Updated benchmark

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

From Lodestone:

As always, we will remain open to feedback even after the updated benchmark update and Dawntrail have been released, and will also continue to address any issues or necessary adjustments in future patches!

Obviously these ambiguous words are up for interpretation, and it is a lot more likely that by that they indeed mean "bugs only" rather than anything else.
On the other hand, though, both on the JP forums and the EN forums, people have been converting some of their feedback as bug reports, and while some have not been accepted, others have.
(this does not necessarily mean that something will be done about it, but at least it's being properly looked into)
So it is likely that some things will indeed change past 7.0. But to which extent remains to be seen.

(IF you plan to submit a bug report: follow the guidelines, check if what you want to report has already been submitted, only report objective facts and not personal feelings, be as specific as possible, if you have issues with eg eyes and mouth split it into 2 separate reports)

I'm still waiting for your pictures Plushy!
You would sound approximately 10 times more convincing with them instead of dodging the subject and arguing with everyone!
Just saying!

[Plushy]

I'm still waiting for your pictures Plushy!
You would sound approximately 10 times more convincing with them instead of dodging the subject and arguing with everyone!
Just saying!

Fine Fine, with only 8 days until early access might as well. This is my first time posting pictures on the fourms so forgive if its out of order.
Top - Dawntrail/Endwalker - Bottom
Top - Dawntrail/Endwalker - Bottom

So what I like about the dawntrail version is just how much more alive she looks and quite frankly just way cuter rather than looking like she just came from a 10 hour shift/sick of dealing with everybody problems.
The bigger pupils (Which is quite honestly my favorite part but I think I made that clear) adds cuteness, basically you know when a cats eyes get all round and big and they just look oh so adorable? yeah that's what happened to au ra.
Au ra's already having large iris, their older smaller pupils just didn't balance well imo. After seeing how au ra's look with a more evenly balance pupil to iris ratio it looks way better and seeing it makes me like my au ra more.
Then we have the limbal rings which blend in with the eyes more naturally, some people liked the ultra bright LED's but I personally like the more muted colors in the day time and love when they just glow during the night, to wrap it up...the eyes of the au ra is a HUGE improvement over the 6.58. It looks amazing.

Of course the scales and horns look better, for raen even more since their scales are actually white instead of that cream, bone yellow color they had.(Talking about females).
Basically everything about the new au ra is better than the older version. To me....just looking at my au ra...I just don't see how someone could say the 6.58 looks better (imo).
The face also looks less flat and the lip gloss doesn't look like plastic.

Just a little proof I'm actually an au ra and I didn't just create it for the sake of defending a race I don't even play because I like it now. I've always been an au ra and I look forward to playing it in dawntrail.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

Cool, thanks!

Yeah I'd say in your case the eyes do look like an improvement overall, I see what you were going for with them.
(this does not automatically invalidate everyone else's feedback though, just to be clear!)

However, since we're using the same face, I'm noticing the same change in expression. If you pay attention to the corner of the lips, the shadow in your Endwalker screenshots is going slightly upwards, whereas in Dawntrail it goes slightly downwards.
It is a small change, but to me, especially with Face 1 who looks relatively stoic compared to the other faces, this makes her go from "slightly happy, just chilling" to "slightly worried, something bad is about to happen", and even if that reflects my current mood very well, I'd rather not have her look like that in cutscenes where she has no specific facial animation.
(ironically, to me the change does make her look like "she just came from a 10 hour shift/sick of dealing with everybody problems")
I don't know if this is something you've noticed as well, or something you care about at all, but I still want to point it out just in case.

I also don't know which eyebrows you're using, but if you ever plan to change hairstyles (even if right now you think "no, never" there is still a chance they'll add more hairstyles) it might be worth comparing the eyebrows as well.
For me the change in Eyebrows 1 (the part the closest to the forehead scale is slightly raised) added to that worried expression, and this didn't show with some hairstyles, but since I'll be using the one I have on my lodestone profile right now, it's a problem for me.

Anyway, overall, besides the pupil size which you really care about (which really should be an option because opinions are very divided on that!), I don't think any of the grievances people have brought up would go against anything you like about the changes?

So I'm not really sure I understand why you've been so dismissive and antagonistic with everyone's feedback? (especially for someone who first replied to me saying "I also don't like arguing in general"......)

You like your new limbal rings, cool, the color and overall impression doesn't seem to have changed that much in your case. They changed a lot in mine though, that's my problem!

[Plushy]

Anyway, overall, besides the pupil size which you really care about (which really should be an option because opinions are very divided on that!), I don't think any of the grievances people have brought up would go against anything you like about the changes?

So I'm not really sure I understand why you've been so dismissive and antagonistic with everyone's feedback? (especially for someone who first replied to me saying "I also don't like arguing in general"......)

