7.0 Graphic Update - Lalafell Feedback (please give me back my smudge!!)

[Vuro]

How are we feeling, Lalafell WoLs? I was very optimistic about the graphics update while viewing all the pre-release material, but now that we finally get to play with the new character creator...Personally, I'm really not happy.



My skin color is much greener, but I'm sure I can find a different skintone closer to the old one. I'm also not a fan of the thinner eyebrows/upper eye-lashes, but I can live with that. What I can't abide by, however, is that they stole the dark smudge on my nose!! While it's still technically a facial feature, the difference between smudge/no smudge is much harder to see now. ...but only for females.



The males got to keep their darker noses! I don't want to use a Fantasia in order to keep mine. In general, the girls' face is SO SHINY compared to the boys', and I don't understand why. Are we just assuming that because my WoL's a female, she moisturizes hourly? This gender difference seems extremely arbitrary. Devs, please tone down the shine and give back my dark nose. This part is probably not feasible, but something that would be ideal is if we could get the "light, dark, none" toggle for this particular facial feature, like we have for face paint and lip color.

EDIT 6/3/24: The smudge has been restored! <3

Current (6.55) → Benchmark v1 → Benchmark v2

[Kelg]

Lalafell faces have some weird broken/jagged model parts on the cheeks under the eyes on all of the jaw options except the fat cheeks :S I hope they redo this. Also please make the Dunesfolk eyes look closer to how they look in the current game, somehow the new ones look darker most of the time. Other than this, they look pretty good.

Old: New:

[KhujaRela]

Dissappointed falls short on how I feel about my lalafell changes...
She's been stripped of all life force, personality, and appearance

-Eyes dead, no shine, also why now you can see the pupil? She is supposed to be a Dunesfolk, all the eye should look yellow and bright.

-Lips have changed shape and shine, now they are like a stripe of paint, she also lost her smile?? why

-She has dark circles under her eyes now, why?? She looks like she hasn't sleep in 3 days

-Hair looks like plastic strings...

I honestly don't understand all these changes, and I don't like it, I'm sad and frustrated, specially on the eyes and lips, changed their face completely

[Evergrey]

Their true nature is just coming up to the surface for all to see.
Soulless, evil potatoes. /s

[Souljacker]

They somehow made the actual child-like race look more like dolls than ever.

There is some weird direction going on at SE these days.

[Casti_EL]

I quite like the changes for mine overall (I suppose it depends on personal preference and creation choices - not all seem to have benefited from the changes).

He seems a little more grown up and in the benchmark itself the hair looked a lot better. I think the one thing I don't like is the smoothness of the skin - there's almost no texture/imperfections, making it almost porcelain like.

https://imgur.com/a/Ba5uBl9
https://imgur.com/a/F7sJm8x

[HermitUK]

The changes don't look as strange from an angle, but face-on they look particularly odd. These are comparison shots from current character creator vs benchmark:





Main things that stood out to me were:
1. The new mouths look weird; Type 02 in the new version is a closer match for the current Type 01 than the new Type 01 is.
2. Some of the jawlines have changed; type 2 looks like it's chubbier on the sides and has a flatter bottom than the more rounded lower jaw at present. I think this contributes to the mouths looking odd.
3. The old noses are button-like, but the new one has a long bridge which changes the profile of the face. Less noticable face-on, but it contributes to the nose looking flatter in the new version even though it's the same size. Very obvious if you compare from the side.
4. The new eyelash design is awful. The upper lashes now curl around the eye rather than ending in a point as they used to (this is what's causing the dead eyes, I think). The lower lashes are now poorly defined and look like a smudge under the eye rather than lashes. You can also see the eye shape has changed a bit which makes this more obvious / look worse

At this point I'd guess there's minimal time left for fixing these things, but it's disappointing more care wasn't taken to match like for like.

[LianaThorne]

The changes don't look as strange from an angle, but face-on they look particularly odd. These are comparison shots from current character creator vs benchmark:





Main things that stood out to me were:
1. The new mouths look weird; Type 02 in the new version is a closer match for the current Type 01 than the new Type 01 is.
2. Some of the jawlines have changed; type 2 looks like it's chubbier on the sides and has a flatter bottom than the more rounded lower jaw at present. I think this contributes to the mouths looking odd.
3. The old noses are button-like, but the new one has a long bridge which changes the profile of the face. Less noticable face-on, but it contributes to the nose looking flatter in the new version even though it's the same size. Very obvious if you compare from the side.
4. The new eyelash design is awful. The upper lashes now curl around the eye rather than ending in a point as they used to (this is what's causing the dead eyes, I think). The lower lashes are now poorly defined and look like a smudge under the eye rather than lashes. You can also see the eye shape has changed a bit which makes this more obvious / look worse

At this point I'd guess there's minimal time left for fixing these things, but it's disappointing more care wasn't taken to match like for like.

Ahhh so I wasn't hallucinating that some characters faces looked chubbier...interesting.

[Emitans]

What happened to my nose?! The dark spot needs to be darker or I look like a completely different character. Otherwise I absolutely love how I look.

[Tengi]

I'm generally happy with how the update treated my character (might make a few minor color changes though since the new lighting seems to make things brighter) but I do miss my darker Tarutaru style nose smudge:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6436985

I wonder if it's part of the "black isn't as black" issue people are seeing in other areas, the shape of the smudge is more natural but the reflection of the light washes out the darker black area.