Benchmark: Male Miqo Face 1 (it's not good)

[Aco505]

I am personally fine with the change. The face looks enhanced compared to before but it does take a bit to get used to it.




However, there are some things that are worth mentioning.

Lip option #4 for the male miqo'te face 1 has been changed. I'm not too bothered but it's quite similar now to the "longer" version (#1) whereas before there were more differences. See below for a comparison of mouth 4 before and after.



It doesn't have the same vibe, and it's now just a slightly shorter version of mouth 1. Again, not a huge deal but it does make the lips, mouth and overall face look different than before.

The roundness of the lips that has affected many races and faces is obvious here too, although it looks good on the male miqo'te face 1.


In the same picture, you can see the changes in the eyes. The color is duller now, as stated before by many, and the slit pupils are less prominent.

One issue I have is that the base color of the lower lip of the male miqo'te face 1 is too similar to the skin tone, which can make it look as if there's no lip or at least no clear outline. I have found this to be less problematic with darker skin tones.

This can be fixed using lip color. However, both eye and lip color (as well as many other elements) are quite affected by lighting now, which is why the eyes tend to appear dull and give a "dead inside" look when there's not enough light.

The left picture below exemplifies how the lips look good and defined with the aetherial background while the eyes are dull. On the other hand, the right picture shows the lips a bit weirdly because they have lost their outline and definition and the light has modified the lip color; while the eyes have become brighter although perhaps not as expressive as we were used to before.




Some of these issues can be fixed by tweaking different parameters to make it look a bit better. I think the lips will be nicer in my case with a slight color change and going from dark intensity to light.

However, I won't know for sure until I see it in game. The lighting of the character creator is quite awful and things such as skin tone, eye and lip color, hair color, etc. just don't look the same way they do when you actually play.


Lastly, I agree that eyebrows appear to be less prominent now. I think we need to split eyebrow options into shape and thickness so that we can have full control on how they look. I've seen players suggesting to have the eyebrow color be different than the hair color as well, which would be great to have.


All in all, I personally think it's a step in the right direction for male miqo'te face 1 although there's more work to do, in my opinion. Hopefully future changes can also satisfy those who are not happy with the differences.