I tried to make a new human but all of the faces seemed very odd to me (not just the shiny plastic nature). I found myself double checking to make sure it was "human" race selected. I pondered if it was supposed to represent some sort of inbred human/mouse mutations (seriously). I would add constructive criticism but I don't know where to go from here except to state as I did -- I don't recognize the faces I am looking at as representative of humans.
You kind of skipped over the most important issue here. Regardless of what people think of some of the new customization options, which can certainly be tuned and improved upon as you say, the real problem is the removal of the old options. Not only can people who liked the old presets no longer create new characters that look the way they want, they also can't change for example the hair color on one of their existing characters in the Tower of Alteration without being forced to use one the new presets, dramatically changing the look of their character. That's not acceptable.
I couldn't agree more. Tastes vary, so some will like the new look, others will prefer they old one. It would have been easy to make both happy by keeping the old models and just adding the new ones.
I prefer the old look. I don't like childish-barbie-face looks. Well I even dislike the ridiciously large eyes of the old female models...
Good thing though that while playing you mostly see the back of your model.
0
asherjwildstarMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 12Arc User
Also, this thread, my post (the one before last). Halfling faces were fixed a little since I made those screenshots (now they have bigger eyes and their heads are a little narrower). I'm very grateful for that (keep up the good work! ), but, sadly, they don't look much better.
ADDED
Ok, on this screenshot you can see, that the team did more to halflings than narrowing the face and increasing the size of the eyes. The first row shows my character with her pre-patch face, in the middle is the face she got, when she was made on the preview sever. On the bottom is the newest version of her.
Thanks for the improvements over the preview server, now the halfling faces can look attractive again (aside from the huge nose). Please, keep on fixing all the races, so our characters can look as we want them to.
And about female halfling body (sorry that I talk only about halflings, it's because they are my favourite race and they were given the most "love" in this new patch):
1. Pre-patch halfling body.
2&2a. Post-patch halfling body.
3&3a. Post-patch dwarf body.
I used the slim version on all three versions, all sliders in the middle.
The feet are tiny, calfs are way narrower than thighs, the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> are smaller (boo!), the waist is wider, the arms and legs are narrower. I'm sorry to say this, but the halfling body seems really off. I have compared dwarf and halfling body, and I would pick dwarf anytime, she's proportional and she's meant to be wide. Seems like now every halfling is a cartoonish endomorph, even the slim version of them.
Here is an exapmle of an endomorph:
As always, I'm sorry for poor English, I hope everyone understood me. Thanks for the work so far, the new options in character creation are great and I'd love to be able to use them with the old face and body.
0
isoplethMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 25Arc User
Also, this thread, my post (the one before last). Halfling faces were fixed a little since I made those screenshots (now they have bigger eyes and their heads are a little narrower). I'm very grateful for that (keep up the good work! ), but, sadly, they don't look much better.
Here's mine, I did the best I could recreating her:
This is as calm and constructive as I can be: I do not prefer these new halfling models.
But here is my hysterical and nonconstructive response: Burn it with holy fire!
0
sokolnichiyMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 187Arc User
edited May 2014
U know what's most interesting about new character features. They all seem to be made by following official D&D art and sketches for races. And Halfling realy DO have that kind of bodies but mostly slim onec and that tiny feet.
Here, take a look.
0
ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited May 2014
That Halfling doesn't have a grotesque Henry VIII style bloated torso.
But look at the halfling woman, she has normal proportions in the drawing. And even the slim version in Neverwinter looks like she has dwarf body with halfling limbs.
0
isoplethMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 25Arc User
edited May 2014
I concede that point, yes. These are closer to prototypical halflings. I just sort of wish they had started off this way, or that we still had access to both sets of features because looking at the new face, compared to the old, makes me cringe.
The old faces were so well done; I had no complaints and character creation sucked me right in. Speaking as a new player, I do not have sentimental or nostalgic ties to this game or my characters. I'm only speaking as a player who has noticed the aesthetic change so drastically in a day that it is almost alarming.
