Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[HawkeScream]

Face 1 middie changes are a bit more subtle (very subtle) than I was hoping but they are better. It FEELS better in game, but I feel like my screenshots don't really show a difference especially to someone who doesn't play a Face 1 middie. To me at least, it feels like her face shape feels a little more like "her." I can tell they got rid of some of the weird puffiness, and her lip shape has improved a smidge closer to the original.

I would still like to see lip shapes improved further, to be clear.

[eohippus]

Face 1 middie changes are a bit more subtle (very subtle) than I was hoping but they are better. It FEELS better in game, but I feel like my screenshots don't really show a difference especially to someone who doesn't play a Face 1 middie. To me at least, it feels like her face shape feels a little more like "her." I can tell they got rid of some of the weird puffiness, and her lip shape has improved a smidge closer to the original.

I would still like to see lip shapes improved further, to be clear.

this is very comparable to how I feel overall about my male midlander. it FEELS more like him, but I'm struggling to quantify why and what changes have been improvements. Definitely more to be done, but its a step in the right direction.

[Rin_Sato]

Hello. I just made a thread about Keeper of the Moon Face type 2 and how their eyebrows have been changed (and ONLY face 2 was changed in this way).
I made one before 7.1, but it did not have "sufficient information". So this is round two that I am posting now. If anyone knows what I can do to make sure that a potential round 3 is not rejected, please offer your insights.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...41#post6622941

[Mr_Gucky]

I don't see any changes in female Au Ra face 4. The mouth still looks terrible.

It pains me to admit it, but it looks like the time has come to say goodbye to my WoL I've had for 4 years.

[Aco505]

Has anyone noticed any changes with Male Miqo’te Face 1? It does look the same, but I can’t shake off the feeling that something did change. Are the facial animations/ emotes any different? (It was mostly /ponder that seemed different to have different lips, though I don’t use it as much to actually notice a change)

I don't have screenshots to compare but they did made all male miqo'te lips smaller. Face 1 was pretty much the same before and after 7.0 the only difference was the sudden lip filler they gave to everyone which is now gone. And my guess they tweaked face textures a little? They probably saw the complaints about wax skin

I personally didn't notice any changes. I got the feeling that some emotes made the upper lip extra thin but I compared with some screenshots and found that it was already the case... I think.

I am happy they didn't change anything, to be fair. I'd rather they add options than ruin us until they decide to introduce more lip or face types... but I do feel for those who wanted lips to be closer to their pre-update stage, particularly the lip 4 users.

My main gripes though are still there: low resolution areas on different parts of the face: the markings below the eyes, the dark spots around the eyes and particularly the lower eyelid, the sides of the face and the blemishes they mentioned in the post but didn't seem to fix.

And of course the fact that the bodies are still low resolution...

[Tahli]

Hello. I just made a thread about Keeper of the Moon Face type 2 and how their eyebrows have been changed (and ONLY face 2 was changed in this way).
I made one before 7.1, but it did not have "sufficient information". So this is round two that I am posting now. If anyone knows what I can do to make sure that a potential round 3 is not rejected, please offer your insights.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...41#post6622941

The issue is with the new eyebrow shape itself, for all Face 2 brow options. The "eyebrow" face paint not lining up is a side effect of this, but not the root problem, so I'd focus on pictures of the eyebrow shape before/after 7.0 and how different they are.

[DelSolstice]

I think we can just sum up things with: More Options are Beautiful. Forced Changes are Painful and Ugly.


I get that more hair polygons was unavoidable, as were faces being more reflective, in line with the more detailed lighting.


But all these other changes that have drawn so much of the fandom's ire in what is already a controversial expac could have been avoided by letting all most of the new facial details just be new options in Create a Character. CAC is badly in need of an overhaul anyway, so you could have killed two birds with one stone.



Creative Studios 3 would have been praised for this. Outside of hair, if the changes had been new options instead of replacements, people would have LOVED you for this!



Instead, I feel like the devs made the worst possible choice in forcing these changes on people. Veteran players for the most part are very attached to their characters. Natsuko Ishikawa has even said that one of the advantages of writing for an MMO is that characters already love their Warriors of Light, I assume because that means she doesn't have to do any work to make us likeable. We already like ourselves. Because we created ourselves.

A great many of us see ourselves in are characters, so please don't give us plastic surgery against our will, it's not okay. It's not some sort of necessary trade-off. For some who like what they've gotten it's a neat little upgrade. And other people like myself just feel maimed. It's a losing trade. And actually the most "positive" post I can see here since 7.1 is one that shows someone's FemRoe being 90% back to 6.5. This is getting praised because you've reversed course.


And I do appreciate you minimizing the extra "philtrum" details (I think practically everyone hated that).



So please, please, please reverse course on the rest of it before it's too late.


I miss my face.

[Rehayem]

Multibillion dollar company at work. What a joke.

[Doopliss]

Oh... In general I really, really was trying to be optimistic about this; but this is the amount of changes they're able to get done within a four month frame...? Admittedly I'm feeling kind of hopeless now.

I'm too tired to take screenshots, but a lot of characters I posted here with less popular faces are essentially unchanged entirely. My Face 2 ♀ Midlander didn't have her upturned eye-shape corrected at all. There was zero lip shape adjustment done to my Face 4 ♂ Midlander. My ♀ Viera still has holes in her hair. Face 2 ♀ Au Ra also seems to have had no lip adjustment done yet again (maybe it's insanely subtle like the Face 1 ♀ Midlander one? I don't know). The mapping for my Face 4 ♀ Roegadyn still feels really, REALLY wonky; there's a ton of random lines on her face that light still hits in unflattering, unnatural ways that didn't exist before, and the area near her eyes are still way too dark (I know they said face mapping stuff is happening in 7.2, so maybe I can remain hopeful for that). My Face 3 ♂ Au Ra still has a different lip shape and lips that are too dark.

My Face 1 ♀ Highlander still has her hair and (again, baked-in) makeup looking like this in most lighting, against her skin tone.

And if I'm being completely vulnerable and honest here, this one actually makes me want to cry at this point, now that I'm feeling less hopeful. I really want to play on her again... I was hoping this change was simple enough that I could in this patch...

[MaxL]

I think I found out why hair shading seems so inconsistent from place to place. You can easily reproduce this using GPose.



Seriously, what is going on here? It's like half of its shading contribution is a uniform term.

Happy to report that this is fixed! Awesome!

Can't really spot any changes on roes though. I feel like the ash nose might be darker again, but I forgot to take clear before/after pics, so someone else should confirm.