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

[GreenLeafy]

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.

Its genuinely such a shame... Losing so much racial and general individuality is just a baffling direction as a whole.

[srell]

Yeah it's definitely got more Kim-Possible-style lip coloring now. I've gotten used to that in-game already, and am more bothering still by the overall mouth shape, scar color, and low-res cheetah lines. I like the look (even I keep getting the Kim Possible theme song stuck in my head), but I can definitely see why that would bother people and wouldn't be upset if it went back.

Another thing that screenshot shows really well is the difference in eye color- those two images use exactly the same saved character settings. In all of my 7.0 screenshots, I've already Fantasia'd his eyes a shade lighter. I'm honestly kind of baffled by the way they changed the eye color- surely that's something they would have noticed and could adjust? I feel bad for characters who already had eyes at the lightest shade in their color family, if the difference there is as noticeable. They don't have a way to fix it.

[TheCat]

Another thing that screenshot shows really well is the difference in eye color- those two images use exactly the same saved character settings. In all of my 7.0 screenshots, I've already Fantasia'd his eyes a shade lighter. I'm honestly kind of baffled by the way they changed the eye color- surely that's something they would have noticed and could adjust? I feel bad for characters who already had eyes at the lightest shade in their color family, if the difference there is as noticeable. They don't have a way to fix it.

Sheesh, I noticed the crazy difference in eye color and was close to say something about that too, but then I figured SURELY you must've been using different eye colors between pictures. Welp, add that to the list of complaints then ;/

[Aco505]

Eye color is one of the worst offenders. Problem is... when the proper lighting is there, it looks a lot like before but those conditions are not always there. Eye color in the character equipment window and portraits is just awful.

[TheVegetable]

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.

I definitely agree about the intent. It doesn't feel like whoever made the model really understood the original and all of the little quirks that made it look the way it does. And about the whole "more (conventionally) attractive" thing, part of the issue for me is that I don't even find my characters attractive anymore. All of the little details they had before was a big part of what made me like them so much in the first place ._.

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.

That's a good point. I think you're on to something there.

[Aco505]

The funny thing is... the profile view of the mouth is exactly how it was in 6.58 but the front is a bit strange due to how wider they are now. That and the eye color being washed out is what strikes me as the biggest changes to face 1 and mouth 4.

[ConantSivrha]

The more cutscenes I watch, the less I like my character's updated face.

This empty-headed expression did a lot to ruin the mood of the cutscene in which it was featured (this is a cutscene associated with the first solo duty, dialogue box cropped out for spoiler prevention). I think it's a combination of the foggy eyes, the new mouth's "neutral" state looking unnaturally stiff and slightly smiley, and the lighting conditions making both of those issues more obvious than they would be otherwise.



That said, the other expressions aren't necessarily better. I've been seeing awkward-looking sharp angles in mouth animations that either weren't present before or weren't noticeable before. I assumed expressions and face animations would be significantly improved by the update, which was a large part of why I was willing to give the new face a chance, but it seems like we got the opposite result in reality.

[Sairaag]

Yeah, I think the benchmark trailer misrepresented how expressions would look in live game. I remember watching it and thinking "maybe it will be okay after all", only for my Keeper to look lethargic and honestly not very intelligent in key cutscenes.

And speaking of Keepers and their mouths, aren't the fangs still a little weird? They're so far apart now. With the old graphics you could see them quite easily with just the talking animation, now they're less visible even though the mouth is wider.

[TheVegetable]

The more cutscenes I watch, the less I like my character's updated face.

This empty-headed expression did a lot to ruin the mood of the cutscene in which it was featured (this is a cutscene associated with the first solo duty, dialogue box cropped out for spoiler prevention). I think it's a combination of the foggy eyes, the new mouth's "neutral" state looking unnaturally stiff and slightly smiley, and the lighting conditions making both of those issues more obvious than they would be otherwise.



That said, the other expressions aren't necessarily better. I've been seeing awkward-looking sharp angles in mouth animations that either weren't present before or weren't noticeable before. I assumed expressions and face animations would be significantly improved by the update, which was a large part of why I was willing to give the new face a chance, but it seems like we got the opposite result in reality.

Yeah, I've kept going back too to give it another chance and I keep being let down. Having messed around in photoshop, I think the solution would be to redo the mouth texture, upping the contrast in the eyes, and expanding the black area of the upper eyelid.

Yeah, I think the benchmark trailer misrepresented how expressions would look in live game. I remember watching it and thinking "maybe it will be okay after all", only for my Keeper to look lethargic and honestly not very intelligent in key cutscenes.

And speaking of Keepers and their mouths, aren't the fangs still a little weird? They're so far apart now. With the old graphics you could see them quite easily with just the talking animation, now they're less visible even though the mouth is wider.

I hadn't noticed that about the fangs, but I'll keep an eye out.

[CorvoSomnia]

bumping this because please can we get our faces fixed, or at leasttttt fix mouth 4, mouth 4 did not need to be changed it was a smaller mouth and the only not huge mouth, now there just is no option