Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[KageTokage]

There's definitely something off post-update because there are way more "cursed" locations just scattered all over the world in general where if I look in a certain direction from a certain height and/or angle it tanks my FPS to 40 or lower.

Occlusion culling not working properly is the assumption I'm making as to why that's the case as it tends to be very cluttered areas like the SW portion of Heritage Found that set it off.

[astral_haze]

Posting on behalf of a friend:

My character is the main protagonist of the story. That's how an mmo always is. I'll see his face in countless cutscenes, every time I log in, every time I check my equipment, and sometimes when I'm standing still. Experiencing this for years with the same character would likely make you sensitive to the smallest changes. I thought my character was going to get more detail, not a complete style replacement. He looks like a cold robotic doll. I can't picture that as a hero. He just looks so unfriendly.

I don't mind things existing or being added, bad or not. I just can't tolerate things being replaced and forever removed. A game can never seem to stay loyal to what it is. Or what its style is.

There are only 4 faces. They should have no trouble adding more instead of replacing their style into something unrecognisable for some faces such as mine. Some games have far more complex character customization too.

I feel like they should have saved these changes for ff17 (If they follow the mmo pattern every 3 games), and there's a good number of expansions for this game now. I haven't started Heavensward yet, and I'm so upset that I won't ever get to experience all the expansions I've looked forward to getting into. But I have to feel even worse for those who have played for around 10 years, and feel the way I do.

His eyes are shorter and more circular, as well as his iris. His eyelashes have drastically changed. His idle mouth expression looks so much more unfriendly. The top of his eyes are below the top of his ears now. His jaw is smaller. The ears seem a bit bigger, pointier, and bony. As someone here said, the anime aesthetic is gone. But whether it looks better or not doesn't mean anything to me. All that matters to me is the style and appearance I had, and that it was taken from me. This doesn't feel like the same game anymore. I have no interest in committing and keeping engaged in a game that won't last. Memories I can never revisit.
My main character is dead. The story's over for me.

[ConantSivrha]

Posting on behalf of a friend:

Wow, those changes are pretty obvious. Up until now, I've been assuming that the changes to lalafell are largely in my imagination, since changes to other races have been more noticeable to me, and not a lot of lalafell players have been posting in these threads. I can clearly see that I was wrong, though.

This post prompted me to make a comparison image of my own lalafell:



Mine (male face 4) was altered significantly less than your friend's character. However, there are some issues, the biggest one being that the eyes (eye type 4) have lost their signature long and fluffy eyelashes. The lips looks smaller, and the shading under the bottom lip is missing (this is mouth type 3, though the same is true for the other options). The eyelids are even less defined than they originally were, making the space between the top of the eye and the eyebrow look featureless and strange. This face has an outdated, blurry texture that doesn't play nice with the new, sharper look of some other elements of the face; what looked like freckles before instead resembles dirt when you zoom in this close.

Like your friend's character, my character's mouth seems to smile less. This, combined with the eyelash reduction making the eyes look a bit smaller, creates a more subdued and and less cheerful look.

In my case, a few of the changes are positive: The nose smudge has a smoother transition with the surrounding skin instead of being a sharply defined ring. The slight shine on the skin looks nice. I think my character's ears (ear type 3) look like a better, more natural version of themselves (my character uses a different ear shape from your friend's character; his appears to be ear type 2).

Thank you for posting. This situation must really suck for people like your friend, who didn't even get to play the full story before having their character replaced. What a disastrous introduction to the game.

[Havokoc]

I've been trying to give it some time to see if it's just that I'm not used to it, but after having played with it for a couple of weeks, I'm really not a fan of the changes, specifically to dunesfolk lalas.
I've got a bit of an identity crisis with my character now, as it just doesn't feel like the same character I've played with up until now.

The 3 biggest issues I have with these changes for my Lalafell is:

1. The eyes feels a lot more dead than pre-DT. The irises are a lot darker and in some cutscenes, there's no light at all shining up the irises.
2. The makeup feels a lot worse, especially the forced purple/black makeup on the top of the eyes even without any extra face paint/facial features (see image



3 (and the most prominent one for me). The lips looks incredibly bad compared to before. The new lips feels a lot more plastic compared to the previous one. The expressions with it doesn't give the cute feeling.



It really makes me sad to see that the character I've loved to play for over 4 years doesn't feel like my character anymore. While I doubt it's going to happend, I really hope some of these changes can be reverted/toggled.

[Einnecy]

Something else in regards to this update I particularly can't wrap my head around is which races got the subsurface scattering on their ears and which did not. To my current knowledge, only elezen and raen au ra* (your guess why is as good as mine) have it enabled. Other races that should have the effect, namely lalafell, miqo'te, viera, do not.
*My female raen au ra has it and so does every female raen face, but I can't tell if all the other au ra combinations do not have it or if it's more subtle.

