This game is stylized, and we have clear references of the previous models; I know it's possible to make them look closer while still being "better"!

It just feels bad, especially when you notice things are copied and pasted between two clans that used to have subtler differences (Wildwood/Duskwight, Rava/Veena, etc). Like there's simply a lack of looking at the details that actually make these models look the way they do.

Though, on the other hand, I think female Hrothgar look great! They have exactly the type of effort and stylizing and character flourishes I expect the team to put out in a new race! So, really, now I'm more worried with thinking about "how are they possibly going to fix this in two months?"

The character changes are being widely criticized both here and in the JP forums. There's no way they'll think this is okay, right? But it feels like too much on such short notice. I suppose I wouldn't know any better, though...

The lip changes to female Seeker and Keeper lips 2 on F3 was a little disappointing: they're pretty noticeably different. I don't think that the new ones look bad per se, but it definitely felt like they weren't interested in keeping the original spirit of the option. I'm aware that there are other, more pressing issues that others are experiencing in terms of the graphics updates but this unfortunately irked me.

https://imgur.com/FJEWaWc
https://imgur.com/SBHuFhp

The eyes seem better on most races but they totally botched the skin. Everyone looks like plastic dolls. Plus lips are just thin lines now.