Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

There was some discussion in the Updated Benchmark thread that we should shift to a new thread as the title would no longer be accurate for discussing the graphics update once Dawntrail was released. So I am setting this up in preparation, with a title parallel to the Japanese discussion thread, and hopefully we can keep the discussion flowing here.

Previous main discussion: Updated Benchmark

My request is for them to stop listening to the forums for what they want in graphics and just make their artistic vision. You saw it with the stupid eye reflection change, the forums are full of people crying about -redacted- they know nothing about.

I mean it is good that they don't read or care about the NA forums but they need to have a bit of that energy for the JP one too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Azureskies01

I mean it is good that they don't read or care about the NA forums but they need to have a bit of that energy for the JP one too.

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https://i.imgur.com/D6bnFwZ.png

Interesting.

On a more relevant note, will keep this thread in mind for today. Very anxiously waiting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Azureskies01

My request is for them to stop listening to the forums for what they want in graphics and just make their artistic vision.

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Well yes, and they told us at the beginning what that vision was.

"Overall appearance of player characters will be altered as little as possible", under the heading Primary Features and Goals.

https://i.imgur.com/bSNexA5.png

Thank you for this thread!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Azureskies01

My request is for them to stop listening to the forums for what they want in graphics and just make their artistic vision. You saw it with the stupid eye reflection change, the forums are full of people crying about -redacted- they know nothing about.

I mean it is good that they don't read or care about the NA forums but they need to have a bit of that energy for the JP one too.

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Must be tiring being you.

You know, when I think of the term "overall appearance", I don't immediately think of a glint in the eye.

I think more about "Am I the same shape and size? Is the skin color ok? Are my eyes still green? Does the hair on my head look pretty much the same?"

"Do I still have fangs that show up when I laugh?" - Yeah, that one was a good call.

But "do I have a glint in the eye?" Nah.

Wonder if, by that logic, disappearing bellybuttons on lalafells are part of the artistic vision to fully turn them into popotoes

Or artifacted Au Ra scales

Or nerfed moon miqo fangs

Or elezen rigging issues

All of these were brought up by the players at the forums, and it helped out a lot so.
The promised faithful-as-possible character adaptation in a character-based game is also a big deal, and overlaps with technical issues a lot as well.

(Also thank you for the thread!!)

Dark circles still have not been removed from Duskwight males despite it being a universally disliked addition by every single poster in the JP forum.

Considering that it is not even a model change just a simple texture, their refusal to return their racial feature (no eyebags) is baffling.

Extremely disappointed that the male elezen hasn't been changed at all ever since the new benchmark. And I logged in excited and hopeful that my feedback was heard, but alas, apparently was not taken into account at all.

Eyebrows are still different from the original.

Dawntrail:
https://i.imgur.com/B9frY8U.png

EW (top), Benchmark (bottom) comparison:
https://i.imgur.com/GzuSpvz.png

Nothing was changed. I am honestly really disappointed and demoralized.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

Dark circles still have not been removed from Duskwight males despite it being a universally disliked addition by every single poster in the JP forum.

Considering that it is not even a model change just a simple texture, their refusal to return their racial feature (no eyebags) is baffling.

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I'm not certain that it's only a texture change.

I have not had a chance to see what the character looks like now in the live game, but I've posted this comparison previously, from the first version of the benchmark (hiding it under a drop-down box because it's labelled 7.0 but isn't):

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...438a52c36c.jpg

You can see that the line of the tattoo now has a sharp crease under the eye rather than the gentler curve.

Either the original tattoo design is floating in front of the face and not going all the way into the crease below the eyelid, or they've changed the shape of the face.

And I did play around with turning the camera to different angles on the original character to see if there was a spot where the tattoo did look creased like that, but if it exists then I failed to find it.

The shadowed eyebags seem to be a new issue for so many characters, and I really hope they can turn it off in the same way they've deliberately stopped some hairstyles from casting shadows on the face.

I am very disappointed with the changes. My girl looks very different, way more doll like and less vibrant

https://i.imgur.com/C5QjNmh.png
https://i.imgur.com/e5fIQ2S.png

https://i.imgur.com/Wrhwrud.png
https://i.imgur.com/ark64nx.png

And there are still some egregious issue with the scale textures :

https://i.imgur.com/hwWBbQZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/6cGbkNg.png

Thanks for the thread! I'll repeat my thoughts in here since the update doesn't seem to have fixed them so far.

While I have some personal preferences like darker "mascara" on my Face 2 Miqo's eyes like they were in the first benchmark, I can live with less for the sake of those wanting it closer to the original (while simultaneously hoping a future Character Creator update adds it as an option, considering other races have toggle-able makeup as facial features, but Miqo'te do not).

