Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[TheVegetable]

Oh absolutely. I feel like this time lips became smaller (back to pre dt sizes), but still far from good. I don't use any lipstick, but I can't stand the smile they gave to literally everyone. It could easily be made into a toggle idk. I just hope they either make new lip options or give us old lip shape back, but at this point I don't know if the devs are reliable enough

Agreed, 100%. I lost faith a while ago. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop bitching every patch until they fix it though, no matter how many expansions it takes.

[Leon-Valeren]

Despite all the complaints, very little changes has been done to miqo'te face 4. It is better than what we had at launch, but it's still has big glaring issues. Particularly with the eyes. The highlights are way too high, so you never see them on certain eye shapes and it makes character look dead inside.
Miqo'te face 4, no highlights are seen
Miqo'te face 1, looks fine, highlights are seen like they should be

Old problem's such as changed eye and lip shape (tho it did got better, but can't we really get rid of curved up lip corners??), making the expression look tired. it also conflicts with existing facial expressions, making them either too overly expressive 9sam problem was noted with m!aura face 1) and because mouth is still smiling, looks confusing with negative emotions like furrow (makes it look like he's smiling while being grumpy which doesn't make sense), there is no neutral emote anymore. Keeper's eye slight was also almost removed, it doesn't look as sharp and defined as it was pre-dt. New dawntrail eye textures also make colours look darker and it's not always fixable with fantasia

After an update skin looks grainy, it is especially noticeable on darker skin. It's also only present on the face, and ends around neck seam. It looks like what we had at last dt becnhmark, with sub-surface scattering looking weird, and giving character's slightly wax-like look

Thank you so much for writing this!!

all those points like i don't understand why they changed the face so drastically. Compared to other races that had more subtle changes i feel miqo'te especially have changed a lot.

Clearly hope they will rework the mouth somehow since it looks unnatural. Makes some cutscenes look silly with a smiling mouth while a serious cutscene plays.

Also miqo face 4 eyes 3 changed so badly... They look so dead and tired, no light in them like you mentioned and a strong shadow that hides eye colour even more. And seeker eye slit was changed to a more human form which takes away from the unique look it had before.

I just really hope they change it to be more like in endwalker since there aren't other options for serious looking eyes on that face so fantasia doesn't help.

[faiarrow]

Over a year of logging warcrimes honestly by the graphics team now ever since the femroe eye issue was brought up in October of 2023. Feels great. (Not.)





Sorry for the lighting being different in every single one of these. That tends to happen when the entire lighting engine is tweaked with every major patch as well as sub patch just about despite using the exact same saved camera and lighting settings in gpose.

7.2: we got our nose ash back! and thats it.

Face 2 specifically still has issues with:
Bulbous nose tip instead of a squarer shape like we used to have
Missing normal map for the eyebrows
Normal map for the lip literally being a ( shape

Femroe as a whole still have the issue of:
Our jewelled eyes are gone still, which is making a lot of expressions extremely awful because all smiling animations on femroe squint the eyes heavily. It didn't look bad before DT, but it's just offputting now.

I just want this with the eyes again CU3. It makes a massive difference.

[glitteringcosmos]

Also miqo face 4 eyes 3 changed so badly... They look so dead and tired, no light in them like you mentioned and a strong shadow that hides eye colour even more. And seeker eye slit was changed to a more human form which takes away from the unique look it had before.

I just really hope they change it to be more like in endwalker since there aren't other options for serious looking eyes on that face so fantasia doesn't help.

This has been and remains my main issue with this whole update. This is the combo I use for my character and he still looks so dead. I was afraid they wouldn't do anything about it because in the graphic update blog post they linked in the patch notes, they asked us to consider the eyes highlight "spec", and I hate that I was right about them not doing anything about it. I submitted a bug report months ago that was moved to accepted bugs but they still, STILL haven't done anything about it. It's so upsetting and I'm genuinely mad at the developers for this. I've tried to give them grace about a lot of my grievances about dawntrail, but destroying our characters is beyond the pale. I would even have given them a pass about ruining the pupil if only they'd give him some life back in his eyes, but they couldn't even manage that.

[FateweaverAlpha]

Might post images later but the only noticeable change I saw for my guy was an emote change. Narrower eyes for the Annoyed Emote he uses on all his portraits. The eyes themselves don't seem to have changed, nor anything else for that matter.
Completely disheartened... I so hoped they'd care and actually give us some noticeable changes but that was just hopium I guess. UnU

[Anarnee]

JP thread is full of a lot of the same stuff we have here, mostly seems like people are seeing no changes, but I think my favorite thing is how they seem to have effed the scene in Kholusia with the Exarch... One of the most important bits (In my opinion) in ShB with him.

I did spy one lala post about a fixed expression (however they note that nothing else is changed about the face, it's the same face I use for my Lala alt so I'm glad something was fixed...

私は要望したこと殆ど直っていませんでしたが、唯一直っていたのがララフェルのこの表情。

これができなくて寂しかったのですが、7.2で返り咲きました。ありがとうございます。

ですが、過去に要望した殆どが修正されておりません、相変わらず受け口のままだし、ヒューランも元の顔とはほど遠いです。
7.2では7.1ではできなかった口周りということだったので期待していただけにショックが大きいです。
引き続き修正はしてくれるのでしょうか･･･？はたまたもうこのままなのでしょうか？

[Metool42]

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ace-2-Eyebrows

This has been an issue since Dawntrail benchmark. How has this not been remotely adressed? I do not understand.

[Joralia]

I am not going to make more screenshot comparisons. I am seeing the exact same issues on my female Au Ra face 1's mouth shape... and the exact same softened, rounded eyes on my best friend's face 2 Miqo'te. I am much too tired of being ignored to make yet another graphic showing the same issues to the same devs who promised the same faces and never delivered. Disappointing.

[glitteringcosmos]

This has been and remains my main issue with this whole update. This is the combo I use for my character and he still looks so dead. I was afraid they wouldn't do anything about it because in the graphic update blog post they linked in the patch notes, they asked us to consider the eyes highlight "spec", and I hate that I was right about them not doing anything about it. I submitted a bug report months ago that was moved to accepted bugs but they still, STILL haven't done anything about it. It's so upsetting and I'm genuinely mad at the developers for this. I've tried to give them grace about a lot of my grievances about dawntrail, but destroying our characters is beyond the pale. I would even have given them a pass about ruining the pupil if only they'd give him some life back in his eyes, but they couldn't even manage that.

i mean, seriously. it is UNACCEPTABLE that only 2 of the 6 total options available for eye shape have eyeshine highlights that are not partially or fully obscured.

[red_fang]

Requesting a toggle or an option for the pre-7.2 face texture of Hellsguard Roegadyn without the darker smudge or ash mark, the Dawntrail skin made before this current patch.

While it's great that some of the Roes that wanted it got what they've been asking for, I liked the look before 7.2 and now I'm stuck with something I didn't want to begin with. After 9 months of happily playing with the updated face, I feel like it's unreasonable to have this forced in this manner instead of having an option for the mark as it's a noticeable change. Since the work is already done the old skin texture could be put in facial features as a toggle, which is all I'm asking for and not a reversion of the work already done in this patch.