Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Yin]

I do see the differences and also for me, my character I had created 11 years ago, was not the Keeper she was before. I felt like, Keepers have "cataract" now, as I also mentioned in one thread, and this is a pity, for I especially loved Keeper's eyes.

I have to admit - I used one Fantasia ... (I took me 1,5 weeks of reading here, creating and deleting new characters, thinking and finally deciding)

I tried other races and had a white haired midlander preset, which I found nice - but within Dawntrail, something in her face also bugged me.

As Seeker I am quite happy - she has nicer / brighter eye colors, which are not so "greyish" and I can keep playing now (don't get me wrong, I do see and understand the complaints Seekers also have, but for ME, it was an improvement to what my poor Keeper looked like at current state and thus the best solution)

At least my heart was able to re-start - but I also do understand everyone, who would like to remain "themselves" - and/or rather quit

But yes, even though she is a "new girl" - within cutscenes sometimes I am sitting here like because her facial expression and reactions - her face sometimes looks kind of weird for some reason.

There's so much constructive feedback here - Some posts are really heartbreaking

I really hope that the “right people” also read along here from time to time. Maybe they can change something / something back

<3

[GreenLeafy]

Thanks for leaving your feedback despite the language barrier. I can really see how much you love your character and I’m sorry she was changed.

I want to highlight this because there’s a point I want to make. Something that’s frustrating me is seeing so much hostility toward people sad about character changes from those who like the updated graphics. Take a look at this lovely edit above. This person has made just a few subtle changes and the face completely regains the spirit of the original character. More importantly, what those minor edits don’t do is make the character look lower quality or worse. The faces can be edited to preserve the original style without reverting back to old graphics! Everyone can get what they want! I don’t understand why those who like the graphics update are acting like the game has to be made ugly to satisfy us. The proof is right above showing that’s not at all the case. We can have our cake and eat it too and yet I keep seeing so much rudeness and hostility for those sad about their new appearances. We should all be coming together to ask for both a beautiful graphics update and the preservation of our characters looks! We pay monthly for this game, why shouldn’t we be allowed to hold higher standards?

Have experienced the same sadly. Both me and friends who didn't luck out on the update lottery with our characters got absolutely shat on by friends that did and they genuinely couldn't care less about it whilst frolicking happy with their characters haha. Its unfortunate but yeah a lot of them don't really show much sympathy about the issue and if anything Square so far has shown that they feel about the same which sucks. Some of us have had these characters for basically a decade. :') We've found ourselves wishing we didn't have a house on the game for years now so we could just let go more easily but we have so many memories there its just hard to let go..

Really sour about the whole situation. Putting on glasses and a mask can only alleviate so much when in the past we'd explicitly avoid any facial covers for cutscenes too... Sigh.

[Kaziek]

I made a forum account for the first time to also voice my opinion after following these feedback threads for a while. I like several others here am not particularly happy with how the update treated midlander face 1. Now aside from things others have mentioned, one thing that has been bothering me a lot is how much more triangular and younger the face looks currently. At first I thought that they may have changed the jaw shape entirely, but after giving it some time it looks like the new lighting is doing weird things with the face shape that I'm not entirely sure is intentional.

As you can see in the pictures I linked certain lighting will really harshly affect the cheeks in a way that it never did before, which drastically changes the shape of the face. I have no idea if this is just something that is deemed an unavoidable issue with the new lighting or not, but the first picture in particular just looks completely wrong to me like there is a bug with the way the light interacts with the face.

I might try to put together some more pictures to illustrate my other issues with the face the way other people have, mainly to do with the weirdly prominent eye bags and the severely reduced makeup from the facial feature. Thank you to everyone else who has put together such comprehensive posts detailing the things that have changed! There's no guarantee that it will amount to anything but voicing our opinions in a constructive way is definitely the best way to try to get some changes.

[Tahli]

Hello o/

I'm still thinking there is an issue with Miqo'te eyes. The two eyes don't look in the same direction. The main reflection points aren't symmetrical on Miqo'te eyes (this is also the case with Sun Miqo'te) :

I didn't even notice that myself before, you should try making a bug report about it if there isn't already one for that specifically.

[sweetchort]

I didn't even notice that myself before, you should try making a bug report about it if there isn't already one for that specifically.

I already tried to report it on the French forum; they told me it's "working as intended"... I don't really know if it's okay to report it again :/ I didn't have these pictures for the first report, so I suppose they didn't see the issue. I'm not home for 2 days; I'll try to report it on the English forum when I come back. ^^

If a better English speaker than me wants to report it first, go ahead. ^^

[Yin]

Hm, what I think is interesting:

Most of the times I read and write in EN forums - but I am German - and I realized:

In DE Bug Forums here, there at least always is a reply to a report - either that they would forward this, or it is intended, or that they would like to see more information.

They would only move / close a report, if there is no reply / the needed information was not added later. Here in EN Forums, they only move - without - anything at all

Germans do not report so much it seems OR everyone else is using EN as well, because you should ASSUME that you have a greater reach here and are more likely to be heard

Apparently that is not the case

[CidHeiral]

Anyone noticed the really unnatural way the eyeballs uh...shake?/twitch???

Real people have subtle eye movements like that. What would be unnatural is for them to just vacantly stare into the void completely motionless, which was previously the case in FFXIV. Between the movement and texture upgrades the eyes look so much more alive now.

[Iscah]

Real people have subtle eye movements like that. What would be unnatural is for them to just vacantly stare into the void completely motionless, which was previously the case in FFXIV. Between the movement and texture upgrades the eyes look so much more alive now.

The thing that will make them "stare into the void" is the size and positioning of the eyes. Get that wrong and the character is going to stare into the void whether or not their eyes quiver while they do it.

[lunartears]

I came across some 6.55 screenshots and was curious how they would compare to now:




It's so blatantly not the same person...
At risk of feeding into it, I still can't fathom the rhetoric behind people claiming that faces look "no different" or "look better" in response to dissatisfied people.

[Barachim]

Something needs to be done about Hrothgar hands, they are an absolute abomination right now. I always wear the Hrothgar Wristguards, because I prefer my beastman to have claws. But now it looks like he has a set of claws growing out of regular fingernails. Can we please go back to fingernails being an accessory option and not actually part of the character model for the Hrothgar?