But some issues, a couple of which are in the Accepted Bugs subforum and pending confirmation, I really hope get addressed.


https://i.imgur.com/JITiOzg.gif https://i.imgur.com/m6jVqBX.png
[Images all taken in Character Creator in La Noscea setting, facing direct sunlight]

That being the eyebrows of Face 2 F Miqo'te, and the shading of the iris of all Miqo'te all races upon further inspection. The shading of the iris, mentioned in my bug report here, gives the appearance of dark black lines going across the bottom half of the iris in direct lighting. It is especially noticeable on Female Keeper of the Moon, since they have large eyes, and large pupils that show only a sliver of the iris color.
Miqo'te eyes also appear to have a grey overlay that gives the appearance of "cataracts" that wasn't as present in previous versions. Maybe or maybe not connected to this is how shading/lighting can look extreme at times, especially on pale skin.

The eyebrows of F Miqo'te Face 2 are a separate issue, also with a more detailed bug report here. Again, I really liked how they looked in Benchmark 1 (with the tail more straight and upturned rather than a gentle curve, and a lighter color closer to the hair color), but was willing to sacrifice that slight change in shape to get closer to the original design. However, the way they changed again in the following benchmark (and current 7.0 update) was even further different, and in my opinion really just looks like comically drawn-on angry eyebrows. The base of the eyebrow has been narrowed on every eyebrow option, which feels like a bug. Even the most gentle eyebrow options like Eyebrow 2 have an angry look to them now, and the color seems darker than it should be.

Out of all my wishes, if I could only choose one, it'd be for the eyebrows to be fixed most of all.

I was hoping eye 3 on face 5 would have been fixed but they still look a little jarring. :( hopefully in a hotfix or whatnot down the line... because man, the water line in her eyes is too big still, they need to push the whites out further into the eye scoket. The original benchmark was perfect but I don't know what changed between it and then the second version benchmark.

Looks worse in every possible way. It's honestly impressive.

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...926b9a9930.png https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...a278a6ece8.png

The former image is outdated, but the features are all the same.

I posted about this in another thread, but I'll cross-post here as well since I think this thread is a better way to collect information.

https://i.imgur.com/tv08PXV.png

Unfortunately, the corners of the mouth on my Face 1 female Au Ra mouth are completely different, and her bottom lip is shaped differently as well, both of which give a different feeling for the face and expressions. Her smiles in particular look very unusual to me. Before, they were some of the most beautiful expressions she could make because of how warm they looked, but right now she looks like she is faking them. Her scales look lovely in the new graphics, but I cannot get over the change to her face.

I am very disheartened by this. I was hoping Au Ra mouths would get looked at more closely after the quantity of feedback on the first Benchmark about the issue. The fact that this is an unavoidable part of the face will make it difficult for me to enjoy the MSQ.

Sad - when will the store be back up? I want to buy another fantasia to try other races. :/ Not happy with the new graphics.

(Male Au Ra feedback)

I'm very disappointed and even considering stopping playing until the issues are fixed. That's not my character anymore. I can try to correct the shape of his lips with some lipstic magic, but it won't be enough.

How could they be so thorough with lalafell cheeks and miss such an obvious issue as a completely different mouth shape?

P.S. I posted feedback on Japanese forums, so I'm going to just repost the link to my message here to save some space.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6501988

As expected, my fears are true. Nothing has changed and my WoL has completely lost her identity.

https://i.imgur.com/pQe8H82.png

https://i.imgur.com/hshN9Zl.png

https://i.imgur.com/9giUfTt.png

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

https://i.imgur.com/pwK28B8.png

I don't know who this is. Where is my character? Who is this? What happened?

Where is the pretty character I had before? What happened to her lips? Her grin? Her eye shape? Her gaze?

How do I even describe how this feels? I'm sorry, but this is just the worst possible outcome. This is awful.

I don't think I want to play the MSQ. I don't even know what to do. This is really bad. This is really really bad.

My seeker of the sun with Face 1 and Eye shape 6 has gone from stoic to stoned during the idle pose. It improves when using emotes, but the default face looks so vacant... Honestly not sure what to do to fix it.

https://i.imgur.com/YZuEm20.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/YkT6GQo.jpeg

I tried my best to get used to the change. I did everything I could to just accept that these are the way things are, but I honestly despise the way my character looks. I hate her look. She's not the character I had when I logged off. Her face is so puffy and swollen and I'm just beyond trying to figure out how badly they messed up this face. Her lips, nose, distance between lips and chin, massive pointed chin with rounded off cheeks... I just hate it. This is the viera I've been waiting on since 1.x. This was my viera that I fashioned literally every character to the best of my ability in every game I play now, and they absolutely destroyed her. She looks like a monster. A stone faced, dead eyed monster. Not the soft loving kind viera. I'm sorry I've nothing constructive, I just hate it. I tried to get hype, I stayed up, got in the que, and as of now, I never want to log back in again. Hopefully a good rest will help and when the que calms down and I try to salvage something with a fantasia I'll feel differently, but right now.. I want my money back and this legacy vet is wanting to just throw in the towel.

