Male Miqo'te Face 4 changes (Benchmark feedback)

[YatoGato]

I hate it too. Anyone know if the Japanese forums have a thread about it? I really hope SE sees the feedback on this one. I actually didn't have any issues with the first benchmark but was excited to see the tweaks. I didn't expect them to be making such drastic changes to our characters this close to release. They talked so much at the first fanfest about how they knew people were attached to their characters and didn't want to make changes that were too extreme - this seems pretty extreme!! He had a sweet, gentle air about him before, now he looks like a jerk. Why wouldn't they just add new face options if they want to do this?

[Puddor]

Yeah, I didn't want to post again after last bench due to how the people who were happy behaved toward the people who weren't (when YoshiP specifically has asked for feedback and has stated the goal is to maintain the vibe of a character!) but this is egregious, because maintaining a grumpy look would require switching to a different face or possibly race.

The resting scowl is why I use this face...I even have black eyeshadow to make it look worse and now he's smiling

[Lurial]

Throwing in my two cents as well.

I can deeply appreciate the hard work the devs put into everything. My character does look gorgeous! He's just has a very different vibe and personality than the one I spent the last 10 years with. I'm hoping there might still be time to adjust things.

For me, the biggest thing I would love for the permanent smile/smirk to be more neutral and serious like it was before. The permanent smile when my I've spent a decade seeing my character a bit "grumpier" and more serious is a pretty jarring.

[CyanOnigiri]

Anyone know if the Japanese forums have a thread about it?

As far as I can tell, most of the JP feedback is concentrated in this main thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...AD%B0%E8%AB%96

There is A LOT in there, but I did find at least one EN player post about the face 4 miqo'te issues that resonate with many of us here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6471489

I'd encourage you all to repost your concerns over there too, even if it's just images with some translated text.

Anything to get the word out on JP forums helps! I intend to repost there sometime soon as well.

[Adaire99]

I hate it too. Anyone know if the Japanese forums have a thread about it? I really hope SE sees the feedback on this one. I actually didn't have any issues with the first benchmark but was excited to see the tweaks. I didn't expect them to be making such drastic changes to our characters this close to release. They talked so much at the first fanfest about how they knew people were attached to their characters and didn't want to make changes that were too extreme - this seems pretty extreme!! He had a sweet, gentle air about him before, now he looks like a jerk. Why wouldn't they just add new face options if they want to do this?

That's my exact feeling, too! I had small nitpicks with the first benchmark but was fine with it on the whole, and I was excited for the second only for the changes to be extreme. None of the different lighting options or the benchmark cutscene itself give any indication that he won't look like this in-game, and for major changes like this to come out of nowhere so close to release is pretty disappointing. The overall feeling of my character has completely changed, and even people I've shown who aren't familiar with FFXIV have been able to notice.

[shykupo]

I've never made a forum post nor did i feel like I needed to until i loaded my face 4 miqo boy into the benchmark! You have all stated it much better, but I will go ahead and say my piece. My character is very serious and his lore is dark and sad; he rarely ever smiles. To see a perpetual smirk put on his face kind of hurts me to look at! Maybe I'm too attached to my character but it just isn't who he is at all. I feel like his overall face and demeanor has been changed. I hope SE can give this change some more thought
current:


first benchmark


updated benchmark

[Supersnow845]

As far as I can tell, most of the JP feedback is concentrated in this main thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...AD%B0%E8%AB%96

There is A LOT in there, but I did find at least one EN player post about the face 4 miqo'te issues that resonate with many of us here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6471489

I'd encourage you all to repost your concerns over there too, even if it's just images with some translated text.

Anything to get the word out on JP forums helps! I intend to repost there sometime soon as well.

I also encourage people to post on the JP megathread

I put a post through Google translate that said what my problem is and an apology for not being able to speak Japanese and attached the before and after of my character and the post is getting upvotes (which is their way of denoting agreement with a comment) so it seems like they don’t mind broken google translate English as long as you aren’t rude

[Liale]

I hate it too, I immediately looked at my character in the benchmark and went, this is not me. I don't really self identify with my character, like I'm not self inserting, but despite changing a few times, it only ever lasted a week, I always went back to my cat boy for 10 years. Yoshi P said that they didn't want you to look at it and not recognize your character but that is what has happened.

[glitteringcosmos]

There is A LOT in there, but I did find at least one EN player post about the face 4 miqo'te issues that resonate with many of us here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6471489

Hello, that's me! I too any very upset by the changes made to face 4 male miqos. Allow me to very briefly summarize what I wrote in the JP post.



1+4: Eyebrows
The eyebrows have been thinned, making them lose their roundness and making them very sharp and angular. This gives the impression that the character is constantly smirking. I had this issue when making my character back in 2019; this option was the softest eyebrow I could get and now even this one was made extra sharp.
2. Mouth
The shape of the mouth has changed. I can see where they were going with the more cat-like mouth, and while I don't hate my character smiling, it doesn't suit every character, and many have lost the seriousness that was the original appeal. Plus, with some jaw options, they look like they're sucking on a lemon.
3. Eye Color
The vividness of the eye color is reduced, as others have pointed out, making the eyes lose that cat-like shine. This can be mitigated somewhat by knocking the color down one shade lighter.
5. Overall Expression
Again, the changes above combine to give an overall different vibe, and the default face is no longer a neutral expression, but rather more like emote: smirk or emote: simper. It's rather sultry and sexy, which is not at all the vibe I want for my character. The droopiness of the eyelids contributes a lot to this issue.

For me, I found some settings I could tweak to make it a little more like the original character. But no amount of changes would fix the droopiness of the eye (indeed, setting 3, the one I use, is the only setting with cat-like eyes that point upward, so I can't change that), nor make the eyebrows any rounder or softer the way they used to be (the eyebrow toggle in facial features makes it even worse, somehow) or the mouth having a constant smile (which again, isn't so much a problem for me personally by itself but combined with the other issues makes it a problem).

All this said, I encourage everyone to use google translate to post on that JP forum thread. My concerns gained way more traction in JP than in EN forums, even when I posted my issues about the 1.0 benchmark. I don't know how much difference it'll make this late in the game, but I'm holding out hope that the devs see it and listen.

[FlowingFlow]

There are still some differences that I'm not satisfied with yet. Here are the comparisons with the current in-game character design and Benchmark 1.1.

Eyes: The benchmark eyes have a more frosted glass-like, and the current patch has a more beautiful glow within the iris at night. Benchmark 1.1 eyelids give a more droopy look up close.

Lips: There's a catlike upward curl on the lips. I'm realizing I like my character looking dead on the inside more lol! who agrees?

Face in general: Is it the lighting? The benchmark face 1 and neck look fuller as well, less of a baby face and more manly. It's preferences, but not accurate to current creation. I'm seeing that folks have conflicts with benchmark making their character look more twinky, and I'm trying to retain my baby face and less manly lol.

Background: Also, the blue night sky might not be as realistic but it's more beautiful.