Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[ConantSivrha]

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

You’re unintentionally pointing out a big part of the problem. Our characters shouldn’t have gotten “massive glow-ups”. If they look more attractive, it should’ve been because of improved lighting or higher-quality textures—even new models could’ve worked, in theory, if they were faithful to the original features. We were told that the update would alter character appearances as little as possible, after all. Instead, the shapes of facial features have been altered to be more conventionally attractive. Of course that one will look “better”, removed from context and intent, seen by you for the first time in a comparison image.

The quality of a character design isn’t determined by how attractive the character is. It is far more important for the design to be memorable and have distinguishing features, and for it to say something about the character’s personality. Character faces now have different apparent personalities than they used to, often being changed to look sultry, cutesy, or just calmer and less alert, and facial features have been homogenized. This is bad because it unduly limits the diversity of potential player character designs and the personalities that can be portrayed effectively through those designs, even if we don’t consider anyone’s preexisting attachment to their character(s).

[Sairaag]

At this point, they really should make some sort of announcement, anything. The Japanese general discussion thread for the update has also shown increasing levels of frustration because there's no communication (though someone's clearly reading the thread since messages keep getting deleted). They're saying the same things we are, feeling disconnected from their characters, facial features changed too much, very detailed feedback with images, yet there's been no reaction.

Personally I'm struggling to accept my Simon Cowell'd WoL, and I want to know if this is their final plan for his face or if they're actually going to work on it in the near future. I don't want to potentially wait for years to like my WoL's face again. Also, cancelling my sub while waiting would mean losing the house I moved servers to finally get, so really I'm just preparing to cut my losses.

[FateweaverAlpha]

I've been completely unable to play my secondary main Duskwight character since the last time I posted. I finally slapped a mask on him just to prevent me from having to stare at this utter stranger of a toon that certainly isn't mine with these alterations.
-_-

I can barely play my main Au Ra Raen cause her features were hit just as badly. She looks like she's perpetually stoned in any cutscene she's in and I had to add black limbal rings to her eyes just to make them look remotely okay again. I never used limbal rings before this update.

I keep testing new combinations of features for both of my mains to try and fix them but nothing ever works. I just end up getting more depressed about it and logging off and playing other games. Haven't touched the DT storyline cause I don't want to play through it with these characters that look nothing like they used to.

I just keep being reminded of the last MMO I played where the devs would randomly change things and never respond when folks asked why.

[juicybug]

another hairstyle contest as well (i know its a completely different topic!)
but ones specifically for hrothgar & viera.

Also, being able to use a color wheel + saturation wheel when it comes to makeup.
being able to tint and widen blush/facial accessories like blush/stickers/tatts.
more skin shading & fleshy looks.
flipping the hair to the other side: or swapping the side at which the hair parts.
a large selection of eyebrows.

- more idle animations that don't have our character just staring into space. Have them look around, make facial expressions, or doze off after a long idle, or shift between an animations without doing /random idle so we can pick the two which we want to swap between. a little more life to them in general.
the bodies still look a bit blocky.
skin tone very bland, especially on darker skin. definitely needs some remapping/shading!

[Khryseis_Astra]

I have a feeling that people who got hit the hardest with character changes are kind of roleplayers — not the "roleplayer" type so popular on forums and Reddit, but roleplayers who like to immerse themselves in their characters. They might be engaged in RP events or not (I never participated in one, for example). But they usually enjoy making little stories about their characters, thinking about their background, their preferences, maybe some kind of character development since ARR until EW, etc. They create their characters to make a certain impression, and facial features are very important in making this impression (a hardened veteran, an enthusiastic adventurer, a sarcastic stranger with a heart of gold, etc.). FFXIV is a MMORPG that promotes this kind of behaviour, considering the focus on the story and the large number of cutscenes.

I wouldn’t consider myself a “roleplayer” by the general usage of the word, but more like you’re describing here: I have a background story for my characters and general personality traits and such. I also come from a Final Fantasy background, having played most of the older games, and one of the things about XIV that really sold me was the ability to make myself a part of the story by creating my own character, as opposed to the older games where you play with a pre-existing cast.

So yes, the promise of changing my characters “as little as possible” was very important to me. As I’ve said before, I truly think there may be some scaling errors that have yet to be addressed, and I’m hopeful they will be. But if not, I may have to retire my alts, because they’ve changed so much, they’re not the same people. And with so few options in character creator, there’s no fixing that, free Fantasia or no. What would I Fantasia them to?

Honestly I’d just like them to address all the issues people are having with actual shapes of facial features being different, especially the eyes and the mouths, but on some faces the nose and philtrum were changed as well, and not for the better. I think from all the screenshots and GIFs, it should be easy to see that these are not just “different lighting making things look different” in most cases.

[Doopliss]

Hello again. I wanted to give a couple of more examples now that I have the energy to do so. Specifically on a female Midlander face I think is less popular, and whose change feels noticeably extreme to me due to several issues people have already touched upon.

For reference, I took this in a friend's studio with the same three-point lighting settings in GPOSE both times. Unfortunately, the new lighting reflects way too much white light against skin now, and hair now reacts inconsistently too, so they look rather different.

I'll go ahead and say it right away: yes, she's considerably cuter in the right one. I know that. Cool. Great.
Anyway, the issue is that I don't want her to look like that. But first I want to actually point out the major differences.

