Request for More Character Customization Options

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Originally Posted by VanillaWafer

Package this with the height slider to minimum with a young face and et voilà, you got yourself a young looking WoL.

You can talk me to death about different body shapes, I get it and I'd happily agree with you, but like I said, I have seen too many bad actors in this game to want to try this. Hell, I'd want a flat chest for myself, but at the cost of seeing "teens" running around? Pass. There's just too many and not enough slots in my blacklist.

However you'd be right, I could always report the bad actor if they're found out and they'd be the GM's problem. But I'd rather not have this implemented as it's not a good time, as I mentioned before.

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Ah, this sounds like a personal problem more than anything. Best of luck to you!

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Originally Posted by BrokeAndTired

Ah, this sounds like a personal problem more than anything. Best of luck to you!

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And good luck with your wishlist.

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Originally Posted by s32ialx

so invest, that excuse falls flat with how cheap hardware v performance metrics are these days.

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It's not a hardware problem on the client side, it's a hardware problem on the server side, and a limitation of networks.

Let's get technical.

Database Query Constraints

You teleport to a zone. There are 100 characters standing around the aetheryte.

Your local client sends a message to the server with "I'm now standing at XYZ. Who is around me?"

The local zone is stored in your system; it can load the environment instantly.

For each of the 100 characters around you, it has to load their names, titles, their character appearances, all their visible gear, and any fashion accessories and minions.

Currently that data package for visual display is wrapped up in a single efficient table, so the character can be queried and all 100 appearances can be sent to you.

(Minions are generally sent via a secondary query a moment later, which is why you have all 100 minions load afterward.)

So your client is constantly sending and receiving small sips of packages from the game.

Databases have several ways of storing data: A null value, an On/Off switch (Boolean true/false), a text string with a character limit, number values, links to other tables in the database (and that can be a rabbit hole with links upon links upon links), and finally BLOBS/CLOBS (binary large objects - usually images. or character large objects - big strings of text.) In XIV, the BLOBS are linked to objects stored locally, instead of within the database itself - this is the character meshes, textures, etc.

The character object sent to your client is a mishmash of the null values, true/falses, text strings, and links to character creation values and gear set tables values, which your local client reads out as a displayed character.

Adding 1 data point for each of the characters is 100 new data points. Add 10 new data points, and its 1000. And those have to be rendered for every single character around you too, not just your character. Every time a new person zones in, the server has to run a character query and send it out to everyone else. And this is happening CONSTANTLY - not just in the place you zoned in, but EVERYWHERE on the server, every second. Data in, data out. And there are also queries that go to other tables every time you open a menu.

But hey, let's assume they now have state of the art hardware in the data center, and their databases can run those queries at the speed of light.

ISP Backbone Limitations

Every second, for the 3000-5000 active characters that the world server currently has online, there's a constant stream of queries going to and from the server and the database. That data now has to get out to the clients... over the Internet.

I suspect the reason that they have the current limited character data is because they found a comfortable raw character table size that can be loaded in a single query and sent in a single packet of data (~1460 bytes of data is the standard maximum payload on Ethernet. IPv6 can technically support more, but it's not standard at all yet.)

Adding more character points may not be "just one more table column, bro" - it could be DOUBLE the packets needed to load all the characters in a given zone because it's now exceeding the maximum payload size of the packet itself.

The time may have come to accept that, though. Double the packets per character, double the character data. Most ISPs can probably handle it. And just add another second of dark screen loading time when zoning in for the second batch of character packets to load.

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Originally Posted by VanillaWafer

I'm most likely gonna be cooked for saying this, but I'm against the whole flat chest thing for females mostly due to a lot of bad actors using that to create "teen" WoLs.

While I am for the androgynous look, don't get me wrong, there's just too many players that infamous Google Doc list that mod their characters into "teens." At least then, I wouldn't know if there was one next to me so I wouldn't care, so long they don't get weird on me.

With the advent of what payment processors are doing, probably not a good idea to ask.

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For me, this also sounds more like a personal issue. There are teens out there with very large boobs, and they’re still teens.
And there are adults with almost none or none. Having boobs or not doesn’t define whether someone is a teenager or an adult.
That logic just makes no sense, sorry. D : (It basically only distinguishes children from teens/adults. But the races don’t even look like children anyway.)

