I find the characters in this game really ugly/weird

[ValyrianBlood]

U are right- I have been thinking abt going back to highlander which Was my first race years ago but jfc the textures on the face are just so terrible. The old races got Mo shit on Viera and aura in this regard

[HollowedDoll]

The only thing that makes older races lesser great are facial expressions imo.
feel like they nailed those better on the newer ones, there were some horror faces back in early days, especially used by omg so crazy npcs.

[Vahlnir]

I think that any race/gender combo can look decent when done right. Elezen have odd proportions and animations, which I don't particularly care for. But I think every race is great to have around even if they aren't catered to my personal tastes.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Well, when you purposefully make crappy snapshots like that, anything would look bad.

[HeyMcFly]

I agree with you on alot of points
The character creator is imo, outdated and lackluster and needs a QoL update- but that's why alot of players use mods. To fix what SquareEnix won't
The designers who would create hairstyles and characters need to go back and update our character creator.

Give us NPC hairstyles and allow players to make more interesting looking characters.

-Female Viera can choose thicker eyelashes
-New male Viera can choose freckles that are not bound to face paint
These features should be made available to the older races

Currently, Our Face paint only has one wearable option, it needs two or three (I want to have blush, freckles and eyeshadow)
Not every race can choose thick eyebrows, which they should be able to

At this point, I'd be happy just to get decent hairstyles. Even the contest hairstyles are really boring and do not appeal to me. The older hairstyles are not great either. Most of them look really similar to one another.
I'd like longer, wavy hair or curly hair and more unique and beautiful hairstyles. Distinguishable hairstyles that look great.

At this point, I just want Hilda's ponytail or Lyse's ponytail- I'd settle for those hairstyles and call it on trying to push for character creator updates
I'd post about requesting their hairstyles on other language forums but, I do not speak other languages and don't want to come off rude to the other communities on accident

[RitsukoSonoda]

I agree with you on alot of points
The character creator is imo, outdated and lackluster and needs a QoL update- but that's why alot of players use mods. To fix what SquareEnix won't
The designers who would create hairstyles and characters need to go back and update our character creator.

Give us NPC hairstyles and allow players to make more interesting looking characters.

-Female Viera can choose thicker eyelashes
-New male Viera can choose freckles that are not bound to face paint
These features should be made available to the older races

Currently, Our Face paint only has one wearable option, it needs two or three (I want to have blush, freckles and eyeshadow)
Not every race can choose thick eyebrows, which they should be able to

At this point, I'd be happy just to get decent hairstyles. Even the contest hairstyles are really boring and do not appeal to me. The older hairstyles are not great either. Most of them look really similar to one another.
I'd like longer, wavy hair or curly hair and more unique and beautiful hairstyles. Distinguishable hairstyles that look great.

At this point, I just want Hilda's ponytail or Lyse's ponytail- I'd settle for those hairstyles and call it on trying to push for character creator updates
I'd post about requesting their hairstyles on other language forums but, I do not speak other languages and don't want to come off rude to the other communities on accident

To be fair. they went from FFXI which basically just let you chose a total of 8 heads for each race/gender combo as it's entire character creator process at the time to what we have in FFXIV when the game launched. The issue with revamping the character creator in this title in regards to body shape options at least probably isn't the character editor itself but the actual item database of body slot gear items that exists that probably would need to be reformatted or altered to work with new slider options. New face editing options would be nice and likely less work to implement in theory at least but that kind of hinges on how code works in regards to facial expressions and animations. However if they were to at least add new facial options it would most likely cause a very noticeable spike in fantasia sales.

I've never been a huge fan of the character art style of WoW. I get it was derived from unit portraits and sprites from the warcraft games. The smaller portraits and sprites in those titles didn't really bother me because of the type of game it was. It didn't translate well to me into an MMO where everything is viewed much closer. I actually prefer the dated FFXI visuals over WoW even after it's enhancements a few years ago. However visual appeal is all subjective to individual tastes. I used to joke with ppl when that WoW movie came out that the reason there is no FFXIV movie is because a movie company couldn't make an FFXIV movie look better visually than the game like they could with WoW.

