Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Moonfallen]

I would but I'm on PS5, not super sure how to go about doing that. And unfortunately I can't add to the original bug now that it's moved

I can probably make one for you when I come around later unless I get beat to it.

[smitten_miquitten]

Oh gosh, ty!

[Cheapshot]

No one's coming to the forums with positive feedback. The truth is the vast majority of people seem to enjoy the update (tune in to any random vod/stream of someone playing right after the update). The people who enjoy the graphics, enjoy the game don't need to come into the forum. This place is purely to grumble and complain lol.
The new textures/lighting/character updates are *chef's kiss*
Change is scary but eventually you'll come to accept your character in glorious high definition!

I put so much effort and thought into quite a few of my posts here, and someone always comes and reads two sentences at the top or bottom and replies without reading anything else I wrote or even understanding what the part they did read means. It’s disheartening and frustrating. Your impression of the overall response is anecdotal, like the two sentences you quoted said. That’s the first point I was making. Your singular observations are not reliable data. We shouldn’t be making arguments that rely on saying “most people think it’s better” vs “most people think it’s not” because we don’t know that one way or the other. I don’t assume I’m in either the majority or minority in my feelings about the changes. I don’t make any sweeping generalizations or assumptions in any of my feedback. I try to offer feedback that is based on objective information and suggestions that accommodate the most people possible for that reason. If you didn’t follow that, I don’t know how further discussion would go but for what it’s worth, there was much more to my post. The third part especially was the main response to the person I was replying to.

[Cheapshot]

A followup point: Even, for sake of argument, if we did somehow know the majority of players specifically liked the new facial feature shapes better, the response shouldn’t be to just ignore those who don’t. Always ignoring the minority is a path to eventual disaster. If you always ignore feedback if it appears to be from a minority of players, then you keep shaving off groups of player base until eventually a minority of your original player base is all you have left. Devs should always be looking to see if there are solutions that can appease upset players without compromising their vision or principles or upsetting the ones who are currently happy. Is that difficult? Of course. But that’s the job. It’s why this is a paid service game.

Expanding the CC to include closer HD matches to the original facial shapes, toggles or selection for things like makeup and lipgloss, while also fixing obvious bugs is one such solution that can likely satisfy a lot of people. Taking this opportunity to improve the dated character creator can both benefit the longevity of the game while also making a lot of upset players happier to see their familiar faces returned.

[faiarrow]

Change is scary but eventually you'll come to accept your character in glorious high definition!

Sure, I can enjoy my character in HD when my character looks like my character again.

Hellsguard have more or less been erased from their core design of 10 years with their racial traits being shaved, debulked, female roe having all their eyes made the same and hyuran across the board with the loss of the coloured pupils, and the nose ash made so light they look like an erroneous shadow on the nose tip in 99% of lighting.

This isn't the change I've paid a sub + expansion pack costs for the last 9 years for. The radio silence from SQEX is pretty damning right now.

[Hatsuoki]

Still waiting for a reply from the devs. The focus of the post this time is not about the changes to the character's faces but the new emote animations since the issues seem to be a two or three fold problem (face changes, animation, lighting).

I'm including two versions of each picture because it might be hard to see around the red lines I drew. I'm at a loss for words. I don't really feel the urge to take gpose pictures, farm glam, buy mogstation outfits, etc anymore because what's the point?

6.x is on the left, the uncanny one on the right is 7.0. Scoff emote.



Anyways I think the pictures are self-explanatory. Post to be continued.

[Hatsuoki]

This is with no camera tracking from either the head or eyes. Completely neutral position, using the ponder emote.


??? fake smile emote


This is just laziness because I firmly believe that anyone with eyes can see this doesn't look right. They sacrificed the faces to homogenize (lazy?) the animations for this?

I honestly held off on posting more because the pictures are so...bad? humiliating? But I'm tired of their wait and see approach. We're not going to get used to uncanniness because it's unnatural.

[Vhana]

I honestly held off on posting more because the pictures are so...bad? humiliating?

They are great examples of what is going on with some of the emotes. The new facial animations are, to quote Ilberd, “Sloppy!”. Some are better than others, but scoff and smile and beam all feel rough on my character…. And those the the ones I keep having to see in cutscenes.

[Sorimachi87]

I didnt read everything in this thread, just wanted to voice my feedback.
Only gripe i have with the graphics update is the movement of the wind. Yeah it seems more gusty at times and way smoother but i am kinda missing the flow or pulling rather in stormy conditions. Neither hair nor clothing gets really affected like it did before the update.
Its a minor issue i have though. Rest is really cool in my opinion

Something did change with 7.05. Stormy weather pulls much more on hair and clothing now. Thank you!
Also Euphrosyne Raid the first bit has now actual wind sweeping across, seen in characters hair and clothing. Thank you here too!

[Reinha]

I noticed something interesting in my characters' forum portraits: the eyebrows seem to have turned darker over time. These are pictures of 2 different characters but the hair and skin colors are the same. The significant thing is that all of these images were saved at different times. I tried to open multiple links of my character's current profile picture to see if they are generated with small differences each time, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Something in the color, lighting or how the eyebrows cast shadow has changed after expansion launch. Furthermore, the change seems to have been gradual. You can open the images in new tabs and click between them to see how the color has changed.

6 July


20 July


2 August


Could they be slowly fixing the bleached eyebrows? Anyone who has used makeup knows that a small enhancement on the brows makes a huge difference in the overall appearance and my character already looks better to me in the third image. I noticed how my character has become slightly easier to look at in game but until now I thought it was just me slowly getting used to it. The eyebrows still don't have black outlines like they used to but if I pan my camera to look at them from above they have a dark shadow. Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots taken at launch because my main was a Hrothgal at the time.

In any case, thank you for this small improvement and please continue to make the eyebrows darker!