And by the way, in most eastern games people do play actual teens. Even in FFXIV we’re surrounded by tons of teen NPCs or “wonder children.”
Our WoL is basically the only one (according to the trailers) who actually ages, while everyone else stays the same. xD

All that’s why I really don’t see a problem with giving female characters the option of a flat chest. Personally, I love the androgynous look. It can also make a character
look more like a cute or cool fantasy/anime guy than like a girl. I think it would be a really cool option for a lot of people. :)

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Originally Posted by VanillaWafer

Package this with the height slider to minimum with a young face and et voilà, you got yourself a young looking WoL.

You can talk me to death about different body shapes, I get it and I'd happily agree with you, but like I said, I have seen too many bad actors in this game to want to try this. Hell, I'd want a flat chest for myself, but at the cost of seeing "teens" running around? Pass. There's just too many and not enough slots in my blacklist.

However you'd be right, I could always report the bad actor if they're found out and they'd be the GM's problem. But I'd rather not have this implemented as it's not a good time, as I mentioned before.

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you can already very easily make characters that look like teens, i don't think this would make much difference. people that want to be gross are going to do that no matter what.

I'm not sure I entirely buy the technical limitations on the character creator as an excuse. I used to play Aion, which came out in 2009, and it has an awesome character creator. I do think there is a lack of investment and I hope that after the graphical updates are finished they have the time and resources to give us a real character creator that implements the suggestions on this list, because they're all very awesome.
If I had to add to it, I would agree that Miqo'te face marking should be optional, just a simple click on and off, and maybe sliders for the various face features, not just a choice of 1-6 with very little variation to it. Maybe add in the option to adjust the size of Miqo'te ears a bit too. You don't have to go nuts but large and fluffy, small and fluffy, large and clean, small and clean?

Adding onto this, let Hyurs have pointy ears. Bam, instant half-Elezen like Hilda.

Also idk if it's mentioned already. But I would love to select a idle face! So when afk or just standing you are not just giving resting bitch face. I'd love to always have a smile on

I am gonna say this again.

Give. Our. Male. Highlanders. Eyebrows.

It is ridiculous to see them in Solution Nine which in any way has no connection to Ala Mhigan culture and they also have no eyebrows? Sorry, I am not buying it.
Oh and I am talking about proper bushy eyebrows. Extra if there is toggle between bushier or thinner or shaved version.

And beards option, not every male Highlander want Face 4 when the only regular beard option is on that face type?

Or, alternatively, let us pick more than one facepaint?

make lalafell squisher

I'd like to have muscle tone sliders for all races.

- blue tongues for f raen and black sclera for f xaela. one of the most arbitrary and disappointing gendered differences in the game to me since I picked it up
- better eyebrows, especially for races like f miqo, m au ra, m viera
- tangentially related but fix the eyebrow makeup on m viera. it completely misaligns from where the actual eyebrows are giving you weird mismatching double eyebrows, so you cannot even use it to alleviate the thin eyebrows situation
- if not sliders, then ass options. feel like I should specify this includes guys
- curlier hair options including tightly curled hair
- nose options for flatter/lower nosebridges and also bigger, more pronounced/strongly defined noses
- old women
- posture adjustment for viera and hroth

& as for my most unrealistic ask, more varied body types. I think stockier/fatter au ra would be cute lol.

A lot of really great suggestions so far, thanks everyone! :)

Extend the bust slider into both directions.

Increase max tail length.

Tail girthwidth slider.

Instead of just having the eye, nose, jaw and mouth types, give us sliders for them. The current types can exist as presets.

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Originally Posted by Dagny

I feel like with such a character focused game like FFXIV, that the character customization options are sometimes lacking. I'd like to see some more options when it comes to creating a character, such as having a character look older, or perhaps a different body type! Here's a small list of options I'd like to see:

• Separate Au ra horns from faces, so any face can use any horn type.
• Give all races 'limbal'-like options for eye glows or colors.
• Allow us to make our characters look older, or slightly thicker! I'd love for my au ra's tail to be even thicker, for example. I have some friends that RP older characters, it would be nice to see the wrinkles they're supposed to have in game.
• Add more facial make up options, and allow us to use multiple at once. Having blush and eyeshadow at the same time would be really nice!
• Allow for pronouns to be set separately from body type. If this is hard to do in character creation, you could have a Loporrit NPC in the over-world help you change it, maybe?

