Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Doopliss]

[Cut due to post length]

I don't really have much to say to this because we clearly disagree, but nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody on either side here, knows what the majority does and doesn't want. Everyone's pool of experiences is different, and for as many people suffering in silence for the reasons you claim, there are also likely as many suffering in silence with issues brought upon from this graphic update because this forum is a cesspit and people continue to try to dismiss them as "nitpicky".

Regardless, the development team wanting to "define(?)" things more or change up the art direction isn't an excuse. They set the standards for expectations themselves on and on again and failed to meet them. That is their fault, and, yeah, they deserve the repercussions for it.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

The adaptive lighting based on your environment for the limbal rings in 7.0 was a cool change as was the light refracting through the horns for Au Ra. You may not be able to take it in good faith that there are many things people HATED and complained about for 7.0 that others liked and potentially loved, but like me, there are people who weren't completely averse to the idea of these things changing or becoming more defined or simply being different.

There are genuine issues with the graphical update; some of which you mentioned, but a lot of the smaller, nitpicky things should have been chalked up to the dev team wanting to define things more and accepted more openly, rather than immediately being vilified and treated like any small change labels the team as the absolute spawn of satan for daring to even touch our characters.

These are reasonable arguments, but when the first and last thing that was said by Yoshida about the graphical update before 7.0 released is "the absolute premise is to preserve the image of the character as much as possible", this sets certain expectations, namely that existing features will not drastically change or look too different from how they used to be.
You want to give Au ra translucent horns? You want to give them larger pupils? You want limbal rings to glow a certain way? Cool, no problem. But add them as extra options, not by overwriting what already exists.
It stings even more when stuff like limbal rings and horns being affected by light were only in the benchmark, just a few months before release. Or when Yoshida said in January last year "don't worry, if you like the old limbal rings, you'll still be able to get the same effect" because people were already concerned and divided about the drastic change in October 2023, and uh, we still don't know what he meant by that, because that certainly hasn't been true.

Personally, I just wanted the same character with a bit more polygons here and a little extra pixels there. Because that's what was announced at the beginning. But that's not what I got.

People have differing opinions and can, in fact, like something that others don't.
That's been the issue with the character graphics update as a whole.

There's too many opinions and too many ideas for what "looks" good to individual people.

Which is exactly why the real issue of the graphical update is that the dev team did not take that into account in the first place.
They told us they'd be very careful about preserving the image of the character, precisely because they were anticipating that people would be upset if things changed too much because they are extremely attached to their characters, but then they didn't manage to deliver on that front and instead arbitrarily changed things on the fly, and created this rift between players instead.

The current situation, at its core, is the result of mistakes in the planning (dare I say scheduling), direction, execution, and communication around the graphical update.

[noumen0nn]

They told us they'd be very careful about preserving the image of the character, precisely because they were anticipating that people would be upset if things changed too much because they are extremely attached to their characters, but then they didn't manage to deliver on that front and instead arbitrarily changed things on the fly, and created this rift between players instead.

The current situation, at its core, is the result of mistakes in the planning (dare I say scheduling), direction, execution, and communication around the graphical update.

This is exactly what makes me so angry at the few changes we have seen. All they've done is adjust some normal maps here and there or tiny little details like makeup; it's not NEARLY enough for those of us who have demonstrated glaring dissimilarities between our new and old looks, but it is JUST enough to piss off some people who liked the new look.

[localareanetwork]

Fem Miqo eye 3 needs to be more angular still.

[Sairaag]

Looks like I forgot to remove the eyeshadow before taking the 7.1 screenshot, but other than that, where are the differences that necessitated issuing another free fantasia? It's been almost a full year since the first benchmark and the start of player feedback, and they still put up this much resistance against making the slightest of changes towards restoring face 1. Why is it so much to ask to at the very least have the eyebrows back to what they were? They were sparse to begin with, there was no reason to nerf them to this state. Looking at feedback from other Miqo'te players, though, they seem to have something against Miqo'te eyebrows in general.

