Character Update: Positive Feedback

Hello.
I don't post much on the fourms but I felt I need to have my voice heard in regards to the graphics update because I very much love the character changes.
More so for Au ra's, Midlanders and Miqo'te's.

My favorite change is au ra's enlarged pupils, them being bigger made them extremely cute and doll like, if anything were to be adjusted I would love for that to stay the same.

I noticed there is a big difference of opinions for the characters update on the ffxiv official fourms vs other social media/fourms so I want to show that there are many people happy with the changes.

Before I post them I want to say that: This thread is not meant to Dismiss, Brush off or Invalidate, peoples valid worries about the graphics update.

I made this thread to show that there are many happy players that love the changes to their characters such as myself and my friends.
I'm not sure how far SE looks for feedback and if they limited it to the fourms so I want to show SE these peoples love for their new looks.

These links will be from Twitter/X and Reddit. All these posts have high amount of likes from posters that don't have many followers so its not a case of their followers boosting their posts and People just overall happy with their character.
https://twitter.com/Moogiedaisuki/st...71727667077478 1.2k Likes - Elezen

https://twitter.com/piqffxiv/status/1779525816579416326 1.4 likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/NINNYANG_/status...37478270967938 1.8 likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/46sun/status/1779433791112757445 A massive 4.1k likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/cobacci/status/1779569485223235866 500 likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/46sun/status/1779431396723020160 630 likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/46sun/status/1779444456779100461 739 likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/starrdiver/statu...514143/photo/1 513 likes - Au ra

https://twitter.com/qalexiaffxiv/sta...26015631266105 - Elezen

https://twitter.com/MoonfallenFFXIV/...65388953964957 - Au ra

https://twitter.com/ShufieArt/status...61276063715363 - Au ra

https://twitter.com/TheSmolls/status...90597394813116 - Male Viera

https://twitter.com/RedBlackKnight7/...16206212415549 - Au ra

https://twitter.com/vtalon123/status...75804578947577 - Miqo'te

https://twitter.com/Yumi__FFXIV/stat...36655374139755 - Viera

https://twitter.com/MoonCatZara/stat...43553159848175 - Miqo'te [Along with a tip in getting good lighting for your character]

As you can see; Au ra players seem to be the most happy and liked.
More so because of the eyes, however; some did have some niggles but were overall happy.

Now for a few reddit posts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._to_dawntrail/ - 687 likes - Roe

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...got_concerned/ -632 likes - Lalafell

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...g_your_camera/ - 932 likes - Au ra [This one also showcases that lighting can really change how your character looks, if you haven't tried. Go test to see if your character appears a little better if you're not happy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ith_how_their/ - 65 likes - Male Au ra

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._my_duskwight/ - 518 likes - Elezen

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ooking_gooood/ - 213 likes - Male Highlander

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...r_are_hot_now/ - 809 likes - Male Elezen and Male Midlander

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ive_than_ever/ - 672 Likes - Miqo'te

And if possible if any adjustments are made. I would love if Au Ra, Midlander and Miqo'te Eyes stay as they are in the dawntrail benchmark.

If anybody wants to help spread awareness that people are enjoying their character from X or Reddit please post them and thank you for reading.

Also post what change you liked about your character!

Thank You for all your hard work FFXIV Dev Team! I can't wait for dawntrail.

So far I like what I have experienced with the benchmark.
I think my Rava looks pretty close to what I had intended, and didn't have to change any settings which I was worried about initially - though I believe Yoshi-p mentioned previously that with the graphics update people will receive a free fantasia to alter their appearance.

There are some things that struck me as different, but they weren't deal breakers or anything.
For example his nose and lips got noticeably darker despite me not using the lip color setting or that facial feature for face 1 male.
It struck me especially odd when I did turn on the option for the nose and could barely tell the difference, but maybe that's just me.

I like how it looks for the most part, I'm definately not going to be a whiny baby and make a 40 page general thread complaining that my lips are slightly less shiny, that be silly.

This is just my personal desires and I'm not trying to diminish what other people are feeling. I would support changes to models to maintain their original feel. Except for the eye lights and glowy ears.

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General - I love the new eyes! They are leagues above what we currently have. They'll look amazing in proper non-benchmark lighting.

Elezen Male - I really love the long dramatic, dark lashes. I like how they smoothed out the faces because that is how I always envisioned my particular character.
The glowy ears are absolutely amazing and if they take them away because a few people dislike them (light shining through ears like that is always red/pink - observe black cats) I will be actually super disappointed.

