[Graphical Update Feedback] Eyes and Limbal Rings on Au ra

[StartouchArts]

Yeah, I am definitely not a fan of the limbal rings becoming so much duller in color. My boy has baby blue irises but bright electric blue limbal rings, gives him the appearance that his eyes are bioluminescent; if this change stays my limbal rings will likely not be visible at all anymore.

I do hope they give some kind of minor glow layer to the limbal rings so they continue to stand out no matter what colors you choose.

[CidHeiral]

So I was a bit concerned when I noticed that, while the eyes of the new models were a lot more realistic, they seemed to lose a lot of their personality too. Eyelashes were less full, the shine that made M’iqote, Roegadyn and Au Ra irises interesting was gone, and when I compared screenshots of only the eyes of each model I was sometimes confusing myself between the old models and the new ones, because I found the old ones just more appealing.

Completely disagree. The new eyes are 10000% better. The "shine" you're referring to didn't make them interesting, it made them look braindead. Characters in this game currently have a very O_O look to them, largely due to them all having the eyes of a soulless automaton. This has finally been fixed and it looks fantastic. I truly hope they ignore feedback like this.

Edit for people lacking reading comprehension: This comment is referring to the universal eye changes across all races. It is not referring to the limbal rings. I do not care what they do with the limbal rings, at all.

[Stormpeaks]

Completely disagree. The new eyes are 10000% better. The "shine" you're referring to didn't make them interesting, it made them look braindead. Characters in this game currently have a very O_O look to them, largely due to them all having the eyes of a soulless automaton. This has finally been fixed and it looks fantastic. I truly hope they ignore feedback like this.

It's almost like that's your opinion.

Oh sorry, other people's opinions that differ from yours dont matter, I forgot, foolish me.

[OgruMogru]

Hopefully they'll include the option to add luminescence ^^; I don't even play Au Ra but I'm still nervous for my bun. He has 1 completely black iris like a big dead pupil and I'm very precious about how lopsided it makes him look and I'd be really sad if the update corrected his anisocoria

[CidHeiral]

It's almost like that's your opinion.

Oh sorry, other people's opinions that differ from yours dont matter, I forgot, foolish me.

Wow Stormy you really cut deep with that one, good job.

[Dayst]

Limbal rings feel like a unique trait of the Au ras, and the way they were contrasting so much against their irises really gave them an otherworldly look that I think many of us enjoy as it is currently, especially when they give the impression of glowing in the dark.

After the lore details revealed during the Korean Producer Live Letter last May, it made even more sense that they looked the way they did, and I started thinking of them as magical “circle lenses”.

And so, I understand the drive towards more realism, but as someone who plays an Au ra I feel like I can’t really trust the promise of “maintaining the game’s aesthetic” and “your characters will still look the same” anymore…

This is honestly something I'm nervous about as I'm one of those Au Ra players who have character lore/reasoning and aesthetics around the 'glowing limbal rings'. To me they felt like something unique to Au Ra. There are two options that SE could do with this to make everyone happy that way we can have BOTH!

1. Offer a "Strong / Weak" check box like they do with lipgloss/blush. This will allow players to pick between the new blended coloring vs the original bright 'glowing' coloring.
2. They could also offer a slider/option for level of transparency which will allow the players to pick the intensity they wish to have with their characters.

Both these options would cater to both sides of the party and I don't see how it would be difficult to implement the first as it is is already an option with other cosmetic items in character creator!

(Obviously ignore my really bad crop job to add what it 'could be like' for limbal ring option!)

[Akonyl]

The limbal rings seem like a huge downgrade + basically remove a part of what made au ra unique, imo. Hopefully they revert that change like they did with the scales.

No, they did not really change the facial features. It seems, that the character model will stay the same. So the polygon count will not increase after the change. But they clearly replaced the old textures with new ones. The new textures are more detailed and have a higher resolution. And it seems, they fixed some broken textures. And it can look different.


Cheers

The textures changed, but one of those includes the normal maps (which they talked a ton about here), which are used to approximate high-poly model detail onto a lower poly model. So the fact that they're updating the normal maps + how the shading looks means that the model may as well have changed, because changing normal maps can *drastically* change how a model works, even if you're not technically changing the polys you actually see (because they changed the original high-definition polys the normal maps are baked from).

[Anzaman]

As somebody who has Xaela with bright white limbal rings, I'm not liking the change.

[EstelleCere]

I am also a bit nervous about how the limbal ring change will be. Instead of that glow, it looks more like it is more "true" to the colour instead of giving it that shiny glow, like if you were to pick the rings I have currently, mine are the lightest blue that give the glow, but from what it looks like in the previews of the new textures, it won't be a shiny blue but just that more duller more true to colour blue. Which I think it does look nice as well, but I'm so used to my glowy eyes I think it would also be a bit of an adjustment. I hope they will add something to make it so in case you want the glow you could have that still.

I also would like if they showed Xaela eventually too :") I'm worried their scales will end up looking a bit duller if the screenshot of the armour textures male Xaela is anything to go by.

[Dayst]

I also would like if they showed Xaela eventually too :") I'm worried their scales will end up looking a bit duller if the screenshot of the armour textures male Xaela is anything to go by.

They did show Xaela though from a distance. Not only are the scales dull/blurry looking but the limbal rings are very much...not there at all.