Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Liamont]

I think what needs to happen is some concrete details for folks. No more little changes here and there and adjustments. What is the devs team actual reality vs. player wants/desires/perceptions. I see the complaints and feedback in here, some are for bigger changes many are for even tiniest of details. I think the expectations vs. reality is skewed.

If Yoshi P and team could just come out and say, this is exactly what we are still doing, it is stopping in 7.X and that's it. At least folks won't keep wishing, hoping and huffing copium. Eventually, the team will say no more, this is it, take it or leave it. So it would be good to set expectations properly.

We get such detailed notes on all the other changes being made--it does feel kind of lazy that they can't put what they're changing in the patch notes or give us any previews or indication of any kind whatsoever on what things they are working on or not. If they could just tell me flat out that my Au Ra's flat ugly lips are an intentional design choice, then I can at least have my answer and move on with my life. I get that the notes would be very long--maybe link to a separate document in the patch notes instead of in the patch notes itself--but we deserve to know what exactly is being worked on for each race and gender of face.

But I get the sense that they just don't care. I don't think they care that a percentage of players that have been playing longer than 6 months are upset by these changes and unsub from the game--they'd rather focus on new players.

Is this a good business plan? Gods no. But it sure looks like the direction they're taking the game if you ask me.

I agree. While I really want to still fight for my characters to look like what they used to, at the end of the day it is less exhausting to just know what will be changed, and what other things to just move on from. If there's a concrete plan, we can put our feedback in on the plan, and then they can let us know if they will not be implementing the feedback we give them. And then that's that.

[Liamont]

I wonder if those are alibi actions? By updating the zones they can signal that they are working on the graphics overhaul (of the game as a whole) and create the impression that they are involved, they care, they are on it.
But at the same time I fathom that zones are easier to update because people don't expect a near perfect translation of old models. With zones the overall outcome and feel are more important than every pebble having the same size and shape. So I think you have more liberty when updating areas while still producing a result most people will consider an improvement.
But that doesn't apply to character models. Here the devil is in the details.
By choosing the easier thing to focus on they can show more positive results (even though it's not what we've been asking for). Perhaps they hope that those results will maintain (some of) the goodwill of the playerbase.

I have a feeling that we all have been weighted and found wanting. It's clear that character correction is very low priority (otherwise the corrections wouldn't have been so minuscule and inconsistent and every race/gender combination would have been touched). I guess the (potential) loss of our subs is less than the price of devs work hours spent on character adjusting.

So we had to feed on scraps from SE table if they had time beside their more important occupations.

I apologize if this gets a little tinfoil hat, but I have been thinking about these things myself and this is my working hypothesis. They are putting priority on ARR zones because those are what new players see. ... It's much easier to appeal to new players than keep old ones happy. And in this day and age of business, short-term profits are all that matter. Any invenstment that would make long term growth possible isn't as appealing because it doesn't make shareholders more money right now.

...

That is how I feel now too. Someone on the dev team decided that these models look better and our opinion as players doesn't matter. They will begrudgingly fix the very few things that weren't "spec" and then tell everyone else to deal with it, we like this look better. After all, why make a bunch of veteran players happy chasing after fixing their models when they can put money and dev time to things to bring more streamers and new players to the game? All those years of loyalty and monthly sub money? That's expected, that's just status quo, that's not growth.

It's hard not to feel this way when for months now it feels like they are not putting as much effort into the characters as they are for the other things. I know that they say they are fixing things, but... I'm tired. It's been months, and I still have not gotten used to several of my characters that changed too drastically.

(continuing in next post because too long)

[Liamont]

(continued from last post)

Au Ra male got nothing fixed this patch, and my female Elezen looks off every time I look at her. I even bought almost all the Mogstation clothing for her, which makes me doubly bitter. Nowadays, I am reluctant to log on her and even skip cutscenes because she just looks wrong...even though she's my secondary, I had her up to current content, just like my main.

