Dawntrail character graphics update - opinions, requests and discussion megathread

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

And I'm posting these separately since it's not specific to eyes, but in the christmas event and new year event the lighting on character's faces in cutscenes was also a mess:

[Heavenchild]

I also wonder why midlanders still look like they have skin irritations or dirt on their cheeks. SE WHY? Why they are forced to look so unpolished?

It's possible to conceal the redness it a little bit with a skin-colored blush, but the dirty/unhealthy looking stains stay.



(*edit:
The picture was taken in editor mode. Unfortunately almost every of my characters looks significantly worse in game.)

[Circonflexe]

So after these long months in DT - after a long time of waiting and hoping - after many attempts to maybe like my characters again at some point, I'm now speaking out here too. Especially because it is written too often that the silent majority would like the update.

In my case, the exact opposite is true. Before DT, I played FFXIV every day, farmed a lot of glam, set up houses, filled folders upon folders with screenshots of my characters and spent a lot of time in GPose.

All of that simply ended with the update and that also led to me becoming part of the "silent majority" - not because I think the update is great and pretty, but because I absolutely don't have a good time dealing with my FFXIV account in detail anymore.

I don't take screenshots anymore - in fact, I have made several backups of my old pictures because there can't be any new pictures of my lost characters - and that's around 20 characters in total, all of which (some more, some less) look significantly worse than before in my eyes. None of them appeal to me in the same way as before the update and I don't often admire other players characters either these days. I could write even more about the state of lighting in buildings - especially player-houses, but sadly I have resigned myself to it.

My main character may not have been as badly affected as others, but it affected everyone without exception - the question is actually just whether you like it, the question is not if it has happened. Should it have happened - whether you like it or not? In my opinion, no, because it's not fair to have the "winners" and the "losers" of the update fighting over this issue when none of us could have contributed to it or prevented it.

Of course, I'm glad that players who really like the update are reporting here - but I can't relate to that and, to be honest, at the end of the day, I don't get anything out of it if other people still like their characters and at the same time it completely takes the fun out of the game for me. So I apologize if the update that was nice for those people will be fixed after all at some point, but if it were up to me, I could have lived very well (probably better) without DT.

And that's despite the fact that I'm one of those who didn't think the story was that bad and actually enjoyed the quests - but that just can't make up for the worsened style in the long run for me.

I won't be posting screenshots to compare exactly which millimeter of a character's face I can't stand anymore - Square will know best what exactly was botched, and I don't see it as my job to analyze their work in more detail. Most of it has long been described in detail in other posts here, although I feel that far too little has been said about male characters, who were not treated any better than their female counterparts - especially for Hyur, but no less for others.

[Heavenchild]

For me it was always confusing why the race of their posterboy warrior of light (male midlander) is so low quality in everything. Emotes stiff and uncanny, poses are also stiff, voices really bad (Make a char, take voice 12 and have fun xd The battle voice is cool but it does not fit with the emote sounds, which also sound like this are 2-3 different people :x There is not even 1 voice that really fits with the younger face.), textures are still bad as you see in my previous screenshot, compared to other races.

The younger face really is a complete redesign of what it was before. In this special case, thats good. Because it was awful before.
But it is still low quality, when I compare it with the textures and details in the faces of other races when they stand next to me.
Do they hate their posterboy race? :/

Maybe I am wrong, but I think the reason why people are leaving is not just because of a failed MSQ and nothing to do. There was nothing longlasting or 'interesting' to do since EW patchcontent.
I guess it's also people lose fun in FF14 because of the loss of their characters after the update.

[Circonflexe]

If you look at the before and after comparison, I would assume that the original designers of all races had a precise idea and made something of it with the possibilities available at the time. At the same time, the new designers post DT don't seem to have recognized the style and improved it with new possibilities, but rather pushed through their own different idea. But that's just my personal impression.

To me, it doesn't seem as if the update had any kind of artistic ambition, but rather as if it was based on purely technical considerations, implementing things because you want to show that it can be done - not because it would improve the style.

So yes, in the end we have a stiff warrior of light with very limited design who doesn't really look great in "great" lighting. Unfortunately, a missed opportunity.

[Daralii]

If you look at the before and after comparison, I would assume that the original designers of all races had a precise idea and made something of it with the possibilities available at the time. At the same time, the new designers post DT don't seem to have recognized the style and improved it with new possibilities, but rather pushed through their own different idea. But that's just my personal impression.

To me, it doesn't seem as if the update had any kind of artistic ambition, but rather as if it was based on purely technical considerations, implementing things because you want to show that it can be done - not because it would improve the style.

So yes, in the end we have a stiff warrior of light with very limited design who doesn't really look great in "great" lighting. Unfortunately, a missed opportunity.

You need to go to the mobile game if you want a proper HD recreation of the original races. There's even a long paragraph on the JP site that explains the process of being as faithful to the original designs as possible, and it's strangely absent from the English one.

[Circonflexe]

To be honest, I don't think an HD update is necessary. I don't think that more recent MMOs generally look better - HD often makes a game look worse and "flat" because your imagination no longer shapes it, but instead you can no longer unsee the uncanny clay-like characters.

I'm much more jealous of the glam system and everything that mobile can suddenly do that we never got after the player base on PC and console had been loyal customers for so long. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be okay to do it on mobile if it's quicker and easier there, but maybe they should have waited for any kind of update until they could get us to a similar level.

[Heavenchild]

You need to go to the mobile game if you want a proper HD recreation of the original races. There's even a long paragraph on the JP site that explains the process of being as faithful to the original designs as possible, and it's strangely absent from the English one.

I'm not surprised that the Chinese do it better. Tencent probably has a lot more resources to do it right. Maybe I'm wrong, but I always get the feeling that SE treats FF14 like cattle for slaughter. Put in as little as possible, but get as much out as possible.
I don't blame the dev team behind FF14. I think they try as hard as they can. But they are just not enough people to solve the problems and making new content at the same time. And SE has too many good employees in other projects no on asked for.

[Heavenchild]

Hopefully FF14 Mobile will also come to the new Switch 2. I looked at some videos. Hell man..., graphics really look better then in our original base game. With 'better' I mean much more polished. Seems like they also not messed arround that much with weird dynamic eye highlights (at least the chars that I saw always had a bright highlight). So the chars don't look so dead as ours at the moment. And it has a modern glam system and not such a mess as we have. :x
But it's seperated from the original game, right? So all the stuff we achieved or bought in the shop won't be there. :c

[Argantaelle]

You need to go to the mobile game if you want a proper HD recreation of the original races. There's even a long paragraph on the JP site that explains the process of being as faithful to the original designs as possible, and it's strangely absent from the English one.

I've just visited the FFXIV mobile site—gods, they all have the "old" faces! Even the mouth of the 5th male Midlander face is exactly the same as it used to be!