Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Eien713]

I'm coping by hiding my face with the long bob haircut but it's not working. It's like I'm playing someone else's character.

I sometimes think to myself: "This is fine (insert the meme of the dog in a burning house). I can learn to like the new look." And I succeed at times. But then I look at my character at certain angles and something breaks, along with what little connection I'd managed to build with the new look, and I go back to mourning the old graphics :'( There are certain lightings in which I can't stand looking at my character. Whenever I take pictures of her, I make her face away from any source of light.

[Kaziek]

I sometimes think to myself: "This is fine (insert the meme of the dog in a burning house). I can learn to like the new look." And I succeed at times. But then I look at my character at certain angles and something breaks, along with what little connection I'd managed to build with the new look, and I go back to mourning the old graphics :'( There are certain lightings in which I can't stand looking at my character. Whenever I take pictures of her, I make her face away from any source of light.

That is definitely something I wish they'd look into. I find it odd that in a graphics "upgrade" it makes lighting considerably less flattering on most characters unless you are facing away from a light source. Sunny lighting that used to be very neutral on a character's face now often harshly highlights areas like under the eyes.

[Moonfallen]

I didn't do a great job but I did the best to my ability (I forgot to do the nose for EW). The biggest change is the extension of the lower lip, the jaw is a little more rounder, eyebrows slightly bigger, eye shape is only slightly changed. I liked her old mouth because she had a slight neutral/frown expression and when I did the annoyed expression she looked angry. Now she just looks like she's always smiling no matter what the expression is. All the small changes add up. Sorry it's not more detailed as I'd like it to be, I'm chronically ill and this took me way too long just to do the bare minimum.

Keeper of the moon
Face 3
Jaw 1
Eye shape 1
Iris Small
Eyebrows 1
Nose 1
Mouth 3
Lip Color None

EW

DT


Side by Side


EW


DT

[Daralii]

That is definitely something I wish they'd look into. I find it odd that in a graphics "upgrade" it makes lighting considerably less flattering on most characters unless you are facing away from a light source. Sunny lighting that used to be very neutral on a character's face now often harshly highlights areas like under the eyes.

They added a lot of definition to skin folds around some eyes for some reason, which obviously get highlighted. It looks weirder and weirder the more you zoom in.

[CantDecide]

I made this gif to add it to that post and you can clearly see the difference in the eyes and in lips and eyebrows too.

I really don't understand what they were thinking making so many unnecessary changes... And I'm pretty annoyed they've addressed the issue with the housing lighting but not a word about our characters' faces.

Edit: I was referring to this post in the bug report forum https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...82#post6533282

Oh gosh, this gif shows the downgrade especially clearly. What they've done to face 1 makes me so, so sad. They stripped away all its beauty.

[Asteri]

Because I enjoy torturing myself and I'm extremely worried of the lack of communication on this topic, I decided to make a gif as well and, well, yeah. :<

I miss my Au Ra so much, it's sapped a lot of my enjoyment of the game since launch from having played MSQ on basically a stranger at this point. Couldn't we have only gotten better skin without the new sculpts man? Were these *really* necessary?? :/



The eyeshape is completely different, the lips are shaped differently and permanently smiling, the cheeks are higher... At this point I'll also try making a Bug Report to see if that can get something fixed...

[Edit] Bug report: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...52#post6534952

[BigCheez]

To be completely honest, I see a lot of people complaining about massive glow ups. Your characters definitely look better after the update.

[Asteri]

Your characters definitely look better after the update.

Better? Sure, the horns look amazing, especially in the light! The hair texture is much less pixelated than before, that's awesome. The skin looks a lot more detailed, that's cool too! The eye texture looks really beautiful too!

But there are changes that happened. Her eye shape is now completely different. Her bottom lip is more plump than it used to with the lip shape having changed.

It feels like my character underwent facial reconstruction surgery, it's uncanny to me. As someone who spent ungodly hours staring at my character from gposing to taking over 15k+ screenshots of the entire MSQ because I'm weird like that, it's just no longer the character I created and loved, the choices I picked for her face no longer exist and no amount of fantasia can bring her back. It's disappointing to see the character you loved so completely changed in ways that were not expected, were reported both on the first and second benchmark releases, and still nothing has been done or acknowledged. It's been over two weeks now, it's been months since the benchmarks, and I tried to get used to the changes but I still don't see my character.

These changes fuel emotional responses because it affects the avatar we chose for the story, which is very much the focus of this MMO as we all know. She might look better to you, heck, she looks better to me too, but in my eyes, she no longer looks like the character I created at all. I was expecting a texture upscale, not a resculpt of the face and features I loved to the point where my character feels alien to me. :/

[BigCheez]

Better? Sure, the horns look amazing, especially in the light! The hair texture is much less pixelated than before, that's awesome. The skin looks a lot more detailed, that's cool too! The eye texture looks really beautiful too!

But there are changes that happened. Her eye shape is now completely different. Her bottom lip is more plump than it used to with the lip shape having changed.

It feels like my character underwent facial reconstruction surgery, it's uncanny to me. As someone who spent ungodly hours staring at my character from gposing to taking over 15k+ screenshots of the entire MSQ because I'm weird like that, it's just no longer the character I created and loved, the choices I picked for her face no longer exist and no amount of fantasia can bring her back. It's disappointing to see the character you loved so completely changed in ways that were not expected, were reported both on the first and second benchmark releases, and still nothing has been done or acknowledged. It's been over two weeks now, it's been months since the benchmarks, and I tried to get used to the changes but I still don't see my character.

These changes fuel emotional responses because it affects the avatar we chose for the story, which is very much the focus of this MMO as we all know. She might look better to you, heck, she looks better to me too, but in my eyes, she no longer looks like the character I created at all. I was expecting a texture upscale, not a resculpt of the face and features I loved to the point where my character feels alien to me. :/

The eyes, nose and lips do look different.

The eyes and nose have a slightly more realistic shape, which looks much better to me. The lips are a little fuller and the expression is much happier. The neutral expression of the old model looks looks almost worried to me. I find the new version to be much nicer.

I think it's normal for something to feel a bit off because the characters that some of us have played for literally years of /playtime look slightly different to the way that we're used to them looking, but I also think that the vast majority of people will grow to prefer their characters new looks with time.

Personally, I'm jealous of players of the other races because hrothgars look almost identical to how they did before the update, aside from the hair being more well defined.

[Cheapshot]

To be completely honest, I see a lot of people complaining about massive glow ups. Your characters definitely look better after the update.

The problem is, and I appreciate your perspective, but it really doesn't matter if the characters looked next gen and beautiful across the board. I don’t think they do. Model complexity hasn’t increased much despite facial features changing sometimes dramatically. Many textures on characters changed without becoming any higher resolution. The way new lighting illuminates characters is often odd, unflattering, and buggy. Some characters look better than others for sure.

But even if all those details were higher resolution, higher polycount and calibrated perfectly, it was never the issue. We’ve spent years loving our characters and building a connection to them. In real life, familiarity and connection is one of the most meaningful and important aspects of humanity. If your family were taken and replaced with “more beautiful” imposters you would have to be a psycho to just think “oh, my family is better now”. Obviously characters aren’t as important as family, but the point I’m making is that there are important aspects beyond just beauty that people care about and are sensitive to. Losing that familiarity we feel for our characters is too uncomfortable and upsetting a blow for a lot of the player base. Pretty much everyone in here is mourning. That’s an awful thing for a product meant to be enjoyed to make people feel.