Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Game_Over]

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

I feel like the character changes are a downgrade.

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.

Agreed. I've been around since 1.0 CE and have kept the same character settings for my main, except for 3 hairstyle upgrades. I've rolled with all the changes, but this is a serious issue. Almost everyone's characters look completely different. Different lip sizes/shapes, noses, eyes, eyebrows/colors for some - things that completely identify a face. A few are lucky and like the new proportions/shapes as much as the ones they originally created. But this shouldn't be a forced change. Do what you want to "improve" (read "change") the environment, maybe even armor textures, I've stuck through it all. It unfortunately is not an "improvement", though, just because it is different. It doesn't matter how many settings or graphics options you utilize when it makes things look worse. People making the excuse "it's lighting/shading..." etc, it doesn't matter to me why it is an issue, it matters to me that it is an issue at all. It needs to be fixed, period. Doesn't mean they will - but they should. It isn't our job to code this/figure it out so it works right, it's theirs.

I honestly see no improvement on my PC graphics-wise at all - the improvement of which is supposed to be the excuse for these problems. In itself no noticeable improvement doesn't bother me. But I do see a change: my entire game looks so glowy/hazy now that I can't even discern details I used to be able to see. Marble floor is gray instead of black, weapon glows are muted and reduced. Yes I've tried gamma correction (nevermind the fact I've never needed to touch this before), I've fiddled with every setting, but apparently this is what "improvement" means. The game still looks great on my roommates PS5, but it always did.

There seems to be an issue lately where the 14 devs want to change things that are already working well. The old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it" comes to mind. Circling back to the character faces, this is just one example of something that didn't need to be changed. It has certainly de-motivated me from playing early access (something that was never before an issue). I am starting to feel like at this point they are no longer making games for players like me. This isn't an "I-quit" post as I don't do those, it's more of an acknowledgement; but I will say I only post on here when it's a serious issue. I don't come on here to debate (you're welcome to disagree; I won't be back to argue), but this is the most strongly negative content release they have ever done in the history of the game for me. So take from that what you will SE/others.

[ShizuForever]

(Sorry if I filed this in the wrong location, I don't know how to use forums. Feel free to move my post to a better location if necessary.)
I don't think I can enjoy the expansion despite pre-ordering the early access.

I woke up to a body that wasn't mine. (and also the world's lighting changed but whatever)


Details of the post continuing over to the next post:

[ShizuForever]

- Before Dawntrail -

My character is supposed to be the representation of my ideals.

I log out of the game while lookin like this.
So, imagine waking up to a body that isn't yours.

Well, I guess there goes my pre-order early access money, oh well~

Then I tried to use create new character to double check that after the changes my current lip is still the thinnest lip possible (the character concept my character is based on has marker line mouth a.k.a. a single line as a mouth) and sure enough, changing it to anything else makes it even bigger. Grilled sausages.

So since fantasia won't fix it, I tried bothering Jandelaine and oh hey at least I can change my lip color to match my skin color ... and then I realized the next problem. The eyes.

Sorry, I don't have a lot of pics that show the old looks readily available to post.

The old eyes look more serious and focused and "madge" but after the update im just expressionless and deadfish. And fantasia can't fix it because my eye option is already the most pronounced option both pre-update and post-update. Why are the corners of my eyes lowered? This eye option was already supposed to have eyes with corners higher than the center of the top lid. Also face paint looks really flat and the texture is very ... no static? (think static on a TV screen)

Also if there is any way to turn off lip gloss while retaining the ability to dye the lips same as skin color would be good (because that was what it looked like pre-update)

[lunartears]

.... On the JP forums they organized a new proper feedback, no discussion thread immediately and said "We appreciate your cooperation in the international area." so I wanted to see how things were going here, but I don't know how we're supposed to organize ourselves when everyone is being extremely emotional in their posts across several random threads without considering how difficult it's going to be to report proper feedback, and people who don't care can't resist posting anyway.

Ughhhhh.

I think that some people will express distraught initially but then write feedback, so don't lose all hope in the English-speaking side. Worst case scenario, we can just post over there with common sense and DeepL.
I will apologise for the display earlier in my post if it personally annoyed you, as I had posted it the very second I saw everything. How I feel hasn't really changed and I of course intend to write feedback but I also think that raw feelings are expected and valid too in this situation (especially for those seeing the changes for the first time).

As I have written feedback several times during the benchmark about the exact same problems, it's a bit difficult to figure out a way to describe the changes in a unique way a third time. When I am ready and have got my head together, I intend to continue to provide feedback. I would urge others to do the same if you cannot get used to or come to terms with the changes to your characters. It might seem futile as 7.0 has launched but I believe that if the discussion stays alive, it may be possible that we could get some adjustments in the near future. At least now that it's in the live game we can get some better photos.

