Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Alice_Rivers]

So I noticed the other day, a small difference with my own character, just because I went looking. I don't know if I mind it enough to use a fantasia given I didn't notice for the best part of a year.

6.56:


And 7.18:

[Liamont]

Someone sent me screenshots of our characters before the graphics update and I have to say that I really, really miss my character. Elezen male were not as hard hit as some others, but the small details being not the same make the face look so different. I haven't been able to watch cutscenes and think "yes, that looks like my character", instead it still feels like a new person six months later.

[Heavenchild]

Yeah I think the mouth changes are the biggest culprit for complaint with turning characters into wholly different people.

I still hope they give the original mouth shape back as an additional option. It's not okay to change the most characteristic feature of a face.

[glitteringcosmos]

Another live letter come and gone with more silence on this. It's incredibly frustrating.

[Jaltaer]

I still hope they give the original mouth shape back as an additional option. It's not okay to change the most characteristic feature of a face.

Agreed as a fellow Face 2, I still really just... don't like looking at my character anymore the way I used to and it's genuinely upsetting. Like yeah it's just pixels, but they're pixels I got invested in!
Also, man, honestly, looking at the gif you quoted... legitimately everything looks better in the 6.xx version, even the lighting. It's really tragic that this "upgrade" feels like it's only had the opposite effect for a very significant and vocal part of the playerbase.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Another live letter come and gone with more silence on this. It's incredibly frustrating.

It's just what I was expecting since 6.58. Probably enough people have stopped complaining by now and they take this moment of silence as an opportunity to sweep the issue under the rug. Fantasia? That was just a smokescreen.

Prove me wrong, SE. I wish...

[Iscah]

Again I was using alts to collect the seasonal outfit this week in the faith that I'll get to use them again, but it's just sad. Every single one of them. I hate the plasticky look of darker skin now and the shadows feel unnatural – I don't know how it's being calculated but it's like light is falling on the front of their face more strongly and then both sides are in shadow at once. I don't understand what's going on.

I really wonder if they got in a mess with responding to the first benchmark feedback where they were simultaneously telling us "the lighting issues are from the environment because we didn't update it" and "we're getting rid of the first benchmark's soft lighting on the characters because you asked for it" (despite that feedback being based on the lighting they told us wasn't right) and perhaps features that were designed to work with the soft lighting were not re-adjusted.

The radio silence on the matter is concerning after they made that post specifically saying they would work to fix things – up until now I've been willing to sit quiet and see what they produce from that promise, but as we get close to the promised date there is still no mention of it.

If I want to be very generous, I'll guess that maybe they hope they can slip it in quietly and the people who didn't notice/care about the first change won't care about this one either. But I'm certainly feeling more nervous the closer we get.

[EstelleCere]

Agreed as a fellow Face 2, I still really just... don't like looking at my character anymore the way I used to and it's genuinely upsetting. Like yeah it's just pixels, but they're pixels I got invested in!
Also, man, honestly, looking at the gif you quoted... legitimately everything looks better in the 6.xx version, even the lighting. It's really tragic that this "upgrade" feels like it's only had the opposite effect for a very significant and vocal part of the playerbase.

I remember posting in a few threads back when the benchmark came out, and as my main char is usually a face 2 au ra I have had since 2020 (I am just a miqo at the time of writing this lol) I still miss my old char's face. I genuinely think the lips getting changed to look back to how they used to would fix my gripes with it since everything else of the face looks more updated, but I doubt they will try to give back to the old lips (or face in general) they used to have.

I also have this same complaint with the lips for face 3 sun/moon female miqo. The lips now look like they have some weird creepy smile all the time, and not like how my miqo used to look. I am at a point where sometimes I don't even like looking at her in certain lighting because of how drastic the lip change feels, and she was my first ever char I made when I started the game back in 2019. It just sucks that they changed the chars after saying they would not change them drastically, because I know that me and many other people have gotten attached to our character over the years. I hope eventually they will fix it or make the lips at least look a little bit similar to the the ones before the DT update.

[Cherrizini]

I hope they fix viera's noses this patch. They promised we'd get it in 7.1 and no changes were made once 7.1 patch notes and patch dropped.

[Turnintino]

If I want to be very generous, I'll guess that maybe they hope they can slip it in quietly and the people who didn't notice/care about the first change won't care about this one either.

Based on the way they tried to publicly underplay the issue from the start, this is what I'm betting on. But I won't hold my breath.