You like your new limbal rings, cool, the color and overall impression doesn't seem to have changed that much in your case. They changed a lot in mine though, that's my problem!

Honestly...I truly wouldn't have ever posted if I didn't see so many people complaining about the main thing that I like.
Usually it was always mixed in with other complaints so it was always hard to tell what people were even agreeing with as it was never just singled out which made me think people probably didn't hate it as much as they hate the lips because it was either lips + other things or its just only the lips. Wasn't sure if they were liking the post because of the different lips? scales? eyebrows? or eyes?

I want to say it was even worst in the JP side because even though it was very quite obviously only the face 4 just wanting EVERYTHING reverted they still included the change I liked and they were extremely detailed >.> (which chain reacted to making NA/EU people doing the same thing) which made me look on different SNS to prove people like au ra and since au ra's didn't change much from 1.0 to 1.1 it kinda proved my point SE saw people liked the au ra but even with yoshi-p words; I think people saying things can still change because yoshi-p words was pretty ambiguous(because he said things like bulk of the changes) so some light changes could still be adjusted so I again went digging for positive feedback for au ra's to show people love it like me.
Since you're never going to see much positive feedback here since the forums is usually negative feedback and as I said before; People that are happy don't have a need to say they're happy, only people that are unhappy will speak up.

I've been pretty defensive in defending the new au ra because people keep trying to revert things and change it before I even got a change to even play it.
If people were asking for options I wouldn't have cared personally but people ask for reversions and these reversions (imo-in my opinion) I think are ugly....comparatively(in my case I'm talking about the eyes, not lips or anything else). Like after seeing au ra new eyes I just personally can't understand how someone could like the old over the new.
Yeah I don't like to argue but I'm sure you're aware everytime I said anything, someone replied back to me trying to either dismiss me or put words in my mouth which made me reply back. I even got called a trolled for some reason which made me upset, all because I'm defending the new au ra and trying to show proof by posting X/Reddit posts.
Either way...DT is almost here I don't think I have anything left to prove my case about au ra's. I finally posted my pics and explain what I liked along with the links in my other post. The final decision is SE and If you felt I was rude to you "Es tut mir leid" I apologize.
If anything changes (because I saw the problem you had got accepted in the jp bug submit) gratz! and if it doesn't hope you can still enjoy dawntrail.

[plasmacutter]

I noticed a change in the skin textures.

For hyur it was an improvement.
My lalafell imported into it feels like it lost the feminine features in her face, and the skin looks waxy.

Minor gripes to be sure, but I'm registering them here.

I'm noticing the same change in expression. If you pay attention to the corner of the lips, the shadow in your Endwalker screenshots is going slightly upwards, whereas in Dawntrail it goes slightly downwards.
It is a small change, but to me, especially with Face 1 who looks relatively stoic compared to the other faces, this makes her go from "slightly happy, just chilling" to "slightly worried, something bad is about to happen"

Agreed on this.
Seeing it on my Lala too, like a bit of warmth has been sucked from the face.

(updated: I've filed in the bug report regarding this for lalafell)




Here's where the lips are casting shadows. The downward frown on the lips is even more pronounced:

[plasmacutter]

Found more Lalafell defects:

This character uses the same face, eyes, and jaw as Tataru Taru.
The catlike features disappear in the Benchmark 1.1 due to exaggerated eyelid arc and shorter outer edge in the Benchmark version.

This will cause Tataru's face to not match her caracter as much.. uugh




specs:

Lalafell
Female
Dunesfolk
Skin Color RGB 205,159,130
Height 77
Face 3
Eye Shape 3
Iris Size Large
Jaw 2
Nose 1
Mouth 2
Lip Color: RGB 184,86,77 (dark)
Face Paint Color: 215,160,120 (light)

[Evermomo]

For me, the large pupil is a problem because the limbal rings cover the brightest part of the eye texture. Now the texture around the pupil is dark. So if you want a bright iris color like yellow, the best you can get is a greyish color, which makes her eyes look brown instead. So every eye color has become significantly darker, which is unfortunate.

I'm guessing that's why the old texture was designed the way it was. But nearly everybody uses the same texture now, except for lalafell, cats, one of the viera clans, and for some reason male roe face 2. I like the graphical update, and I'm okay with subtle changes when things are made more high-res, but I don't think the uniqueness between races & clans should go away. Entire assets getting overwritten or removed is kind of a bummer.

As for the cuteness, mooncats should be cute. Au Ra should be lizards, and I love the aloofness that comes with a pinned, bird-of-prey pupil. But that's just like, my opinion, man.

[Plushy]

For me, the large pupil is a problem because the limbal rings cover the brightest part of the eye texture. Now the texture around the pupil is dark. So if you want a bright iris color like yellow, the best you can get is a greyish color, which makes her eyes look brown instead. So every eye color has become significantly darker, which is unfortunate.

