Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Feelynn]

The update was a massive success on my end, it really feels like going from a mid 2000s game to a modern one

[Cheapshot]

This pupil color...situation existed before the graphics update. Some races were affected more than others. (Seems like the update made it more obvious, especially on moon miqo'te, with their large pupils.) In my opinion, very light eye colors have always looked strange and unearthly because of it. Though, some people do like it.

If it existed prior it wasn’t anywhere close to this pronounced. My character did not suffer from this problem before Dawntrail and v2 of the benchmark.

[Stapler-san]

gonna be honest
the update makes me very sad https://files.catbox.moe/rzna1i.png
eyes and lips look odd in nearly every animation and face 3 used to come with a baked in matte lipstick that is now just the same shiny color as any other
if there was an option to use the old face id take it in a heartbeat
even though the ear thing they did is amazing

[DarkHedgie]

I'm quite disappointed by the changes to my Au Ra guy. He used to look very gentle before the DT update, but now he looks perpetually angry, even when smiling he has this stern frown on his eyebrows, his eyes seem to be a bit more squinted and over all just doesn't feel right at all. My sweet boy before and now after in DT

[Loggos]

I don't have a old screen shot to compare so I was lucky that my profile has the old model still for comparison. The eye stripe face paint doesn't go up to the eyebrows with face model 1 anymore however it does it with the other models so not sure if its a bug or intended. Also the limbal rings are a lot dimmer than they used to be so the eyes feels more lifeless than before.

If you still have the EW benchmark you can recreate your old character there and take comparison screenshots.

[Miracle_Diva]

Can I have my old lips and nose shading back please. The eyes look somehow dead too :<

[Trikzzz]

aw I was so excited to play Dawntrail only to log In and be met with a skinwalker trying to pass as my character, this kinda killed the hype for me honestly :/

I tried my best to salvage any pictures I had from before 7.0 so sorry If It's bad quality^^




There's not much I can add other than what others have already said, Eyebrows aren't as full as before, Eye shape has been altered and just the way the shadows fall on the face Is pretty unflattering IMO.
Something I cant understant Is why they took the liberty to outright change the limited options we already have instead of adding these new altered shapes as options In the Char menu? surely they must've compared to the Endwalker version while developing and seen the jarring difference In our appearences? anyways.

Hopefully with time I can get used to the changes but honestly? My char Is just not appealing to me anymore wich was not what I expected going In to 7.0


(Thankfully I could screenshot a old portrait so I have a before and after, they all look like this now lol It's pretty bad)


First time posting on here and forums In general so hope this makes sense lol

[Len_]

snip

Love the combo of your name and your post lol. I've also had my character since 1.0 and I plan on making a comparison post later on but the fact of the matter is that they put more care and attention into DOWNGRADING the characters a decade ago for ARR than they did in this update. It's rushed and sloppy work. I don't really have hope they will fix anything and I have felt apathetic towards the game for a long time and also only have started to post due to this change, since the connection to my character was pretty much the main thing that kept me logging in. I know it's possible to attain the supposed goal of preserving the original appearances. If they were able to do it going from better to worse graphics in 2012 they can do it in 2024 with modern technology. It comes down to if the will (or budget?) is there.

[azaleai]

I don't really have hope they will fix anything and I have felt apathetic towards the game for a long time and also only have started to post due to this change, since the connection to my character was pretty much the main thing that kept me logging in.

I enjoy a lot of different aspects of this game; I raid, I craft, I make glams, I farm achivements, I run roulettes... I've got something like 18k hours wracked up across all my characters. I play daily; the only time over the past four? five? years I haven't logged in every day were when I had covid and had to quarantine away from my PC, and when I've been visiting family or friends. I work from home and I almost always have XIV open on another monitor for ambiance and chatting while I work on a different screen.

But... despite all of that. I can't bring myself to log in right now. My intital plan for early access was to do just enough MSQ to get to the new areas so I could craft and gather and deal with the cutscenes focusing on my character's messed up face another time, but it's just so depressing. I got to the new city, suffering all the way, and then I was told I couldn't leave yet and I would have to do more MSQ. I just logged off and haven't logged back in since.

I don't think it helps that the buildup for this expansion was rushed and the motivations aren't really clear. I was mainly looking forward to the graphics update until I saw the benchmarks... And since that I've just been dreading it. And now it's here.

This isn't the game I fell in love with. This isn't my character that I fell in love with, that I've got 700+ days of playtime on. It's not a story I'm attached to and it's not about a character I'm attached to anymore, just a weird almost-imitation that is vastly stylistically different that can't even make the same expressions anymore.

I knew I'd stop playing the game eventually, but I'd hoped it wouldn't come so soon and wasn't so... sour as this.

[Hejligan]

I don't have evidence, but the more I think about it, it looks like it was "upgraded" using a light touch of AI.

That's a good explanation of why you would obtain "doll" faces in female models

I am not saying that I 100% agree with you, but it is the funny that you should mention it: a few years back my friends ran my character through a "yaasify"-filter and that looks not entirely dissimilar from the treatment my character got in 7.0...

I don't really seriously believe it that they used AI, but a part of me can kind of see the changes to many female Miqo'tes be akin to using a "make this a "pretty girl""-Instagram filter lol.

But at the same time, it would explain how they could so consistently misunderstand where the lips versus mouth folds were when translating from the original models...