Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[poooman]

im just hoping they at the very LEAST fix the racial traits bc those are, like, the main reasons to pick a certain clan you like (moonkeeper fangs anyone? lmao) other than lore. but id say most people probably pick on appearance first and come up with character lore later.

also........ what do they MEAN about 'bone data' and the jaw model in relation to emotes..... when you edit the base model and/or shape keys, that shouldnt screw up your animations to an insane degree. (if modifying the base shape, however, it is entirely possible it could cause odd or unintentional changes in the shape keys, which they use for the different eye/lip/jaw/etc shape options)
as long as things stay rigged with the right bones in the right places it should honestly be fine. maybe they just mean the end result of a tweak could cause something like the jaw protruding or having a dent when posed because they were only accounting for the old shape? but this would kind of make no sense, wasnt one of the points of everyone using the same base mesh that it was for easier emote creation?
this point is just a real head scratcher to me. maybe someone with more experience than me has an idea. ive modeled/rigged/animated in 3d from scratch before, but not for any game purposes. my knowledge may be lacking, but i have a general grasp of how things tend to work, so apologies if i am off base here.

the comment on the smiling emote makes a little more sense, assuming the way they do emotes likely works similar to a shape key. if the smile is used as a base for another emote and blended together, tweaking it could cause other emotes to look a little off. i do not actually know how their emotes work, but based on whats been said i think this is a fair guess.

hoping for the best for everyone, i dont have much skin in this game (as i said before, my characters came out fine, but i have a bit of beef with things that are not model changes on them) but i think trying to find a 'middleground' here might just... cause more problems for both sides </3

also also at risk of sounding a little dumb wtf does "spec" mean in the context used in the announcement..? i dont think ive ever heard it used in this way LOL, cant tell if theyre saying those are intentional or what.

tacking this onto the end cus i realized some of my wording may come off a little rude/aggressive here, so just to clarify majority of this is said a in a genuine, almost lighthearted tone :sob: dont take me too seriously (my username/character might help in doing so), but the points im making are my real thoughts. this is just the easiest way for me to articulate them <3 take it easy everyone

[Khryseis_Astra]

So what were you proposing those of us who did not like the changes to do? Just sit down and take it without submitting any feedback, which the devs themselves encouraged?

If they had just said, "We won't be changing anything, that's that," then none of us would have taken hours and hours taking screenshots and making detailed feedback submissions to the devs. Maybe we'd just rerolled another character, or just quit the game entirely.

While I also don't agree with how they're just changing the 7.0 features instead of making an option for both, I don't think you're being entirely fair to those who wanted to try and fight to get their sometimes decades old character back.

This. I’ve had my characters for about 5 years now, and many others have been playing since 1.0 or 2.0. Since the original goal was to change the character appearance “as little as possible,” that should be the priority. That said, everything that will be changed was not listed, and they did say that some things would not change at all. I would expect more details as to exactly what falls into what category as we get closer to 7.1, possibly in one of the Live Letters.

Although they did say “in the future we will look into adding more character creation options, among other things. It will be a long-term undertaking, but we will continue in our efforts.” Now you can take that as hopium PR speech if you like, and I’d be interested to see if the Japanese has any more nuance that got lost in translation, but if their whole reason for the graphic update was to bring XIV up to par with more modern games, then surely they realize how many more options are out there in other games’ character creation. While I don’t think we’ll ever see sliders and such, just due to the way gear is fitted in this game, I think this has shown them that, at minimum, there needs to be more options in character creator.

Bringing up all these issues with the update might just be the spark they needed to finally prioritize adding more options, some of which people might like even better than the 7.0 changes. And if they do change something you liked? Start a new mega thread after 7.1 and post all about it like we did. We should be happy we have a dev team that cares so much about player feedback!

At any rate, it gives me hope for my alts, who I’ve been struggling to get started on DT because of this. The facial expressions during the use of emotes (specifically smiling) was something they put into the section about long-term fixes that probably won’t happen in 7.1. But if they can just fine-tune the eyes, nose, philtrum and mouth shapes a bit more, I can be patient.