1. Her eye shape (Shape 3) is noticeably less sharp and has become more downturned instead of upturned. This is particularly obvious with the upper curve of her eyelid. This has been a problem with many faces, and it's strange. The options for more "extreme" upturned or downturned eyes has become more muted across the board, leading to less diversity.

2. The distribution of her eyelashes changed. In 7.0, the spread of her eyelashes is also more "rounded out," and are more even among the top and bottom. Before, they were straighter and the bottom lashes were longer than the top ones. It's a shame to see this changed, because I felt like the bottom lashes were a major characteristic of this face (Face 2).

3. Her lips, of course, have changed. I don't mind the shape too much, because turning a neutral shape into a slight frown still gives essentially the same impression. What's more important is that the color changed very drastically. She doesn't use lip color, for reference.
__________________________________________________________________________
Anyway, I wanted to bring this up for a couple of reasons. One is that ♀ Midlander Face 2 isn't that popular of an option. I was also thinking about the overseas user that posted here who uses ♀ Roegadyn Face 1--another unpopular, albeit very characterful face that gives off a mature, nurturing feeling with delicate features--and came here to voice their sorrow with the graphical update. So this is a plea to look at all faces equally and adjust them accordingly, not just the popular ones. There are players who picked those options who, too, very much loved their character for years. Hell, an even less popular ♀ Midlander option--Face 4--had all the subtle signs of ageing smoothed out of its features. It was the only feminine face in the game that offered that.

The other thing I wanted to get to is that it's not only lip shapes that are scuffed, but their coloring. Before 7.0, many face options had lips that had uneven coloring in unique ways, that would offer a specific, delicate balance and impression.

Now, nearly all lips are one solid color, along with both the bottom and top lip now always being equal in size, instead of carefully thought out like they were prior. This is neither more detailed or more realistic. I'm not going to theorize why this happened, just...please, look into it.


Here's a quicker screenshot of my male Midlander for another example. I can tell it's supposed to be the same guy, but the eyes, nose and mouth all look off. A characteristic of that face (Face 4)--the large pupils--also got diminished because they're really determined to not keep pupil sizes consistent for some reason. The shape of the tip of his nose changed, making it look wider and shorter. His lips...I don't even need to talk about, but you can see the coloring balance there, too. His bottom lip used to be very pale, for an obvious example.

It's strange because in this case he doesn't even look more conventionally attractive. Now the face just looks more...unhinged? Which is saddening, because it used to have a nice balance of soft features (large pupils, soft smile) against sharper ones (defined cheekbones, narrow chin).

Still, there are things I like about the update. The new normal maps for face textures are really nice in areas that actually do have the new lighting in place. Seeing the new facial animations on NPCs in the MSQ and Role Quests has been cool.

But...a lot still needs to be worked on. Facial features, color balancing and etc. all feel too messy right now. I used to be able to tell what options somebody picked to make up their character's face, but the diversity of options has lessened due to becoming so much more "subtle" that I no longer can.

I say this all as somebody who still very much loves this game, in spite of all the complaints I have about it. I just want to happily play as my characters again, and I want others to, too. The idea of the graphics update is nice, but it's not drastic or high fidelity enough to make these changes ignorable. I'm sorry for the long post.

[Roido_Avingu]

So I finally did a comparison of my male Miqo'te, because while I enjoy playing as my OG race from when I started way back in Stormblood, part of me still misses my catboy and well... I'll let the image speak for itself.



The left image, his facial features are more angular and his eyes are far sharper, more suited as a battle-hardened adventurer. The right, his facial features are rounded and softer, his eyes are slightly doe-eyed, and permanent lip gloss. I could not look at him in cutscenes at the start of MSQ when they zoomed in because his facial expressions were so off-putting.

[Saya8008]

At this point, they really should make some sort of announcement, anything. The Japanese general discussion thread for the update has also shown increasing levels of frustration because there's no communication (though someone's clearly reading the thread since messages keep getting deleted). They're saying the same things we are, feeling disconnected from their characters, facial features changed too much, very detailed feedback with images, yet there's been no reaction.

Personally I'm struggling to accept my Simon Cowell'd WoL, and I want to know if this is their final plan for his face or if they're actually going to work on it in the near future. I don't want to potentially wait for years to like my WoL's face again. Also, cancelling my sub while waiting would mean losing the house I moved servers to finally get, so really I'm just preparing to cut my losses.

Change your face and get over it.

[Sairaag]

Change your face and get over it.

How about no? I was happy with the face I had, I want that one back.

[Glacierre]

Overall, I'm satisfied with the changes to my character, although I don't know how much of that is from "it could be worse" or genuinely liking the update. I made a forum post back when the benchmark first came out because the changes to my character were abysmal. Most of my grievances were actually addressed, so I'm happy about that. One thing they didn't address was her lips; she used to have a flatter, almost rectangular upper lip which was one of her charm points, but they made her lips more generic. I don't have the old pictures because they were Discord links that expired. But other than that, I'm pleased with the update. If they hadn't addressed the biggest issues I had, it may have been make or break for me because my WoL is the reason why I keep playing this game. I feel very sorry for those who are unhappy with the finalized update, because I know that could very well have been me too.

My sweet little princess still has a cute surprised face