Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[DynnDiablos]

End of the day, this could be neverending. Not everyone is going to be happy. The tweaks they make in 7.1 will just cause a new wave of complaints from folks who are happy now. And it will never be enough for those unhappy now. Eventually, they are going to have to just say - this is it. Take it over leave it.

[poooman]

What bothers me though, is that there's no way it wouldn't require multiple rounds of iteration with plenty of two way communication, and they should have realized that they'll need to lean on community feedback far more frequently even if it means having their WIPs shredded in public- it's going to happen anyway when an update goes live. But through ignorance or arrogance they were completely caught off guard at the first benchmark, and are now trying to keep up with the hole they dug themselves into by operating on geologic timescales. There's a grievous organizational error somewhere.

i think this is whats bugged me more than the actual changes tbh. the first bench was a disaster for multiple reasons, but they didnt even think about... updating the lighting within the cc? where people will likely be spending more time in than usual because theyve been told their characters may change a little. its like... a lot of this could have been avoided if they put out a cc-specific bench at some point earlier in development, or even just showed more previews than what they did? just to gauge public opinion from those who care. but then theyd actually have to not only be open to accepting feedback, but doing something to change it that wont take another 10 years. there will be people upset either way you go for the final, but a LOT of it could have been mitigated with more open communication during the development, and not waiting until its been pushed to everyone. i dont know..........

[Tatiana]

You know what would have solved this problem entirely? Not changing the player characters at all. The models were not ugly or outdated, I'm pretty sure most people would have been fine if they had just made higher resolution textures for armour and clothing so we don't have the situations like G'raha with pixel textures when zoomed in.

yes they were and it became more and more noticeable to me and the people i play with every time we came back to the game from newer games. maybe most people you knew would have been fine if they hadn't updated anything, but for every one with that opinion is someone else who disagrees and has wanted updates to the graphics and models. this is an issue where the devs did a poor job on accurately recreating the faces, combined with bugs as we see from the post, none of that equates to "they should never have updated the models or graphics".

[limgrave]

I definitely don't envy the team for deciding to put themselves in the position of trying to carefully balance character models based on feedback.

It's silly, but I've been so happy with the "eyebags" on F au ra face 3 that seeing it as a potential part of their list of issues to fix made me a bit sad. :') I love that the face looks a bit tired and more mature, personally. It suits my guy very well. But I understand that's not a popular opinion, and everyone's got their own. Which is, you know, the problem.

I just sort of hope they're committed to some of these further changes to character faces/polygons being really subtle, unless we're talking about the genuine graphical glitches and oversights... that should be paid attention to first.

[Astronis]

End of the day, this could be neverending. Not everyone is going to be happy. The tweaks they make in 7.1 will just cause a new wave of complaints from folks who are happy now. And it will never be enough for those unhappy now. Eventually, they are going to have to just say - this is it. Take it over leave it.

Yeah, they will have to stop at some point, and I very much hope once they finish this last round they say, this is it, we're not spending another six months going back and forth on this. Because it has to end. I'm glad they were willing to state that they're done fiddling with the eye highlights.

In any event, it sounds like they plan to address the most commented on issues, and are taking into account that many players like what we have. Godspeed to the devs fixing things without making even more people angry. I'm not too worried about myself in that regard, since nothing they mentioned is something that affects my character's face (except possibly the normals at the corner of his mouth which beg-n-plead SE leaves those alone). I hope people who are currently unsatisfied get a result that is close enough for them, and if not, closure so they can decide what to do if they are still unhappy.

[Doopliss]

Like I'm sorry, in what universe can something like this be attributed to "higher polygon count" or "more accurate normal mapping". Is it too much to ask that the devs be honest with us instead of trying to constantly save face and never admit to mistakes or wrongdoing?

God, honestly. I really was hoping for a little less PR in this announcement because it is so blatant a lot of these changes were by choice or by the polygon unification. I was thinking, maybe this time, they'd give us an honest explanation about why things turned out the way they did. Or maybe told us they had a more dedicated team / time slot to adjust things, instead of rushing out adjustments on select faces like they had to before launch. Instead I saw this and, admittedly thought, "oh they're full of shit," and went to bed.

I just hope they do better than they did between benchmark 1.0 - 7.0 launch and actually look over all the faces instead of just a few of the most popular ones.

I'm trying to not be overly bitter, though. Ultimately these changes should be "subtle" but hopefully combine enough to have a closer impression to the 1.x-6.x versions of the characters. They have to be as careful and as inoffensive with their wording as possible so players who currently don't see a difference don't think something worse is happening. Still, there are so many issues, especially with the overall mouth shapes for many faces, that I continue to worry about them actually adjusting them in time...