[Cheapshot]

I am not filled with confidence by the statement. It feels a bit gaslightly. Like they’re trying to downplay the scale of the changes, while also giving strange excuses for some things. My eyelashes are completely different. Its not a matter of them “appearing thinner do to lighting” or “being angled in a wrong way.” They are fundamentally not the same eyelash even by a pixel. My nose and mouth are also completely different too.

They seem to have tried to intentionally feminize some F faces and masculinize some M faces to be more traditionally attractive and this update seems to be saying “no it was just math rounding errors or something…”

Im not confident I’m getting my face back from this.

[HawkeScream]

Anyone with the basic capacity for critical thinking knew that the request to "allow people to revert to 6.58 faces" would go nowhere and that these threads would lead to universal changes to the 7.0 models with no extra options in sight, yet anytime that was brought up in here people were attacked for it. :/

Disappointing that we were given a free fantasia, encouraged to make changes and given more than enough time to try and adjust only to now have to worry that our characters that we've gotten used to will look different—again.

I get that people have been upset, but with this news, I really wish everyone would have left well enough alone, stayed quiet and attempted to adapt to the changes.
Now instead of some people being unhappy, the likelihood is that no one is going to be happy and the complaints will only be amplified.

Hopefully these changes will facilitate them to provide another free fantasia, as lip shape and the form of a smile can literally make or break the appearance of a character. I changed the mouth on a handful of my characters because the impression was altered by Dawntrail's updates.

I'm already upset by the story, so having to worry for two and a half months of whether or not my characters who I've grown to love the looks of again will look different for the second time in less than a year is putting even more of a damper on things.
The update to characters should have been one and done.

I have spent all of Dawntrail trying to adapt to the changes and so has everyone else who is still playing and still unhappy with their character changes though? The last like eight or nine pages of this thread is full of people responding to someone who asked how everyone is feeling 2 months later. Well enough isn't well enough, and the devs asked for the feedback. So no, no one should be staying quiet.

[Cyrtip]

(Partial quotes are slightly out of order)

Anyone with the basic capacity for critical thinking knew that the request to "allow people to revert to 6.58 faces" would go nowhere and that these threads would lead to universal changes to the 7.0 models with no extra options in sight, yet anytime that was brought up in here people were attacked for it. :/

You're shifting the blame from the developers, who promised to "preserve the look you know and love" and fell short in the eyes of many, to the many. Nobody giving feedback actually changed the faces themselves, promised they wouldn't, or announced they would do so again to keep that promise. Nobody is guilty for giving feedback either.
I'm also not taking guilt by association for the actions of others 'attacking' each other. The only association members of this 'group' have is that we all have at minimum one single opinion or request to discuss regarding character graphics post-7.0.

Disappointing that we were given a free fantasia, encouraged to make changes and given more than enough time to try and adjust only to now have to worry that our characters that we've gotten used to will look different—again.

They did say graphical changes were an ongoing process that would continue into the patches.

Hopefully these changes will facilitate them to provide another free fantasia, as lip shape and the form of a smile can literally make or break the appearance of a character. I changed the mouth on a handful of my characters because the impression was altered by Dawntrail's updates.

Hopefully, but just like how you believe "anyone with the basic capacity for critical thinking" knew that more options in the character creator would be a pipe dream, another free fantasia is sadly, probably a pipe dream.

I get that people have been upset, but with this news, I really wish everyone would have left well enough alone, stayed quiet and attempted to adapt to the changes.
Now instead of some people being unhappy, the likelihood is that no one is going to be happy and the complaints will only be amplified.

I left well enough alone and tried to adapt, I sat dissatisfied for a good two months before leaving my feedback, even though the only reason I started posting on the forums was because I was dissatisfied with the update.
Also, comparing people who prefer 6.58 appearances and 7.0 appearances is a false equivalency. Sure, both want their characters to look a specific way, but that's where the similarities end. Only one was promised that after changes, their characters appearance would be preserved. Going further, beyond developer promises, the former has upwards of 11 years of attachment to their characters, while the latter has... up to 2 months and some change.

