Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[ShizuForever]

- Before Dawntrail -

My character is supposed to be the representation of my ideals.

I log out of the game while lookin like this.
So, imagine waking up to a body that isn't yours.

Well, I guess there goes my pre-order early access money, oh well~

Then I tried to use create new character to double check that after the changes my current lip is still the thinnest lip possible (the character concept my character is based on has marker line mouth a.k.a. a single line as a mouth) and sure enough, changing it to anything else makes it even bigger. Grilled sausages.

So since fantasia won't fix it, I tried bothering Jandelaine and oh hey at least I can change my lip color to match my skin color ... and then I realized the next problem. The eyes.

Sorry, I don't have a lot of pics that show the old looks readily available to post.

The old eyes look more serious and focused and "madge" but after the update im just expressionless and deadfish. And fantasia can't fix it because my eye option is already the most pronounced option both pre-update and post-update. Why are the corners of my eyes lowered? This eye option was already supposed to have eyes with corners higher than the center of the top lid. Also face paint looks really flat and the texture is very ... no static? (think static on a TV screen)

Also if there is any way to turn off lip gloss while retaining the ability to dye the lips same as skin color would be good (because that was what it looked like pre-update)

[lunartears]

.... On the JP forums they organized a new proper feedback, no discussion thread immediately and said "We appreciate your cooperation in the international area." so I wanted to see how things were going here, but I don't know how we're supposed to organize ourselves when everyone is being extremely emotional in their posts across several random threads without considering how difficult it's going to be to report proper feedback, and people who don't care can't resist posting anyway.

Ughhhhh.

I think that some people will express distraught initially but then write feedback, so don't lose all hope in the English-speaking side. Worst case scenario, we can just post over there with common sense and DeepL.
I will apologise for the display earlier in my post if it personally annoyed you, as I had posted it the very second I saw everything. How I feel hasn't really changed and I of course intend to write feedback but I also think that raw feelings are expected and valid too in this situation (especially for those seeing the changes for the first time).

As I have written feedback several times during the benchmark about the exact same problems, it's a bit difficult to figure out a way to describe the changes in a unique way a third time. When I am ready and have got my head together, I intend to continue to provide feedback. I would urge others to do the same if you cannot get used to or come to terms with the changes to your characters. It might seem futile as 7.0 has launched but I believe that if the discussion stays alive, it may be possible that we could get some adjustments in the near future. At least now that it's in the live game we can get some better photos.

[noumen0nn]

Personally, I find myself really frustrated with the idea that we need to be diplomatic with our feedback or the devs won't take it into account. Like, of course people are going to be in heightened emotional states over this. If I give a detailed list of points of feedback with traces and labels, like I have in previous posts, why should it matter if I also say "this sucks and I hate it"

[Moonfallen]

It is definitely something off with the lighting. I used a retainer fantasia to do character creation and load my pre-save of my character from EW, first benchmark, and second benchmark. The lighting in character creation is amazing of course and my character looks like she did in the updated benchmark and I was happy with how she looked. Upon accepting her appearance and summoning her in game however is where the issue lies. She looks completely different than what I created in character creation. Something with the lighting is off that is making her absolutely hideous in game. I have come to the conclusion that right now, there are no changes for me to personally make to better my character to how I want her especially since it seems the lighting in game is not up to par with the lighting in the character creation screen. I have tried tinkering with my own settings as well in hopes that maybe it is just my graphics settings and the new settings they added, but that is also not the case. All we can do is wait and see.

[lunartears]

Then I tried to use create new character to double check that after the changes my current lip is still the thinnest lip possible (the character concept my character is based on has marker line mouth a.k.a. a single line as a mouth) and sure enough, changing it to anything else makes it even bigger. Grilled sausages.

I'm not using the thinnest lips possible for my character but I relate to you with the "marker mouth", the lips I had before weren't necessarily "thin" but they were "small" or rather "neutral", they just had a nice plain appearance - nothing too fancy or over the top. I concealed them as much as possible in the game before but as the graphics have changed I can't achieve the plain neutral glossy look I had before. I checked the thinnest lip option on Au Ra to see if I could fantasia maybe just for the MSQ and it made my character look like she had a wide :| face which just didn't really suit. I also agree about making your character a representation of ideals, I made my main character kind of as a fantasy self-insert rather than a separate being so it's very off-putting having it had an uninvited plastic surgery visit over night.

[faiarrow]

I need to take a proper 7.0 shot with a direct match to previous shots (vs this one I did at 4am) but yeah uh.

Femroe aren't doing crash hot, especially not hellguard. As a clan they might as well not exist? Which is horrific to say but it's how it feels because our actual racial defining traits are almost nonexistant.