What other customization options would you like to see? :cool:

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_copied from the other thread with the same premise_

Can we please get equal skin tone options across all races? This kind of visual segregation makes no sense.

Why can't I play a Keeper of the Moon with a warm white-tan skin tone? Why is that look only available to Keepers of the Sun, while Moon Keepers are stuck with pale or albino-looking options? And don't say it's because of "moon vs sun", if that were the case, Moon Keepers shouldn't be able to walk around in daylight. But they clearly have darker blue and melanin-rich skin tones, which proves they can handle sun exposure. Since melanin increases with sun exposure, there's no reason to restrict skin tones by race. Every skin tone should be available to every race. Stop limiting players based on arbitrary visuals.

While we're at it, what's going on with the eyes? You're making it so Sun Miqo'te can't see at night, and Moon Miqo'te are basically blind during the day. All Miqo'te and cat-like races should have the same eye structure, either slitted or round, or better yet, code it so their eyes adapt to day and night like lamps do. It would make way more sense and actually reflect their feline traits.

Also, who decided Sun Miqo'te don't have fangs? That makes the least sense of all. Fangs are a core part of their identity and biology. Removing them for one clan feels arbitrary and unnecessary.

And please don't use "lore" as an excuse. That's what clan marks are for. There are better ways to distinguish clans than limiting skin tones, fangs, or eye shapes. Real-world tribes and clans don't work like that visually. These features should be customizable for roleplay, not locked by race.

Why can't Moon Miqo'te have a clanless face option? Let players choose how they want their character to look without being boxed in by outdated presets.

Also, for Au Ra, if red and green skin is an option, then red and green scales and horns should be too. It’s a simple fix that would make customization more consistent and inclusive.

I really hope that with the promise that they won't be adding any more playable races from now on, we will be getting robust and worthwhile character creator updates in future expansions. I will be really, genuinely, truly disappointed if this doesn't happen at least by 9.0, but 8.0 would be so cool.

Personally, the things that I want most, which I think are feasible within the technical limitations of the game, are as follows:

1.) More than 4 face variants for all races, preferably at least 5, though 6/7 like hyurs have would be ideal. They have proven that they can add entire new face slots to the creator already, so they should do it more.
2.) Greater variety of wavy/curly/afro-textured hairstyles. They said something about polygon counts causing difficulty before, but certainly there are more efficient and less intense ways of modelling stylized textured hair.
3.) Proper makeup customization. The lipstick and facepaint options already present just leave a lot to be desired. It would be so nice to have lipstick that actually looks like lipstick some day.
4.) Didn't think of this til I saw it earlier in this thread, but blue tongues for raen girls, absolutely!
5.) The darker shading of viera noses, even after they've restored several things that people miss from the old graphics, viera still lack that contrast they used to have, and it was cute.
6.) Fix hairstyles with headbands on viera + fix hairstyles with "ear holes" on the sides for viera (and miqo'te/hrothgar, where necessary) I think the dev team should feel comfortable editing hairstyles slightly for different races that cause certain features to look awkward...move the headband forward or backward slightly so it's not under the ears, add a little extra hair to cover the bald spots on the sides of the head. I don't think anyone would mind if the hair looks Slightly Different if that means it actually looks like, good.

1). Better hair models/current hair models better implemented in different races (really! there are hairstyles with too short bangs and bald spots in any f race that isn't Miqo'te and Lalafell....). I need more long hair with bangs and waves. Male elezen and Male viera and even Female Viera have nice fluffy hair... I don't mind clipping, I want more long curvy hair I already have too much short and spiky...

2). Please fix colors in character making... Lipsticks are a joke. Neither light or dark look realistic... it's too obvious it's just a filter that turns them grayish or too 'vibrant'. Even 'natural' lips look ugly and too pale, specially since 7.0 they lack texture and deph.

3). Eye and hair colors, apparently hyur only can have shades of gray...specially on eyes, look dull and darker than other races. If you want your eyes to be seen at all you have to stick to blue and green. I wish I could put a good yellow/hazel eyes that look really vibrant like honey. Or a deep brown, or a deep blue...