?
You have to purposely TRY to mask the iris by picking certain colors and that's kinda always been the case with using limbal rings but even with doing that, you can see the iris fine...also....au ra's are cute by default.
They're literally 5'2 - 4'9 dragon girls with cutey emotes.
Heck...one of their retainers acts like a tsundere and type 4 au ra is the most anime looking design out the whole game with their really sharp unnatural eye shape.
I couldn't find the concept art design philosophy but female au ra's were created to be cute basically, because they saw how popular miqo'te was so they made female au ra cute and petite while being mysterious which is why they have a hint of shyness/reservedness in a lot of their emotes (heck even their walk animation is like a little princess walk with how they're bending their wrist a bit and clenched fingers to appear more dainty) So to try to think au ra are not cute (or not as cute as miqo'te) naturally is simply not true if you ACTUALLY play au ra because all their animations makes it clear. Compare it to something like viera, femhorth, highlander and elezen animations its obvious what they were going for with female au ra.

Look how the female raen model is standing next to the more opposing male au ra, the female au ra is giving off a sense of cuteness and gentleness.

also
here are the endwalker versions


Sure you can see the iris bit more it but that's because the limbal rings in the old version is super skinny + smaller pupils and the limbal rings in the old version doesn't blend with the iris as well (like limbal rings are actually suppose to do.) Look at the black and see how it just looks someone just placed someone on her eye instead of looking like a natural part of it.

In the end its a preference but I think its disingenuous to say you can't see the iris due to the bigger pupil and using that reason to try to get something changed when its not true at all. You can see the iris fine.

[Iscah]

I admit I've been tending to forget about the benchmark trailer itself, being basically six minutes of explosions and random NPCs to get a few glimpses of your character in action, but having looked at it I'm basically even more confused as to why my character looks so ill and dead-eyed in the basic resting pose.

The images below are both from the benchmark and yet don't look like they're using the same settings. It's no good for the character to only be looking pretty in cutscenes or when emoting. The resting face is super important because that's what the character is going to look like during gameplay and in basic conversations.



I also did a comparison of the face expressions in the benchmark to the current game:



Now, to be clear, in some of these screenshots she does look really pretty in the new version and it's possible that I haven't picked the right emotes to match every expression. But overall I am still concerned because I can see how every expression has narrower eyes and often the shadows on the eye bags. In particular, the two pairs of screenshots on the lower left -- if that is indeed her resting "straight face" now, and going by the character creator it seems likely, she looks so bored now.


Meanwhile, I've been trying to work out exactly what's going on with the eye shapes:



And the eyelid rims (I think I need to re-edit this with some clearer current images):

[Fleur]

I admit I've been tending to forget about the benchmark trailer itself, being basically six minutes of explosions and random NPCs to get a few glimpses of your character in action, but having looked at it I'm basically even more confused as to why my character looks so ill and dead-eyed in the basic resting pose.

The images below are both from the benchmark and yet don't look like they're using the same settings. It's no good for the character to only be looking pretty in cutscenes or when emoting. The resting face is super important because that's what the character is going to look like during gameplay and in basic conversations.

My Hyur female has face #5 and I noticed the same thing: she looks dead-eyed and bored with her resting face, but looks amazing in the benchmark trailer. But most of the time when we see our character's face, it is the resting face.

Now, to be clear, in some of these screenshots she does look really pretty in the new version and it's possible that I haven't picked the right emotes to match every expression. But overall I am still concerned because I can see how every expression has narrower eyes and often the shadows on the eye bags. In particular, the two pairs of screenshots on the lower left -- if that is indeed her resting "straight face" now, and going by the character creator it seems likely, she looks so bored now.

And the eyelid rims (I think I need to re-edit this with some clearer current images):

Thank you for mentioning the issue with the "eyelid rims" (those little triangle areas on the lower outer corners of the eye that you highlighted). This is also an issue on midlander female face #5 and I've seen some face #1 players complaining about it as well. If the character model was a doll, I would say that the eye wells hadn't been sculpted properly and were too thick, leading to a weird gap between the eyeball and the eye well. This isn't as bad if you choose upward tilted eyes (usually eyes #3), but it looks especially awful if you choose the downturned eyes (usually eyes #2) and isn't great for larger, rounder eyes either.

Other unrelated issues I'd mention:

1. On face #5 midlander Hyur, mouth #1 used to appear slightly upturned due to the little dark mouth corners. It does not have these any longer, which has a big impact on the character's resting expression. I miss the little smile.

2. The default eyeshadow seems lighter, and the optional eyeshadow in the facial features section is quite light as well. This is very noticeable on face #1, but also on face #5.

That said, I'm not expecting any huge changes before launch, but the fleshy looking lower eyelid rims at least really seem like something that should be fixed (rather than being a "stylistic choice").