Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[ohmRICE]

I'm sorry that you lost something you enjoyed for 3 months so that people with Duskwights for nearly a decade could have their old look returned. Luckily, you can replicate the exact look you are missing by swapping to Wildwood since that is where the textures came from!

My bitchiness aside - dark circle face paint is something that all races could use. SE needs to consider a character creation update sooner rather than later.

Girliepop, I've been playing duskwight since 2.0 as well. Don't act like I'm a tourist because I liked...my character looking slightly older? (also wildwood are wack miss me with that)
But yes, I agree the creation system needs an upgrade. It's really sad I can get more options out of a 20 year old Korean MMO sometimes lol

[Tahli]

I made a new bug report on this issue with updated images, and noting that this is an ongoing error. I try to keep bug reports as objective as I can, but I also wanted to add on some opinions and suggestions regarding it here.

Face 2 and 4 of female Miqo'te have always had fuller, more detailed eyebrows than faces 1 and 3. For some reason only face 2 had this changed, but I still believe this is a bug rather than intentional, based on how inconsistent the change was between the old model, benchmark 1, and benchmark 1.1. The brow used to be full, showing fine details of the hairs and gently tapering off at the tail. It looked like a real eyebrow, rather than something drawn or glued on.



This level of detail was present in benchmark 1, and I see no reason for it to have intentionally changed after that. I saw a few other face 2 users critiquing how the tail of that brow was too sharply upturned, but saw no one asking for a condensed, thinner shape that kept this new sharply angular upturn. Not that it would warrant such a drastic change from the original design even if anyone had.
What we have right now is too thin, having been pinched at the base, and too dense also as a result of this compression. The fine details have been lost, and the soft taper at the tail has been changed to something angular, and appearing weirdly thicker (more dense) than the base. It loses the original impression, and becomes comical looking.

While there are some other things I'd like updated/fixed, I do think the eyebrows are the top #1 feature in need of fixing for my face, and it's personally the only changed feature that I just cannot get used to.

If even only for a temporary fix, I would so much prefer the eyebrows of benchmark 1, if that were possible to easily revert to. For final adjustments, they really would only need to soften the angle of the tail of that version's eyebrows for it to closely match the shape it had before 7.0. What we have now in 7.1 would require a lot more work to meet that goal.

[I made a rough edit to show how putting the Benchmark 1 eyebrows on the current model, and lightly curving the tail downwards can bring it a lot closer to its original shape, at least for Eyebrow 2.]



I do also wish we could know which features are being worked on and planned for future updates, even if it was only a matter of moving the relevant Accepted Bug reports to Confirmed/Planning to address.

[FateweaverAlpha]

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.

I'd give anything to be able to get used to new Luc honestly but he's so uncanny to me now. Literally an entirely different character. A friend of mine who also plays Duskwight and chose only a few differences to mine had his character come out fine, escaping even the super shiny skin and eye bags. They just never showed up on his model which confused us both.

This image has been posted here a few times now but in reference old vs new Lucien.


Two very different characters with all those changes. -_-

[MsQi]

More critically, all the changes I will list can be made optional, which should hurt exactly no one.

Unfortunately adding additional options seem to be in the "someday file".

[Serenitey]

But all the miqo eyes are buggy huge now where there were actual eyes before. The graphics are still awful and I do not think it is their priority to fix it, sadly.

[programcanaan]

EW First. DT Second. The lighting is obviously very different despite being the same environment

7.1 and they've still done nothing to restore forcefully changed Face 4 Viera Female.
the changes being:
- removal of cupid's bow mouth shape
- makeup more blotchy shape (especially the underliner), less eylashes, and outer eye corners are rounded and less pronounced
- eye fold is much less relaxed making her eyelids mostly nonapparent

Frankly I feel like they just edited various lighting fixtures just to see if that was going to magically fix some people's issues (which is environment team related thing). I don't think the character team legitimately did anything to address the glaring issues that they intentionally caused.

Nobody asked for an Update DOWNGRADE. Should a Graphical Update really be so... subjective? Higher resolution for less style is what I see.

I'm almost convinced this redundant graphical update happened just to shirk Viera and Hrothgar obligations.

Restore people beloved characters ASAP. We also want to see progress and comparisons instead of a "wE ChAngED StUfF" blanket statement and flinging another fantasia at us.

[Loggos]

Here are the ones I can see the most, in order or priority, with feasibility included as part of priority:

Just wanted to add: They also altered the shape of many face and jaw options.
It would be great if they could bring back the old ones as additional options in the CC.

[Einnecy]

I thought about making more comparisons but I'm really tired of this and so many people have done a fantastic job already, so as my closing thoughts I'll leave this:


(Note: Eyebrows in picture 1 are different and I couldn't be arsed to change it for the other comparisons.)

(Note: Hair color is different in picture 1.)

In essence, 7.1 did nothing for me.

The patch notes mentioned having fixed corners for some lip options and, having no comparison photos to go by, I was hopeful that it would include au ra♀ face2 mouth3 but it did not. The mouth remains smaller and in a perpetual smile. A far cry from its original.

Despite having no lip color options chosen, both give off the impression of wearing lipstick/lip gloss. They look particularly darker and with more shine on my midlander.

And while I am on the topic of mouths, in my last reply I have jokingly mentioned that the new facial animations might as well be "spec"...

I guess the bleached ♀raen scales, strong shine and darkened colour of the lips, uncanny white eye texture, large pupils, new facial animations, etc. are all spec. lol

This looks horrible...

While I do think toning the intensity of the philtrum is a step in the right direction, I must reiterate my last statement that waiting 4 months for that is an absolute embarrassment and insult to this game's players when so much else has gone unaddressed.

On the topic of eye bags, it being something I strongly want on my midlander, I am just baffled that, as far as midlander♀ faces go, face1 and face4 seem to have had a swap. Face4 used to be the only face with noticeable creases under the eyes. I would love to see face 4 regain that subtle maturity and older appearance it had.

The pupils also still remain way too large that they easily make the eye color as a whole darker, especially on au ra and the imbal rings in 7.1.

And lastly... A minor nit-pick but something I dislike are the straightened bangs on the hime cut for au ra♀. I might be one of few who enjoyed the gentle messiness of it. It's too clean. Too perfect. Much like every other change brought by the graphical update.

I am curious to see where SE/CS3 will further take the aesthetic direction of the game, but not curious or hopeful enough to keep subscribing. I haven't been a huge fan of the game's glamour direction for a while now, especially when I see something like this, but it was easy to dismiss it as a "me thing". Until it affected the characters I play with, anyways.

I appreciate everyone who has commented and those who will continue to fight until their characters are back home. Going through this thread has been a great solace for me. Sadly, I've come to terms that FF14 isn't for me anymore and that I'll never have my characters back. And so I must say goodbye. Thank you, everyone. And good luck.

[YumekoKei]

I honestly wish SE would give me the old graphics back...

[AvaloniaFallen]

The patch notes mentioned having fixed corners for some lip options and, having no comparison photos to go by, I was hopeful that it would include au ra♀ face2 mouth3 but it did not. The mouth remains smaller and in a perpetual smile. A far cry from its original.
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It's bizarre to me that they got rid of fem!ra face 3's smile and decided that face 2 and 4 need to have a resting smile instead, and that face 4 should have face 2's dimples. I chose face 4 partially because of the somewhat dour resting face, I don't know why they're changing the vibes of all the fem!ra faces around.