Moon Miqo'te Face 4 feedback

[Roda]

I miss her

[ArsayNun]

Returning to this thread to share my updates o/
Firstly, big thanks to the dev team for even doing this updated benchmark to begin with. I'm sure they are all working to the bone right now. Hopefully they get a good chance to rest once the expac launches!



I would say she looks a lot more like herself! Her jaw seems less puffy and the reduced eyelashes have done wonders! It's a little sad that the corner of the eye has remained lowered, I will always love how angular the original eye 6 option was. However, if the rounder shape gives way to better animation on the eyes I'll take what we're getting. I must not be the only eye 6 player who has noticed the eyelashes clipping through the bottom eyelid during some blinks, right? At the very least it looks like the tear ducts are angled to give it a more cat like shape.

Something a little more concerning is the skin patterning:

Based on the original texture and the first benchmark, the white stripes of face 4 aren't supposed to fade into the face. Or at the very least, the one right below the eye doesn't. I know they fade out away from the face towards the hairline. Not sure why this was changed. I'm hoping it was an error. I did like how sharp it was initially in the previous benchmark.

And of course, so disappointment to see that the mouth gap has not been restored. I am beyond happy for the fang restoration but I will greatly miss seeing the little flash of white between her lips

The saddest part of this is that you can clearly see an example face 4 with the mouth gap in the UI of the facial features menu... Just rubs in the fact that we lost it a little more :')

[Purrsnikitty]

I don't necessarily hate most of the changes. I do want the mouth gap back because I found it really cute and I'd like the darkened nose to be more like it is currently.

Another things I did notice on the first few skin tones for Keeper of the Moon is the color around the mouth is lacking in saturation. The color difference between the forehead and area around the mouth increased significantly. You can see it in the ears as well. While this is in the more grey area of the skin options, this skin color never really had this issue before. It was just very pale.

I checked the other skin options and none of them really match the tone I currently use when I fantasia to a Keeper of the Moon. I was really hoping it was just on my end, but after looking at some other screenshots I see it there too. I could always choose another skin tone, but I used this one specifically because of how close it was to the hair color.

[Cheapshot]

Does anyone know if they've said they're going to keep making changes to the faces? Or is this updated benchmark it? I'm happy they made adjustments to the lash thickness and eyebrow shade, but there's still so much that hasn't been addressed at all.

Video of front on face comparison: https://i.imgur.com/f2crDvz.mp4


I made a video and some gif's to show the current state of my characters face in the updated benchmark vs live game.

[Edmund_Blackadder]

I miss her

I laughed at this more than I should have .

[Fenefab]

Does anyone know if they've said they're going to keep making changes to the faces? Or is this updated benchmark it?

IIRC they said in a follow-up post on Lodestone that they will keep looking at feedback from all regions and refining things up until launch. So there's still hope for our signature lip gap :P

[Cheapshot]

IIRC they said in a follow-up post on Lodestone that they will keep looking at feedback from all regions and refining things up until launch. So there's still hope for our signature lip gap :P

I hope so. Every time I load up the benchmark I just feel so bummed out. My character just looks like a different person now.
To me, the profile gif I made of the side of my characters face and the one of the mouth really shows a pretty stark change in the lines of the face. At least it looks pretty stark to me. I’m really curious if it’s as apparent to others?

[Oniguro]

I hope they bring back some of the options that are currently in-game as many have already mentioned.
As well as some of the skin colours that were available back in 1.0 as I really liked my charcoal kitty back when she was still as dark as charcoal (in 2012).


While now she's dark gray with no options to darken her skin colour further (screen from 2022):

And in the latest benchmark:


I know the lighting is different in the last two images but I feel like she became another shade lighter when I checked with similar lighting with the aesthetician in-game :crying:.

[Cheapshot]

So my final thoughts before Dawntrail. I am VERY unhappy with how I look in the new update. VERY. That might be it for me monthly sub wise. I was invested because of my strong attachment to my character, so now I don't see myself having any reason to play/pay monthly or buy mogstation outfits and emotes. And if anyone thinks I'm overreacting then I don't know what to tell you. Different things are important to different people so come to terms with that. The feedback I've provided here has all been as honest and sincere as possible so I hope no one mistakes me for someone speaking in bad faith.

Overall I'm disappointed in the character update portion of the graphical update. It should have gotten the most time and care out of anything to preserve peoples connection to their characters. I'm very against face homogenization and the removal of charm and unique features. A fantasia isn't the solution to this with such a limited CC still. Now some other character gets to go on the vacation that my WoL earned.

This much change to the face structure is a huge change to the whole feel of the character and that's not ok.

My character has been a sassy and spunky warrior, but changes were made that repaint her more toward being a delicate subdued doll. It feels like such a insult to a character who saves planets and stomps gods. I'm tired of this stereotypical brush being applied to female characters in games.

If we aren't getting an updated CC with 7.0 then the character appearance update needed to be nailed and it wasn't.

[ConantSivrha]

I agree with you, OP. I have a character with this face, and I was a big fan of their pre-graphics-update appearance. I intentionally gave this character a tomboyish, carefree look. In the benchmark, this character has become too plain and feminine.

The eyes look especially different to me. It looks like they were given huge false eyelashes, which is a look that I generally dislike. The eyes themselves seem bigger, too, while the nose, mouth, and chin all look slightly smaller and feminized. Most of these changes would be minor on their own, but together, they create a look that I would describe as "generically cute", which isn't what I intended for this character. They even yassified the character's eyebrows, for some reason. The eyebrow color has been changed to an unnatural dark grey that looks penciled-in, instead of matching the hair color.



I'm aware that most people would say the character is more attractive now, but I liked the rougher look of the original. It matched better with the personality I imagined for the character. Of course, the graphics themselves are a good deal better, especially the lighting, but I wish character appearances hadn't been homogenized like this. It seems like characters who didn't fit the stereotype or most popular look for their race were given a few extra whacks with the plastic surgery stick.