I love missing normal maps! I love having a random baked in brow shadow that is meant to have a normal map under it that makes the character look like she's got contour smeared on her brow that she didn't smooth properly :/

Black pupils for femroe genuinely have ruined the visual aesthetic across both clans, the slight tweak to the eyeshape I used on Sko has made it less heavily lidded but given male roegadyn face 2 has the coloured pupils still and all the women got shaved features and more hyuran or doll-like visuals (face 3 especially for that one) it's a bit ridiculous...

This is from benchmark but I checked in live 7.0 last night and save for some colour adjustments (a bit richer for the eyes) they do still have coloured pupils:


The flat diffuse for the nose ash is still obliterated. It's basically not there on my 2nd character's face, and she has been dollified pretty heavily vs the aloof charm of face 3 originally. On Sko it's kinda there but if you're in the field in daylight it's just ... gone. Looks like a slightly more aggressive shadow or dirty mark vs. sacred ash. Ash on skin, made in a way to stick with a binder like oil which these would be... isn't that light. I find it kind of funny given their sudden push for 'realism' over the lovely stylisation we had that it's seen it get so light.



I've a lot more JP posting in my future about this.

We're the smallest played clan but we deserve some actual care too.

[Winyumi]

I would like to share my opinion on this as well. I really feel like this is not the same character as I remembered. A lot has changed for the Au Ra but the issue is definitely the eyes. The highlights are lacking and the pupils are significantly larger, which really changes the character. She looks quite dead inside.



All of my portraits are messed up and adjusting the lighting does not help. My mood towards playing has really fallen. They need to fix this. I really wish they would honour the original design and simply improve texture quality. /pray

[Vandi]

So I’ve taken all day at work to process the initial shock of changes. I admit, loosing aspects of my character I’ve come to love (specifically the eye intensity and radiant glow) still sting. At the same time, however, I’m forced to ponder that. . .I don’t think the devs did this at ALL with malicious intent. Just the opposite, they were trying to boost the standard to make things visually even more appealing. Yes, mistakes were made, and if they knew this would be the outcome, it’s most likely they’d have done a few things differently. It’s difficult sometimes, but check people’s motives. If they’re genuinely trying to help, give ‘em credit.

Not everything turned out bad either. You mid and Highlander Hyurs are absolutely friggin BEAUTIFUL, like insanely so, and you miqo are downright yummy too. Stubbornly staying femroe til hell freezes over, you sexy hroth mamas be damned! Hmph!

[rainichan]

- Before Dawntrail -

Ah, you have the same face/eye set I do. The 1.0 benchmark the eyes looked fine, but the 1.1 made them look weird. The 6.58 version eyes had shading along the water line (where the eyelashes are on the bottom) and it's missing in DT, which makes it look really jarring, and so it makes the lashes on the bottom look like a bad fake lash glue job. It is my only complaint for my character, I like the rest of how she looks, but the one issue with the eyes is messing with me. I submitted it THREE TIMES to the bug report forum, with the first two being rejected despite the info that I had to include being... useless to the actual complaint, but because it got held up like that, I think it wasn't fixed in time. I'm hoping some fixes come in hotfixes and future patches so we're all happy with our character's looks.

[Katt_Felista]

So I’ve taken all day at work to process the initial shock of changes. I admit, loosing aspects of my character I’ve come to love (specifically the eye intensity and radiant glow) still sting. At the same time, however, I’m forced to ponder that. . .I don’t think the devs did this at ALL with malicious intent. Just the opposite, they were trying to boost the standard to make things visually even more appealing. Yes, mistakes were made, and if they knew this would be the outcome, it’s most likely they’d have done a few things differently. It’s difficult sometimes, but check people’s motives. If they’re genuinely trying to help, give ‘em credit.

Not everything turned out bad either. You mid and Highlander Hyurs are absolutely friggin BEAUTIFUL, like insanely so, and you miqo are downright yummy too. Stubbornly staying femroe til hell freezes over, you sexy hroth mamas be damned! Hmph!

Part of it is a rendering "issue" or new way of rendering things, if you disable ambiant occlusion and play with the self illumination / lightning setting you can almost, almost get back to where it was pre patch but there is no denying there is also a deliberate choice to change the topology and rotate sometimes eyes a certain way, make them more droopy / inclinated in ways that were not like that before, chins and noses, proportions of the face has sometimes changed, in subtle ways but anyone knowing the looks of their character prior to this and paying attention documented the topology changes, i wouldn't go buy illusion philters right now because i do believe that Square isn't as incompetent as to let things be this way, people come up with very objective proofs that their faces structure have been changed down to the topology / edgeloops slightly displaced here and there sometimes.