i want my old face back

[Starlord]

I respect people's opinions on the character update. But for me personally, I think they did a pretty good job. Environs even more so.

https://i.imgur.com/pb5pnoG.png

Can't wait to actually walking into the world of Eorzea ^^.

[hermetica]

Now imagine not being able to play the game at all anymore due to severe eye strain caused by the new graphics.

That is the situation some people (including me) are living now. 6+ years of bonding with WoL and the Scions, down the drain. I don't mean to sound overly emotional, but it really does feel like your friends being taken away from you.

It's not bad to be emotional over something like that. I haven't been playing as long as you, so I can't imagine what it's like to suddenly not be able to play at all because of something as bad as eye strain. I'm really sorry, I hope somehow it can be made better for you and everyone else suffering.

I honestly understand your reaction. I wasn't crying but my opinion on how my characters look was swinging like a pendulum and I needed to take a step back multiple times. I timed my subscription so that I can enjoy the end of EW and dip my toes into DT which turned out to be the right call because I will be taking a step away from the game again. I connect to the game through my characters, and I am very attached to them, so the changes did not land well for me even if they're objectively a net positive. I know negative feedback and opinions is something not everyone wants to hear about on the forums, especially on this topic when they like the update, and until now I have kept to myself as well to not anger the crowd. But I am hoping by adding my voice to the pool of people unhappy with the way their characters look the dev team considers some kind of compromise such as adding more diverse facial options.

Very long-winded way of saying I understand and support you. I appreciate you for speaking your mind. And I hope you're doing better now with femhroth.

Thank you so much...It's honestly such a relief to hear other people have felt the same as me. Even the smallest detail matters when you care about your character a lot, so I totally understand your feelings! I really appeciate you sharing your thoughts on it all, it's really made me feel less alone in this, as dramatic as that might sound. I hope taking that step away from the game is helpful for you, maybe one day we can both come back and connect with our characters again. I hope so, anyway.

There is no reason for being unkind or making fun of someone who is attached to his Virtual Character. Except being stupid.
There is a Billion Dollar Industry creating cute, sexy, funny, weird Characters for People who play these Games or watch Series or Movies.
Again, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Enjoy the game with your Character as much as you can.

Thank you, it's so kind of you to say that. With how nice everyone is being I might cry for a different reason this time lol. I appeciate everyone here so much.

[DarkCobalt]

I'm playing female miqo and I don't think we got it nearly as bad as other races, but seeing some of the other comparison shots here, it looks like the characters have aged 20 years and are now on botox...

[sindriiisgaming]

He looks like he's about to burst into tears

honestly. same after seeing his face

[Plasmaspy]

And I want the forums to talk about something that actually matters to the game but here we are.

No one gets what they want

Ofc the player with a character that wears a full mask doesn't think facial appearance matters.

[ConantSivrha]

<- 6.x DT ->

(the only deliberate changes here are colours)

I don't play elezen, but even I'm salty that they got rid of that lip shape. Another nice-looking and unique mouth lost to homogenization. I also see what you mean about the eyes. The Endwalker version looks intense and alert, while the Dawntrail version looks placid.

What is your opinion on the following image?



The face to the left is the Dawntrail face with the Endwalker iris and sclera color. The face to the right is the Endwalker face with the Dawntrail iris and sclera color. I was curious how much the darkened iris color and the heavy shadow over the top of the eye changes the apparent shape of the eyes.

[EdwinChucklenuts]

My boi had a glow up

[PercibelTheren]

I'm not too upset at the changes to my own character but I want to point out that the mouth rig on male Elezen and Au Ra seems really weird? Can't really see it when talking but their smiles look very off and so do certain emotes. Since they seem to have fixed the female Elezen rigging, I'm hoping this too is a bug.

[Feathetaria]

Female Miqo'te Face 3 with Mouth 4 makes me sad.
I had the cutest miqo'te in the universe, but after the update, if you look at me face to face, straight on, my upper lip texture looks like i have an underbite and something is just super off about my lips.
But when you look at my side profile, things don't look as bad. Image 1 and 2 are before update. Third and fourth images are after the update with my ugly lips and weird underbite (side profile is cute but straight on face to face is off-putting.)









My miqo went from being the cutest thing ever imo, to being weird looking.

This is unacceptable. If they don't give us options to revert character models for "You" and "others" or "all players", I may have to resort to becoming a modder so that i can commission a mod maker to make a mod that makes me look like my old vanilla self. This is that important to me. You can't just mutilate my Feathetaria like this. I'm sad.

Edit: After doing research online, I learned the name of the lines under our nose. It is called a Philtrum. From just looking at the four images that I included here, I can already see that the spacing between the left and right crease of my Philtrum has been increased. I used to have a smaller philtrum but now it's a wider one and this is probably a moderately sized part of the problem.\

Final Edit: I made an extremely bad drawing that over-exaggerates the differences that are annoying me so badly between DT and Pre DT Lips of Female Miqo'te Face 3 when combined with Female Miqo'te Mouth 4. Keep in mind that i totally exaggerated these shapes. I'm just trying to make obvious the differences i see that are bugging me so much and making me sad:

[Wishmastir]

So it's not just female face 3 Elezens that got shafted it seems. I have similar concerns for face 3 male Elezen. Apologies for image sizing issues, I had to do a lot of cropping and resizing.

My biggest issue is the lip shape has become completely smooth with no definition. The upper lip used to have a little bump that would sit over the bottom lip when the mouth was closed, like most realistic lips do. The closed mouth made a subtle "M" shape, whereas now it's just a straight line. It's an uncanny look, and I don't believe this change was necessary, as it completely alters the appearance of the character's face.
Old and new pics before for comparison, at the same angle:





Also the glossing of the lips has disappeared. I know that was part of the lip colour feature, and I believe that's something that should be a toggle. Whether people want the sheen of the coloured lips or not should be up to the player.

Also the eye bags are so pronounced that it really changes the entire look of face 3. Under certain lighting these eye bags stand out even more.



Also, the updated smile on face 3 has changed significantly. The corners don't upturn as they use to, and so the smile looks forced and unnatural. The eye bags do not help with this. Below is a comparison of my WoL to show the smile doing the same /clap emote:




Also the /smile emote does not look very happy at all. The corners of the mouth do not actually upturn, and this is what I mean by it all being the new shape of the lips. The old /smile emote used to do this, but now it doesn't. /grin and /beam turn the corners of the mouth up,

Overall, the Dawntrail mouth shape feels rounder and homogenised. The Endwalker mouth had some points and sharp corners, which adds individuality, which I believe was lost for most in the update. I really am not asking for much, I just believe the mouth shape was absolutely fine as it was before. Smoothing it to that extent was not necessary.