4). More variety on face options, in general, there are drastic changes in eye shape from 3 to 6, but 1,2 , 4, 5 look almost the same? I say random numbers, but sure do you understand what I mean.

5). Of course sliders. Not only for boobs and tails please... I wish we had a bit more variety on other body features.

6). Make up options... I wish I could use blush AND another feature, like freckles, eye shadows, tattoos... but I need blush in my characters otherwise they look to pale/plain to me :')


Also I don't mind to wait extra for 8.0 I think it's unrealistic to ask for more content, core changes that haven't existed for 12 years, and expect they release all them at once at a fast pace... I think the graphics change while necessary is really lacking and needs a lot to get fixed (like returning to TRUE old faces... not that mess they made). I think devs deserve to rest and have vacation time. Programming, designing, 3D modeling... it's all artist jobs, and the base game its probably a big learning curve for someone who enters anew, so it's important they have a good developing team, if they get overworked and leave/get sick ...it doesn't matter how much money the company makes. Hiring new talented people is ideal but that people will need to learn and adapt to the perks of a 12 year old game. I think it's just realistic to expect bigger waiting times when bigger changes are made to the base game, not only to add new content...

Being able to have fangs would be nice.

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Originally Posted by KhujaRela

1).

2). Please fix colors in character making... Lipsticks are a joke. Neither light or dark look realistic... it's too obvious it's just a filter that turns them grayish or too 'vibrant'. Even 'natural' lips look ugly and too pale, specially since 7.0 they lack texture and deph.

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This!!! With hair colors bc theyre not homogenous among races. Viera have dull purples but miqote are very vibrant :(
Also bring back my nose smudge please

I genuinely believe mare might never have been created if there were enough body types. So many of the people I've seen who are sad about recent events are chubby, transgender, or an ethnic minority, and just want people to see themselves in their characters! And I play other MMOs that have more options for body shape and ethnic looks, and those games don't have visual mods at all, even though they have healthy (encouraged) modding scenes!

(To be clear, I'm not affected by the recent actions, I just know people who are.)

I do not want anything stupid just a few options.

Au ra horns tied to faces needs to be gone.

Miqo'te all should have fangs none of my four fluffy head cats (real ones) have human teefs lol

More shape for my character nothing daft out of proportion but please take a look at the Nier woman and also Exp 33 for some inspiration as I want a fuller bottom and hips and to be curvy, the game really needs to move forward and give us some body options so we are not all like sticks. Makeup and eyebrows please for all with long eyelashes.

I would love more faces and more running choices along with unlock all hair for all races.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Lalafell
-What is going on with that bust slider? Either embrace it and let the girls have a bust or delete it. Flat or bee sting between 0 and 100 is a waste of resources.

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Just adding my voice in requesting exactly this.
Besides some of the other sliders its all I ask for.

• Add a body type slider of sorts, with limitations of course. 100% possible within the game engine, maybe allow us to move the needle between a few presets such as thin, muscular(more like broad shoulders, thicker arms, thin waist etc rather than muscles), chubby and standard. A lot of people would like this for more customization.
• Options for different skin textures for body and face, maybe some freckles and aged options. I personally would like the option to have no blush on my Lalafell's face(currently using the blush face paint matching my skin to do this).
• Face scar options for every race, and more facial options in general.
• REAL BEARD/FACIAL HAIR OPTIONS THAT DON'T LOOK TERRIBLE(and yes, male highlander eyebrows as well)
• Allow us to choose 'personality' animations sets. Kinda sucks that your mannerisms are tied to your race+gender combo. It also makes no sense that every person within a race/gender has the exact same mannerisms and attitude.
• Unlockable animation packs/skins for jobs that give a different take on the job. For example, an animation pack that makes Ninja's abilities all look like shadow based ninjutsu rather than elemental. These would be cosmetic only.

should be able to mash up hair options like make it up to 3 - 5
it would make the cash items more desirable.

decouple horns from aura faces then add more horn options some could be added to cash shop.

and decouple the animations from the races

for example a male Au Ra that walks like a male high lander....

class attack colors and animation changes would be awesome 2x so if you can carry it into CS like the recent one. :3

maybe make some gear as customization options for ex I try to use the arc angle face piece as part of my girl's face

Back here just to try and bump this up.