Miqo'te Female - Big win. Personally, I think every Miqo I've seen is just a flat upgrade. My best friend has a Keeper face 4 Miqo and, besides the fangs, she's over the moon (ha). She's so in love with her girl and I agree. Her character is extremely cute now.

I'm really happy with my male elezen, the only problem I have is how washed out all the colors look but I think gamma and in-game lighting (not character creator's horrible settings) might address that concern. But the details in his features were preserved well and his eyes are stunning - it's hard to look away ♥

Overall my favorite changes are the definition in the eyes and darkness of the lids.

Not all of my characters came out as well as I'd hoped, but I've found that if I go into the benchmark and create my characters from scratch instead of importing them and comparing them side-by-side with their live counterparts that I am happier with the new benchmark results.

There are clearly some things that can't be overlooked and do need to be addressed either because the features were changed too drastically or are objectively broken, but I think the fantasias will help a lot of situations where it's a slight difference that is less noticeable when it's not being held side-by-side.

And I say this as an artist who has tens of thousands of screenshots of my 15+ characters; it's not that I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of my characters' facial differences and how they have been changed that I'm not here with a pitchfork. I think maybe I was just more lucky that the devs' vision for the faces just happened to align more with what I saw in mine. (...or it might be because I had experienced Warcraft's graphical update)

https://twitter.com/wZ0CalTIGcu0C6m/...30799497642247 - A MASSIVE 154 likes

Other than the weird lip thing going on that they hopefully change I absolutely love how they handled female Highlander Face 1. Give whoever did that one a raise.

Despite knowing I'm gonna have to make some slight adjustments to my character, and some other weirdness I've seen posted here, I am really impressed with the changes.

I love how miqote face 4 looks in the benchmark and I'll fantasia to that when the update will roll out ^^

I'm honestly pretty heartbroken over the Miqo face 4 changes personally. I really think what we need more is more CC options, rather than changing existing features to make them conventionally prettier. I would love a best of both worlds for everyone where people who feel they're losing their characters original personality don't have to be at odds with people who like the new features better. Untie eyebrow colour from hair. Offer independent lash and makeup options. Offer more mouthes and noses to choose from. Fang length selector like Hroth got! After 10 years I think upgrading the character creator should also be added to the agenda. It doesn't have to be us vs them over our characters features. At least, that's what I hope for!

Outside of what looks like a little mistake in the hair highlights/little bit missing from the hairstyle I'm using my character looks perfect. I'm not used to not having something to complain about. S'kinda nice!

Fem Roe are killers now. They have the mom vibe. 10 out 10

Feedback mostly depens on which race you play. In my opinion, only Lalas, Miqotes and Hyurs are tuned in and more or less finished (there are complains even for these races too, but not so many and mostly relates to minor bugs).
The other races looks to be in a pretty unfinished state, mainly F/M Viera players was hit pretty hard (even downgraded), while they looks very pretty in a current game version. But even there, opinons are different.
I may speculate that devs are reworking classes one by one, starting by the oldest ones, while the newest additions are still in a pretty crude state as seen in a benchmark, which looks more like a beta version of a rework.
Who knows? Is there a statement from devs somewhere already of what we may be expecting for DT release?
Thoughts on this graphic update are very contradicting and looks like not a word from the develpoers, so all we can do is guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Plushy

As you can see; Au ra players seem to be the most happy and liked.
More so because of the eyes, however; some did have some niggles but were overall happy.

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Most of the Au Ra you linked are looking to create "cute" characters, so of course they will be pleased with the changes...

I like how all my saved characters look so im pretty happy. Im still expecting minor changes as stated on the benchmark download page.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lunartears

Most of the Au Ra you linked are looking to create "cute" characters, so of course they will be pleased with the changes...

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That is true. I tried finding as much as I could. Is there anything you liked about the graphics update did to your au ra?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Plushy

That is true. I tried finding as much as I could. Is there anything you liked about the graphics update did to your au ra?

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I'm not them but I can relate to their statement. Au ra got cute-ified pretty well so that's nice for people looking this way. But others are left out.

Tho I can't say everything is bad, and eyes are fine to me (even tho pupils got larger idk why and that feels weird), and texture on horns and scale are very nice, pleased with it. But it's hard to like the whole when so much tiny details feels wrong.