0
truelokasterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2014
While I really enjoy the graphical improvement in the overall game, I have to ask: "What have you done in with the "new character customization?!?"
Why in the world have you decided to EXCLUDE the old face options and replace them with the ones in PWE?!?
I hate the new "emo-plastic" look! I really don't mind having new presets, but why delete the old ones? Now female characters look like either barbie dolls or if they came from some very cheap Korean game, also, while most races are ok, the elven males have no chin at all!!! Seem like their faces are all the way down in their heads. Please allow us to use the old presets too!
It bother me to a point that I know I cannot create a decent looking elven male ever again and I kinda consider not investing money in this game any longer. Again, I dont mind if someone wants to make her character like a cheap prost...
But, please, PLEASE, let me choose the old face models/templates back.
I'm going to try to get side by side comparisons of one of my rogues. I still have her "sort-of" original on preview...Tho even some of that was auto-changed I'll get screenshots of the new "plastic, Barbie" version when the server goes back up. I never should have changed her Oh, the eye blink, eyebrow moving thing isn't just on female toons. My brother has a tiefling he redid, and the horns move! I want the old options back. I only redid the rogue cause I wanted to remove her facial tattoo...now I have a Barbie
Never listen? Really? So many changes happen because they listen then when something happens and it's not changed "pronto" it becomes "they never listen."
They listen, they actually really improved the new halfling faces since the preview version. Then they were ugly, now they can vary from sorta-attractive to not attractive. A few more fixes and it will be alright.
0
truelokasterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1Arc User
Never listen? Really? So many changes happen because they listen then when something happens and it's not changed "pronto" it becomes "they never listen."
Zebular, the overall feedback was negative while this was still in the mimic server and yet, with no previous note, they just implemented. "pronto!"
We would not have this level of noise if they just added new models and kept the older ones as an option.
0
zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
I do actualy like the new face models much more than the old ones. In face I rolled a male half elf now, because they look much better than before.
The new character creation has still some bugs, like ears not connected to the head for some races, but I hope they'll fix it in time.
I do actualy like the new face models much more than the old ones. In face I rolled a male half elf now, because they look much better than before.
The new character creation has still some bugs, like ears not connected to the head for some races, but I hope they'll fix it in time.
Yeah, I do like the models themselves. The artwork for them is great. It's just the coloring and glossiness that get me. I just cannot stand the plastic and shiny "barbie-doll" look they have.
ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited May 2014
My main, drow HR turns into a happy mouse. The other head options don't even come close to any similarity.
It's... ok... but the BIGGEST issue is that.. blink! The Devs have got to polish up the head model so it'll blink... with the eyelids. That's the main reason for me why I can't use the new looks right now.
The other crippling issue are hurt eyes need more color added to the center because it's completely red still, wither it's white, yellow, or black. All of my drow use hurt eyes and use different colors, but they're all red now.
Here's a Wood Elf comparison. I know I should have "disrobed" for better comparing, but was trying to hurry. Also, all my toons have been altered...my tieflings look horrid!
0
zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
Here's a Wood Elf comparison. I know I should have "disrobed" for better comparing, but was trying to hurry. Also, all my toons have been altered...my tieflings look horrid!
See, I actually love the design. Just that shiny plastic look kills it for me. The faces are more angular befitting elves. The sculpting of the faces I don't have an issue with, they're great. It like they've all been oiled up and ready for a muscle-man show or something.
So, an attempt to elucidate exactly why I don't like this new system:
First of all, the real 800 pound gorilla:
If they had simply left the original system in as an option, I would not care at all. I might even make a character or two eventually with the new system; there are a couple of faces that are actually appealing - Half-elf male #5, for example, can be made quite nice.
However, the removal of the options I've had and enjoyed since I started playing this game in Beta Weekend Three rubs me so far the wrong way that it actually predisposes me to dislike the new system. It is already fighting and assaulting me from the beginning. There are not new options. There are entirely different options. I cannot ever alter the appearance of any of my existing characters should I decide I want a different hairstyle. I cannot put a new hairstyle on one of my old characters, as doing so would force me to the new system entirely. I cannot create a new character now that will be in line with my existing characters.