I guess this is what it's come to, now
https://i.imgur.com/IJxwUEn.png

My character now looks like an emaciated, ghoulish version of her former self that had one too many botched facial surgeries. This is what I have to look forward to seeing now in every cutscene? Passively as I stand about? In all my portraits at the start of every duty? My character is the gateway to my emotional connection to this game and they've ruined her. They've ruined her and I have no faith it'll be fixed. It never needed to be fixed at all. What a horrible start to what should have been so exciting. I took time off work for this disgrace. Never again.
https://i.gyazo.com/ca8c610b29b48117...b7dd0753c0.png

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...017f3e68d9.pnghttps://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...434cae4b4a.png

https://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...56d5bfb7af.pnghttps://lds-img.finalfantasyxiv.com/...b67426ef97.png

Unfortunately I did not document the change before for the two photos below, but I am not expecting the eyes to be that puffy, considering there is change on lighting system as well.
Between face got extra years older with extra lines, perpetually frowning expression, change on nose shape, I am just done lol. If they only want face#4 as the default face then so be it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lunartears

As expected, my fears are true. Nothing has changed and my WoL has completely lost her identity.

I don't know who this is. Where is my character? Who is this? What happened?

Where is the pretty character I had before? What happened to her lips? Her grin? Her eye shape? Her gaze?

How do I even describe how this feels? I'm sorry, but this is just the worst possible outcome. This is awful.

I don't think I want to play the MSQ. I don't even know what to do. This is really bad. This is really really bad.

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That is exactly how I feel as well. My character looks like a dull doll version of who she was and she even has texture bugs with white patch on her hands and her tail looks a different shade than the scales

https://i.imgur.com/Fz9lx9u.png

https://imgur.com/a/fBxzALQ

https://imgur.com/a/fBxzALQ

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

My seeker of the sun with Face 1 and Eye shape 6 has gone from stoic to stoned during the idle pose. It improves when using emotes, but the default face looks so vacant... Honestly not sure what to do to fix it.

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I think they've messed badly with the male Miqo'te eye structure and then tried to cover the difference with makeup.

I haven't looked at face 1 so closely, since my Miqo'te characters are using faces 3 and 4, but I've realised with face 3 (at least in the benchmark) that the eyelids are lowered and then there's heavy eyeliner above the eyelashes to resemble the shape of what used to be shadow below the eyelashes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

My seeker of the sun with Face 1 and Eye shape 6 has gone from stoic to stoned during the idle pose. It improves when using emotes, but the default face looks so vacant... Honestly not sure what to do to fix it.

https://i.imgur.com/YZuEm20.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/YkT6GQo.jpeg

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I cannot believe these are the same character holy crap... Male sunseekers got hit so hard... Yeah I don't think I have the heart to login anytime soon lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I think they've messed badly with the male Miqo'te eye structure and then tried to cover the difference with makeup.

I haven't looked at face 1 so closely, since my Miqo'te characters are using faces 3 and 4, but I've realised with face 3 (at least in the benchmark) that the eyelids are lowered and then there's heavy eyeliner above the eyelashes to resemble the shape of what used to be shadow below the eyelashes.

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I actually think its mostly the shadowing on the iris itself, it makes the eyes appear more dull and glazed over. The eyelids definitely don't help though

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sarantserel

That is exactly how I feel as well. My character looks like a dull doll version of who she was and she even has texture bugs with white patch on her hands and her tail looks a different shade than the scales

https://i.imgur.com/Fz9lx9u.png

https://imgur.com/a/fBxzALQ

https://imgur.com/a/fBxzALQ

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Same here with the tail.

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

Why do the scale textures look so much worse?!

https://i.imgur.com/FuIgb8Z.png

Don't have photos of before and after, but what in the hell went on to get to where we have?

Using female Viera, I don't even look like what was in Endwalker.
I now look like puffy face cheeto with bunny ears on a headband.
And the background textures? Bro, I didn't realize I was playing on a PS1 or N64. Maybe even a 3DS. It made Pokemon S/V look good (and we all know how that went down).
Foreground graphics look like I'm playing off a PS3, MAYBE 4.
My ears look like they have little to no fur. Hair looks like it's just a solid rather than that where you can easily see each strand/batch kind of deal (I can't think of a way to word it).

(I'm going to note now, I'm running on absolute MAX at almost 4K. The graphics shouldn't be THIS laughable at that kinda quality. This is just to give people a rough idea).

