Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[TheDustyOne]

Sure, u're right. But I prefer to see things from a more objective viewpoint than a personal one. Since it's an overall graphics update.
Maybe some peeps feeling "my character's gone, welp", other feeling improvement with it.
But still, u need to see it as a whole.

You say to see it as a whole, but you're not seeing that game art is still art, which has a lot of subjectivity involved.

If I was to open up Unreal Engine or Unity Engine, go to an asset marketplace and slap together a level with a mishmash of high quality models and materials, sure my game would be objectively superior graphically, but artistically it would be a mess of mismatched assets.

The graphics update brought in some nice features, but the change in how we perceive our characters ultimately makes a lot of those nice features matter less when the end result is artistically not what was expected. The natural expressions of some characters have changed, and that alone can trick us into seeing them as separate characters (or as a look-alike, not the same character regardless). Having more bones in facial expressions doesn't matter if the expressions look uncanny. Higher resolution textures doesn't matter if some details were "smoothed over" like with the female Roegaedyn eyebrows. Having realistic eye shines doesn't matter if my character looks dead inside.

Meanwhile a game like Wind Waker from the early 2000s can still look good because it uses its limited graphical capabilities to create a visually appealing style. Some may not like that style, but that's ultimately the subjectivity at play here; there are people that hate more realistic styles in games and some that hate overly cartoony styles. People have preferences and so just because something is graphically superior, doesn't make it an improvement.

[Loggos]

Sure, u're right. But I prefer to see things from a more objective viewpoint than a personal one. Since it's an overall graphics update.
Maybe some peeps feeling "my character's gone, welp", other feeling improvement with it.
But still, u need to see it as a whole.

But that's the thing. Your opinion is not objective. And it's a bit funny that you position yourself as the one looking at it objectively without noticing/acknowledging your own subjectivity bias.
Also, only because it's an update in name doesn't mean it actually improved things. In fact, if you look at feedback across all areas (not just faces) many people point out problems (e.g. Au Ra scales on hands leaving weird patches) and changes many deem undesirable (differences in enviromental lighting and rendering that completely change cutscenes or the atmosphere of places (see the previous example of Halone's cave).)
The graphical update as a whole is riddled with inconsistencies.

Meanwhile a game like Wind Waker from the early 2000s can still look good because it uses its limited graphical capabilities to create a visually appealing style. Some may not like that style, but that's ultimately the subjectivity at play here; there are people that hate more realistic styles in games and some that hate overly cartoony styles. People have preferences and so just because something is graphically superior, doesn't make it an improvement.

This is so important because appealing graphics are not just about the resolution of details but also about internal consistency. I'm at a point where I actually think Genshin or Star Rail look much better (to me) than FF14 even though they have cartoony/anime-ish styles.
But if you look at them as a whole their visuals are consistent and their parts harmonise with each other.
Genshin's environment in particular I currently enjoy much more than FF14's. Even though its level of details/rendering and its colourfulness are much more on the non-realistic side its artistic style/vision makes me feel much more immersed and elicits a desire to actually explore/look at the world whereas in FF14 it's mostly window-dressing for me at the moment. :/
But that too is entirely subjective based on my personal reception of the art style and another person might not feel anything at all looking at Genshin's visuals.

[Sairaag]

So many people in the English part of the fandom insist that "it's more realistic now, so it's better!" For example, I was very surprised to see how many people celebrated the loss of the eye catchlights as they were "unrealistic" or whatever, because to me they were a very appealing part of the animesque art style. I'm not arguing with people who like their own characters more without them, but now that they're gone, it turns out that for my male Miqo'te they were an important part of his look and energy. A toggle would've been nice. What's suddenly so wrong with looking like a semi-realistic anime character in this game, anyway? It feels like the graphics update emboldened a part of the fandom that had issues with the old art style rather than being drawn to it. I've even seen people in places like Reddit defend the update because "it's not realistic to look good all the time", seriously. We can't look good from all angles and at all times in our power fantasy game with a dress-up endgame now? I can't even remember the last time I opened Gpose, that's how realistic it feels.

