Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[Khryseis_Astra]

Posted in another thread, but just in case this is the only one being watched by the devs, this is my EW vs. 7.1 comparison with gpose, rather than just portraits…

Doesn’t look like they made any real changes to her. The brows are wrong, the bridge of the nose doesn’t curve, the tip of the original was upturned while the new one isn’t, the eyeballs aren’t in the same place making the eyes in general look weirdly hooded, the jawline is a totally different shape, and her pouty lips had their Cupid’s bow curves practically reduced to points.

[Turnintino]

So, I was doing the EW role quests for tanks today and, uh...



This can't be right lol.

[Doopliss]

So, I was doing the EW role quests for tanks today and, uh...



This can't be right lol.

Child (and Padjal) faces have looked really unnerving to me since the update; I believe they're not updated, but for some reason they're missing textures around their eyes that used to be there (and, before it was reported as a bug, sometimes had really "squishy" sclera, like E-Sumi-Yan). This happened to Jullus, too, before he had his face updated in this patch. He was missing the dark "eyeliner" around his upper eyelid, like Raya-O-Senna is here.

I think it's hilarious how child/young models also weren't prioritized for the graphic update, considering they keep using them in story and zooming in on them.

[Jaltaer]

I posted this in another thread, but since this is the "big" graphics feedback thread, I figured I should crosspost it here too...

Retook an old pic from 6.5 with roughly the same lighting and shaders - putting them next to each other just makes the changes even more noticeable. I've already detailed my gripes with the changes to the mouth (face 2, mouth 3 for reference) so I won't bother repeating myself, since I think the pictures more than speak for themselves.

[TacetCat]

I finally bothered making a forum account after 8 years just to post in this thread. They really messed up female midlander face 1. These aren't the best screenshots (especially the 6.5 one), but I hope they speak for themselves regardless. To quote my friend, she looks like she was passed through a horror filter.

On the other hand, my miqo'te came out looking more or less fine. Eyes look a bit big and there are dimples now for some reason, but she still has the same overall look and feel of the pre-update version and I recognize it as the same character. Problem is, I swapped off that miqo because I couldn't take the tail clipping through everything anymore. Four months later, and I realize that I'm not happy with it all over again. Female midlander is the best fit, but I don't want to use the character I got attached to in EW (and an expy of my all time favorite D&D character) if that's what she's supposed to look like now. So, once again I'm making another new character, but there's no attachment to them or their story, which really sucks.

edit: I should clarify, these are 6.58 and 7.0, respectively. When I use the fantasia they gave us I'll probably load this preset so I can use the hairstyle and get a shot to compare the 7.1 changes.

[noumen0nn]

F Midlander face 1, in my humble opinion, was by far the biggest loser of the graphics update. Not a single feature was transferred over properly, and we lost our face impression completely. It's so bad that it's the reverse of a lot of other faces--rather than looking closely to see the differences, the differences become clearer the less closely you look. I'm serious, squint and look at some of the examples posted above, and it will look even more like a completely different person.

(This isn't to say other faces didn't also get destroyed in the update, I just wanted to point out how uniquely "wrong" this face is in terms of overall impression)

[glitteringcosmos]

I'm so mad about how they keep saying "everyone is happy with the eyebrows" lmao literally who??? They're so bad, and every single support ticket submitted keeps getting pushed into "working as intended." I really, REALLY wish there was a toggle to just disable all character-related graphical updates, because they've dropped the ball across the board with their promise to "remain as faithful to the original look as possible." The jump from 1.0 to 2.0 was more faithful than this.

[lunartears]

I'm so mad about how they keep saying "everyone is happy with the eyebrows" lmao literally who??? They're so bad, and every single support ticket submitted keeps getting pushed into "working as intended." I really, REALLY wish there was a toggle to just disable all character-related graphical updates, because they've dropped the ball across the board with their promise to "remain as faithful to the original look as possible." The jump from 1.0 to 2.0 was more faithful than this.

My character's eyebrows look like glue in 7.0... No hair strands.



I have little energy after all these months, but it remains as such an upsetting situation and a frustrating update. I would also take the old graphics back if it were possible, I never had any issues with the old look of the characters or the game.
My heart aches for all of the examples in this thread, I really want to get a resemblance of 6.5 back.

[Shyllen]

I come here as a source of positivity, I'm really happy with the graphics update and I love some the changes a lot (especially the changes to face 2 female au ra), I love that my mouth no longer looks like I'm trying to keep water from spilling out and the changes to the eyes that make them no longer look like reflective stickers.

I think increasing the amount of polygons on faces will inevitably move certain features slightly and the devs did an overall good job at keeping each face easily recognizable while improving some things, as someone with multiple alts I really like the changes to all my characters ! Cheers !

[noumen0nn]

Honestly. I'm back to wishing for a full-on legacy graphics option. I literally wouldn't even care if it meant my character can't make the facial expressions attached to any new emotes, or couldn't wear headgear modeled after 6.58, or anything. I hate what they did to my character's face, and to be quite honest, I think all the new models are uglier in general. I know I keep saying it, but this whole thing was just a colossal waste of time and resources.