Was This Face Change Ever Explained?

[Aimuari]

With the graphics update, I've seen alot of posts about face differences before and after. Alot of the differences I think are up to personal scrutiny on whether or not they are noticeable.

I've noticed this particular face difference that is glaringly different, however.

Were these ever explained by the developers?

I remember there was a mentioning that they wanted to keep faces close to how they originally appeared before the graphics update, but this change seems way too glaring to be a mistake.

The face markings have turned from a monochromatic gray to a strange, and personally off-putting, mix of bruise-purple of different shades.

Was there ever any word about this change in any live letter or such? Is it to conform to some lore behind miqote, or return to 1.0 graphics or something?

Has anyone noticed any other seemingly "intentional" changes to other races or faces with the graphics update?

Before:


After:

Screenshots were snipped from another forum post.

[Jeeqbit]

Obviously, they wanted to do the graphics update, but they couldn't do very much with faces precisely because they knew this would be the reaction.

So they changed the faces just a tiny little bit. Resolution increase, smoothing the polygons on some faces, lighting/shader improvements, lip color/shader improvements, eye resolution increases...

And for those minor changes, they got all this backlash still, despite that it was a fraction of what they could have done within their new system requirements.

They have prepared a massive patch to address a lot of these concerns. I suggest waiting for that patch and then seeing if it's still a problem.

[Aimuari]

Oh I hadn't heard about an upcoming update! Thanks, I'll save my fantasia for now then. I wonder what's to happen for players who already spent theirs though.

This particular change on changing the colors of the face stripes seems so blatant to me however, that I assume it to be an intentional one. Instead of being a minor alteration of a lip or eye shape, this seems to be such a more... obvious, for lack of better words, change, so I assumed it was one they did on purpose. I just wonder if there was any word on "why".

[Cheapshot]

Oh I hadn't heard about an upcoming update! Thanks, I'll save my fantasia for now then. I wonder what's to happen for players who already spent theirs though.

This particular change on changing the colors of the face stripes seems so blatant to me however, that I assume it to be an intentional one. Instead of being a minor alteration of a lip or eye shape, this seems to be such a more... obvious, for lack of better words, change, so I assumed it was one they did on purpose. I just wonder if there was any word on "why".

It's fairly inconsistent. Here's the megathread where people have left the majority of their face feedback.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ion-megathread

You'll be able to see that some faces received much more significant change than others, and oddly, there's not really any consistent philosophy across the board. Some facial features were made softer and more delicate on some faces while made sterner and sharper on others. Some faces were made more youthful looking and some were made more mature looking. Some faces had their features carefully recreated while others had them entirely replaced. Some faces lost racial traits. Some things changed colour for seemingly no reason. Some peoples eyebrows were made brighter, some made darker. Many features like lashes or eye textures were replaced with different ones, while still being the same resolution, so it's unclear why they were even replaced. It's kinda the wild west. It doesn't entirely feel like there was enough oversight or guidance.

As for people who have already used the free fantasia, well I still had my original. I loved my character so much that I never used it. I finally fanta'd for the first time recently and became an Au'ra with a friend to see if an entirely new character might work for me but it didn't. I'm hoping they adjust my original face and then I'll fanta back to my original appearance. I think that if I didn't still have a spare fanta, at this point I would just happily buy another and I wouldn't even dream of complaining. My attachment to my character was cementing my connection to the story and world. I want my face to look familiar again so badly that I'd pay money. I suspect a lot of people in that thread feel the same way.

I'm just waiting very patiently and anxiously for the statement they promised toward the end of this month regarding all the feedback on character appearances.

[Rabblerabble]

I feel like another slider is needed for fine tuning, not sure 'where' that slider should affect, and that that free fantasia needs to be given again with the upcoming update.

That being said, I do feel like the second picture of the OP is better than the first picture, but I don't make fem miqos often, so haven't got much stock in the affair.

[Silaryn]

Obviously, they wanted to do the graphics update, but they couldn't do very much with faces precisely because they knew this would be the reaction.

So they changed the faces just a tiny little bit. Resolution increase, smoothing the polygons on some faces, lighting/shader improvements, lip color/shader improvements, eye resolution increases...

And for those minor changes, they got all this backlash still, despite that it was a fraction of what they could have done within their new system requirements.

They have prepared a massive patch to address a lot of these concerns. I suggest waiting for that patch and then seeing if it's still a problem.

It was a character update, not a character redesign, they shouldn't have changed anything to do with how our faces looked in the first place.

The backlash is because they heavily changed our characters' faces to the point where some people can't even recognize their WoL anymore. These were not minor changes, they didn't even bother trying to "keep the look of our characters".