[noumen0nn]

Personally, I find myself really frustrated with the idea that we need to be diplomatic with our feedback or the devs won't take it into account. Like, of course people are going to be in heightened emotional states over this. If I give a detailed list of points of feedback with traces and labels, like I have in previous posts, why should it matter if I also say "this sucks and I hate it"

[Moonfallen]

It is definitely something off with the lighting. I used a retainer fantasia to do character creation and load my pre-save of my character from EW, first benchmark, and second benchmark. The lighting in character creation is amazing of course and my character looks like she did in the updated benchmark and I was happy with how she looked. Upon accepting her appearance and summoning her in game however is where the issue lies. She looks completely different than what I created in character creation. Something with the lighting is off that is making her absolutely hideous in game. I have come to the conclusion that right now, there are no changes for me to personally make to better my character to how I want her especially since it seems the lighting in game is not up to par with the lighting in the character creation screen. I have tried tinkering with my own settings as well in hopes that maybe it is just my graphics settings and the new settings they added, but that is also not the case. All we can do is wait and see.

[lunartears]

Then I tried to use create new character to double check that after the changes my current lip is still the thinnest lip possible (the character concept my character is based on has marker line mouth a.k.a. a single line as a mouth) and sure enough, changing it to anything else makes it even bigger. Grilled sausages.

I'm not using the thinnest lips possible for my character but I relate to you with the "marker mouth", the lips I had before weren't necessarily "thin" but they were "small" or rather "neutral", they just had a nice plain appearance - nothing too fancy or over the top. I concealed them as much as possible in the game before but as the graphics have changed I can't achieve the plain neutral glossy look I had before. I checked the thinnest lip option on Au Ra to see if I could fantasia maybe just for the MSQ and it made my character look like she had a wide :| face which just didn't really suit. I also agree about making your character a representation of ideals, I made my main character kind of as a fantasy self-insert rather than a separate being so it's very off-putting having it had an uninvited plastic surgery visit over night.

[faiarrow]

I need to take a proper 7.0 shot with a direct match to previous shots (vs this one I did at 4am) but yeah uh.

Femroe aren't doing crash hot, especially not hellguard. As a clan they might as well not exist? Which is horrific to say but it's how it feels because our actual racial defining traits are almost nonexistant.



I love missing normal maps! I love having a random baked in brow shadow that is meant to have a normal map under it that makes the character look like she's got contour smeared on her brow that she didn't smooth properly :/

Black pupils for femroe genuinely have ruined the visual aesthetic across both clans, the slight tweak to the eyeshape I used on Sko has made it less heavily lidded but given male roegadyn face 2 has the coloured pupils still and all the women got shaved features and more hyuran or doll-like visuals (face 3 especially for that one) it's a bit ridiculous...

This is from benchmark but I checked in live 7.0 last night and save for some colour adjustments (a bit richer for the eyes) they do still have coloured pupils:


The flat diffuse for the nose ash is still obliterated. It's basically not there on my 2nd character's face, and she has been dollified pretty heavily vs the aloof charm of face 3 originally. On Sko it's kinda there but if you're in the field in daylight it's just ... gone. Looks like a slightly more aggressive shadow or dirty mark vs. sacred ash. Ash on skin, made in a way to stick with a binder like oil which these would be... isn't that light. I find it kind of funny given their sudden push for 'realism' over the lovely stylisation we had that it's seen it get so light.



I've a lot more JP posting in my future about this.

We're the smallest played clan but we deserve some actual care too.

[UNDEAD10000]

I normaly don't take screenshots and i wish i had take screenshot of the my character before 7.0 update but luckily i haven't deleted Endwalker benchmark and i able to replicate the look of my character (saved character info from the game it self don't work in Endwalker benchmark).

Dawntrail benchmark version 1.1 and Endwalker benchmark.



Original size of the Dawntrail benchmark version 1.1 and Endwalker benchmark image
https://i.imgur.com/Rx7SfBa.png


Dawntrail release in-game.



Original size of the Dawntrail release in-game image
https://i.imgur.com/aXGrHCK.png


While my character face mostly looks fine in Dawntrail but i really don't like the changes to my character eyes and there is some odity on how certain lighting condition reacts around my character's eyes and it often makes my character eyes looks really bad.

[Winyumi]

I would like to share my opinion on this as well. I really feel like this is not the same character as I remembered. A lot has changed for the Au Ra but the issue is definitely the eyes. The highlights are lacking and the pupils are significantly larger, which really changes the character. She looks quite dead inside.



All of my portraits are messed up and adjusting the lighting does not help. My mood towards playing has really fallen. They need to fix this. I really wish they would honour the original design and simply improve texture quality. /pray