The enviroment looks much better. Clothes look leagues better. I'm really looking forward to taking a trip to some SHB locations because I think the flowers are going to look amazing.

The character changes are a mixed bag. Overall, I think male Elezen haven't been hit particularly hard. I like the light shining through ears. I dislike the face being smoothed out. My character lost his serious look and seems about a decade younger. Not what I'd prefer, but I'll get used to it.

I’m loving 99% of what I see.

I'm certainly empathetic to those who are not happy with the changes. I've seen some screenshots and personally like the new versions better while they prefer the old. When it comes to subjectivity, there is no right or wrong answer, so in the end, I just hope people are able to find something they like and that SE takes the feedback and looks into how to make as many people happy as they can with more options. If I had a say, I'd say the graphics update should be a neverending project and they continue to make more and more options available.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mylandra

I'm absolutely in love. ♥
I think my miqo'te looks amazing with the upgrade!
I miss the static light dot in the eyes but I'm happy overall.

https://i.ibb.co/GRsykkq/73ac91a1ee2...722b058944.jpg


here are a few more screenshots

https://i.ibb.co/vzd5RF7/84282093cfd...2773e7439e.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/cQBFnPj/4.jpg

Edit : upgrade is even better on my keeper, she's gorgeous!♥

https://i.ibb.co/YDc4MXw/1f222da650f...4f371644f3.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/CP1t8qp/Benchmark-F...4-12-49-34.png

This hairstyle is bugged in the benchmark CC but I guess (hope) it will be fixed.

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The face 2 au'ra got the best improvement imo I love it, my current au'ra has face 1 :

https://i.ibb.co/1Q1CHk0/6.png

and here is the one I made in benchmark CC, she looks so cute to me!

https://i.ibb.co/xms2Zc9/Capture-d-c...-18-144022.png

I like the upgrade , of course there are bugs that need to be fixed but overall it's good.

I love the new update and think all the races look really nice now. I am loving the Au ra and I might go back to be honest as they have become even more beautiful.

I wish I could be one of the happy Au Ra, but unfortunately I really dislike how over-cutified Face 4 ended up. It was the only face that gave me a fierce look versus all the other fem au ra faces back when I made her at Heavensward launch. And unlike many others, I don't see her as just an avatar, I've written content for her, had art made of her, etc. So changing her after eight years is...not an option. So I'm either stuck with her being just yet another beautiful doll face, or abandoning her for another character entirely. (The fact that there's no fem au ra faces that are as fierce as the males is a conversation for another post but also something that's always bothered me.) I know a lot of people are switching to au ra because they're prettier, but some of us that like draconic races didn't want them to crank up the cute/beauty. A simple update of the textures without changing the literal shape of eyes and lips and faces would have been preferable.

I am happy for people that like the new au ra, I just wish I could be one of them.

I'm quite happy with how most things look, especially the new hrothgar. only thing I'd really want added to them is the ability to have some scars.
Well and hats, but that's wishful thinking. Would be nice, though.

I feel for those who don't feel like it's their character anymore. I was worried about the same. I'm happy with the female Highlander changes to the face I use (3 I think?). All I'll need to do is change her eye makeup color because the purple I use now is going a little too dark against my skin tone. I really love how much more expressive my characters's eyes are going to be.

I made tweaks to my characters and now I'm happy with all six of the main models I use for my RP alts, plus my main character. The hardest one to tweak quite right was the Lalafell, but a lot of that was because she's roughly based on an FFXI Tarutaru morphed into a1.0 morphed into a 2.0 that's been tweaked over time, so getting her to look the way I envisioned took some effort - and going back to Tarutaru roots. I can understand why some Lala players aren't happy with the changes, but I'm personally satisfied.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mylandra

The face 2 au'ra got the best improvement imo I love it, my current au'ra has face 1 :

https://i.ibb.co/1Q1CHk0/6.png

and here is the one I made in benchmark CC, she looks so cute to me!

https://i.ibb.co/xms2Zc9/Capture-d-c...-18-144022.png

I like the upgrade , of course there are bugs that need to be fixed but overall it's good.

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Your new au ra looks great! and same with your keeper.

The textures and lighting improvements to the world look amazing, the ground and grass and the metal and leather parts of clothing, those things are all dramatically improved and I hope they can update enough of the existing assets that the old low detail models become a rarity in game. Everyone else's WoL looks great too but when I look at the before & after of mine side by side it doesn't look like the same character to me.