Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Astronis]

We have been patient for a year+, it'd be nice if we can actually get some sort of response from the management. At this point I just want to know if I should give up or if I should keep fighting.

There was a response before 7.1 was launched that explained several things they planned to address, as well as several things they explained they would not change. You can dig around in the news section of the Lodestone for it if you haven't seen it before--it describes some things they knew would take until 7.2 to address but nothing in it suggested they would be working on face models beyond that point. Most of what they said they'd address was quite subtle based on my reading, though I'm not sure if everything they listed has been addressed or not since they don't itemize these things. I know they've adjusted philtrums, some minor tweaks to lip appearances, subsurface scattering on au ra horns, the weird hair glow, how shadows are cast on faces, and some other details here and there. I don't know if they've done anything about jaw shapes, it wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to, and based on the news post it sounded like anything they did would be very subtle anyway. I don't expect that there would be another response from the devs beyond that, though anything's possible.

[faiarrow]

I think folks need to come to terms with no major changes are going to happen at this point and the graphical tweaks are not going to be ongoing forever. At some point, the dev team has to say enough is enough. I don't believe they will make a formal announcement either. The expectation they are going to just continue to rework the character models is unrealistic. Eventually, there needs to come acceptance.

I think that paying subscribers of the game shouldn't have to "just accept" crap all after the development team made promises they couldn't keep. CS3 have known that the update was a problem since the benchmark and have done the bare minimum to "fix" things when called out very publicly after months and months of assurance that they would be keeping the same impression (something they have failed, very clearly demonstrated and documented for over a year, across many of the races in the game.)

This is a point repeatedly brought up in the JP feedback as well so it's a shared sentiment across regions.

Complacency breeds complacency; Yoshida already said his teams were complacent, so I'm going to remain vocal until the developers actually ask us to stop providing the feedback they asked for.

[Gaddes]

I think folks need to come to terms with no major changes are going to happen at this point and the graphical tweaks are not going to be ongoing forever. At some point, the dev team has to say enough is enough.

"graphical tweaks are not going to be ongoing forever" ... as if they had been doing ANY significant graphical tweaks with regards to face this entire time?? My character looks the same in 7.2 as he did when Dawntrail launched, whatever they did change sure as hell didn't affect Elezens. How are they allowed to say "enough is enough" when they haven't even taken any noticeable steps to rectify their own alterations? And on top of that, they've BROKEN eyelids on ALL characters so that they don't follow the eye when characters look down... so it's fine for them to leave our characters in an objectively worse state than we had before?

Why is this just accepted by people? Just accept the slop and keep subbing without complaint? Devs should be ashamed at all of this; they've done nothing to address anyone's issues in a significant way, and there is absolutely no transparency on what they've even supposedly done. They should feel ashamed that the mobile game managed to do a better job of upscaling faces than their own internal dev team.

[Argantaelle]

There is a chance also that Mr Yoshida decides that all players dissatisfied with the character update have already left and there is no need to divert a valuable human resource from creating yet another mog station outfit. So even these small, minuscule corrections would stop.

I was right. No mentions of character face corrections were made during the second part of the LL. I assume these beautiful U-shaped smiles, dull eyes, straight-line and/or transparent eyebrows, triangle face shadows, and so on are totally normal and are the epitome of SE artists' diligence and SE management's respect for their long-term players.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

"graphical tweaks are not going to be ongoing forever" ... as if they had been doing ANY significant graphical tweaks with regards to face this entire time?? My character looks the same in 7.2 as he did when Dawntrail launched, whatever they did change sure as hell didn't affect Elezens[...]

Let's also not forget about the fact that even if they did change anything at all, they never bothered to make a list of said changes. For a dev who had once mentioned they cared about how their player perceives their own character, this is so sketchy to commit. There's really no telling whether it's not in their priority list (lmao cost reason??), or they're choosing silent changes in hoping for people to not notice anything at all then pretend everything's alright. Less work for them, amirite? :/

[lunartears]

Always a shame when I see new gear in the PLL that I like but my WoL's been replaced by an oily imposter for the past year.

[glitteringcosmos]

I'm not surprised it didn't come up at all in the PLL but I'm still disappointed. I don't know why I even bother getting my hopes up anymore. And the devs wonder why people turn to 3P solutions to fix the mistakes they make and refuse to address...

[Argantaelle]

According to this picture, SE won't bother fixing smiles:



What a beautiful smile the catgirl in the centre of the screenshot has!

[Minepa]

We have been patient for a year+, it'd be nice if we can actually get some sort of response from the management. At this point I just want to know if I should give up or if I should keep fighting.

I completely understand your frustration. Similar concerns have been raised repeatedly in the Japanese forums over this past year, but we've received absolutely no response from the development team. The community is exhausted - some have given up entirely, while others have moved to platforms like Note to voice their dissatisfaction. Even in the recent PLL, there was no mention whatsoever of addressing the graphics changes that were implemented after DT.　Many JP players have lost a faith in YoshiP.

[noumen0nn]

And on top of that, they've BROKEN eyelids on ALL characters so that they don't follow the eye when characters look down... so it's fine for them to leave our characters in an objectively worse state than we had before?

Speaking of this, are there any bug reports about this issue? I looked through several pages of Accepted/Confirmed/Working as Intended and didn't see any mentioning it. It's a serious issue and I can't believe it hasn't been addressed.