I really would love the horns to be able to choose as I love the face 3 Au ra but the horns are yay big lol

We need to try and get the attention of the devs and try and push for a massive overhaul.

I do not know how technically it could work, Yoshi did say a long time ago they could not make the horns separate for some reason.

I think they can and should do it, they seriously need more faces unlock all hairstyles and add makeup and body sliders for height/weight and move forward. It would be a really big selling point for 8.0 if they could pull this off.

I have been playing a little of FFXI why it is free and I saw how well the female bodies looked they are more curvy than stick figure.

yeah, expand on it. its about time. and if you cant do it because of your dumb programming make a new one from scratch and replace the old one.

I wanted to bump the thread after Yoshi-P mentioned that they are intending to add more options to the character creator in the near-future. So far, the only thing used as an example was the desire to make it so that everyone has access to facial moles, but I'm sure that won't be the only thing.

In that vein, I really hope that moles, scars, bandages, and other things of that nature will be available to everyone to pick an choose in the future. (and this must be shared between genders, girls need more scars and boys deserve more moles, too!)

And I hope this means they're also intending to update other things, like giving everyone an equal range of face preset options (5-6 faces per race! pretty-please!), overhauling the makeup so that things like lipstick can look good, fixing hairstyles that look "broken" on certain races due to their unique features (ex: ear holes & headband "clipping" on viera), and maybe even doing something fancy like giving female au ra the *option* to choose to have the unique features that male au ra have (black sclera, blue tongues)....and, this might be pushing it, but being able to have the actually-black scales like the malera have would be cool too...

Additionally, I hope we'll soon have a more robust color selection for character creation. There are some oddities in the creator, like how different races have *slightly* different hair colors from each other despite all presumably picking from the same palette, and I would really like to see that discrepancy resolved some day. I'd also like to have more options for colors in general, in regards to skin/eye/hair color.

a proper fluffy tail (like ragdoll or a maine coon) would be nice since the 'fluffy' tail we have right now for miqos isnt really all that fluffy

Age slider.

There's an awfully few amount of old faces for males. Females? None at all, apparently lol.

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Originally Posted by Luluna

Back here just to try and bump this up.

I really would love the horns to be able to choose as I love the face 3 Au ra but the horns are yay big lol

We need to try and get the attention of the devs and try and push for a massive overhaul.

I do not know how technically it could work, Yoshi did say a long time ago they could not make the horns separate for some reason.

I think they can and should do it, they seriously need more faces unlock all hairstyles and add makeup and body sliders for height/weight and move forward. It would be a really big selling point for 8.0 if they could pull this off.

I have been playing a little of FFXI why it is free and I saw how well the female bodies looked they are more curvy than stick figure.

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I believe in the case of the Au Ra, it was because the topology of all the faces was different prior to Dawntrail. They would have needed to create unique horns for every possible face, vastly multiplying the modeling taken for doing a single character creation option on just a single face. With the universal topology though, it should be a matter of some simple corrective shape keys on each of the horns to fit them to the face.

Think what you will about the new universal topology, but it should allow for things like this, as well as making the addition of more customization options much easier. It would also allow the devs to add things like sliders. I've been hoping the changes in Dawntrail was in preparation for this. (they'd likely need to overhaul how characters' appearance information is stored, which might be why it hasn't been done already).

Body sliders they might want to overhaul the topology of the body as well. I've heard that the body 3d model can be manipulated by scaling the bones in the body skeleton. In fact, I believe they use this for the breast slider already.

In addition, some subtle facial sliders, particularly around the eyes and mouth, might be able to allow long time players to correct the issues plaguing their characters. <- I'm really hoping they do this

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Age slider.

There's an awfully few amount of old faces for males. Females? None at all, apparently lol.

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One midlander female face appears a little older than the rest. I think that's literally it.

Would love some actual eyebrows for hyur men, both middie and highlander

They're all so bad lol, it's insane how much better midlanders look with a simple edit to give them thicker eyebrows. And highlanders are still stuck with that crunchy facepaint...

1000% behind this! here's my own personal wishlist for expanded character personalization:

1) wider variety of heterochromia options. currently we can only do odd eyes (I think it's finally been expanded beyond miqo now to be universal?), but there's so many different types of heterochromia, like inner/outer ring and variegated! plus, there's even at least one npc in Dawntrail (Yanna) with non-odd eye heterochromia (green upper irises and yellow bottom irises) so I feel like this could definitely be a possibility in the future.

