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

[Aco505]

I haven't said much about this face because I feel like this thread covers it a lot better than I can, but I wanted to +1 because the feature changes really changed the feel of the expressions.

I honestly laughed aloud when I saw this change upon logging in. He went from looking gently bothered to so...genuinely scared. God. I can deal with it...but I really hope they actually change it.

Agreed. The expressions and the portraits look so weird now. Will have to tweak them all...

[TheCat]

Adding my own comparison pictures:



It's bad, y'all, seeing what a derp they turned him into makes me wanna cry



The lip shape is obviously the biggest offender, but the eyes look vacant too.

[ArionXx]

I really hope the lips gets fixed

[Jackaro]

I can't rightly imagine why the changes are so paradoxically minimal but at the same time massive. I pray there's a hotfix/stealth fix/some form of fix for the issues brought up in this thread, or at the very least an explanation as to why. My hyur ninja looks baller in 7.0 and I feel bad for all the miqo face 1's out there. I quickly went into create character and toyed around with Miqo masc face 1, and any combo I pick looks kinda...idk, soul-less?
Seeker Masc looks a bit like Bateman from American Psycho, there's just an uncanny valley feeling about it.


The mouths definitely feel wrong, do we know if they were changed or updated? Like how does this happen?

[Sairaag]

Yeah, our eye and mouth changes were quite invasive. Heavier eyelids and boat-shaped lower lips for everybody.

Anyway, I'm putting together a more measured and constructive post for the Japanese feedback thread. Might take a while since I'll be relying heavily on a translator and want to make sure it's as accurate as possible.

[srell]

Another issue I've been noticing now that I haven't seen brought up is the new scar textures. They're definitely an improvement over the old (they don't float above the skin, for one), but the color is just very wrong now. (The shape and length changed a bit, but that doesn't bother me nearly as much.) I know the scars change with the skin color, but my WoL has a relatively cool pale skin tone and the scar color now is too warm. The long one that cuts through the right eye in particular looks really orange against my WoL's skin and I hate it. I think I'd rather have the old lower-res, floating one back... It'd be the right color and wouldn't look jarring next to the low-res cheetah lines and (freckle) face paint.

The smaller scars that can be put on the left cheek are the same color, but they're narrower so it's not as obvious, especially from the distance I'm usually looking at his face during cutscenes. But that long one... Blech.

Screenshots from in-game, 6.58 on the left and 7.0 on the right:


Character creation screenshots, 6.58 on the left and Benchmark 1.1 on the right (I don't have any character creation shots from 7.0, but I don't think scars changed from the benchmark to 7.0):


7.0 screenshot to show just how orange it looks:


And a bonus to help show just how jarring the cheetah line and face paint textures are against the new eyes and scars:

[ConantSivrha]

My main uses this face. I’m not getting the same creeped out or disgusted feeling that others in this thread have mentioned. I think, when viewed as a whole, my character’s new face looks essentially fine and recognizable as the same character. Newly-introduced issues with this face are offset by the positive things—such as the darker lip color, improved face texture, and smoother lighting—enough that my overall level of satisfaction with this character’s appearance has remained mostly the same. And, looking back on the previous version of the face, I can see ways in which it looks unnatural that I didn’t notice before. (Of course, I’m only talking about my personal feelings about the face. I’m not claiming that my opinion is objectively correct, or that anyone else is wrong for finding certain changes more off-putting than I do.)

However, I’ve noticed the way certain features have been made more generic, and I would be happier with the update to this face if we were given something closer in shape to the original versions of these features. Mouth 4 is the most obvious example; originally, it was small and had a different shape than other mouths on this face, but now it’s just a slightly smaller mouth 1, and is larger/wider than it originally was. It looks like the other mouths on this face were also made wider than they originally were, albeit not as much as mouth 4.

The noses on this face have also been changed to look less catlike, with a narrower nose bridge, and an hourglass shape that wasn’t present before (this is mainly visible from the front). This change in particular makes me wonder if the people working on the new faces thought about the intent of the original designs, or if they were just trying to make something “more (conventionally) attractive”.

I wanted to add my thoughts, in part, to point out that there are people in my category, who don’t find their character’s current appearance intolerable but would still be happy to get revised or additional facial features that are a better translation of the original versions. Most of the people who feel like that probably don’t bother to say anything about it, and there might be a lot more of them than one would assume.



After looking at the picture again, I’m noticing that the chin also looks a bit too sharp, like the nose.

[GreenLeafy]

The noses on this face have also been changed to look less catlike, with a narrower nose bridge, and an hourglass shape that wasn’t present before (this is mainly visible from the front). This change in particular makes me wonder if the people working on the new faces thought about the intent of the original designs, or if they were just trying to make something “more (conventionally) attractive”.

Both these points are honestly the thing that bothers me the most in terms of the miqo'te changes. It really feels like they sanded down any feature that could be written as a more feline one and made them look more generic and human whilst also applying the ideas they think are attractive. I don't mind them adding more of those as an option , rather than completely swapping them out and losing parts that a lot of people found essential for their character's appearance.

[TheCat]

Character creation screenshots, 6.58 on the left and Benchmark 1.1 on the right

I quoted you because your screenshots really highlight another issue I have with the new mouth: In the before the top lip was lighter in the center, adding more dimension to it. In the after they made it all dark and flat. I would agree that the before needed some tweaking because the lines between the light and dark parts were too harsh, but I wish they had just blended it out better. Now the top lip and bottom lip don't match at all in color anymore, the top lip is way too dark.

[Sairaag]

Both these points are honestly the thing that bothers me the most in terms of the miqo'te changes. It really feels like they sanded down any feature that could be written as a more feline one and made them look more generic and human whilst also applying the ideas they think are attractive. I don't mind them adding more of those as an option , rather than completely swapping them out and losing parts that a lot of people found essential for their character's appearance.

I've seen a lot of complaints about Viera and Roegadyn noses and some other features being made more generic and human too, so it seems like a theme with this update.