Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[IndraSyngiwyb]

Checked in on my femroe to see if anything has changed and, nope. She looks just as terrible as she did when 7.0 dropped.

I'm not expecting Square to ever fix Femroes since they are not as popular as Miqo'te, but whatever. The only reason I'm even staying subbed is because I don't wanna lose my house that I struggled for ages to get.

[duckslap]

I already gave feedback on the pupils and new limbals a few days ago, but I'd also like to point out that the lips on female Face 1 Au Ra are still downturned, with the centre lip line being straighter and thinner compared to Endwalker.

[azaleai]

Checked in on my femroe to see if anything has changed and, nope. She looks just as terrible as she did when 7.0 dropped.

I'm not expecting Square to ever fix Femroes since they are not as popular as Miqo'te, but whatever. The only reason I'm even staying subbed is because I don't wanna lose my house that I struggled for ages to get.

All that changed was the philtrum and the line around the lips being blurred out... which was only about 15% of the problem.

[Elissar]

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

Damn the one on the left looks dangerous/menacing/confident, the right one looks cuck/childish/on drugs/lazy/lifeless
Almost like nofap/daily fapping


sorry

[Tarath]

So this took four months and warrants another fantasia?

Removal of the philtrum and minor adjustments to the face scale texture that’s still misaligned?


Clearer screenshot of the scale texture under the spike

Meanwhile the face scales are still not attached to the face.

Though the gaps can only be seen from certain angles, it’s pretty easy to see how detached they can be in cutscenes as well.
Here are some more screenshots where the gap between the face and bottom spikes is seen. All are from the same cutscene along with the first image in this post.



Limbal rings have improved in my books. Overall they glow brighter especially where they would be more muted before. However they’re too dependent on the surrounding light which decides how much they will be glowing.

Same cutscene

They weren’t perfect before the graphics update and relied on light as well.. Yet they never disappeared or blended with the iris regardless of light source.

Pre DT screenshots

The portrait highlights how dependent they are on a light source to glow, which can lead to a jarring shift between dark and light shades.

One of the face spikes can be seen detached from the face here as well.

Additionally it doesn’t give off a glowing effect unless the directional light hits the entirety of the limbal ring.

Right click to enlarge image

Something I wished the graphic update would adjust was for the limbal rings to have a more independent glow, and I’m still hoping there will be adjustments for it in the future. Currently it is sort of on the right track for brighter colours, yet still too dependent on a light source.


In regards to the subsurface scattering on horns and tail, to me it felt like they slapped the shader on whatever they could get away with. Seeing that there’s none of it now, contrary to what the lodestone post stated, I actually prefer it this way. I wouldn’t mind some translucency as long as face scales on male Au Ra gets the same or a similar treatment, for the sake of consistency.




Overall the very few changes are a positive in my opinion, yet the lack of changes overwhelms me with disappointment. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was hoping for similar adjustments made between the first and second benchmark.

And it’s especially saddening to see that none of my bug reports have yet to be addressed. They might be considered minor since most of them are related to the face type I use, however I still can’t stand the uncanny blinking animation that’s still present.


I still miss his unkempt aggressive eyebrows and how the shape around the eyebrows used to be. Though the nose is pretty close to how it was, I do miss how thin and sharp it was. I miss his old stylized and somewhat goofy lips, the old scale texture and all of the previous expressions. Here’s hoping Square will still consider the previous given feedback.

[noumen0nn]

I've been talking to a lot of people in the past few days regarding the update, and something I've found is that the crowd of players who are generally unhappy with it is much, much bigger than what's represented by the forums. Maybe they weren't bothered enough to post here, or were able to get used to it, but out of everyone I've spoken to since Dawntrail dropped, almost no one was fully happy with their character after the graphics update. I know this is anecdotal, but by far the most common sentiment I've encountered is either total ambivalence, or some version of "It's weird but I got used to it."

I want Square Enix to be aware of how widespread this sentiment is. Social media would have you believe that the majority of players were actively happy about the update, and this simply isn't the case. I don't know what factors went into the 7.1 changes being so embarrassingly insubstantial, whether it was lack of time, or fear of changing things too much for those who are okay with the current state of things. But you need to make these adjustments a higher priority. You isolated a very large portion of your player base to varying degrees, for very little tangible gain. You owe it to us to do better. You owe it to us to be transparent about how this process is being handled. And most of all, you owe us an apology.

It is no secret that community sentiment surrounding FFXIV is at an all-time low in many areas. I hope you are not thinking that you can get away with relying on patience and good faith, because you have long since exhausted those. If you want players to stick around, it is past time that you start demonstrating that you actually care about our feedback.

[Reinha]

I've been talking to a lot of people in the past few days regarding the update, and something I've found is that the crowd of players who are generally unhappy with it is much, much bigger than what's represented by the forums. Maybe they weren't bothered enough to post here, or were able to get used to it, but out of everyone I've spoken to since Dawntrail dropped, almost no one was fully happy with their character after the graphics update.

It's like a mold that grows in your wall. No matter how many coats of paint you put over it, it's never going to be the same. You can pretend it's fine for months and enjoy the colors and then all it takes is one day going through your screenshots and seeing that familiar face again. Zooming in while playing you realise that what you have in front of you is not your character anymore.

And you're paying monthly to the people who deleted it.

[Daralii]

It's like a mold that grows in your wall. No matter how many coats of paint you put over it, it's never going to be the same. You can pretend it's fine for months and enjoy the colors and then all it takes is one day going through your screenshots and seeing that familiar face again. Zooming in while playing you realise that what you have in front of you is not your character anymore.

And you're paying monthly to the people who deleted it.

The money you pay them is then effectively set on fire.

[emecsek]

The limbal rings definitely feel more intense now on au ra. The color of the iris was already hard to see with limbal rings on in 7.0 with the increased pupil size, now it feels even worse. I considered them an important part of my character that I loved, but now I think I might just remove them for the time being.
None of my other issues were addressed in this update (like the mouth changes and the before mentioned pupil size). I want to hope they eventually will be, but I don't know anymore. ^^"

[mk-sein]

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.

As someone who plays a face 3 fem Au Ra, I agree. I specifically picked that face back when Au Ra were first released because I liked the smile, and I was hoping 7.1 would restore it but nope, girl is still sad. I don't want to change my character's face after nine years.

There's more issues with the mouth, too, and none of them were addressed. It's frustrating.