[Cyrtip]

I'm already upset by the story, so having to worry for two and a half months of whether or not my characters who I've grown to love the looks of again will look different for the second time in less than a year is putting even more of a damper on things.

That's fair. The story and graphics have been upsetting me since early access began, I can kinda relate.

The update to characters should have been one and done.

The update should have just been higher res textures and higher poly models, but then the cost-cutting face morphs appeared, necessitating that every single face be recreated from scratch with attention to detail that many regrettably find lacking.

[noumen0nn]

Like I'm sorry, in what universe can something like this be attributed to "higher polygon count" or "more accurate normal mapping". Is it too much to ask that the devs be honest with us instead of trying to constantly save face and never admit to mistakes or wrongdoing?

[Alice9]

While I'm grateful for the response, the whole thing feels entirely overdue. This should never have been an issue to begin with and the fact that we will have to wait even longer for "fixes" to be made is kind of ridiculous when read on paper. 7.2 or longer? Really? For the potential for those aspects to be fixed? There was so much direct and detailed feedback ever since the first benchmark. This calls into question the quality of everything going forward when things like this can come out so rushed but take so long to correct its course.

The downplaying is very apparent here as well. Yes, lighting does play a big part in the appearances- but it does not change the fact that some faces and their parts are just objectively completely different. And so this message does not strike me as having confidence in themselves to even resolve such issues, nor does it give me confidence that it will fix my character. Again, many people just wanted simple upscales, not complete changes. Is it truly so gargantuan of an ask for our characters to look at least mostly like they did before? Maybe it is a tall order at this point because of the drastic changes they already made, but again, one can't help to ask why they bothered making such extreme changes in the first place. Personally, I'd rather them not have bothered at all with the character models at this point.

Again, I am glad it is being addressed in the first place, but this truly does not give me any confidence at all. Ideally- their actions will speak louder than their words. These updates can't come soon enough. I just want to know whether or not I'll continue playing this game. If my 7.0 character that I was with with for years still doesn't feel like mine even after months of trying to get used to the changes, why should I or anyone else feeling the same way bother continuing to play?

[red_fang]

For Hellsguard Roegadyn's dark spot or smudge I feel like it's perfect right now as-is, and I do not want anymore changes. For the first time ever I'm truly satisfied with my character's face, and I like the changes done to bring it up to par with the rest of the game.

Some Hellsguard never had the smudge at all, like Curious Gorge and a few other NPCs, so that tells me it was supposed to be optional at some point in development but Roe players were never given that option.

The correct way to go about this would be to make it a toggle or a setting in face features like scars and extra makeup already are, so one could make it lighter or darker as they please. It would be the easiest way to fix this and make everyone happy.

[Turnintino]

I'm curious if textures were shared across all races before now? I don't think I understand why a higher polygon count would cause a problem and they didn't explain it. How could it be a problem now when it wasn't a problem before?

I mean, I believe that the issue described is related to the new higher poly count, since we can see that many facial features have been shifted and warped by that change (not just because of the new normal maps, as the full statement alleges). But I think it's a little disingenuous for them to imply this happens only during certain emotes, when the difference is plain on neutral expressions as well in some cases.

But... it is what it is, I guess. I understand the trepidation and discontent many of us are still feeling about the statement as a whole, but PR is gonna PR, and I'm still cautiously optimistic about the assurance that the team who'll actually be enacting these changes (not Yoshida himself, if that needs to be said) are pulling from a more exhaustive list of critiques than the ones that were listed more or less arbitrarily here. And although it isn't ideal, in the sense that of course I'd like my character back now (or to have never lost them in the first place lol), I much prefer that they take their time and do the due diligence required for any changes going forward, so I'm not going to complain about that.