[HeyMcFly]

To be fair. they went from FFXI which basically just let you chose a total of 8 heads for each race/gender combo as it's entire character creator process at the time to what we have in FFXIV when the game launched. The issue with revamping the character creator in this title in regards to body shape options at least probably isn't the character editor itself but the actual item database of body slot gear items that exists that probably would need to be reformatted or altered to work with new slider options. New face editing options would be nice and likely less work to implement in theory at least but that kind of hinges on how code works in regards to facial expressions and animations. However if they were to at least add new facial options it would most likely cause a very noticeable spike in fantasia sales.

I've never been a huge fan of the character art style of WoW. I get it was derived from unit portraits and sprites from the warcraft games. The smaller portraits and sprites in those titles didn't really bother me because of the type of game it was. It didn't translate well to me into an MMO where everything is viewed much closer. I actually prefer the dated FFXI visuals over WoW even after it's enhancements a few years ago. However visual appeal is all subjective to individual tastes. I used to joke with ppl when that WoW movie came out that the reason there is no FFXIV movie is because a movie company couldn't make an FFXIV movie look better visually than the game like they could with WoW.

I don't care about WoW or the artstyle - it's now become more cartoonish/ whimsical similar to Wildstar (I actually liked the way wildstar looked though) My BF who did play WoW wanted the art style to become more realistic/ darker

I'm aware of how limited the character creator was in XI
It's not that I'm not appreciative that we can pick and choose noses, lip size, eye shape etc but it all could use a touch up. ( Like being able to wear more than 1 face paint at a time & new hair & eye colour saturations. )

I'd be for new faces in general but more for new hairstyles or NPC hairstyles added for player use. Actually- Hilda's ponytail & Lyse's ponytail > anything else
Maybe new faces with updates similar to Viera (eyelashes/freckles/new make-up etc) with the addition of a few new hairstyles Or share Viera hairstyles with the other races.
It won't happen though, I do not think the character creator will ever be updated- The probability of us getting new hairstyles is more likely.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I don't care about WoW or the artstyle - it's now become more cartoonish/ whimsical similar to Wildstar (I actually liked the way wildstar looked though) My BF who did play WoW wanted the art style to become more realistic/ darker

I'm aware of how limited the character creator was in XI
It's not that I'm not appreciative that we can pick and choose noses, lip size, eye shape etc but it all could use a touch up. ( Like being able to wear more than 1 face paint at a time & new hair & eye colour saturations. )

I'd be for new faces in general but more for new hairstyles or NPC hairstyles added for player use. Actually- Hilda's ponytail & Lyse's ponytail > anything else
Maybe new faces with updates similar to Viera (eyelashes/freckles/new make-up etc) with the addition of a few new hairstyles Or share Viera hairstyles with the other races.
It won't happen though, I do not think the character creator will ever be updated- The probability of us getting new hairstyles is more likely.

The fact they've repeatedly added new hairstyles to me points to that being the easiest thing to add to the character creator.

Funny enough as much as I disliked WoW from it's visual style to how the game actually played I did enjoy and like Wildstar which ppl often called WoW in space. It was a shame the service of that game ended some years ago.

[Hysorn]

More or less, I think the female characters look about a thousand times better and more expressive, so no surprise that everyone and their mothers seem to either play female Miqo'te or Viera, but overall it's not all that bad, with enough work you can make males look decent too and they seem to demonstrate enough emotions, I don't really get the uncanny valley effect personally.

I still shudder whenever I remember the gorilla Humans, square hips Night Elves or fridge Draenei from WoW, FFXIV characters are a blessing in my eyes.

[TheMightyMollusk]

WoW has a very "American comic book" aesthetic, while FFXIV is more anime-styled. It's apples and oranges.

Also, y'know, WoW is almost 20 years old. And based on aesthetics from even older games.