Was This Face Change Ever Explained?

[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).