Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[RepairCat]

Man, following this thread and also the ones on the JP forum is just so sad. So many people had their characters effectively taken away for absolutely no reason. I can‘t fathom how they looked at this in development and thought to themself „Yeah, lets just change all the facial features our players have used and became attached to for years and years instead of just improving texture quality. This is fine.“

[Cheapshot]

Man, following this thread and also the ones on the JP forum is just so sad. So many people had their characters effectively taken away for absolutely no reason. I can‘t fathom how they looked at this in development and thought to themself „Yeah, lets just change all the facial features our players have used and became attached to for years and years instead of just improving texture quality. This is fine.“

It is kinda wild to me. I understand if you’re recreating the faces using a new mesh some stuff can lose a little accuracy, but for so many features it looks like they were just roughly eyeballed, or outright just replaced without studying the original. This should have been the part of the update that received the most attention to detail but it seems like that wasn’t the case at all. My characters eyelashes for instance. Just 100% not a single pixel in common. Completely brand new in appearance and shape. But they aren’t any higher resolution so what was the point?! My nose and mouth are also a completely different shape. It feels like they just made an effort to make my character look more feminine and fragile and doll like. I slay gods, when did I ask for a nosejob and more makeup??

I would give anything to know what happened and find out why? Why did they change stuff they didn’t have to, and why did they not pay more care to the stuff they did? I’m truly so disappointed. I went from being a superfan of this game to just so dejected and dispirited. I keep just exiting the game after trying to play. I was going to quit the game on Friday but a friend bought me game time to keep me around. My heart just isn’t in it anymore though. I finally finally won a small plot after trying every opportunity for 5 years and I couldn’t even feel excited.

[Sarantserel]

They really did you dirty, same as my miqote, they complettely changed the face for no reason. Your old one looks way better. They need to remove those changes.

Yeah... I was extremely sad seeing her with no changes from her 2nd benchmark incarnation when I loaded in on Friday.

We have pretty much the same face settings and I'm so disappointed as well. The fierceness and the intensity of her face/gaze are just gone... And it's lacking so much sheen. : (

That's exactly how I feel, she seems softer and and milder now and it just doesn't feel the same. First time I finished a MSQ without having taken pictures of my girl.

Man, following this thread and also the ones on the JP forum is just so sad. So many people had their characters effectively taken away for absolutely no reason. I can‘t fathom how they looked at this in development and thought to themself „Yeah, lets just change all the facial features our players have used and became attached to for years and years instead of just improving texture quality. This is fine.“

That's how I feel. As someone who only fantasia'd occasionally, but has stuck to the same character with no changes since starting 5 years ago, it feels like a fantasia was forced on me with no way of going back and it feels awful. I thought maybe they'd remodeled our faces and added bones to make our characters more expressive, but after having gone through the MSQ and some role quests, it actually feels like my character is LESS expressive than before, on top of all her other changes. She looks dead bored in most cutscenes and in general her expressions seem more muted than in EW.

*snip*

That's how I feel too. Most characters seem to have gotten dollified and made to look "cuter", making most faces look less unique and have less personality than before. I've soldiered through the MSQ, but it took me a solid 10 hours after logging to just convince myself to go through it with my girl not looking like herself. If nothing changes, I don't think I'll get the same attachment and love for my character back. At least so far, the drive to take candid pictures of my girl at random moment cause she just looked pretty as she was is gone.

[Cheapshot]

I'm glad they returned our lipgap back but for some reason my character feels abit alien to me. My Femra Face 2 is forever ruined since they changed the best thing about the fish face which is the unique mouth they had...I honestly don't feel like playing the MSQ at all, I'm not all too excited about it. I tried liking it but I dislike the gloss on the lips. Eyes in cutscenes in dark areas look dead and hollow...

I didn’t do a Femra break down since I only have one character, but when it comes to you feeling like your Miqo looks alien to you you might find my post helpful. I documented just about every change I could find to F miqo face 4 here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6513666

You might find it explains what’s causing that feeling for you in a measurable way?

[pompompom]

It is kinda wild to me. I understand if you’re recreating the faces using a new mesh some stuff can lose a little accuracy, but for so many features it looks like they were just roughly eyeballed, or outright just replaced without studying the original. This should have been the part of the update that received the most attention to detail but it seems like that wasn’t the case at all. My characters eyelashes for instance. Just 100% not a single pixel in common. Completely brand new in appearance and shape. But they aren’t any higher resolution so what was the point?! My nose and mouth are also a completely different shape. It feels like they just made an effort to make my character look more feminine and fragile and doll like. I slay gods, when did I ask for a nosejob and more makeup??

I would give anything to know what happened and find out why? Why did they change stuff they didn’t have to, and why did they not pay more care to the stuff they did? I’m truly so disappointed. I went from being a superfan of this game to just so dejected and dispirited. I keep just exiting the game after trying to play. I was going to quit the game on Friday but a friend bought me game time to keep me around. My heart just isn’t in it anymore though. I finally finally won a small plot after trying every opportunity for 5 years and I couldn’t even feel excited.

That's exactly how I feel - like my wol had a session with an inexperienced plastic surgeon. Facial harmony is much more important than a smaller nose and younger features.

[Moonfallen]

They never did move on though? I regularly talk to people who play WoW who are still bitter about it, and it’s pretty much universal that everyone I’ve asked hated it when it happened. It turns out if you let people spend years getting attached to a character, suddenly changing that character rubs lots of those people the wrong way! Maybe you don’t get attached to things, and that’s fine for you, but maybe step outside yourself for even a second and consider others.

WoW graphic update was one of the reasons I quit playing that game and I played it since closed beta. The first thing I said when they started showing the changes they were making to faces and the graphics for XIV was that they better not make me hate my WoL like WoW made me hate my character. Changing the way people's characters look after YEARS of attachment to them is one way to lose a player base besides story direction and overall play of the game.

[Moonfallen]

I think one of the things that bothers me the most is she now always looks like she's smiling because her mouth is different, but at the same time she's overall less expressive. Her mouth barely moves or opens during animations making it look like her face is just really stiff from botox. I don't know why the cutscene is even darker in DT than it is in EW either. Her eyes seem to be the same if not similar shape but her eyebrows, nose and mouth are definitely different which loses her for me. I liked it better when she wasn't smiley all the time and just had a neutral resting face. I miss her old look. :/
Edit: I'd make a gif of the comparison and all the other stuff, but I don't know how to make gifs and I'm a little too tired right now to go in depth with the overall shape changes as others have. Something I will have to do when I get a chance though.

EW:


DT:


EW: Left
DT: Right
Expression is "scared"

[Alesandra]

SE destroyed the game changing the models like this, expressionless, ugly, cartoonish looking....

What a shame that they touched what NEVER should be touched, pointless now.

[Neviklink]

I am not sure if this has been mentioned but would this be considered lo-res? idk if a bug report should be filed or. female horthgar

[Neviklink]

SE destroyed the game changing the models like this, expressionless, ugly, cartoonish looking....

What a shame that they touched what NEVER should be touched, pointless now.

Before the update there was literal angles in my characters bottom lip, things were jank and they are trying to fix it. it might have some revisions still.