Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[FateweaverAlpha]

I want to bring up the issue again of darker skin tones all looking lighter and more washed out/gray with the graphics update. I know that this is not being addressed often because not many people play as characters using the darker skin tones, but it is very obvious to me and has made the disparity in available skin tones between (for example) sun cats and midlanders much more obvious. my character can no longer have the skin tone he had prior to the update, and switching to the only darker option left for him has made made it very obvious that the highlight feature on dark skin is way too over tuned. I hope that this will be addressed in a future update, even if not the closest one. (if this continues to be an issue post 7.1, I'll compile refs.)

Honestly you are completely right about the washed out darker skin tones. My Duskwight boy who uses one of the darker skin tones suffers from this. I posted this pic awhile back in this thread but here it is again to prove the point.
He uses the farthest right skin tone and ten down in the shades.



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I'm praying that the Elezen males see some fixes but I'm not hopeful. Everyone keeps telling me that it's just lighting or he looks better the way he is now and it just hurts my heart to hear it. Sure I haven't played for long, a scant 3 years, in comparison to others but he was MY character the way I wanted him to be now he's just a yassified mess of blurry shapes and rounded corners. I miss his grumpy original face so much. UnU

[noumen0nn]

Took some time to skim through the JP forum earlier (using google translate, so not 100% accurate obviously), and they seem to be just as puzzled by the recent announcement as we are, saying there's no way that all the differences that popped up have anything to do with polygons or normal maps. Glad to know that at least we aren't the only ones fed up with the half-truths and downplay from yoshi p and the devs.

[noumen0nn]

Honestly you are completely right about the washed out darker skin tones. My Duskwight boy who uses one of the darker skin tones suffers from this. I posted this pic awhile back in this thread but here it is again to prove the point.
He uses the farthest right skin tone and ten down in the shades.



--

I'm praying that the Elezen males see some fixes but I'm not hopeful. Everyone keeps telling me that it's just lighting or he looks better the way he is now and it just hurts my heart to hear it. Sure I haven't played for long, a scant 3 years, in comparison to others but he was MY character the way I wanted him to be now he's just a yassified mess of blurry shapes and rounded corners. I miss his grumpy original face so much. UnU

Anyone saying "it's just the lighting" did not look at this image for more than 2 seconds. These two characters barely resemble one another. What on earth did they do to his brow ridge?

[FateweaverAlpha]

Anyone saying "it's just the lighting" did not look at this image for more than 2 seconds. These two characters barely resemble one another. What on earth did they do to his brow ridge?

I wish I knew tbh, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks he's a completely different person now. All his emotes are weird with the new brow ridge configuration. He went from confident to confused and no amount of aesthetician tweaking or fantasia has been able to re-create what he once looked like.

I've barely touched the game other than running a few roulettes here and there cause he's so uncanny looking to me now that it's like playing an alt made by someone else, and the wording on the reply from the devs gives me little to no hope for a fix cause the parts that changed on him are the ones they mentioned are tied to the "bones" of the face. -_-

[Argantaelle]

I was remodelling my retainers and stumbled upon this little gem.



This picture shows clearly how much love, care, and attention to details were put into the player character model update. I bet it's the same type of eyebrows, which "many players are satisfied with," as Mr. Yoshida has said.

Sometimes I doubt if there was some QA at all.

P.S. All Windwood Elezen face 2 eyebrows are carefully placed lower than the brow ridge. Chances are high that other face types are affected also, but I'm not going to waste my time testing it.

UPD

EW eyebrows also were a tad lower, but they were much closer to the brow ridge and followed the brow line precisely, so it isn't that noticeable.



And yes, male Wildwood faces 1 & 2 are affected. All their eyebrows are placed between the brow ridge and the upper eyelid line.

Good job, SE!

As for Duskwight Elezen, they seem to have escaped this fate.

[CuteBucket]

All Windwood Elezen face 2 eyebrows are carefully placed lower than the brow ridge. Chances are high that other face types are affected also, but I'm not going to waste my time testing it.

damn, dude looks like he shaved off his eyebrows and drew them back on further down his face.

[Argantaelle]

Also, I would like to add something. To all these people saying, "Just start another character." It's not a secret that FFXIV is extremely unfriendly to alts. If you start another character, you'll lose not only the years invested in your previous main. The amount of FFXIV content is massive; only MSQ when watching all the cutscenes is going to devour at least 3-4 months of a player's time if they are an adult with a job. It's much worse when a player is a completionist (relic weapon, zones like Eureka/Bozja, fate grinding, etc.). Also, there are such things as glamour gear items (I'm afraid we'll never get something resembling GW2 or ESO skins library), housing, mounts and pets, achievements, and FOMO PvP seasonal items (will they ever be obtainable again, I wonder)...