EDIT: I just noticed this now, but I also noticed in both cutscenes around the pillars (ya know the ones), the shadow effect from my eyes don't effect just below the eyes and the eye bag area. My whole face looks like I've lived in a coal mine for the last 3 weeks, and the slightest turn of my head in a cutscene makes me look like I've gone out and

The contour of the eyes and polycount has changed, but they also made eyes look quite much tighter and tinier on hyurs wich i'm not a fan of, previously, because of the more "loose" edgeloops of the lower polygoncount around the eyes; previously we had a little bit more eye estate / size that made them more lively, now it's tightened and reduced in weird ways that i'm not really fond of and whennever i look at my character, he lost "character" or it's like i'm almost looking at another character / overly aged individual that is not the person i created previously. It's very subtle in the details but it's changed and changes the overall feel and structure of the face by doing this. It looks more realistic under some lightning circumstances, but it also lost the semi-realistic anime feel too, i don't know how to explain it, but it absolutely changed the overall psyche outside feel of the character in a more "serious buiseness" tone.

My character woken up on a bad day and his face is keeping that bad day looks forever hahaha.

I think you're making a mistake titling this thread similarly to the JP thread. There's little moderation here and by inviting "opinions and discussion" in general you're inviting the "regulars" shall we call them to come and belittle and harass people for giving feedback whenever they get bored enough to come back to the forums. Just a thought.

As a Lalafell Dunesfolk player, I'm not 100% sure on the changes to mouth shape. It looks more 'realistic', sure, but I think it removes some of the charm they had. Hopefully the free Fantasia will help me reach a happy medium.

Otherwise, I'm liking the overall improvements ^^

Just a small complaint, but beards (especially Miqo'te Face 2) seem to reflect light way too much. They're downright shiny and become colored by light hitting them which makes them look a bit odd like its an entirely different color of hair. Hope they can work on how the facial hair looks with the new lighting.

I don't think there's a word in the dictionary for how this made me feel.

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

I tried my best to get used to the change. I did everything I could to just accept that these are the way things are, but I honestly despise the way my character looks. I hate her look. She's not the character I had when I logged off. Her face is so puffy and swollen and I'm just beyond trying to figure out how badly they messed up this face. Her lips, nose, distance between lips and chin, massive pointed chin with rounded off cheeks... I just hate it. This is the viera I've been waiting on since 1.x. This was my viera that I fashioned literally every character to the best of my ability in every game I play now, and they absolutely destroyed her. She looks like a monster. A stone faced, dead eyed monster. Not the soft loving kind viera. I'm sorry I've nothing constructive, I just hate it. I tried to get hype, I stayed up, got in the que, and as of now, I never want to log back in again. Hopefully a good rest will help and when the que calms down and I try to salvage something with a fantasia I'll feel differently, but right now.. I want my money back and this legacy vet is wanting to just throw in the towel.

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Same... I don't recognize my girl. And it's so heartbreaking

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Len_

I think you're making a mistake titling this thread similarly to the JP thread. There's little moderation here and by inviting "opinions and discussion" in general you're inviting the "regulars" shall we call them to come and belittle and harass people for giving feedback whenever they get bored enough to come back to the forums. Just a thought.

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I'm afraid there is no conceivable title that could possibly keep out the contrarians, they will show up no matter what.

As for myself, I remain generally satisfied with my character, he has changed a bit, his expression is a bit more blank when idle but it's mostly nitpicky stuff. With some changes to lip and face paint color, he looks like himself. I'm okay with this and can appreciate the improvements.

https://i.imgur.com/7H1gKWF.png

That said, I feel terrible for anyone still struggling with this. I can 100% relate, after the first benchmark I had to basically quit because even playing the game was making me sad. Very inconvenient too as I was working on grinding the Astrope mount before DT, needless to say, I wasn't able to do that.

I hope everyone will have their concerns addressed, I feel extremely fortunate that my character was fixed, I wish the same for everyone else. Keep it up!

A small PSA for everyone: If you are struggling with vacant eyes, try turning off self shadows in the settings menu (system > graphics > shadows). It won't fix the problems, but I found that it slightly helped my character start to look how I expect it to.

DLSS is looking blurry on my 3080 ti
i can't adjust the sharpness

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lunartears

As expected, my fears are true. Nothing has changed and my WoL has completely lost her identity.

I don't know who this is. Where is my character? Who is this? What happened?

Where is the pretty character I had before? What happened to her lips? Her grin? Her eye shape? Her gaze?

How do I even describe how this feels? I'm sorry, but this is just the worst possible outcome. This is awful.

I don't think I want to play the MSQ. I don't even know what to do. This is really bad. This is really really bad.

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Also on the same boat. The character I logged off with and the one I got now is not the same as before. And the more I look at her in cs and her profiles the more I hate it cuz it's not her. Everything they mentioned above is the same issues for my character and I am just really sad now like this dropped my mood for the expansion a lot....