Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Ostheim89]

I really really hate it. They added puffy bags under my characters eyes (Hyur Middie Face 1) and it's bothering me so much. So much to the point I finally made a forum account cause It's genuinely ruined a lot moments in the game so far in the expansion.

Chiming in with my agreement, Face 1 female midlanders have this awful eye bag going on now that makes them look terrible. It's very dependent on the lighting you're in, but under bright conditions it looks very bad. Very unhappy with that change suffice to say.

[Boblawblah]

I had to teleport back to Limsa on the ship to buy a face mask LOL, fortunately I'm playing RPR for this expansion, so I also grabbed an awesome looking hat/face cloth combo in the wolfs den.

It's a shame, this is the first time I've ever wanted to hide my character's face due to how poorly the animations look/her lips.

[Daralii]

Chiming in with my agreement, Face 1 female midlanders have this awful eye bag going on now that makes them look terrible. It's very dependent on the lighting you're in, but under bright conditions it looks very bad. Very unhappy with that change suffice to say.

Everyone has bags under their eyes. I guess they wanted to reflect the WoL's decade of effort that was only one year.

[Reinha]

Hair has lost a TON of its luster and now looks really inconsistent between various lighting scenarios. Easily noticeable just by pulling the Character window next to your character standing in the world. Another disappointing bit.

Yes I noticed this immediately even though it's a new character. I tried to get the hair color to match the skin color but it feels impossible because the hair keeps changing color in different lighting scenarios. My portraits also have darker hair and it's really bothering me whenever I enter a dungeon and see it. However, when I go to my Lodestone page I see the intended lighter hair color.

[cutestfox]

It's a shame, this is the first time I've ever wanted to hide my character's face due to how poorly the animations look/her lips.

Very much so.
I've spent 11 years with this character with never a using a fantasia to change the appearance, and have around ~150k screenshots accumulated
Dawntrail has changed my character appearance into something I'd have never selected or wanted to play
There's no combination of features in the character creator to get back what once was

[Moonfallen]

I was iffy on how I felt on how my character looked in both benchmark tests. Upon logging in for early access I absolutely HATE my WoL now. This is sadly not the same character I have been playing the game with for over a decade. I even messed around in the benchmarks beforehand to see if there are any changes I would like and there just isn't. I logged on and have just been talking with everyone instead of playing because I just cannot get over how dissatisfied I am with my character now. This is not the same character for me. I honestly don't even feel like playing the game anymore because of this.

Now that I've had time to eat, sleep and calm down I will try and articulate my thoughts properly. There is a noticeable difference in the changes to the eyes, nose, mouth and overall face shape of my WoL in the live version of DT. In the first benchmark the mouth and fangs were the most noticeable difference in the character creator and cutscenes. I was iffy about it especially since the lighting in the first benchmark made my character's facial features virtually disappear. In the 1.1 benchmark my character looked noticeably better in cutscenes and character creator. It still wasn't 1:1, but it was still better than what I have now in live DT. I'm not sure what they did between the second benchmark and Dawntrail, but my character is completely different than EW, first and second benchmark. I do not like it at all. Since it's been said to me that she looks like Michael Jackson I cannot stop seeing him staring me in the face during cutscenes. I don't know if it's the lighting, or if they made more changes since the second benchmark but something is so off. The eyes are not the same, the nose looks off, the mouth is different and the face shape looks wider. I liked her resting angry looking face beforehand. Her skin tone looks really really off as well. I'm just not sure what they did and I'm really confused on how she can look so different and bad between the second benchmark and now.

EDIT: Adding on what my character looked like in the second benchmark. I don't understand how she went from this to current DT...

[antylamon]

Finally got my patch downloaded and instantly went to The Burn to compare:

(Left - EW, Right - DT)




Very happy that the clump of pixels at the fringe of Y'shtola's haircut is now hair xD

The lips are closer to the original shape, however, still missing that depth and curve.
The nose bridge is narrower now. Miss the stylized nostrils from before.

Others already mentioned the eyebags, seems everybody has them now (in this economy).

Overall, the character looks closer to what I intended, and that my main gripe from the first benchmark (the mouth corners area) was fixed, but still have to mention the above, it makes the face different.

[Moonfallen]

Very much so.
I've spent 11 years with this character with never a using a fantasia to change the appearance, and have around ~150k screenshots accumulated
Dawntrail has changed my character appearance into something I'd have never selected or wanted to play
There's no combination of features in the character creator to get back what once was

That's exactly how I feel and I'm in the same boat. I've had the same look to my character since closed alpha of ARR. I've never wanted to change her and now I can't even look at her because she just looks nothing like before.

[tsuchii]

I feel like the character changes are a downgrade.
It went to a smooth-looking anime aesthetic look to a more 3d-plastic-doll looking appearance.
It goes for all characters. I honestly dislike it. Everything is too god damn glossy. There should be a way to turn off the goddamn gloss.

[Spooky_Biscuits]

I'm struggling on what to do with my FViera. Face 4 is just not salvageable no matter what you do cause the mouth and eye changes.
I already had the biggest eye choice so when you play around with other options it doesn't fix the fact they are smaller and further apart with DT graphical update.
The lips are overbloated no matter which you pick. They got rid of all the shape in the cupids bow of the upper lip and the other lip options honestly just make that feature worse.
I do not recognize her and its not just minor lighting changes. I've tried playing character lighting, game settings, the aesthetician even to remove her lipstick to make the lips less pronounced. Nothing helped

I've played around with some of the other face options to see if even despite it not looking like /my/ viera if there was an option maybe I thought was at least cute to change to.
Honestly they are all botched. If you could combine a feature from each face type I think I could be happy but obviously that's not an option. The lips from face 1 is the only mouth that still retains the original cupids bow upper lip shape that face 4 used to have. All other face are bloated lips, bloated cheeks and tiny eyes. I'm honestly so torn on what to do. I can make a face 1 veena that looks nothing like my WoL that I think looks cute but not mine, or I can try and deal with my face 4 rava in hopes they change some things so she looks more like her original self. any advice appreciated.

EW First. DT Second. The lighting is obviously very different despite being the same environment


Was trying to get the photos to align next to each other but cant figure out how to resize them in the embeds.