This is so specific but I think it was actually this part that filled me with some dread. I haven't seen this issue pointed out much on the NA forums, but the JP forums have a lot of screenshots where some eye type options' lashes straight up look like falsies falling off now. I think it's a little absurd they mentioned the possibility of straight up not being able to fix this for some options...? It's a small thing, but really bizarre to me, since the original models just didn't have this issue. And while I'm not personally affected by this problem, it doesn't instill confidence.

[Doopliss]

I definitely don't envy the team for deciding to put themselves in the position of trying to carefully balance character models based on feedback.

It's silly, but I've been so happy with the "eyebags" on F au ra face 3 that seeing it as a potential part of their list of issues to fix made me a bit sad. :') I love that the face looks a bit tired and more mature, personally. It suits my guy very well. But I understand that's not a popular opinion, and everyone's got their own. Which is, you know, the problem.

Lol, sorry to double post, but I wanted to mention you're not alone in that. Hilariously I was actually extremely happy with the ♀ Au Ra Face 3 changes (minus the expressions looking way funkier), but ONLY because my character who uses that face is actually supposed to have eyebags canonically and be a tired, miserable little thing. So when I saw her in the update I was like "oh this is awesome".

However, I still very much enjoyed how she looked before the update, and immediately realized this changed the impression of way too many other characters who use that face...so I still upvote/support posts asking to adjust it to return closer to the original form. I just think it's only fair. I have been taking a lot of screenshots as she is now for reference though.

[AstiSpumante]

I KNEW the hot pink glow on the horns was a bug! And I cannot express how excited I am that they are going to fix that!! It has been so jarring in cut scenes.

Legit I cannot express how excited I am, if devs are here on page 174 reading: thank you!!!

[limgrave]

Lol, sorry to double post, but I wanted to mention you're not alone in that. Hilariously I was actually extremely happy with the ♀ Au Ra Face 3 changes (minus the expressions looking way funkier), but ONLY because my character who uses that face is actually supposed to have eyebags canonically and be a tired, miserable little thing. So when I saw her in the update I was like "oh this is awesome".

However, I still very much enjoyed how she looked before the update, and immediately realized this changed the impression of way too many other characters who use that face...so I still upvote/support posts asking to adjust it to return closer to the original form. I just think it's only fair. I have been taking a lot of screenshots as she is now for reference though.

I'm glad we're not so rare! Happy to see another exhausted Face 3 truther in the wild LOL. I was really pleasantly surprised with the update because the same is true for my character!

I do think I feel pretty similarly at this point and I agree with you about it only being fair, regarding those who are unhappy. As long as the overall tired-ish impression the face has always had remains intact, I think I'd be fine with them toning down the under-eye shadows closer to the way they looked pre-DT (and somewhat in the first benchmark if I remember right?). I chose the face originally because, on top of the sleepy look, I was able to make it a bit more androgynous than the other faces would allow me to, so I'm also quietly hoping they don't swing backwards /too/ far in the direction of heavy lashes/baked-in makeup changes again. Still just another preference thing though.

Tentatively hopeful for some sort of happy medium or just minor tweaks, which seems to be the intent. We'll see... Best of luck to both of our tired Au Ra with whatever updates we receive.

You do also have a good point about reference pics. I'll have to take some more of them soon just in case. :')

[Doopliss]

I'm glad we're not so rare! Happy to see another exhausted Face 3 truther in the wild LOL. I was really pleasantly surprised with the update because the same is true for my character!

I do think I feel pretty similarly at this point and I agree with you about it only being fair, regarding those who are unhappy. As long as the overall tired-ish impression the face has always had remains intact, I think I'd be fine with them toning down the under-eye shadows closer to the way they looked pre-DT (and somewhat in the first benchmark if I remember right?). I chose the face originally because, on top of the sleepy look, I was able to make it a bit more androgynous than the other faces would allow me to, so I'm also quietly hoping they don't swing backwards /too/ far in the direction of heavy lashes/baked-in makeup changes again. Still just another preference thing though.

Tentatively hopeful for some sort of happy medium or just minor tweaks, which seems to be the intent. We'll see... Best of luck to both of our tired Au Ra with whatever updates we receive.

I 100% agree and hope we're still able to retain our characters' looks through whatever update they manage. Looking at your character, it looks like you chose Eye Option #3, too, right? So I really hope they keep the sleepy impression that specific option lets us have, and don't overdo makeup like they did in the first benchmark. I like to think they won't, since they muddled impressions so much on characters and had a lot of complaints in the first place. I won't complain if they try to lean back closer to the original 3.x-6.x version though.

And I completely sympathize with wanting a character with a more androgynous look, or using a feminine model for a masculine/male character. I really bemoaned the first iteration of the benchmark because it basically got rid of that possibility. Although my Face 2 ♀ Midlander, who is supposed to have sharp features and look more androgynous/masculine-leaning, didn't survive even the launch version... I'm trying to cope with her not looking very androgynous anymore, and hope you won't have to do the same... At least ♀ Hrothgar Face 1 can save me.