N̶o̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶a̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶c̶e̶r̶n̶s̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶l̶i̶e̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶a̶r̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶c̶e̶r̶n̶s̶.̶ ̶H̶o̶n̶e̶s̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶,̶ ̶I̶'̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶p̶r̶i̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶.̶ ̶

Edit: My above paragraph is wrong, there is an update planned. Apologies to Jeeqbit.

To address OP's question, Au Ra's eyeliner was changed in a similar way to the Miqo'te markings. The eyeliner used to be dark and black but after the update it became a weak silvery gray. No idea why they decided to make these changes. Male Viera looks like they had the color of their nose smudge changed (I don't have a Viera so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). And no, they have not explained any of these changes (and I'll be shocked if they ever do).

[Jeeqbit]

These were not minor changes, they didn't even bother trying to "keep the look of our characters".

I get that they are a big deal to people who are into glam and appearance or have an attachment to their former look, but that doesn't mean most of them aren't technically minor. It is like how a dress can have a line curved in a slightly different way. That's a minor difference... but there are a lot of people that would find it a massive difference.

Same with lighting or shadow differences. I get it's a big deal to people, but from a technical standpoint, it's just adjusting sliders and clipping to try and make it similar under the new light settings and they tried their best.

They were definitely trying to keep the look of the characters because they explicity said they were trying to do that.

No, they have not prepared a massive patch to address our concerns. This is a straight up lie.

No it is not. Here is the link! https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6570905

They said they were going to prepare a statement regarding our concerns. Honestly though, I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a pr statement.

They said an "update" that is "undergoing final inspectations". That is another way of saying it's a patch.

[FuwafuwaMii]

It was a character update, not a character redesign, they shouldn't have changed anything to do with how our faces looked in the first place.

The backlash is because they heavily changed our characters' faces to the point where some people can't even recognize their WoL anymore. These were not minor changes, they didn't even bother trying to "keep the look of our characters".

No, they have not prepared a massive patch to address our concerns. This is a straight up lie. They said they were going to prepare a statement regarding our concerns. Honestly though, I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a pr statement.

To address OP's question, Au Ra's eyeliner was changed in a similar way to the Miqo'te markings. The eyeliner used to be dark and black but after the update it became a weak silvery gray. No idea why they decided to make these changes. Male Viera looks like they had the color of their nose smudge changed (I don't have a Viera so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). And no, they have not explained any of these changes (and I'll be shocked if they ever do).

Accusing people of telling a "straight up lie", just because you're too lazy or incompetent to do your homework automatically disqualifies you from any form of public discussion.

[Silaryn]

I get that they are a big deal to people who are into glam and appearance or have an attachment to their former look, but that doesn't mean most of them aren't technically minor. It is like how a dress can have a line curved in a slightly different way. That's a minor difference... but there are a lot of people that would find it a massive difference.

Same with lighting or shadow differences. I get it's a big deal to people, but from a technical standpoint, it's just adjusting sliders and clipping to try and make it similar under the new light settings and they tried their best.

They were definitely trying to keep the look of the characters because they explicity said they were trying to do that.
No it is not. Here is the link! https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6570905
They said an "update" that is "undergoing final inspectations". That is another way of saying it's a patch.

The changes are not mostly minor though. There's a whole megathread where people have outlined the many changes made to the our characters' faces. Maybe you don't care about the changes but that doesn't make them minor. Even if a change was minor, it is still a change and should not have occurred.

No they did not bother trying to keep the look of the characters. Yes, they said they were doing that. They lied. Companies lie. Take a quick look through the megathread and it becomes obvious they didn't give a chocobo's arse about making our characters look the same. They managed to downgrade the character models while keeping the characters looking the same there is no excuse as to why they couldn't have done it while upgrading the character models.

Also, thanks for the link. I was wrong about there not being an update. I'll fix my post.

[Argantaelle]

Were these ever explained by the developers?

I remember there was a mentioning that they wanted to keep faces close to how they originally appeared before the graphics update, but this change seems way too glaring to be a mistake.

No, the changes weren't announced or explained; players just had to face reality when the first benchmark iteration was released.

The root of the issue is (as far as I can see) the universal mesh the developers replaced all the faces with (maybe except for Hrothgars; they are too extreme) and universal diffuse maps for some body parts (like the eyes, for example). And then SE designers tried to make the faces resemble their former selves.

Some faces got better treatment, some faces suffered severely, as if they were put in the hands of different designers with different skill levels or the QA team had no time (or intention) to verify them properly. Also, the universal mesh has some animation problems (especially with the smiles), and they are present across all unified races.

This Japanese post explains very well the issue with the universal mesh:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6585636

P.S.
In case it's difficult for you to read Google-translated Japanese, there is an English post about the same issue illustrated by Lalafellin mesh.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6580162

There aren't "tiny changes," "resolution increase," or "smoothing the polygons here and there." It's a complete character overhaul.