Updated benchmark

[Astronis]

With all due respect, you are putting too much faith in SE that they will give any semblance of attention to male highlanders. The most likely scenario from this benchmark is that it will be left as-is, since highlander players are not much anyway.

I am very puzzled by this, because the evidence is right before my eyes that SE is paying attention to male Highlanders:

I will however keep pushing for as little change as possible, pharaphrased. If that's what SE meant, then they should stick with their gun and aim to not making big difference to the newer form.

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. The original thinness of the nose was a result of lack of polygons. That's been corrected. It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with. The original honestly always looked too thin too me, so I am glad SE has fixed what always looked something like an unfortunate sacrifice to the low-polygon requirements. So...yeah, as one of the few players of male Highlanders, I am going to register my satisfaction with this!

As for the cheeks...they looks pretty damned close to me.

In wild scenario that they have limitless resource, it would be good that they make option for different creative directions instead of making players have limited option like this.

Options are always nice for sure.

[Minali]

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. The original thinness of the nose was a result of lack of polygons. That's been corrected. It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with. The original honestly always looked too thin too me, so I am glad SE has fixed what always looked something like an unfortunate sacrifice to the low-polygon requirements. So...yeah, as one of the few players of male Highlanders, I am going to register my satisfaction with this!

Honestly, I can imagine this is the "issue" with many little changes that add to making things warped just a little. In my opinion t's likely many of the changes are now creating the characters how they were always supposed to be, or closer at that, but in ARR they couldn't build them the way they wanted. However, because it took then years for technology and CBU3 to catch up and make adjustments closer to their original intention, we're so used to the less refined versions we're getting now.

That said...

Options are always nice for sure.

Agreed. I don't mind my character looking like this now, she's really damn pretty. It just doesn't give me the same vibes before because of some minor changes I can barely point out. I wish things like eyes being less far apart or smaller or not all eye possibilities being so super round in my case, would be additional options people can choose. Same as adjusting your eyelashes and other things criticized in this thread, or at least options coming close to that, considering the higher number of polygons won't go away (and that's a good thing).

Also, damn, your Highlander is really handsome!

[potatsdevourer]

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. The original thinness of the nose was a result of lack of polygons. That's been corrected. It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with. The original honestly always looked too thin too me, so I am glad SE has fixed what always looked something like an unfortunate sacrifice to the low-polygon requirements. So...yeah, as one of the few players of male Highlanders, I am going to register my satisfaction with this!

Actually this confuses me. SE wants to upgrade character face model with more polygons, yes, then why they remove the curvature on the nose bridge?

The newer one just look less curved, and if one look closely it still has very slight curvature, and it can be argued that there is more polygon to that.
I surely will live fine with the change but it just bugs me. The new model changes the silhouette (for the lack of the better word) of the face, and it can also be seen on the cheek: the 6.58 version has continuous line from cheek bone, while the newer one has it much shorter with added laughing line.
And we can only speculate how is their target look like to keep change minimal, but to me, changing face silhouette is not the point. It is also why my complain compass the harsh eyebrow ridge as well, since it really muddles the original face silhouette.

Also personally this nose form is one of the quirk that catch my eyes first time and made me choose highlander despite their lack of eyebrows. So to see the curvature removed is just sucks.

[riani]

I do believe they have achieved this as much as is possible without just giving up and re-using the low-poly models. The model has more polygons. [...] It isn't a big difference--yes, it's noticeable to those of us who have been using this face for years, but it's an improvement over a model that didn't have enough polygons to work with.

I totally agree with you, they have achieved to truly upgrade the characters and they did a pretty good job keeping the original ideas/shapes polygon-wise. (The only exception might be some mouths, but I don't think that could be easily fixed or should be fixed in some cases.)
At least on my female highlander it is true and they are one of the more problematic races here I think - yes, she felt extremely off for me at first (it was the reason to join the forums actually), but I've got out the ruler and her features anatomically are extremely close to the original.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6472664

We should consider the new lighting as well - I believe it causes a lot of the face to look different - faces shorter/smaller, cheeks shaped differently, etc. - because it looks more dimensional now. But the lighting is a huge, huge improvement, even if it makes the face look off.
There are also some differences caused by the new textures too - I assume the creases, some eye shape or some mouth differences or how we perceive the distance between the eyes are because of this.

All in all, I could recommend sitting down and comparing the faces in minute details, it was what made me accept a lot of differences, including the mouth. - When I compared the original with the benchmark, I asked myself: 'If I was the artist, what would I have done?' There are a lot of really minor differences, which makes the character look off, but if I was sitting next to the artist, I would have agreed to commit to them - upgrade the nose, yes, giving eyebrow definition, yes, define the texture at the corners of the mouth, yes, define the creases to look more dimensional, yes, etc...
Of course, there will be changes, but in the end, you can compare the original and tweak the textures to feel more similar. - And I do think we should only look at the characters to see what defines the face, what improves upon it and what is important to change to get closer to that definition. Not necessarily to achieve the same, but to get closer to it if needed.

I think there might be more characters out there where the differences could be more acceptable for the owner if he/she tries to see the details thus. And in the long run, we will get used to or even get attached to these new differences too...

I know it is extremely based on my case and my opinion, and I don't know if all the characters would work like this... Please don't stone me for it.