Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Rin_Sato]

Endwalker:
Dawntrail :
Please fix the eyebrows on Miqo'te face 2, this is the only face it is messed up on...

[HeyMcFly]

Y'shtola's modish hair for female Viera and thancred Modish hair for male viera
All other female races can wear these hairs, which are mog station hairs, EXCEPT for viera

[potatsdevourer]

Endwalker:
Dawntrail :
Please fix the eyebrows on Miqo'te face 2, this is the only face it is messed up on...

I made bug report on that for male on all races some times ago once Dawntrail hit the game... so far it is only still on 'Accepted Bug'
Who knows when it will actually get addressed.

[Iscah]

Some comparisons of my Miqo'te, U'zolwe.

Most of my characters tend towards softer personalities but U'zolwe is more intense and competitive; he's also the one character I like dressing up in modern outfits and if it wasn't for the graphics update he'd be up the other end of Dawntrail enjoying his new hoverbike by now. But instead I'm here hoping he might get back to looking like himself first.

SETTINGS

Face 4
Skin colour 9,7 = RGB 82,60,43

Jaw 2
Eyes 4
Small irises
Eyebrows 4

Nose 1
Mouth 1

No extra features
Cheek stripe tattoos
No face paint

Hair colour in the older screenshots is inconsistent as I changed it a few times trying to get him to the best "looks black but is a softer colour than the actual black" and wandered from reddish to purple.

Skin colour and shine are badly affected by new lighting. I assume this is the fault of the relentless trio of "spotlights from nowhere" that glint off every reflective floor and surface with a cold white light. It's constantly reflecting off his skin as well and seems to be making him look a colder shade of brown.

Eye shape has changed. I had initially thought that darker eyeliner around the inside rim was making the eyes look different, but once I found some more direct comparisons it's clearer that the eyes have become smaller, particularly around the outer corner. I think the irises have also become bigger.

As I previously talked about regarding face 3, the eyelid and eyelashes have moved and heavier makeup has been added.

The eyelash length and shape has changed and the new eyelash shape fights against the rest of the face design instead of fitting into it. (This is also a particular problem with the Au Ra face I talked about previously, and I suspect many more.) In the close-up below, you can see that the old design (on the left) has the eyelashes taper off towards the outer corner of the eye so they fit neatly into that outer point. In the new design, they go outside the lines.

The eyelashes have also lost length overall, which is disappointing because I thought his long eyelashes were beautiful.

He has also acquired wrinkles under his eyes, which is not a thing I wanted added to characters I appreciated for their anime-like aesthetic.




Eyebrows are thinner and have lost intensity. I have mentioned before that the new model seems to have the wrong underlying shape to the "skull" so the eyebrows end up sitting inside the curve of the eye socket instead of along the rim of it. This seems to result in the already-thinned eyebrows appearing even thinner and also bent into a more "friendly" shape instead of the more intense original.

(I am not certain but, having gone through my screenshot collection and based on some shots with unusual lighting, I now suspect that the old version may have also had this mismatch but the eyebrows either had some trickery going on, or simply had a shape that counteracted the warping effect.)

There also seems to be more shadowing around and under the eyebrows, making it harder to read the actual eyebrow shape and so you have to default to reading the high-arching edge of the eye socket as the eyebrow expression, where in the original you can better read the furrowed shape of the eyebrows.


Face markings have changed. My pictures aren't pixel-perfect enough to be certain but I think the points pinching inwards towards the nose aren't quite as sharp? And possibly the tail end sweeps out further. Also, it doesn't seem to connect up to the corner of the eye like it did before - the changes to the eyelid seems to have messed with it.


Nose shape has changed. Previously quite rounded on the tip and with bulges on the sides of the nostrils, now much pointier and straight-sided.


Mouth shape and expression have changed. Much has been said on this already by other posters already. It's not too bad on some of these screenshots, but overall and in combination with the eye and eyebrow changes it makes him look daydreamy.

The lips also look quite glossy, or maybe that's just the same unwelcome light that's shining on everything else.