I do support this game. I've bought zen on several occasions, most recently this morning for the first time buyer pack; and Monday morning I bought the Hero of the Feywild pack as I had long wanted to make a particular character who needs to be a moon elf and realized I needed to make him that day or never. My characters enjoy their sparkly unicorns and fancy outfits and fairies and I'm quite happy with my moon elf char. I've spent 60 bucks on games I've gotten far less playtime and enjoyment from.
So, I've been here a while, I plan to stay a while, and it's rather irksome to suddenly for no readily apparent reason have something familiar and enjoyed yanked out from under me. This rubs, and rubs hard. Nothing at all was wrong with the existing options, indeed, they were in my opinion more varied and robust than the new ones despite having really only one base model with various morphs available(Head shape in previous system). But those morphs and a large assortment of textures available(Complexions in old system) made for a hell of a lot of variety. It was good, and generally free of glaring errors.
So, now, let's move to those glaring errors. I haven't run into the blinking issue as none of my characters actually uses the new system outside of previewing changes in the Tower of Alteration. Let me list a couple of massive, glaring bugs that have been in since we first saw the new system:
- Half-elf males have ears that do not touch their heads. They float in mid-air.
- Drow males suffer the exact same problem. Floating ears.
- The male hairstyle Long with Braids has a severe clipping issue in back where two large triangular bald patches occur on either side of the central braid. This makes the hairstyle, IMO, unusable until a fix is implemented.
Less in the realm of bugs, but well within the realm of issues, is the proportions of the heads now. Everyone's jaw is extremely small. I like a bit of the girly pointy look in my male elves, and all of my existing male elf/half-elf/drow characters have their jaws pretty much the narrowest possible, with about midway on the jaw height slider. Any attempt to make something in the new system sees me pretty much maxing out both jaw width and height in an attempt to get something that doesn't look like an anime girl's chin. This is an almost universally shared opinion.
This small jaw issue creates issues with the rest of the head and neck area as well - The faces often feel crammed into a tiny area. And the much smaller jaw and thus head means that even with the neck length slider at its minimum, swan necks are common. It all adds up to feeling disproportionate and wrong to me.
The textures themselves need quite a few quality passes. The skin is universally shiny, to where you can actually see the texture transition on the models between the faces and the bodies. If I have my settings at full now and don't turn off bloom, a pale moon elf with white hair is so shiny it actually *blows out* the virtual camera. My dark-skinned wood elves would have big white shine blotches on their noses. Everything looks coated in oil and actually *less* realistic for it. Real people are not shiny unless they are sweaty/greasy. Realistic rendering uses textures and subsurface scattering that *avoid* shiny and give a matte look. Despite models that are, technically, an improvement, the texturing and lighting on them makes them look bad. Too much reflection, too much shine. It's awkward.
The new hairstyles, too, suffer from this - They're even shinier than the skin, but have inadequately detailed texturing that makes them look like... Well, honestly, the hair on my lego minifigures. They're so shiny that moon elf hair colours do not at all render on them properly - Most of the pale blues end up bizarrely blonde. True black is also not an option even if you select both colors to be black. It's so shiny it's grey. This texture issue is actually passed to the new eyebrows as well - You cannot actually have black eyebrows. They're dark grey. This is especially noticeable when using an old hairstyle that *is* a pure black.
Speaking of the old hairstyles, little to no work seems to have gone into making them fit the new models or vice versa. They all float oddly and the long straight and long draped hairstyles especially illustrate the weirdness of the new head shapes and lack of jaw - You can see them drape around where it SHOULD be. Regardless, almost all old hairstyles without bangs are barely usable as they tend to float off the face and very obviously do not connect. I will illustrate with my half-elf here; the images of the new system are from Preview, but in my experiments this week since Mod 3 hit nothing has really changed:
(First image is his current original look. Second image is defaults when first loaded to the new system - This consists of sliders in all the same positions as in the original system, with the system defaults to the first face in the list, and 'natural' eyebrows. Third is full customization under new system with completely different slider settings, face 5 and thin eyebrows)
Also of concern are, as many have noted in this thread already, body proportion changes. Male halflings are freakish, female halflings little better. Most other races got off somewhat OK, but 'lings are quite disturbing now.