And Square Enix shop items also. The majority of them are character-based. I'm levelling my alt atm, and I've lost access to all the shop/event items I obtained during all these years.

Somehow I doubt that SE creative minds took all of the above into consideration when they were planning the glorified characters update. Or maybe they did and just decided to ignore them entirely.

[Rueby]

Also, I would like to add something. To all these people saying, "Just start another character." It's not a secret that FFXIV is extremely unfriendly to alts. If you start another character, you'll lose not only the years invested in your previous main. The amount of FFXIV content is massive; only MSQ when watching all the cutscenes is going to devour at least 3-4 months of a player's time if they are an adult with a job. It's much worse when a player is a completionist (relic weapon, zones like Eureka/Bozja, fate grinding, etc.). Also, there are such things as glamour gear items (I'm afraid we'll never get something resembling GW2 or ESO skins library), housing, mounts and pets, achievements, and FOMO PvP seasonal items (will they ever be obtainable again, I wonder)...

And Square Enix shop items also. The majority of them are character-based. I'm levelling my alt atm, and I've lost access to all the shop/event items I obtained during all these years.

Somehow I doubt that SE creative minds took all of the above into consideration when they were planning the glorified characters update. Or maybe they did and just decided to ignore them entirely.

Feels scuffed by design to keep you buying and using Fantasia. I like having alts but the game is so allergic to them apparently. God forbid I want to pass something from my main to my alt, I have to get a friend to pass these items down to MYSELF.

Very nice.

[CuteBucket]

Also, I would like to add something. To all these people saying, "Just start another character." It's not a secret that FFXIV is extremely unfriendly to alts. If you start another character, you'll lose not only the years invested in your previous main. The amount of FFXIV content is massive; only MSQ when watching all the cutscenes is going to devour at least 3-4 months of a player's time if they are an adult with a job. It's much worse when a player is a completionist (relic weapon, zones like Eureka/Bozja, fate grinding, etc.). Also, there are such things as glamour gear items (I'm afraid we'll never get something resembling GW2 or ESO skins library), housing, mounts and pets, achievements, and FOMO PvP seasonal items (will they ever be obtainable again, I wonder)...

And Square Enix shop items also. The majority of them are character-based. I'm levelling my alt atm, and I've lost access to all the shop/event items I obtained during all these years.

Somehow I doubt that SE creative minds took all of the above into consideration when they were planning the glorified characters update. Or maybe they did and just decided to ignore them entirely.

THIS. "Start another character" or "Fanta into another character" is not the answer for anyone who has sunk lots of time (and money!) into a very specific character over many years of story and game play. I made a specific character to look a specific way for the personality and story I wanted to tell with them.

Why should I be told to "deal with it" by people who fanta all the time anyway or those who never really bothered to play with things like gpose? If someone spend 95% of the game with the camera zoomed all the way out looking at the back of their character's head, then why should I listen to or care about their feedback on what my character looks like? Yeah, if I played the game like that, just changing my character into something else entirely would probably be fine, but that's not how I play the game.

[Moonfallen]

Also, I would like to add something. To all these people saying, "Just start another character." It's not a secret that FFXIV is extremely unfriendly to alts. If you start another character, you'll lose not only the years invested in your previous main. The amount of FFXIV content is massive; only MSQ when watching all the cutscenes is going to devour at least 3-4 months of a player's time if they are an adult with a job. It's much worse when a player is a completionist (relic weapon, zones like Eureka/Bozja, fate grinding, etc.). Also, there are such things as glamour gear items (I'm afraid we'll never get something resembling GW2 or ESO skins library), housing, mounts and pets, achievements, and FOMO PvP seasonal items (will they ever be obtainable again, I wonder)...

And Square Enix shop items also. The majority of them are character-based. I'm levelling my alt atm, and I've lost access to all the shop/event items I obtained during all these years.

Somehow I doubt that SE creative minds took all of the above into consideration when they were planning the glorified characters update. Or maybe they did and just decided to ignore them entirely.

Exactly this. SE makes a lot of money by making things you buy from the store "one character only" which is why we will likely never get a better glamour option for gear like other games (WoW's transmog comes up a lot in conversation too). I have alts all with their own unique personality and story like many others and a lot of them no longer match my idea of them. Only one of my characters is completely brand new because she looked like my main so I just used the fanta to see if there was anything I would like to change my main to and since I didn't I just made a new face as an alt. My main has not changed since I've had her and even trying to change her hair on her makes her look off for me. To have her completely lost due to the changes just makes me want to stop playing as much as I did, but since I run my own FC I can't just up and disappear. I have things on my main that I just wouldn't be able to get again because of how long I've had her and to get a fraction of the items I can get off the store for an alt would been an insane amount of money that I'm not able or willing to put into an alt.