Re hairstyle: To their credit, the update has fixed a previous issue where the central braid didn't meet the head properly and you could see straight under it and out the other side. The small braids around the face are still floating though.

[Moonfallen]

Caught up on everything I missed in the thread. Since someone asked how people feel now that it's been two months my feelings on my character specifically haven't changed. I don't log on as much anymore and trying out the new WoW expansion despite hating my character's face there too (forever masked). Probably only going to play that for a month since partner and friends wanted to try it out. As for XIV I don't look at my character much anymore and have had to change all her glams to have her entire face or mouth covered. Oddly enough looking at my character from her side profile she looks like she did in EW, but looking at her straight on she looks completely different. I don't expect them to do anything at this point, even for announcements. I have pretty much given up any hope on that front. I still stand by that their best option to keeping everyone happy is just keeping the changes they made as additional options, stating what number they would be so people aren't confused (if the current changes were moved to additional options), bringing back our old features as options but upscaled as promised, and just updating the character creation overall. Over a decade of the game and we are still stuck with at minimum 4 options for each. Character creation needs a serious overhaul and probably something they should have done before trying to upgrade their graphics.

[Astronis]

I understand that you like your character (and I'm very glad for you, in earnest), and now you feel uneasy that he might be taken from you or downgraded in any way. I'm starting to feel the same about my alt, haha. Considering also the treatment many faces got, I don't feel that the possible future update might be beneficial for many of us; I'd be glad to be proven wrong, of course. But time will tell; now we have nothing to do but wait.

I sincerely hope SE will listen to both of us.

For sure. That's pretty much my only purpose for being here. I have lots of other thoughts and feedback on Dawntrail, but other people have said what I would already and better. On this particular subject, there's not a whole lot of people who just really love what they did with the character update saying so! So I want SE to hear more from the "love it" contingent.

Fingers crossed they can thread the needle.

[noumen0nn]

The more time passes, the more I find myself hoping for some kind of "legacy graphics" option. It would mean I get to keep exactly what I love, and people who like how it is now don't have to risk adjustments they don't want. And given that non-updated NPC faces (like Lyse, pre-ShB Thancred, etc.) seem to still work with no issues, I assume the old player faces technically could as well. On the other hand, I know that one of the reasons they swapped to every face using the same base mesh had to do with expediting head gear creation or other things of that nature, so maybe it's not viable based on those considerations.

Either way, I guess we'll know soon.

[Tahli]

The more time passes, the more I find myself hoping for some kind of "legacy graphics" option. It would mean I get to keep exactly what I love, and people who like how it is now don't have to risk adjustments they don't want. And given that non-updated NPC faces (like Lyse, pre-ShB Thancred, etc.) seem to still work with no issues, I assume the old player faces technically could as well. On the other hand, I know that one of the reasons they swapped to every face using the same base mesh had to do with expediting head gear creation or other things of that nature, so maybe it's not viable based on those considerations.

Either way, I guess we'll know soon.

As someone who likes the updated graphics in general but thinks they could still make adjustments, I really fear the thought of them entertaining a "legacy graphics" option. It would probably mean they wouldn't bother making adjustments based on feedback anymore with the new graphics.

[Tatiana]

As someone who likes the updated graphics in general but thinks they could still make adjustments, I really fear the thought of them entertaining a "legacy graphics" option. It would probably mean they wouldn't bother making adjustments based on feedback anymore with the new graphics.

pretty much how i feel as well, and i am also someone who likes the updated graphics and likes my character with them. i think a better option would be to copy the faces people are complaining about, and work to adjust them to be as close as possible to the original face and make them an additional face option, that way people who like the current version of the face don't lose it, but people who don't can go back and switch to the alternate/new face.

they shouldn't consider a solution that takes something away from another player in order to appease a different one, nor should they shy away from updating the graphics and models as needed.

[noumen0nn]

As someone who likes the updated graphics in general but thinks they could still make adjustments, I really fear the thought of them entertaining a "legacy graphics" option. It would probably mean they wouldn't bother making adjustments based on feedback anymore with the new graphics.

For sure, that would be the other big pitfall. I know I'm probably in a minority, and agree that adjusting the new faces is the best option overall