And I simply don't bother logging on my Au Ra male anymore because he is far too different than before. I also had this character's crafters all maxed out (same as my main and my female elezen), so it feels like I wasted a lot of time and money on characters who I no longer recognize.

Then I have two other male elezen duskwight alts that I originally didn't spend much time on, but planned to—and now I don't have the desire to anymore. They also are pretty far in the expansions, around ShB ish. It just feels demoralizing.

The only spot of light in this whole thing (for me at least) is that the only major thing that bothered me on my main was the eyebrows, which they have now (sort of) changed this patch. With this change to remove the angled swoop at the ends, even though I still don't like how the ends are now feathered and not tapered and the eyebrows are still angled more sharply so it looks angrier, I'm happy enough because I so desperately wanted any change towards the original. It's 80% of the way there and I will definitely say my sincere thanks to the dev team for that. I just hope that they will fix it all the way, but I think this one might need a mesh change to do so (and to fix the other elezen male eyebrows).

[Sairaag]

I apologize if this gets a little tinfoil hat, but I have been thinking about these things myself and this is my working hypothesis. They are putting priority on ARR zones because those are what new players see. New players don't care about the old graphics, they just started playing, after all. New players don't care about lack of endgame content, they're new players, after all. New players don't know about any of that, they just want a cool looking character and a pretty world to explore. That's what I wanted when I was new, I didn't know anything else. It's much easier to appeal to new players than keep old ones happy. And in this day and age of business, short-term profits are all that matter. Any invenstment that would make long term growth possible isn't as appealing because it doesn't make shareholders more money right now. It would be great if they made jobs feel better at lower levels for new players, but hey, new players don't know how bad that job feels until they experience it at higher levels, right? So why invest in overhauling it?

...

Yeah, agreed with everything you said. I've been getting Blizzard flashbacks for a while now from the way they're running the game, which would be depressing enough on its own and is even worse with the way they're speedrunning it so hard. From all the lessons FFXIV took from WoW, maybe gunning for their own version of the Shadowlands fiasco shouldn't be one? While it's not surprising to see a company blithely squander a decade of customer trust and goodwill like this, it never stops disappointing.


But to say something about my character too, a face 1 male Miqo'te with mouth shape 4, I spent a while comparing him to screenshots and the benchmark and really couldn't see any significant difference. Still no eyebrows, still botoxed. There was a moment when it felt like the mouth had been slightly adjusted after all, but I stopped seeing that when I moved out to different lighting. The eyelids bothered me less this time, because I had a forehead-covering headpiece and a face paint on the eyes. Problem solved, just limit myself to this style now!

I just looked at some old screenshots and I miss how stunning my character used to look with the old graphics and lighting. Maybe it wasn't all realistic, but he looked so GOOD. Some scenes were almost like some of those gorgeous older anime shows with the sharp cel shading and deep shadows, whereas now we have that wispier and lighter and rounder style that's more popular now - which, I guess, is part of SE trying to pull in new players to the detriment of those who liked what we had before. I wish I'd recorded my original playthrough to preserve it.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I just looked at some old screenshots and I miss how stunning my character used to look with the old graphics and lighting. Maybe it wasn't all realistic, but he looked so GOOD.

I agree, I didn’t think my characters looked bad to begin with. I was expecting nicer hair textures and maybe some smoothing out of the skin textures. I wasn’t expecting plastic surgery! lol I like the anime-esque style of the characters, and I wouldn’t want them to look hyper-realistic anyway.

Like I said earlier, I hope that most of the major issues are the ones that got postponed and we’ll still get them fixed. But at this point, three big problems that should be addressed before they “call it done”…
• Mouths… get the shapes back to where they were! Everyone is missing half their upper lip! It looks like they may have reduced the shadow on the philtrum, but not the shape of it, and they don’t match the original sizes and shapes in relation to their mouths. Especially lips that had a nice cupid’s bow to them, and the curves have been changed to sharp points.
• Eyes… that picture a few pages back that showed the before and after for an entire race worth of eyes, where the before was like 8 different styles and the after looks like they just reused a couple here and there and thought no one would notice. They’re different shapes! In most cases, it seems like the eyes are smaller and/or less open than they were before.
• Bridge of the Nose, and especially where it meets with the Brows too. My Highlander’s had a curve, and now it’s straight like a Roe’s. It’s like everything in the center of the face is pinched in and throwing off all the features.

