Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Tahli]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

Still playing, while also waiting and hoping adjustments will be made. Not in any rush though.
My own personal preferences for adjustments for my character are a lot less than others I've seen: some bugs to be fixed, lighting/shading on characters to be adjusted in general, but most of all, for my eyebrows to be softened again. I've held off on gposing for now though.

[Windfire]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

Have not gotten used to the changes, still hate em, unfortunately paid up till Nov, so really all I've been doing is pvp (but not shatter days, don't bother logging). Won't ever "get used to" the changes either, how do I know? Cause I'm STILL bitter about the butchery Blizzard did to my WoW chars years later.

[Iscah]

As a fellow male Miqo'te face 4, yes, they absolutely ruined the eyes. My character looks stoned at all times now with the shadowed eyes and placid smile they slapped on him. My man looks like he's about to fall asleep. Fitting through the Dawntrail MSQ but certainly not on purpose.

Why is that shadow over the eyeball texture there? Why is it SO DARK? My character is supposed to have these striking orange eyes and now I can barely see them, let alone see the "cat eye" pupil shape with how heavy they made the shadows.

As I posted earlier, I think there have been alterations to some extent on all the male Miqo'te eye shapes and it's easier to see what's going on with a big-eyed face like #3. The eye shape and structure have totally changed and it makes the eye extra-shadowed by the veiling eyelashes and the shadow cast by the eyelid instead of both those things being higher up and out of the way.

It's harder to see changes to the eyes on my face 4 Miqo'te – I'm not sure if his dark skin colour makes it harder to see the difference or if his particular eye shape is less affected by the changes.

I think the alterations to the face 4 eyebrow shape are having as much or more effect on the character's changed mood as the shouldn't-be-there smile. I think the underlying face structure is bending them into a less severe shape, in addition to being thinner than before.

[Iscah]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

My characters are specific characters with names and identities; Fantasia is not an option unless it can magically take them back to their original appearances.

I have definitely not gotten used to the changes. Sometimes the character can still look good but they're still not right and the redone graphics are prone to making them look extremely uncanny, whether it's turning into a puffy-faced nightmare in bright sunlight or having a smile that looks unnatural when I used to love how they looked when smiling.

The game had a lovely style of character design and they've thrown it away for something inferior. It needs so much more polishing to bring it back to the previous level of presentation, whether they keep the new style or try to go back to the old one.

[Kaziek]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

I appreciate you asking in a non-hostile way. Everyone has their own opinion and that's totally fine whether it's for or against the changes! For me personally it hasn't stopped me from playing the game completely but it absolutely has impacted how much I've been able to enjoy the expansion. Even two months in I still have way less motivation to do things like gpose, which means that I'm less likely to stay subbed during a content lull.

As many others have stated using a fantasia isn't really an option for me because any character that I make I have a pretty specific idea in mind for, so changing to something else entirely just really isn't something I'd bother doing. I'd probably just stop playing the character at that rate.

[azaleai]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

I've honestly just been raidlogging since I already agreed to raid with several groups this tier and I didn't want to let them down... Just logging in frequently enough to do roulettes for tomes has been a struggle, I'm seriously considering finishing up this tier and unsubbing, but... I know at least one of those groups (and possibly two) are expecting me to do the new ultimate with them. I don't really see myself enjoying it much, though.

For me it's not just the graphical changes, I main(ed) black mage and the changes to it (and the fight design) make it incredibly unpleasant to play. I'm not hating raiding on other classes, but I'm always thinking "I miss black mage", except. old black mage. Picto is fun and cute and I certainly don't dislike it, but it feels like an alt class to me.

The graphics are kinda the same, now I'm done with MSQ and not having cutscenes that zoom in on the face thrown at me every 20 seconds. I can sit though a raid session or do some gathering and it almost starts to feel like the same old game... and then I turn the camera around or see my portrait and I cringe.

I didn't fantasia because my character is an intrinsic part of this game to me; it's her story, her world. Starting over with a new character would feel like starting to play a new game I have no attachment to (though, I suppose I'm already experiencing that). She's a muse to me - I would be wasting years worth of art, stories and screenshots if I were to start fresh.

I don't think I can adequately express how rough the past two months have been for me without divulging that I'm autistic and this game is (well... perhaps was) my special interest, and perhaps the stereotypical dislike of change has something to do with my refusal to fantasia. I used to play daily for hours, delving into any and every piece of content I could, racking up hundreds of days of playtime without ever getting burned out in the slightest. And now? It's not the game I fell in love with, that I devoted years to. Now, on days I don't have raid? I don't even log on. And raid days I'm on for the duration of raid and nothing more, no dailies, weeklies or achievement hunting. I haven't found anything to fill the void and occupy the extra time I have on my hands now either, so I have plenty of time to ruminate on why it feels so wrong.

Suffice to say... If I could 'vote with my wallet' without causing problems for my friends, I definitely would.

[Argantaelle]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?

