Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Moonfallen]

I'm still upset over my character and decided "Well, I can just not look at her anymore, there's more to the game I guess" but now my eyes are constantly hurting, explosions that were bad became worse. Alot of areas have weird lighting, bright crystals, highly reflective floors, explosions, blinding light....I had issues with EW EX1 and EX2 for the scuffed visual clarity but it seems they're doubling down on this.

I want to play devil's advocate and say they're swarmed with issues but this is 100% on them. I hope our wishes for our characters and hopefully eye strain/mount tilt get resolved...

I'm glad I'm not the only one on this. The visual clarity and blinding lights has made me unable to do extremes since Endsinger. I could barely get by Golbez normal and now in DT I am struggling even more to the point I have gone to my optometrist to see if there is anything wrong with my eyes or glasses (I even have brightness, gamma, and visuals turned down and limited for others). The eye strain is so bad after the graphics update that I am not playing as long as I used to. My eyes are fine and no other game gives me issues as much as XIV has been with the bright, flashy mechanics.

[Aria_Nocturna]

One of the Japanese forum moderators seems to have it out for me, so I'll leave my last post here instead.

On occasion, complaints over at the Japanese thread gain a huge amount of support (likes) within hours. These catch the attention of moderators, and then get censored with a generic "not contributing to the forums" excuse. I had hoped to leave one last post there before my subscription expired, but it got censored in this exact way. Tried to ask what was wrong with it, but even that got censored too.

Screenshots if interested:
https://imgur.com/a/ffxiv-graphics-update-Z6PuEhb

This game is too expensive for me, especially in Canada where my entry sub costs me 18$ a month. I was planning to vote with my wallet instead of paying for something I’m not enjoying anymore. But now I have to decide if I should keep forking over that money to keep hold of my house, waiting without any idea if more character adjustments are even being considered. I know I probably wont ever win the lotto again on my homeworld.

I too was conflicted about the house hostage thing, but my decision was to just let my subscription lapse anyway. If in 40-ish days, I still feel attached to my house (or an announcement is finally made about the botched character models), I could always visit just to reset the auto-demolition timer.

But what if I forget? Well, that would only mean I had already moved on. Also yes, the exchange rate here from Canada sucks.

I'm still upset over my character and decided "Well, I can just not look at her anymore, there's more to the game I guess"

Don't worry, lots of people on the Japanese thread feel the same. One comment in particular really resonated with me: "If I only look at his back, I can imagine he's still the character I knew".

As I said in my post (that got censored), I don't care whether they revert the character models for now, or give us an old/new setting, or truly reproduce our old faces with the new graphics. I just want my character back.

All in all, they probably think that little aggravating footnote is enough for now, and don't want to upset other players who are unbothered by the update by giving it a full announcement. Reading comprehension in FFXIV can be...wanting, and a lot of people tend to think "adjusting some shapes so they look more in-line with how the option appeared before" = "a call to downgrade the graphics".

Fully agree with the reading comprehension thing lol. Aside from hardware concerns, I highly doubt anyone is actually against the update as a whole.

I can't seem to find the footnote anywhere though, so would you mind telling me where it is? Sorry in advance if I don't reply afterward, as my subscription will likely have expired by then.

---

Anyways, best of luck to those of you who are sticking around.
May you one day regain your beautiful, non-glitchy characters.

[Rueby]

Don't worry, lots of people on the Japanese thread feel the same. One comment in particular really resonated with me: "If I only look at his back, I can imagine he's still the character I knew".

As I said in my post (that got censored), I don't care whether they revert the character models for now, or give us an old/new setting, or truly reproduce our old faces with the new graphics. I just want my character back.

I don't know why I teared up reading that. I feel it too, I can just pretend that the character I loved died in EW or something along with everyone I loved.

I'm sick of getting flashbanged, it only happens in THIS game. Someone on design is like 'make it as white as possible and make it flash'! Waw so cool can't see anything. My friend joked with me about how I might need to wear sunglasses and I'm not even sure that'll help.