[Adamantini]

Hi, everyone. I'm here to ask a question that's been driving me crazy.

Is it just me, or is the male Viera face 4 looking chubbier over time? I have this impression, but when I compare I can’t tell if I'm just being picky, or if he really had a more angular face and, every time SE tweaks the graphics, his face looks rounder. Is anyone else noticing this?

[sindriiisgaming]

I wasn't able to find mention of some of these off details I noticed so I figured I should put in my two cents just in case (and to bolster existing ones).

I threw together a quick collage of references. The lighting in the images vary but I feel the issues I'm noticing are not significantly trivialised by lighting. My PoV is strictly regarding male Xaela au ra but probably pertains to other character profiles.

• Hair highlights are now very prominent, whereas they were previously barely noticeable (I think there's been talk of this but I couldn't find it. This is of course dependent on the colours you picked).
• As mentioned by others, in some cases limbal rings are too bright/washed out and the original colour is barely visible.
• Armour on the horns is discoloured and get strangely dark when light is shone on them.
• There's a very small dark area around the corners of the mouth. It's not very noticeable on neutral and frowning expressions but it's quite visible on upturned lips.

Should there be a single thing that's fixed out of these, I need it to be the last one. He's not allowed to smile until it's fixed because this bothers me to no end.

Also if anyone knows where I can find discussion about the latter two points, please share links!

as a certified male aura enjoyer, yours came out better XD

[Windfire]

Not sure if chubbier but definitely rounded/smoothed, I have a face 4 alt and he completely lost his nice square chin, now he looks just as soft and effeminate as the three other faces. I specifically chose face 4 because it was the only with a "harsh" jaw (compared to the others), my lad is a grumpy, grizzled old fighter dagnabit, not some pretty city boy and I want him back!

[Hatsuoki]

I'm making a new post since I posted last time before I had a long look at the changes. I do think the philtrum look less deep (male midlander face 6) and the puffiness under the eyes have been reduced a little (female au ra face 2). Thank you for these fixes.

But I'm still really disappointed in the lack of change this patch, especially because I thought lip fixes were coming until the patch notes the day before the patch dropped. I hope that they're not considered "spec" and that a fix is still coming. I'd like to hear an update from the devs that lips are still being worked on.

Personally, I feel that fixing the lips would solve a large part of the "different impression" problem. I'll post a comparison photo once again because I don't want to give up. In the 6.x model, even though the corners of the mouth is turned down, the way his lips were pursed gave a cheeky, attitude-of-superiority look. The impression was clearly expressed to artists and writers and helped build their understanding of the character. But even though I'm always posting about an NPC, this also shows why it's important to copy the details of the previous models since the team working on these are understandably disconnected from our personal WoLs whom we picked these traits for a reason or built them up in our minds over our years of playtime because of their features.

I also usually only talk about the lips and expressions but I also want to know if the darkness around the eyes are going to be lessened. I want to be clear that I'm not talking about the dark under eye circles since he had those before. But the area between the eyes and nose are so unnaturally dark that they don't look like shadows and give the face a very pinched look. I can't help but think it looks like dirt on his face because it doesn't seem to change based on lighting anymore. These deep shadows used to only show up under harsh lighting conditions.

Face 6, mouth 3

[Kahnha]

To be honest Au'ra is and always has been my favorite race has been since HW

I was trying to really enjoy 7.1 but it keeps souring for me when I see how my chara looks now
I'm Kinda upset that 7.1 removed Auri horn glow near light sources I don't normally post here but it was the whole reason I went to be a raen was because the horns had the glow
(like light traveling through your fingers)
I know some people did not like it but this really should have been made as an option that you can turn on and off. atm the character looks downgraded like we went back to 6.x. after 7.1.