7.0 Graphic Update - Elezen feedback

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

My elf looks absolutely fantastic, cannot wait for the graphics update!

[SpiritMuse]

Just looks a lot nicer to me in a lot of small ways. UNFORTUNATELY: there is a problem with the best haircut in the game, my character's iconic look, the shaved hair. Namely they added an inexplicable parting.



This is Just Bad in a way that has me like ???? - this is not what a shaved head looks like?!

Oh damn lol. Looks like they mirrored the texture there and it somehow messed with the lighting. (The old version appears to be made the same way but it is lit correctly).

[Liamont]

Made a gif of my character to see the differences, the one with the face selection at the top is the new.

Overall it looks like they pulled the face back upwards for the new, you can see how the lips seem to go upwards more into a smile, the eyebrows upwards, and the shadows under the brow I didn't notice as prominently until now. It looks like they congregated the brow shadows into a smaller blob at the top of the eyes rather than more towards the nose.

Also realized that they decreased the amount of eye bags, and ironically gave duskwight eyebags instead lol.

Yeah, I'm not happy with the change.

[Iscah]

The graphics change (at this point I cannot call it an upgrade) has not been kind to my Duskwight, or most of my other characters for that matter.

Current face:


Benchmark face:



I love his current appearance - he's a very solemn, thoughtful sort of character - but the benchmark face is somewhere between "ready to kill someone" and "absolutely over this".

The face shape has changed and also the scar on his left cheek looks darker than before. As another comment pointed out earlier, dark circles have been added under the eyes and it looks awful.

[Tsumdere]

Idk, I feel like they always both had them. It is just that they don't show up in the old design. They look like under eye wrinkles. They do both have prominent eye circles now but i don't think they look the same at all. These are softer.

Actually idk, maybe the eyes are just bigger. I can't tell lmao. The hair does get in the way a little vs the other pics.

Nope! Duskwights never had dark circles which is the reason why I chose Duskwight over Wildwood.



He's still very handsome, but it's not my boy as intended. I made him with the intent to be a fresh-faced young man, but he's certainly had some years/trauma added on for some reason.

-
P.S. Sidenote - Found you you can use your original hair in benchmark by copying the character data from game straight into the benchmark folder. Really helped me hammer down that it was only the dark circles that were making him look like he went on a weekend bender.

[linesthatinterlace]

Oh damn lol. Looks like they mirrored the texture there and it somehow messed with the lighting. (The old version appears to be made the same way but it is lit correctly).

This does give me hope that it's fixable without too much work.

[SpiritMuse]

Nope! Duskwights never had dark circles which is the reason why I chose Duskwight over Wildwood.

Yes, only face 1 currently has dark circles for Duskwights, the rest doesn't. While for Wildwood all faces have them. It honestly looks like they just took the textures for Wildwoods and applied those to Duskwights as well.

Wildwood on the left, Duskwight on the right:

[Tsumdere]

Yes, only face 1 currently has dark circles for Duskwights, the rest doesn't. While for Wildwood all faces have them. It honestly looks like they just took the textures for Wildwoods and applied those to Duskwights as well.

Wildwood on the left, Duskwight on the right:

I think you are right. I do think they copy and pasted the Wildwood textures.

I hold out hope because in the JP thread there is quite a few Duskwight players who are unhappy and posting about the dark circles making us look like Wildwood!

[Coulvre]

I have quite a few Elezen characters, so I'll try to summarise my opinions.

Overall, I'm very happy with the changes. I would agree about the Duskwight face textures - most of my characters are Duskwights so having that unique texture for them is great. That said, I don't really mind that as much as the "dead eye" look which is a common complaint among various races.



Here's one of my characters, before and after. I sort of miss the angular definition in his face, particularly around his mouth - that mouth shape is one of my favourites, but it's become much less unique now, it looks straighter instead of being curved down at the corners. But otherwise, I really like how he looks.



On a character with lighter skin, the lack of angles is actually a bonus, particularly around the cheekbone and chin area - previously they were very obvious in an unnatural way. So... I'm actually a bit conflicted on whether I like the whole face smoothening...

I like how the lips appear now (other than the mouth shape), and I like the ears.

Also in the above picture, the way the hairstyle casts a shadow on the forehead now looks strange because there's an obvious gap at the hairline that wasn't there before, but this probably isn't Elezen-specific. The hair texture upgrade is amazing though.



Speaking of hairstyles, I appreciate that they wanted to change this Elezen female hair so the ear doesn't clip through, but I think it needs some adjusting

[NoelleBotensfront]

I'm mostly happy with the update, however the new shape of the female Elezen lips is very distracting and I think should be fixed.



It completely ruins the final scene in the benchmark when her mouth looks absolutely horrifying...



There are a few subjective issues I have with the upgrades such as the appearance of the eyes, lips, and eyebrows. The eyes look more lifeless now, lips are fuller and curve into a very subtle smile, and eyebrows are double thickness when enabling the "longer eyebrows" facial feature.

Update: I have raised a bug report regarding the mouth shape as I strongly believe this was an unintentional error.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...33#post6440033