Some of the most drastic changes to F midlander face 1, such as the smaller and more rounded jaw, doubly-long lashes, smaller philtrum, and much more triangular nose, all seem like attempts to make the face appear more traditionally feminine and "pretty". What we were promised was that the aim of the update would be to preserve the looks we know, but that simply isn't what happened, and it's clear that the intention was to make sweeping aesthetic changes to suit the artists' individual preferences, such as "beautifying" female characters.

Another thing that bothers me a lot which I would like to add in regards to this particular topic is that they've basically bleached the female raen scales and horns in an attempt to further "beautify" them (read: butcher). I was under the impression the horns were basically bone, which are naturally more yellow. Male au ra did not get this treatment.

I desperately hope they are reading feedback and taking notes. Too many inconsistencies and errors despite what was promised. The update is a mess and the shiny new lighting will not cover that up to those who bother to look closer.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I've been trying to give it some time to see if it's just that I'm not used to it, but after having played with it for a couple of weeks, I'm really not a fan of the changes, specifically to dunesfolk lalas.
I've got a bit of an identity crisis with my character now, as it just doesn't feel like the same character I've played with up until now.

I posted this on the Lala graphics update thread too, but you can really see the difference in the portraits:



Biggest issue is that the lips aren’t as full as they were. Both lips are reduced, but the upper is almost gone. The other thing you can notice is that the eyes are definitely a different shape: this isn’t an optical illusion, her eyes are looking in the same direction in both pictures, but you can barely tell in the DT picture! lol I’m not sure if that’s also the positioning of the eyeball or not… I can get a similar look now but only if I make her look very far to the side. Cheeks were also made fuller, so the face paint looks stretched.

I’d still like these things to be fixed, but at least my Lala is still good enough to be playable. My Hyur alts on the other hand… if something doesn’t change with those, I may not ever play them again.

(My Lala is a Dunesfolk, using Face 1, Jaw 1, Eyes 4, Brows 2, Nose 5, Mouth 2 and Ears 1.)

[Daralii]

Something else in regards to this update I particularly can't wrap my head around is which races got the subsurface scattering on their ears and which did not. To my current knowledge, only elezen and raen au ra* (your guess why is as good as mine) have it enabled. Other races that should have the effect, namely lalafell, miqo'te, viera, do not.
*My female raen au ra has it and so does every female raen face, but I can't tell if all the other au ra combinations do not have it or if it's more subtle.

I think viera ears had it in the first benchmark, but it was very buggy with some ears in some lighting and caused the interiors to glow white. I assume it was removed as a stopgap, but who knows whether or not it'll get fixed and added again.

Another thing that bothers me a lot which I would like to add in regards to this particular topic is that they've basically bleached the female raen scales and horns in an attempt to further "beautify" them (read: butcher). I was under the impression the horns were basically bone, which are naturally more yellow. Male au ra did not get this treatment.

Do you have a comparison? I noticed that they added the pink accents that Yugiri's horns have(but not the ones her scales have), but the color seems consistent to me otherwise.

[Einnecy]

Do you have a comparison? I noticed that they added the pink accents that Yugiri's horns have(but not the ones her scales have), but the color seems consistent to me otherwise.

Just took one, but I also have one here and here.


The bleached scales were something I also took note of when the new graphics were being showcased, here's a timestamped video and here's another screenshot. It's interesting to note that your scales look darker even! But I think mine look whiter.

I could be wrong though. Maybe the colors don't mesh as well as they do pre-DT. Thanks for the feedback!

Oh also the pink effect is the subsurface scattering I was previously talking about! I don't think it's supposed to emulate Yugiri's pink tinted horns. It's weird that we got it out of all the races.


EDIT: I have very conveniently just found an old screenshot in more objective lighting and could make a more proper comparison. Everything is the same except the hair color.

[Asteri]

[SNIP]

Man, I really miss the cream colored scales and their overall smoother look. It looks like they reduced the color saturation to near gray when comparing them side by side. I liked the smoother look of the scales too instead of those sharp edges and gray details, especially on the neck, it makes the scales look dirty. :<

The horns tend to look great and closer to the old color, but the scales are way too ivory. I really wish/hope they would give us option between cream / ivory scale colors, and blue / black for Xaela too!

[smitten_miquitten]

This issue is currently in 'Accepted bugs' in the English forums and it's listed as "fixed" in the JP bug area (was marked fixed a week or so post-Dawntrail launch), but the fix definitely isn't in game yet. For Miqote face 4, eyebrows are now super dark and look really not great on darker skin
No idea what the shchedule for the fixes are but it's definitely not looking any better in game.

Endwalker
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