Benchmark Male Miqo'te Face 1 Feedback: Nope, still F#%@ed.

[TheVegetable]

After posting in the general benchmark thread, I've been trying to figure out what it is that bothers me so much about the changes to face 1. They really are subtle, but I guess it's because the face itself is very smooth, a bit of a baby face, that they stand out so much. To me, most of the detail and charm and sharpness is in the eyes and the lips. Here's my Keeper from Endwalker to first Dawntrail benchmark to updated benchmark, mouth 4, eye shape 3.



And when I removed and added some catchlights...



That extra light is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but I still think the first face looks the most awake. So let's look at the eyes...



Well, not subtle at all, actually. My Keeper suddenly has rather heavier eyelids there, so his eyes look less open and even a bit sleepy. I also think the original shape is sharper. And am I seeing that right, did the eyelids get even bigger in the second benchmark? Let's put some paint on them.



Yeah, I'm pretty sure the eyelids get slightly heavier in both updates, and the third pair looks a bit more rounded. I also think the shape of the eyes I liked so much is a little softer and rounder in general now. What do you guys think? I'll have to draw some lines when I get to my tablet...

Oh yea, that actually shows the difference in the eyes pretty well. Less boxy. I want my box eyes back

[TheVegetable]

So, I go over this in my own thread but the changes to mouth shape are absolutely not specific to male miqote face 1. It's a consistent issue across many faces in the game and easily the one change that contributes the most to our WoLs appearing different in ways we don't want.

This change to the lower lip shape happens to almost all races when lip color is applied:



I don't believe the physical geometry of the lips actually changed, which you can confirm by turning off lip color. This means we could get an improved appearance for all of our characters if they adjust how lip color is applied to the lower lip. I would prefer this change as an option but it's clear that many people are unhappy with the change to the lower lip.

If you want to see changes, I recommend not hyperfocusing on your own WoL's face but instead try to highlight issues that are common across many different races and genders. It will be harder for the dev team to justify the changes as an intentional "we did say your WoL would look different" if they're shown that all races now have the exact same lower lip makeup. It's such a small thing but it seriously messes with the perception of our characters.

You may be right about the lips. The mouth is still definitely too wide though, so just adjusting the lip texture won't be enough, and there's several other issues specific to this face.

[Aco505]

My post on the low resolution textures found on the male miqo'te face 1 has been moved to "accepted bugs" and hopefully the other one on graphical issues on the ears of male miqo'te will, too, after I expanded it with extra information.

If there's any specific issue that you think they could fix such as lip shape being changed for almost all faces and genders, consider writing a detailed bug report. It might get accepted.

[srell]

This change in the lips is the biggest thing bothering me now- even without lip color (which I dislike because lips naturally have some color to them!), the new mouth 4 lips are... not right. In addition to what you've said (lips too wide, shape is wrong) I think the shadow under the lower lip is also contributing- the different shape it has in the benchmark (shorter and wider) just accentuates the changes to its shape. Overall it looks more like the old mouth 3 I think.

Another issue I've run into with the benchmark is the eyebrows (type 5 is what I use)- the 6.58 eyebrows have thicker lines; the newer ones are a lot thinner (I assume with the texture upgrade), but they didn't add more of them- so the newer ones aren't as noticeable as the old ones (which were already not very noticeable to begin with). At least with the coloring my miqo has (pale skin with dark hair- though I can also see the smoothing effect on OP's miqo too- it's worse in the 1.1 Benchmark than the original benchmark too) the actual hair of the eyebrows is pretty much entirely lost in the eyebrow ridge/shadow now- contributed to by the change in the shadows above the eye. It looks okay up close, but from a distance it's not a great look and it contributes a lot to the blander, more baby-faced version of this face in the benchmark. It would be nice to have a toggle for thicker eyebrows (like face 4 has in Facial Features).

I also noticed the neck seam Aco505 mentioned in their bug post- impossible to miss from the side, regardless of face or skin color. It bugs me less than the mouth and eyebrows though! (Other minor issues I've seen are the eye color is a lot darker in the benchmark- easy to remedy with the free fantasia, fortunately and the texture of the non-removable "cheetah" lines under the eye & in face paint being noticeably not upgraded and looking worse now for the comparison.)

