Au Ra Female faces are unrecognisable

[Arlessa_Ezzy]

Au Ra Female faces are unrecognisable
The best I could do to fix the new dead-eyed stare and permanently pursed but cheerful (?) lips was to add limbal rings, more eye make-up and change the mouth altogether. Eyes still look dead but at least more awake, the mouth is the hollywood glam lips which is the only option better than 3 types of small pursed lips. I can't do anything about the no- longer-round face shape because the other options are worse. Even with spending a fantasia to make minor changes, it doesn't come close to how expressive the faces were before, which was great for rp. I'm just hoping the ffxiv devs read the forum's feedback and improve them again in upcoming patches because this aspect of the 'update' is a solid step back from where they were.

[Plasmaspy]

Especially with face 2 mouth 1. She just looks soulless and locked in an emotionless half smile now. Before, she was looking at something in front, now just blank non-focus almost corpse like eyes.

[AstiSpumante]

Fellow face 2 and I miss how I used to be able to give my lizard large features. I already had her on the biggest ones before so there's not any options to switch to in my case. Also the weird ear pass through lighting on raen is just... absolutely not okay. I'm not a fan of trying to force it in line with a more "realistic" face. I want my goofy fish faced gargoyle back.

Even for other faces, Sadu looks like a whole different character and it doesn't suit her.

[Plasmaspy]

Like a complete different person.

[CStrife912]

Like a complete different person.

I would say only the mouth needs tweaking but I’m sorry this is a case of where actual skin shaders and better lighting are working as intended and the old version was just that dated you got used to a ‘style’ that was just dated tech working. Changes were going to happen… even if it were a one to one model rip… with new shaders and lighting it would still ‘look’ different. I think she still looks great.

[Plasmaspy]

I would say only the mouth needs tweaking but I’m sorry this is a case of where actual skin shaders and better lighting are working as intended and the old version was just that dated you got used to a ‘style’ that was just dated tech working. Changes were going to happen… even if it were a one to one model rip… with new shaders and lighting it would still ‘look’ different. I think she still looks great.

The issue for my character is really only the eyes and the mostly the mouth, i made an edit where i cutout and edited the old mouth onto the picture of the new model


The pupils are bigger (the small size i chose years ago is now the size of the larger option, if i wanted larger i would have selected it before) + less reflection giving a deadgaze corpse look wherever the light source is coming from.
The mouth is a different shape and width it completely changes the expression, Liveliness and identity of the character.
Changing back the mouth at least would fix 95% of the new person issue.

[Sarantserel]

Yeah my girl is using Face 4 and she felt like a different character when I logged in this morning than the one I played with for the past 5 years. Despite my hype having gone down significantly from the changes, I've still been doing the MSQ and what's striking me the most is that I feel no attachment to my own character now. She constantly looks bored/tired because of the way her eyes were reshaped and the iris and larger pupils.



The scales on her body also have more artifact than before and she straight up has spots on her hands where the skin doesn't change color.

[Einnecy]

I would say face 2 and 4 were hit the hardest. I have always associated face 4 with sharpness (and triangles), and face 2 with a droopy face and frown, missing those the faces look uncanny to me. I very much dislike the forced looking half-smile as the default expression, as well as how the new eye texture looks and* how it meshes with limbal rings in some cases.

My friends could immediately tell that my au ra looks unlike herself, which was funny because they are not people who can typically notice these minute differences.




Some facial combinations look well adapted. Others... not so much...

[The_User]

And all xaela woman now have a sleep deprivation symptom. Luckily i wore this visor all the time.