I couldn't play and stopped paying a sub for about a month, I guess (I don't remember), but then I sat and thought: I pre-purchased DT, I paid for it, and I didn't want to refund DT because of sentimental reasons (I've been playing FFXIV for about a decade; it's not that kind of ties that are easy to break), so I might as well create a brand new character. And if my main isn't fixed when I get to the end of DT, well, that will be the time to make a decision.

I'm not afraid of quitting a game because of character changes; I left WoW after 7 years and Destiny II when they changed my character's face and voice (the character remodelling wasn't the sole reason, but it was one of the major ones). I never logged back since then.

[faiarrow]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

Still devastated, honestly.

I fantasia'd to femhroth. I like my femhroth enough to the point that if they ever fix the completely destroyed hellsguard racial traits and the butchering of femroe as a whole to be 'Bigger Highlander Hyur' with the rounding of their features I will make one of my alts my femhroth permanently.

I have an FC to maintain and a personal house so I'm ransomed into a sub that way and paid for 6 months anyway so couldn't vote with my wallet. I'm still logging in but it's nowhere near as much as I used to. It's a relief to not be in the MSQ honestly because I don't have to see so many cutscenes without the character I was expecting to be playing for the expac.

What was really upsetting recently was doing Moonfire. Moonfire would've been my 10th anniversary with my character. Ten whole years! I've written thousands of words and drawn art of her for ten years, and woven stories with my friends in the world of XIV for that long with the same character for a decade. Doing it with a fantasia'd character that I've cobbled a backstory for but still using her name absolutely sucked and I actually don't want to even do the Rising on her because of how much it stung.

So yeah. 2 months in and I absolutely hate the update still. My 2nd major character I've played who I've had for about 4 years is also a femroe and while I haven't fantasia'd her I now play her fully masked because she looks like she's had plastic surgery for how big the changes to her features have been.

Edit now I'm not at work:
I miss them both tremendously...





And you cannot make anything that carries the same soul as they had in the current update





Sko actually had warmth and now seems like a stranger. Wyta's aloofness was so charming now she's just... a glamoured up doll.

I don't think I can adequately express how rough the past two months have been for me without divulging that I'm autistic and this game is (well... perhaps was) my special interest, and perhaps the stereotypical dislike of change has something to do with my refusal to fantasia. I used to play daily for hours, delving into any and every piece of content I could, racking up hundreds of days of playtime without ever getting burned out in the slightest. And now? It's not the game I fell in love with, that I devoted years to. Now, on days I don't have raid? I don't even log on. And raid days I'm on for the duration of raid and nothing more, no dailies, weeklies or achievement hunting. I haven't found anything to fill the void and occupy the extra time I have on my hands now either, so I have plenty of time to ruminate on why it feels so wrong.

This absolutely hits home and hurts. I'm so sorry. I know it's not much but you're not alone in how that feels at all.

[Cheapshot]

I wonder what happened to the people that posted early on in the thread when DT first launched. Have you guys gotten used to the changes or has the graphics update just demotivated you from logging in whatsoever?
I ask because it looks like a lot of people didn't fanta into something else despite their grievances. Not trying to antagonize or belittle anyone; disliking the update is totally valid. Just curious where you all stand 2 months later.

Very demotivated. I still haven't done Dawntrail yet. I don't even know how I got to level 91 because I've barely played. If I hadn't won the housing lotto on the day I was going to quit I wouldn't have played at all in the last two months. I used a fantasia for the first time in my 6 years of playing. I knew it was useless just picking different features because the CC is so so limited, so I tried a different race. A friend suggest I became an Au'ra with her. I wanted to at least give it a try instead of just feeling hopeless. My Au'ra is cute, but she's not my character and the motivation still isn't there. I remember spending so much time getting screenshots of my character before Dawntrail because I had a feeling I was never going to see her again.

If the adjustments we got between the benchmark and the full game are any indication of what's to come, I have a feeling my original look is never coming back. I want to be hopeful, but it's hard to. I have to decide what I'm going to do. If I'm going to give up my house I finally won after 6 years and stop playing? It's tough.




I wanted to enjoy the next chapter of my characters life. Look at her. She didn't need to change. Updated textures would have been plenty. She was already beautiful. This game has meant a lot to me. I genuinely miss my character deeply.

[CidHeiral]

Since the devs are reading this thread and I've seen the "soulless eyes" feedback pop up again recently, I'd like to say that I strongly disagree with that feedback (which is not to say you shouldn't post it if you agree with that feedback) and I'd wager a lot of people who are pleased with the update and not posting here would say the same.

To me the pre-7.0 eyes are what look soulless by a mile. They look completely vacant and flat, like a lifeless mannequin with a thousand yard stare. One of the best parts of the graphical update has been the massive amount of life that's been breathed into the characters through the eye updates. They have detail, depth, proper shading and lighting, and I love the subtle eye movement that was added as well. I would be very sad to see them go back to the O_O look they were before, so I hope this feedback can be taken into account with whatever path the devs choose to take. Thanks.