But recently I've also seen a lot of people express their preference for the old graphics in general, not just the character models, and I agree and miss them very much. It's not that I'm seriously expecting SE to offer this, but if we did have the option to switch back, I'd take that without hesitation. And having said that, the new graphics still wouldn't be quite this unappealing to me if the character models had at least remained the same. I complain because I worry for my main. Having seen the list of changes in 7.1, male Miqo'te really didn't get anything. From what I've read, SE sees no problem with the many issues that all Miqo'te eyebrows seem to have right now, so I feel like they're not going to do anything about those. They've been quite reluctant to return to original mouth shapes. No hints as to whether they're going to do anything about the droopy eyes. My character went from having a gorgeous face (just needed slightly thicker eyebrow options to be 10/10) to someone who needs very specific angles and lighting conditions to have a fraction of his old looks back. That's... a bit too close to real life, I think.

[Daralii]

So many people in the English part of the fandom insist that "it's more realistic now, so it's better!" For example, I was very surprised to see how many people celebrated the loss of the eye catchlights as they were "unrealistic" or whatever, because to me they were a very appealing part of the animesque art style. I'm not arguing with people who like their own characters more without them, but now that they're gone, it turns out that for my male Miqo'te they were an important part of his look and energy. A toggle would've been nice. What's suddenly so wrong with looking like a semi-realistic anime character in this game, anyway? It feels like the graphics update emboldened a part of the fandom that had issues with the old art style rather than being drawn to it. I've even seen people in places like Reddit defend the update because "it's not realistic to look good all the time", seriously. We can't look good from all angles and at all times in our power fantasy game with a dress-up endgame now? I can't even remember the last time I opened Gpose, that's how realistic it feels.

But recently I've also seen a lot of people express their preference for the old graphics in general, not just the character models, and I agree and miss them very much. It's not that I'm seriously expecting SE to offer this, but if we did have the option to switch back, I'd take that without hesitation. And having said that, the new graphics still wouldn't be quite this unappealing to me if the character models had at least remained the same. I complain because I worry for my main. Having seen the list of changes in 7.1, male Miqo'te really didn't get anything. From what I've read, SE sees no problem with the many issues that all Miqo'te eyebrows seem to have right now, so I feel like they're not going to do anything about those. They've been quite reluctant to return to original mouth shapes. No hints as to whether they're going to do anything about the droopy eyes. My character went from having a gorgeous face (just needed slightly thicker eyebrow options to be 10/10) to someone who needs very specific angles and lighting conditions to have a fraction of his old looks back. That's... a bit too close to real life, I think.

There's also no consistency. They were seemingly angling for realism with the eyes and the area around them(it's the only explanation I can come up with for the number of pronounced skin folds on some faces), but the rest of the face is still stylized, just more homogenous. If you look at a place like Idyllshire, you have attempts at realistic weathered brass or bronze next to stylized wood and stonework.

[CidHeiral]

So many people in the English part of the fandom insist that "it's more realistic now, so it's better!" For example, I was very surprised to see how many people celebrated the loss of the eye catchlights as they were "unrealistic" or whatever, because to me they were a very appealing part of the animesque art style.

I think this is a large part of why there's such a disconnect between people who love the update and people who don't. Some people view the update as the same art style but better while others view it has as a massive deviation from the established art style.

Looking at the eyes specifically, the old catchlights were painted on due to technical limitations at the time. If the devs could have done the catchlights we have now at that time they probably would have. Some may say if that's what people have gotten used to for ten years then that is art style and it shouldn't change. Others may argue that decisions made from technical limitations shouldn't lock the devs into a particular look forever. I don't think either view is necessarily incorrect, but those two viewpoints colliding is where you're seeing a lot of disagreements between players.

Personally, I thought the old eyes were lifeless and vacant. I always disliked how every character standing around a city or wherever always looked like O_O as if they just got back from war. The new eyes still look plenty stylized to me, they just have a depth and life to them now that the old ones didn't, in my opinion. As Loggos has been saying though it's all subjective at the end of the day.

[Iscah]

Looking at the eyes specifically, the old catchlights were painted on due to technical limitations at the time.

They weren't really "painted on", though. They moved with the camera, it just wasn't reflecting a real light.

Now they've had to set up real fake lights just to ensure that the eyes have a light they can reflect and it's changing the colour temperature of the light, like my Duskwight I posted earlier, or this daylight shot of my Miqo'te.

It's also probably the base cause of the over-lit MSQ cutscenes people have previously posted screenshots of, and I assume is the reason for those reflected "spotlights from nowhere" you can see constantly reflected on floors now.

The old system worked and was sufficiently convincing as it was. The new system has to jump through hoops to ensure catchlights happen, and makes other parts of the game look worse in the process.

