Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Reinha]

I think it's a bit of both tbh. They're still very much there, at least on my Duskwight Face 2 character, but the dark shading was taken away to give the appearance of them being fully removed.
Zooming up on Luc's eye in portrait mode shows the baggy wrinkles still there under his eye just not shaded anymore to give that haggard raccoon eye appearance.

Yes this is what my male duskwight also has (face 2). The dark raccoon circles looked awful and I'm glad they are gone. Those wrinkles that were kept seem like an unnecessary waste of development time because they just make my character look like he is in his 30s instead of early 20s. I don't think the goal of this graphical update was to age our characters, so...

I still see all the differences between his old form and the new form. The old eye color can't be replicated, the mouth has been fully replaced, some face shape details seem to have changed and the skin color looks like it has a tint of green now. I'd rather have the old version back (and roll back the entire graphical update tbh) but I guess I can get used to this easier than my female duskwight which remains unplayable.

[Adamantini]

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!

Yeah, I also preferred face 4 because it was the most "masculine" of them, if I can describe it that way. I liked how it stood apart from the rounder style of the other faces and had an older look. After this last update, I started noticing my cheeks looking rounder, completely losing their definition (I had already noticed this with 7.0, but now it seems worse? Or maybe it’s just the lighting in which I looked at my character? I’m not sure; he just feels off to me).

At least it seems like the character’s expressions have improved. Before, it looked like he was smiling to hide how dead he felt inside, but now there's been some improvement—except for the "Big Grin" emote.


EDIT

I decided to look for old images on Discord to compare my character, and I totally regret it. Now I’m just frustrated and want my character back. The face is definitely a lot rounder. When looking at the images below, keep in mind that I changed my character’s lip shape and eye color, as well as my use of Reshade.

This is an image I took from the EW benchmark, and next to it, an image I tried to match at the same angle. The expression is also much worse than it used to be.


This one here is in-game, right when EW launched. You can see that the “square” definition the face had has turned into a rounder shape.


I don’t usually take many zoomed-in images of my character’s face, but my friends have this weird habit of taking screenshots that make my character look as ridiculous as possible. Despite the awful pose, you can clearly see how the face shape has changed from a V to a U.


Bonus: AND CAN I KNOW WHY THE HELL THIS TATTOO IS STILL IN 144P?

[potatsdevourer]

Haha I am not surprised but also still disappointed.

Tell me honestly, if there is any difference between these two patches. I'll wait.

Okay, so apart from the eyebrows on 7.0 is #3 and on 7.1 is #2, and tanner skin that I picked, there are no discernable change that I can identify in relation to the so-called new graphic patch for 7.1.

Try again, Square Enix. My complain is still the same.

[Peachyyyy]

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6513666

I put all this effort in, as early as I could, and hardly anything changed. A small tweak to the mouth. I was right not to get my hopes up, and yet I still feel disappointed anyway. I made a trial account to preview the changes. This was their chance to win me back, but I think maybe I stay unsubbed. I miss my miqo'te so so so much.

I feel this so much! I appreciate all the effort you put in for talking about face 4 miqo. I mostly play a viera alt now because any time I look at my miqo in a cutscene I feel so uncomfortable, especially when she emotes now or there's any light on her face. She just doesn't look like herself and I don't think she even looks good unless she's in shadow with a neutral expression. I was such a big miqo fan that I couldn't imagine playing any other race and I miss mine so much.

[Cheapshot]

I just don’t understand their priorities. The players who were invested in their characters appearances are the ones who are likely to stay subbed in off months between expansions. More likely to buy mog station clothes and emotes. Maybe we didn’t buy as many fantasias, but now they’ve already given two free ones away to everyone. I just don’t understand why they seem so entrenched in sticking to these new appearances. Just pull the old meshes in, overlay them, and adjust the new meshes to match the old shapes better. Overlay the old and new textures and see where they differ and fix it. What were they doing if not that, and why?? They should be returning peoples appearances back to how we enjoyed them for up to a decade. After that, work on expanding the character creator to use sliders or a wider selection of options or both. This seems so straight forward. Im just so at a loss and confused.

[Cheapshot]

I feel this so much! I appreciate all the effort you put in for talking about face 4 miqo. I mostly play a viera alt now because any time I look at my miqo in a cutscene I feel so uncomfortable, especially when she emotes now or there's any light on her face. She just doesn't look like herself and I don't think she even looks good unless she's in shadow with a neutral expression. I was such a big miqo fan that I couldn't imagine playing any other race and I miss mine so much.