It's disgusting that they're censoring people over there....I thought I could perhaps use a translator to post there about eyestrain/mount tilt but I'm losing hope. I don't think visual clarity or eyestrain free is like...a priority.

[Tarath]

I noticed this as well and created a bug report about it here if you'd like to add your excellent examples as further evidence.

Apologies for the late reply, was probably not the best idea to post all of that right before savage release.

I actually made a similar bug report during the second benchmark release. However I'll put my gifs into your report. If yours get declined, I'll repost them into mine.

If anyone else have already made reports of bugs I've mentioned, feel free to toss them at me and I'll post my images/gifs there. I don't have much free time to be looking through all the bug reports for the moment.

So well written, I really appreciate hearing from the perspective of a ♂ Au Ra player as I haven't seen many posts regarding them (at least ones that go into detail like this).

The sneer expression is one of the worst offenders, I can see that the same issue is on both ♀/♂. It doesn't seem as duck-like on ♂ Au Ra at the very least.

Looking at your ♀ Au Ra portraits, I get the impression of the lips looking more rougher. This has helped me to discover another factor where the "grotesque" feeling that I've been getting from ♀ Au Ra Face 1 is coming from.

I can see the face scales are warping like with ♀ Au Ra's, as you mentioned there's no doubt that this is an oversight considering how they fit on ♂ Au Ra. Really hope this gets fixed.

I agree with the hair texture losing detail, it happened with the hairstyle I use as well. It probably only affects the more "dynamic" hairstyles, the ones with a lot going on (which is plentiful for ♂ Au Ra).
It might be able to be resolved by darkening the hair in some very specific cases but with the limited colour palette and the changes to it there's only so much that could be done.

Also, I don't think the eyelash mention is a nitpick, my character's look feels totally lost with how they rotated and thinned them out and I can see the same on yours (though it might not bother you as much as me).

Appreciate the kind words.
Regarding the eyelashes I'm 100% with you there. It also bothers me how eye makeup in general isn't as bold as it used to be (my male Au Ra got lucky in that regard).

Your post has honestly inspired me to go and check for details I may have overlooked, but unfortunately I can't run the game at the moment.

I would advice that you save your sanity. The more bugs I encounter, the more disappointed I get with the direction of the game. And it can't be unseen once it's found. But if you do encounter anything I look forward in seeing your findings.

[Cheapshot]

Reading comprehension in FFXIV can be...wanting, and a lot of people tend to think "adjusting some shapes so they look more in-line with how the option appeared before" = "a call to downgrade the graphics".

Ugh yes, I’ve experienced a fair amount of pushback from people like that.

[DynnDiablos]

Ugh yes, I’ve experienced a fair amount of pushback from people like that.

The issue is you now have a large portion of the population who adore their characters and the new updates and looks. To revert it, or change shapes of things now would require not only a free fantasia for people to once again have to readjust their characters, but then you have people who will be furious because they've known grown used to new their characters as is. It's simply too late. I expect they will make minor adjustments over things in future patches, but I wouldn't expect them to make big enough changes where a fantasia would once again need to be required.

[Turnintino]

The issue is you now have a large portion of the population who adore their characters and the new updates and looks. To revert it, or change shapes of things now would require not only a free fantasia for people to once again have to readjust their characters, but then you have people who will be furious because they've known grown used to new their characters as is. It's simply too late. I expect they will make minor adjustments over things in future patches, but I wouldn't expect them to make big enough changes where a fantasia would once again need to be required.

It's only been a month, and the fact that they showed no hesitation when making these changes the first time suggests to me they wouldn't care a second time. Making some adjustments as requested here would at least be a return to something more familiar. But in a perfect world (and many here have requested as much), we would have access to all these options, old and new, in an expanded character creator. But you tell me which you think is more likely to happen.