Anyway, I'm too annoyed to write about the same details once again right now, but I think I'll try to redraw this face later to properly show what I mean.

[Aco505]

Why is it so much to ask to at the very least have the eyebrows back to what they were? They were sparse to begin with, there was no reason to nerf them to this state. Looking at feedback from other Miqo'te players, though, they seem to have something against Miqo'te eyebrows in general.

We're in dire need of an eyebrow thickness option separate from the eyebrow shape one.

[Hatsuoki]

I wouldn't have minded the speed of 3 NPC updated per major patch if it meant it was done right for everyone. Going through everything again for the male midlander face 6, I retract my earlier statement about possible eyebrow changes and haven't been able to find any changes other than the eyelid bug(?) I would really appreciate it if they could make a list of what they *did* change because I don't understand the lack of communication. They spent so much time talking about the polygons during live letters and now that it's live, it's silence. It's negligence. The grasses will get sliders but the important parts don't? This behavoir is so unlike them that I feel let down over and over.

[Gaddes]

They're just never going to touch the mouths, are they?
I've come to terms with the eyebrows still looking the same since 7.0...


but it really sucks just how different the mouth is and I feel like because it's an Elezen (and particularly a mouth type that isn't usually found on important Elezen NPCs) they really just won't do anything about it.


Did they specifically say this is the last time they're doing any face adjustments?

They also broke the scar on one of the eyebrow types... the other eyebrows have a straight scar, and type 6 has a ridiculous bump to it that the others don't...

[Liyinabi]

Fem Miqo eye 3 needs to be more angular still.

I think they mistook people wanting a more angular eye 3 on face 1/2/3 and gave face 4 all of the angles instead.

This patch, they changed face 4 eye 3's polygons on the inside of the upper eyelid to look cartoonishly boxy when viewed from an angle, to the point where the two eyes look mismatched because the outer part of the model retained its old smooth look. I think this is due to them inadvertently thickening that part of the eyelid when trying to make the upper part of the eye more angular when viewed from the front, leading to a bit of a derpy/uncanny side angle.

It looks like an error and I hope it is, because this has led to my miqo getting her pre-DT dead stare back. I can see the original intent/vision when viewing the character from the front, but the side view is where you notice that the eyelid is super thick and distorting the eyelash placement, and therefore the percieved eye shape.



I can't even look at her for too long now because of how derpy she looks, and the smoother eye shape is why I picked eye 3 to begin with. I'm even less of a fan of any of the alternative eye shapes, so I'm kind of just stuck with it until they make changes, if they do. Please roll back face 4 eye 3 and give all of those angles to the other faces' eye 3s instead.

[LuciaMirain]

Sorry for rant:
I think I would actually be happy if they fixed the mouths. Then I could ignore the ugly, lumpy eyelashes, the thinning eyebrows and the weird shadows on the nose that has completely removed any semblance of previous shape on my viera. The mouth is the worst though, the nose I could handle in gpose and try and direct the light in a way that it gives the correct shadows. But the mouth is so awful and plump that the only expression that works is /ponder. My character used to /beam but that is unusable now due to the weird banana shape that happens.

They shouldve just said that they were doing a graphical update and that some characters would probably change alot but here is a free fantasia and then just left it at that. The problem from the start has been that they said that we would put in work to make our characters not change too much and then that fell through so hard. Some races and faces got an obvious upgrade. And that is sort of what kills it for me. For viera females face 1 and 2 look the same if not BETTER than before. Face 3 and 4 are wrecked compared to before. Face 3 used to be the babyface, the sweet bunny with a small pouty mouth and now some of the options look like lalamouths. It is weird to see. Face four got so much filler that they look ridic, not to mention if you start comparing mouths between the faces the QUALITY of detail is so obvious. Face 1 has better quality overall in the textures. It is like they ran out of fuel halfway through the faces and slapped a "good enough" on 3 and 4.