Benchmark Male Miqo'te Face 1 Feedback: Nope, still F#%@ed.

[TheVegetable]

As I suspected, every issue I brought up about the male miqo'te model have gone unresolved. My character still looks like a soulless husk whose personality has been butchered.



The shape of the eyes is obviously different.



As shown in the image above, the issue lies primarily in the upper eyelid which I assume is meant to be an abstract form of eyelashes. Original on the left, new on the right. You can see a noticeable difference in expression based on how the thickness and shape of the eyelashes affect the look of the eyes, with the older model's eyelashes being thicker, thus contributing to a more awake and alert look.

At the very bottom, I modified the new model's eyes in photoshop to demonstrate how a change to the eyelashes could change the eyes to more resemble the old model. The eyes used in all of these images is option 6 (because that's the one I prefer using).




Probably the most egregious error is in the mouth, which I pointed out in my previous thread as well. The shapes and nuances of the lips are just completely wrong all over.

First of all, the mouth is definitely too wide, there's not much doubt about that if you ask me.

Aside from that, the shape of the lips, as shown in the image, is all wrong. Aside from just the shape itself being different, they also extend further to the sides of the mouth rather than receding inward, further contributing to the appearance of the mouth being too wide.

There is some different in the upper lip too, particularly in the fullness, but that's not enough of an issue that I can't live with it so long as the lower lip is changed.

As shown in the image, the changes become especially pronounced in mouth 4, which may as well be a completely different option now. I assume that the options outside of mouth 1 are just squashed and stretched variants of mouth 1, and with the changes to the shapes and textures, this causes mouth 4 to completely lose its distinguishing features because the shapes formerly present in mouth 1 are no longer there to be pronounced further.


Overall, I'm extremely disappointed. I'd really expect the developers to do better, and hope they'll take the time to adjust what needs adjusting. There is no way to return my characters to the way they're supposed to be even with fantasia because of these changes, and it's honestly making me dread the release of Dawntrail rather than look forward to it.

I'm not the only one who has issues with face 1. Here are a couple of other threads with feedback regarding face 1 for male miqo'te:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ace-1-feedback
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...qo-te-Feedback

edit: accidentally posted the same image twice and missed one, oops

[SnowyTheOwl]

I agree with your assessment, the changes made are clearly different from the original model and while I understand the need to innovate and update the models I must say it should be done whilst still preserving the characters overall look and style. I hope that the dev team do take these criticisms and actually attempt to revise the the changes made to certain miqo'te faces.

[DynnDiablos]

You seem like someone who will never be happy regardless. End of the day, no one is getting everything they want. They said characters WILL look different. End of story. DT is going to get delayed because you don't like the changes.

[MoonstalkerZ]

Those changes to the lips are incredibly egregious

[TheVegetable]

You seem like someone who will never be happy regardless. End of the day, no one is getting everything they want. They said characters WILL look different. End of story. DT is going to get delayed because you don't like the changes.

I don't see where you got that notion. I can accept that some change is inevitable, but this is way too much. The entire character of the face is ruined. And Squeenix specifically said they want to do their best to preserve the spirit of the models. I don't see much of a point in updating the models if all it achieves is alienating the players from their own characters, and I know I'm far from the only person who's unhappy.

[Aco505]

Yeah, male miqo'te face 1 still feels a bit "dead inside". I don't think the changes to eyes did much for us.

I also agree that the changes to mouth 4 are too big, as it's just a slightly shorter mouth 1 but lost many of its other features. I'm personally not too bothered by it, but it does mean a loss of options for those wishing for a smaller and tighter mouth and lips...

Let's hope they address this in the future.

[purincchi]

You seem like someone who will never be happy regardless. End of the day, no one is getting everything they want. They said characters WILL look different. End of story. DT is going to get delayed because you don't like the changes.

respectfully, do you have anything better to do than barge into every thread providing constructive feedback on the graphical changes (which the devs encourage, btw) and waggle your finger at how ~ungrateful~ and ~unreasonable~ people are being over significant changes to their characters that they can't do anything to fix? i promise you square enix won't collapse into dust over the criticism.

[TheCat]

I am devastated to see that nothing has changed for male miqo face 1 between the last benchmark and this one. After the first benchmark was released I even went as far as to post on the japanese forum (with auto translate) to try make my complaints with the new mouth shapes heard. But from what I saw scouring both forums there were really few people actually talking about this, despite face 1 being the most used for male miqo. Kinda feels like we're actually in the minority finding these changes worse?

To me it literally looks like a different person after the update, this is not one of the things that can be tweaked with the free fanta. Face 1 ceases to exist with Dawntrail if these changes go through, to be replaced with something entirely different. This is not what they promised us when they said they would keep the images of our characters with the graphics update.

[Reimmi]

Honestly, would it be too hard for square to allow us to have the old face textures as an option in the settings?
Might cause problems with future helms i suppose, is why they don't want it.
I'm very happy with my character personally but the option would be nice

[Halfheart]

A lot of these "complaints" are seriously nitpicky. There are some genuine issues but if you need to 10x zoom and highlight it in red just to make a point...

The hyperbole is something else. Butchered, really.