[Doopliss]

The issue is you now have a large portion of the population who adore their characters and the new updates and looks. To revert it, or change shapes of things now would require not only a free fantasia for people to once again have to readjust their characters, but then you have people who will be furious because they've known grown used to new their characters as is. It's simply too late. I expect they will make minor adjustments over things in future patches, but I wouldn't expect them to make big enough changes where a fantasia would once again need to be required.

You keep making these arguments and it's exactly what I mean. Making the upturned eye option actually upturned again, or the nose option that's supposed to have a little bump on it have a little bump again, or just making all the lip changes not...objectively worse (I straight up have not seen anybody like the new lips better. And no, I don't mean the new lip colors) aren't huge sweeping changes. It's a return to an option that was lost and homogenized.

Also, why do the hundreds of customers--who have been happy with their characters for literal years--who are furious now matter less? This argument doesn't make sense. Like Turnintino said, it's only been a month. It is absolutely not too late.

It is also not unheard of for MMOs that had model graphic updates to make adjustments months after. They can offer a free fantasia again if they think any adjustments actually are large enough.

I can't seem to find the footnote anywhere though, so would you mind telling me where it is? Sorry in advance if I don't reply afterward, as my subscription will likely have expired by then.

Sorry for seeing this so late, night shift scheduling's turned my whole sleep pattern into a mess. It should be in this link, at the bottom:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ecd574ad0d397a

Here's a screenshot of the note, if that helps, too:

It's not great, but it's...something. And if you compare all the benchmarks to official release, you can see adjustments were made to some faces within the two months they had at the time.

I hope if the day you return comes, your character looks like herself again.

[ConantSivrha]

The issue is you now have a large portion of the population who adore their characters and the new updates and looks. (…)

I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make sense. You’ve been arguing in support of replacing the old faces since before those changes were implemented, when they were only in the benchmark. You waited until after the update to apparently take the position that characters shouldn’t be altered once players have grown to love them.

The following exchange is from a thread about the benchmark:

I think much of what I am seeing on here are now personal preferences, not actual issues. Yoshi P has said multiple times not everyone will be happy - so they are giving Fantasia. They NEVER promised a 1 to 1 update. Character aesthetics would change. I find it funny many folks screaming their character looks totally different and lost their essence - they look basically the same.

End of the day, they need to be focusing on actual broken graphical issues on character models - neck seams, arm seams, hair clipping. NOT you being upset lips are shaped differently or eye shapes are more round. (…) It's time to just be happy with what you have and move on.

No, but he did say at the LV FF that the graphical update would be done "while preserving the overall look that you know and love"(…)

Well, you're ultimately going to have to get over it. SE isn't in the business of catering to every single demand.

Which one is it? These contradict each other:
a) Characters look basically the same as they used to, it’s funny how you’re “screaming” about nothing (if so, why should anyone be upset over supposedly-inconsequential changes being reverted?)
b) Characters’ appearances have changed and their facial features are shaped differently, and this is the way it’s supposed to be, so get over it, move on, not everyone can be happy (if so, shouldn’t players continue to “get over it” if their characters happen to change again in the future?)
c) It’s wrong to change characters’ faces after we’ve had the current version for a month, because people have grown to love their characters’ current looks (if so, why does this principle apply only to the faces we’ve had for a month, and not the ones some players had for a decade?)

I don’t doubt that there are players who prefer the new versions of their characters specifically because of the new facial features (as opposed to better lighting, higher-resolution textures, and other graphical upgrades that don’t require fundamentally altering the shapes of features). This is why many people have asked for features that are more faithful to the original ones to be added as options, while keeping the new features alongside them, so players can select the ones they prefer for their own characters.

[CCheshire]

I don't think it's too late since it's only been 1 month, and I wanted to thank OP and others for gathering detailed pics about their feedback.

Although I am F2 M Viera I had fewer issues in the future but I did lose his cute former lip shapes so SE still has time to make it up to their long-time players.