I appreciate it. I fantasia’d to this au’ra because I wanted to do stuff with friends and seeing my miqo’te made me too sad to play. It’s just not my character though. I miss the voice and emotes of my original charcter. This new character appearance just isn’t me. I still haven’t played Dawntrail because it just doesn’t feel right without the WoL that’s been with me throughout the whole story so far.

I’ve been unsubbed for about two weeks now. You aren’t allowed to post without logging into the game within 14 days, so I guess I likely wont be able to respond or leave any more feedback indefinitely. I’ve been paying them just so I could be part of the feedback process and try and get my character back. No luck though. I just hope they have a change of heart and treat this issue more seriously. I hope they’ll realize the value of the players who miss their pre 7.0 appearances. I’ll keep an eye on things from afar and hope I can return to my favourite MMO eventually.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I just don’t understand their priorities. The players who were invested in their characters appearances are the ones who are likely to stay subbed in off months between expansions. More likely to buy mog station clothes and emotes. Maybe we didn’t buy as many fantasias, but now they’ve already given two free ones away to everyone. I just don’t understand why they seem so entrenched in sticking to these new appearances. Just pull the old meshes in, overlay them, and adjust the new meshes to match the old shapes better. Overlay the old and new textures and see where they differ and fix it. What were they doing if not that, and why?? They should be returning peoples appearances back to how we enjoyed them for up to a decade. After that, work on expanding the character creator to use sliders or a wider selection of options or both. This seems so straight forward. Im just so at a loss and confused.

So much this… I was thinking about it last night when I was reading another post, and someone was mentioning the limitations and how they can’t possibly get exactly the same or even close to the original character design.

Now I freely admit that I don’t have the first clue about the tech involved. But you’re telling me the newer, better system can’t render shapes as accurately as the older, outdated one could? How is that an upgrade exactly? A lay person would think adding more polygons would give you greater control over rendering the shapes of the facial features, not less!

[Daralii]

I just don’t understand their priorities. The players who were invested in their characters appearances are the ones who are likely to stay subbed in off months between expansions. More likely to buy mog station clothes and emotes. Maybe we didn’t buy as many fantasias, but now they’ve already given two free ones away to everyone. I just don’t understand why they seem so entrenched in sticking to these new appearances. Just pull the old meshes in, overlay them, and adjust the new meshes to match the old shapes better. Overlay the old and new textures and see where they differ and fix it. What were they doing if not that, and why?? They should be returning peoples appearances back to how we enjoyed them for up to a decade. After that, work on expanding the character creator to use sliders or a wider selection of options or both. This seems so straight forward. Im just so at a loss and confused.

I'm pessimistic and jaded enough at this point to think the goal first and foremost was to streamline the face animation process, which meant homogenizing features that strayed too far from the norm, and everything else was an afterthought.

[Cheapshot]

So much this… I was thinking about it last night when I was reading another post, and someone was mentioning the limitations and how they can’t possibly get exactly the same or even close to the original character design.

Now I freely admit that I don’t have the first clue about the tech involved. But you’re telling me the newer, better system can’t render shapes as accurately as the older, outdated one could? How is that an upgrade exactly? A lay person would think adding more polygons would give you greater control over rendering the shapes of the facial features, not less!

You would think that, and I would think that too. I have 3D modelling and texturing experience and I can’t think of much of a reason. I said what I said because that’s exactly how I would approach and resolve the problem. The new lighting would be the other factor that makes it very difficult. Perhaps that’s what the person you saw was speaking on, but I’m seeing a lot of evidence they’re doing their best in that area. I do not see them doing the same with the meshes and textures. I have no explanation for that.

I'm pessimistic and jaded enough at this point to think the goal first and foremost was to streamline the face animation process, which meant homogenizing features that strayed too far from the norm, and everything else was an afterthought.

I think you’re right, and yet, the system doesn’t work because the animations have not been scaling correctly across the different races and have needed tons of manual adjustment to fix. (and arguably, they can’t seem to fix many of them judging by eyebrow twitching and mouth deformation still being a problem.)

[Velvina]

Considering the live letter only brought up the 'character updates' at the end of the stream, I'm not surprised at all nothing has changed significantly. It could be an instance of paying attention to once race/sex/face option alone, or something else, I have no clue. We weren't told anything about the specifics regarding player characters. Only NPCs. No one is looking at the NPCs all day. We don't play the NPCs. Why is everything else getting more love and care then the characters we play? It's gotten to the point where I fantasia'd to the opposite sex since the male viera face option I use looks so bad to me now. It looks like a work in progress rather then a shipped product. This entire scenario of unhappy customers could've been avoided if Square just started true to their word of not changing our character appearances. Why lie to people who are literally throwing money at them??