[CuteBucket]

They weren't really "painted on", though. They moved with the camera, it just wasn't reflecting a real light.

Now they've had to set up real fake lights just to ensure that the eyes have a light they can reflect and it's changing the colour temperature of the light, like my Duskwight I posted earlier, or this daylight shot of my Miqo'te.

It's also probably the base cause of the over-lit MSQ cutscenes people have previously posted screenshots of, and I assume is the reason for those reflected "spotlights from nowhere" you can see constantly reflected on floors now.

The old system worked and was sufficiently convincing as it was. The new system has to jump through hoops to ensure catchlights happen, and makes other parts of the game look worse in the process.

And even with all that, eyes STILL look dead and lifeless in 7.x to me. The old eye textures were just better. What did this "realistic" update actually give us that didn't also take 2 or 3 other things away in the process?

[lunartears]

So many people in the English part of the fandom insist that "it's more realistic now, so it's better!" For example, I was very surprised to see how many people celebrated the loss of the eye catchlights as they were "unrealistic" or whatever, because to me they were a very appealing part of the animesque art style. I'm not arguing with people who like their own characters more without them, but now that they're gone, it turns out that for my male Miqo'te they were an important part of his look and energy. A toggle would've been nice. What's suddenly so wrong with looking like a semi-realistic anime character in this game, anyway? It feels like the graphics update emboldened a part of the fandom that had issues with the old art style rather than being drawn to it. I've even seen people in places like Reddit defend the update because "it's not realistic to look good all the time", seriously. We can't look good from all angles and at all times in our power fantasy game with a dress-up endgame now? I can't even remember the last time I opened Gpose, that's how realistic it feels.

I feel like when older video games had limitations it gave developers more room to innovate creatively, so when you strip those technical limitations away you risk losing a lot of that. I feel like this is what happened to FF14. I guess you could say the graphics update is similar to when a video game gets a remake (just on a smaller scale). The split between those that like the new and those that prefer the old is akin to that, but because this is an MMO there's not really an easy way to please both sides whereas with a remake you still have the option to go and play the original game (to varying levels of accessibility, of course).

I'm definitely one of those people that feels like the artistic integrity of this game got lost with the graphics update. I suppose it's the "anime esque art style", the way the game would embody the official art book content and feel like an illustration rather than being realistic. I really liked that.

[Iscah]

I guess you could say the graphics update is similar to when a video game gets a remake (just on a smaller scale). The split between those that like the new and those that prefer the old is akin to that, but because this is an MMO there's not really an easy way to please both sides whereas with a remake you still have the option to go and play the original game (to varying levels of accessibility, of course).

It is definitely giving me flashbacks to the Shadow of the Colossus PS4 remake (the original is a PS2 game). More detailed world but they made it too busy and some questionable texture choices, and the protagonist looked horrendous. I've been meaning to mention it for a while, particularly since I saw this Reddit post comparing SotC Wander in PS2 to PS4 and it feels like the same mistakes (with even worse remodelling) – going from stylised somewhat-anime appearance that made it work well with the original limited technology, to a sort of exaggerated 3Dness, heavy shadows and dead eyes. Also this one of Mono (new version on top, also spoilers) who is less outright bad but, as I noted there, has some of the same issues that FFXIV new models have – including the oddly specific change to the shape of her eyes when closed. (Back in FFXIV, it's one of the many things that has been bugging me since the update – the lower eyelid moves upwards more and the eyes feel scrunched inwards rather than resting gently closed.)


I do feel like we should be able to have a version of the game that runs the old graphics, though. The information being sent from one player to another is just simple "character has features X, Y and Z" and that gets translated into graphics by the individual computer. That's how modders can have their customised graphics, so couldn't they do the same thing with an official version of the program that has the old graphics still loaded?

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

Personally, I thought the old eyes were lifeless and vacant. I always disliked how every character standing around a city or wherever always looked like O_O as if they just got back from war. The new eyes still look plenty stylized to me, they just have a depth and life to them now that the old ones didn't, in my opinion.

So... what exactly made them look lifeless to you? Because this is more or less how I would describe the new eyes, ironically (the war PTSD analogy is even more appropriate now that their eyes are constantly slightly shaking...).
Even in full daylight, depending on the character the highlights are sometimes not displayed "correctly" or not at all, and it looks very much like a common anime trope that is synonymous with "lifelessness".