[Aco505]

This change in the lips is the biggest thing bothering me now- even without lip color (which I dislike because lips naturally have some color to them!), the new mouth 4 lips are... not right. In addition to what you've said (lips too wide, shape is wrong) I think the shadow under the lower lip is also contributing- the different shape it has in the benchmark (shorter and wider) just accentuates the changes to its shape. Overall it looks more like the old mouth 3 I think.

Another issue I've run into with the benchmark is the eyebrows (type 5 is what I use)- the 6.58 eyebrows have thicker lines; the newer ones are a lot thinner (I assume with the texture upgrade), but they didn't add more of them- so the newer ones aren't as noticeable as the old ones (which were already not very noticeable to begin with). At least with the coloring my miqo has (pale skin with dark hair- though I can also see the smoothing effect on OP's miqo too- it's worse in the 1.1 Benchmark than the original benchmark too) the actual hair of the eyebrows is pretty much entirely lost in the eyebrow ridge/shadow now- contributed to by the change in the shadows above the eye. It looks okay up close, but from a distance it's not a great look and it contributes a lot to the blander, more baby-faced version of this face in the benchmark. It would be nice to have a toggle for thicker eyebrows (like face 4 has in Facial Features).

I also noticed the neck seam Aco505 mentioned in their bug post- impossible to miss from the side, regardless of face or skin color. It bugs me less than the mouth and eyebrows though! (Other minor issues I've seen are the eye color is a lot darker in the benchmark- easy to remedy with the free fantasia, fortunately and the texture of the non-removable "cheetah" lines under the eye & in face paint being noticeably not upgraded and looking worse now for the comparison.)

I agree with everything. There's a lot of things that would require some tweaking to make them look better:

- The lip shape #4 being changed, which means the male miqo'te face 1 doesn't have a true small mouth option anymore.

- The color of the eyes being darker now, which also has the effect of making the slit pupils of Seekers less noticeable. You can choose a lighter color in the same line in the character creator but it may inevitably introduce changes elsewhere (e. g. depending on lighting) so either you get used to the new tone or you get used to a relatively similar one that can still be different.

- The eyebrows being thinner and the lack of thickness options.

- The markings below the eyes for males having low resolution even though they're not paint, I guess due to the fact that all face paint is still low res.

- Low resolution textures or issues on some parts of the face and ears, including the neck seam.

- Many haircuts still looking too pixelated and with strange shapes, as well as the problem of hairstyles showing noticeable gaps between skin and hair.

There's probably more that I'm forgetting but clearly there's still things to improve. I've given feedback about these in different posts and threads, including my own, just like so many other players both in the English and Japanese forums.

Let's just hope that all this feedback actually materializes into fixes for face 1.

After that, we need a character creator expansion and overhaul with things like beard options for all faces, as well as a graphical update to bodies at some point. Otherwise, it's going to be too jarring to have high resolution heads and faces while the rest of the body is low resolution.

[Sylpharia]

Hoping you guys get a shadowfix behind the scenes

[TheCat]

Hoping you guys get a shadowfix behind the scenes

Same.. although I'm bracing myself for the inevitable disappointment when I log on tomorrow to see nothing has changed.

The reason why I'm invested in seeing this fixed is because my boyfriend plays a male face 1 mouth 4 miqo and he is literally disgusted with the changes. He doesn't wanna post here on the forums, but he has expressed to me how he is not looking forward at all to logging in to his char looking like that... breaks my heart to hear him say that

Here's hoping that once the patch goes live people who have been sleeping on the benchmark will see the changes and start nagging SE to fix it.

[Lunaru_F]

I’ve got a ton of hopium to the point of being delusional tbh
Lodestone profiles are being updated and I’m just bracing when my Miqo’s face will go from… >:| to |:3

[TheCat]

For some #hopium it looks like they actually did fix the mouth for masculine Miqo'te face type 4. They're not smiling anymore!

This is a quote from another thread, so it looks like they actually did some fixes to face 4. So there is still hope for face 1!!

[TheVegetable]

This is a quote from another thread, so it looks like they actually did some fixes to face 4. So there is still hope for face 1!!

Well, that's a little promising. I won't get my hopes up though. But it does seem they're listening which is good news, so that gives me some hope that if it won't be all good at launch, they'll continue to work on it!