Updated benchmark

[Gyson]

I use the same face and it looks like the same nose. Here is my feedback to Square Enix regarding this specific face: Thank you for fixing the issue in the last benchmark where it looked like my brow ridge was too soft and not angled correctly. Otherwise: please for the love of Rhalgr, do not listen to this player regarding the nose. DO NOT CHANGE THE NOSE. The nose is PERFECT AS IT NOW STANDS. Touch not the nose! It is different and that is a good thing. Please leave the cheeks alone. They are fantastic as they now stand. Please please please please please just stop fiddling with it, I love it as is and even prefer it.

I disagree with different being a good thing. The goal was supposed to be improve the visuals while staying as true as possible to the original look. Whether anyone thinks the new nose looks better or worse, more interesting or less interesting, etc. is irrelevant.. it it looks like quite different from the nose it was meant to imitate and that is something that should be addressed.

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.

Options are always nice for sure.

Options are nice but you have options.. there are multiple noses already to chose from. I certainly wish there were more, but that doesn't mean we should replace the existing choices that players have gotten used to.

I don't understand this claim that the original thinness of the nose was a result of a lack of polygons. There are other nose options for male Highlanders that can in no way be described as being "thin", so it doesn't seem like a lack of polygons was the reason for making this particular nose thin. It is more likely it was made on the thinner side as an option to stand apart from the noses that are on the thicker side.

I suspect you just prefer this nose option over the others but have always wanted it to be a bit thicker, and that is certainly understandable but I can't agree with the idea of everyone just going along with the change to fulfill your wish at the cost of pushing their personal preferences aside.



Left is Endwalker, Right is Dawntrail. Face Type 2 is being used.

My character's nose (Type 6) was altered in the update (as were several other aspects, unfortunately) and I dislike the change. From brow to tip, the entire ridge of the nose is now more squared off and blocky, where as previously it was more smoothed/rounded. This gives the ridge the appearance of being wider. I dislike it. I chose the nose originally because it was the one I preferred, and I do not think it was too thin. If the goal was to stay true to the original, it failed. A result isn't an improvement simply because it has more polygons. If you can do something correctly in 100 polygons, using 1000 polygons to do it incorrectly doesn't make it better.

I could go on.. as I also dislike the changes to the mouth. Mouth Type 4 lips now appear larger, both in width and height. This is likely because the shape of the upper lip has changed. Significant space has been added into the cupids bow, where previously nearly none existed. Mouth Type 4 is the smallest sized mouth available to male Highlanders and should have remained as a small option, rather than being sized closer to the other larger options already available.

The hair, while more detailed when zoomed in extremely close, seems much less detailed when viewed from any reasonable distance. I believe this is due to the lack of shading that is now present in the hair, causing it to look very flat. Two-tone colors no longer blend nearly as well as they used to, and for the lighter color I am using the darkest shade available. I can not make it darker without switching to a different color entirely. Again, this seems to be a problem with lost shading or variance in its color, so rather than each tone having areas that are slightly lighter and slightly darker and allowing the sections to blend together better, each section now appears separate and distinct (which is not good when it's supposed to be a blend). I have not seen these issue on all hairstyles, so it seems to be a problem with this particular hairstyle.

The chin (Jaw Type 4) is a bit shorter than pre-Dawntrail, making the head look more squared instead of oval.

The skin tone (RGB 169, 133, 104) has changed and is darker than it is on live. I don't know how this can happen when we literally have the RGB values, but there it is.

And of course, the cursed Face Paint (Eyebrows) we're stuck with.. the placement of these markings is positioned significantly higher on the brow than it was pre-Dawntrail. This makes the character look more "surprised" all the time. Why can't it just be at the same position it's been for the past 10 years? Plus, now the coloring is off. Even with the darkest color (black) selected, the shade appears lighter or less vibrant than it currently is on live. This makes it difficult to pass these markings off as eyebrows, as the lighter they appear the more fake they look.

My friend asked me "what in the world is going on with that black eyeliner at the top of your eye?" I don't even know what the deal is there. Probably a result of some changes to shading, but it looks bad.

All of these are little things, but the little things add up and result in a character I don't recognize. I do not feel "upgraded".