Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[GrizzlyTank]

More like eyes textures reeks of being generated by an AI.

Doubt so. It's just that they for some reason went for an art-style shift rather than sticking to what they had going.

[lunartears]

My "sprout" friend logged in recently and told me that they're upset with the character changes. They play ♀ Miqo'te Sunseeker Face 2, but I'm not going to post their character without their permission so I'm just going to share what they told me.
Their main upsets were the rounding of the face, the downturned lips and the eye changes. They tried to use a fantasia but they could only resolve the eye shape, their character's jaw shape couldn't be sharpened again because they already chose the "least cutesy one".
I also noticed that their character had lip gloss (no lip colour) and many reflective dots in the eyes no matter where they were.

They have only played through base ARR and yet - they were telling me about how they were looking at old screenshots and mourning their character. They said that she looked more "kind and sweet" but now she looks like "a gremlin child".
Just based on hearing opinions from two new players in my own life, I don't think the unhappiness with the update is strictly based on if you have played the game for a long time or not. Just knowing the old face and having any attachment to it at all seems to be enough.

[Rueby]

Something I noticed and reported as a bug in-game is some glitchy face textures on Zenos. I did get the reply that the bug report would be elevated for further review, but here's some examples if other people wanted to check if it's the same on their end.

Hidden for spoilers, and long row of screenshots:

- Stormblood lv. 60 quest "Where Men Go as One" cutscene #2, shows a red ear


- Shadowbringers lv. 78 quest "A Breath of Respite" cutscene #2, shows a red ear


- Post-Shadowbringers lv. 80 quest "Reflections in Crystal" cutscene #5, shows a red ear and pixellated shading on skin


- Endwalker lv 83 quest "In from the Cold" cutscene #2, shows a red ear and grid-like pixellation of face shading


- Endwalker lv 83 quest "The Martyr" cutscene #6, shows pixellated shading on skin


- Endwalker lv 88 quest "As the Heavens Burn" cutscene #4, shows a red ear at some angles, and pixellated shading on skin


- Endwalker lv 90 quest "Endwalker" cutscene #4, shows a red ear

Sad to see his ear remains to be a horrific blocky mess...If they want to add subsurface scattering which brings attention to it, at least upscale/reshape it.

I avoided seeing him in DT because I was scared of what they might've done to him.

This is the first time I saw him because apparently I was destined to see him when the first 50/60/70 roul gave me Ala Mhigo. His ear is doing the thing, but it makes somewhat more sense than the one when he was sitting in the dark and his ear glowing.

[Rueby]

I sadly agree. I have to be careful with money and yet I kept subbing to this game. It’s is the only game series left in which I still trusted the developers enough to preorder. It hurts to have that trust feel betrayed. I’ve been a real fangirl for this series and all that enthusiasm is gone. I wanted this to keep being my favourite active game. It feels bad to be asked what games I’m enjoying now and not have FFXIV be an answer I can honestly give.

My frustrations with this expansion really echo what the devs themselves felt were some of the core failures of 1.0 that they needed to correct course on.

The only thing that stopped me from recommending this game to anyone is:
1. Abyssmal customer support- hope you never need it
2. SE's godawful payment system that makes it as scuffed as possible for YOU to give it money, making every subscription renewal a painful headache (this game caused me so much stress due to this)


That screenshot is so ironic...and painful.
I think everyone was happy for the HQ/new grass they showed us but that was such a curveball. I never expected them to botch our characters like that, you'd think the player character would get the most care and attention, but no.

I was looking at my char earlier in the Andron (Sharlayan Inn Room), the lighting feels absolutely messed up. Sometimes the hair casts shadow, sometimes it completely ignores that there's hair and a rim light happens despite it making no sense.

The inside of her mouth is....glowing, or rather her tongue is abit too bright.

[FateweaverAlpha]

Found my old flashdrive with a picture of my Duskwight smiling, rare for him, and decided to take as close of a comparison screenie as I could to show the differences in his emote and facial structure. I know these aren't perfect or in the exact same lighting/weather but I don't know the exact parameters of the original screenie so I just did my best. PS5 is difficult to recreate screenies 1:1.



He looks so uncanny to me now. His smile used to be confident, now he looks completely unsure maybe even confused, with how the emote displays. All his emotes look off like the rigging wasn't done right. Why do the eyebrows go up now on smile rather than down?

Everything about him looks washed out in the new screenie.

I wish irl hadn't kept me from taking more before shots...

[Tahli]

quote

Not sure which hairstyle your friend is using, but the eyebrow change on Face 2 female Miqo is pretty extreme, personally speaking. Even the softest arc/non-thin eyebrow shape is very sharp and angry now.

[Lorika]

Doubt so. It's just that they for some reason went for an art-style shift rather than sticking to what they had going.

Done in 30 secondes by myself (using ComfyUI and a SD1.5 Model)
https://imgur.com/S3YZ777

[ConantSivrha]

Done in 30 secondes by myself (using ComfyUI and a SD1.5 Model)
https://imgur.com/S3YZ777

I’m not exactly happy to play defense for the update, but this particular claim seems unfounded. One random AI-generated image of an eye doesn’t do anything to suggest that our new eyes were AI-generated. Our eyes don’t even look similar to this one.

My subjective opinion is that the new wet-looking sclera looks nice—it makes the characters look more alive to me. I feel like eyes are supposed to be wet. But it is still a deviation from the game’s previous art style, so I understand why some people dislike it.

[Khryseis_Astra]

My subjective opinion is that the new wet-looking sclera looks nice—it makes the characters look more alive to me. I feel like eyes are supposed to be wet. But it is still a deviation from the game’s previous art style, so I understand why some people dislike it.

If it just looked wet, ok. But they made it look gray, which has the effect of making the eyes sink into the face. The eyes were the thing that stood out the most on my original Highlander. There’s no brightness to them anymore. It’s not so bad on some races/faces, but with the changes to eye shape, darkened shadow/eyeliner and I swear even the pupil position, what little of the sclera shows being gray just makes the eyes look like black holes.

[Burmecia]

hello, thread. it's late but something made me look at my character in game and ruminate the graphics update again.

i am happy that most of my characters, and i have many, made it to the other side ok looking. but some others, jitah'li here included, didn't i think.

i have been patient to not burn the free fantasia to change i am not 100% about.

i've had some success in restoring his appearance by tweaking his colours and playing with non-fantasia needed options. he looks better, i think, but here comes the frustration:

i try to live with it, but i cannot get over his dull eyes (face4/eyes3).



why do they have to catch light like that? QQ
why i care so much? realistically i look at his back most of the time i play. guess i like looking at his face, too...
what makes it even more annoying is that all it takes is to tilt camera a little to have his old eyes look back at me :/