2) additional tattoo options, not only for the face but for the body as well. I know body tattoos might be a tough ask since there's a lot of armor that comes with tattoos as part of the design, but I'd still like the option even if it ends up clashing!

3) de-couple the scar options from the face types and make them universal across all races/subraces/genders! of all things to be restricted by face type/race/gender, scars are the genuinely the most baffling to me. like, are the facial wounds gendered now?? c'mon.

4) additional ear/horn variations. plenty of other people have mentioned examples in this thread, but my personal most wanted feature for this would be more miqo ear variety in particular. we don't get ear shape/length options like viera/elezen do (and probs won't bc we all know how SE is with hats), so I would at least want something like black-tipped ears, chipped ears, striped or spotted fur patterns, etc.

5) let the sun miqo have the moon miqo teeth!! actually, in fact just let everyone have the teeth. we should all get to have fangs if we want.

I'll suggest more tattoos & facial piercings in here. I'm a fan of the alt/goth style and it'd be nice to have those options. (If you don't like them, don't use them, simple.)

Eye glows would be neat.

More long hair styles, less straight-across bangs please...

Black sclera options for more than just male auri.

Far, far, far more makeup options, and for the love of gods please let us have darker makeup like lipstick on miqo. 'dark red' or 'black' is just a light shade.

Nail polish that isn't tied to the false nails.

More intricate earrings, ESPECIALLY for elezen. I have elezen alts I'd love whole-ear jewelry for, but any race with large ears could benefit from this. Would it require a lot of work? Yeah. So? AAA gaming company. Put work into it.

Sharp teeth options (why did they nerf miqo fangs...?) for all.

Auras could be pretty neat.

fellow Aura enjoyer here. I agree.

id like more eyebrows
facial scars on females
allow horns and face to be interchangeable
beauty marks
extend tail length by like an extra 15 on the scale slider
more Eye shapes

Also, this is a shout out to ALL games.

Give us bangs, I'm sick of every game under the sun giving us haircuts that show off the forehead.


OH! Let us test hairstyles on the mogstation in either dreamfitting or the haircut dudes menu ingame.

My biggest gripe with the gfx update right now is they de-roegadyn female roe, particularly face 2, to the point it feels like Highlander 2.0.

If they ever did do anything beyond a few more checkboxes of scars/moles etc which, realistically, given the track record they have right now seems to be the only thing we're going to get until we have it live in game—because I'm not going to believe jack-all they promise—it'd be nice to have more visual traits back that we used to have. The coloured pupils that currently highlander face 3 have while femroe lost them on all faces which make our expressions really awful because we've got 30% larger pupils that are pure black now. The brow normal maps. I fought damn hard to get the nose mark back for hellsguard but there are new-to roe players in DT who didn't even know there was a nose mark until they fixed the opacity on the flat diffuse for the face so a toggle for that (technically it is just ash, lore wise, so it suits? just don't take the whole thing away again please dear gods.)

And yeah, a lot of other things people've mentioned here re: decoupling things from particular faces in the sculpts. Would be cool to have burn scars as options too instead of just slash scars.

Just hard to hope for anything good given everything else right now.

more faces
eye glow
fantasy eye colours
stronger lipstick colours, includy fantasy lip colours
long hair styles
a hair style for men based on Thancred's long hairstyle but with bangs that don't obscure half your face when you put on a hat and a proper low ponytail
hair that doesn't clip
eyebrows for male highlanders
estinien's hair for everyone
more bangs

I'd love to have more long hair options, let it be loose hair or long pony tails. I'd love to have the option to have a muscle slider on more races please- I want my miqo girl to look more toned!! Battle scars on the body would be nice as well.

Add a blind eyes option on top of the heterochromia idea...

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Originally Posted by KthAura

I'd love to have more long hair options, let it be loose hair or long pony tails. I'd love to have the option to have a muscle slider on more races please- I want my miqo girl to look more toned!! Battle scars on the body would be nice as well.

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I would LOVE body scars, the amount of crap the WoL has gone through and still has a prestine barbie/ken body is silly.

Burns, scars, gimme gimme