The mouth height slider on most faces/races is also somewhat unusable. It has improved greatly and has a good third of it usable in most cases, but trying to go very low with it folds the faces oddly. Also, certain combinations of this and the jaw height slider create faces where the mouth is almost always open, which is IMO creepy.
There's also, as you can see in the middle image above, a bit of an issue with brow height - There is no longer any distance between the tops of the eyes and the eyebrows unless the slider is raised all the way. Not only can you no longer make a surprised/amused-looking character; you can now barely make a neutral one who isn't grumpy and squinting.
So, this new system has gone live looking extremely unpolished and with several bugs that were reported over a month ago. The old options were completely removed. Nothing was wrong with the existing options and no change was actually needed - Don't get me wrong, I am for more options, but I'm for actually having MORE options. This system is not more options, it is simply different options. Ones that I find unappealing and buggy, and which prevent me from using the prior options I greatly enjoyed.
Again, they could leave it exactly as it is if they simply added an option to toggle between the character creation modes and let us use the legacy system. I would be happy with this. But removing options and replacing them with buggy, awkward new ones does not in any way work for me.
It's also, in my opinion, a really bad move for them to have let it gone live with the errors it has when it has. New module means new advertising pushes/new promos/etc, so new people will be coming to the game. And what is the first thing someone sees when making a new character going to be if they decide to, say, make a male half-elf? Awkward texturing, ears that don't touch the head, and a prominent error on the very first hairstyle in the list. This does not make a good first impression for new users. In fact, if I saw that as a new player, I probably wouldn't bother continuing. What kind of half-assed game is this, would be my thinking.
So those are some more detailed reasons. I will give them that female elf eyes have been improved TREMENDOUSLY since we first saw this system, for which I am happy and grateful. Minimum size eyes on a female elf are now actually small and proportionate and don't bulge through close hairstyles or have eyelashes jutting through hair. That's a massive step in the right direction, and one I hope continues, but the real issue is going to remain: I want the old options back too. Keep the new ones, some of them aren't bad at all, and people like them and should be able to have them. But I should be able to have the ones I like too.
See, I actually love the design. Just that shiny plastic look kills it for me. The faces are more angular befitting elves. The sculpting of the faces I don't have an issue with, they're great. It like they've all been oiled up and ready for a muscle-man show or something.
Some are better than others but in my opinion it's a mediocre job overall, female elves look especially atrocious and it is even worse from the profile with the huge overbite.
At any rate this is a dealbreaker for me, especially having in mind how certain other game is revamping char models and doing a much better job of it.
See, I actually love the design. Just that shiny plastic look kills it for me. The faces are more angular befitting elves. The sculpting of the faces I don't have an issue with, they're great. It like they've all been oiled up and ready for a muscle-man show or something.
Indeed, the plastic look is bad...And my neck is too long/thin. I should have messed with the sliders, but when I did, and re=set them again, it reset EVERYTHING, so I gave up. For some reason she reminds me of Sandra Bullock
Edit: A lot of that "shine" is also showing up in the standard graphics. Snow super glaring, armor colors a bit too shiny, etc.
Comments
This thread has a couple.
I couldn't agree more. Tastes vary, so some will like the new look, others will prefer they old one. It would have been easy to make both happy by keeping the old models and just adding the new ones.
I prefer the old look. I don't like childish-barbie-face looks. Well I even dislike the ridiciously large eyes of the old female models...
Good thing though that while playing you mostly see the back of your model.
Also, this thread, my post (the one before last). Halfling faces were fixed a little since I made those screenshots (now they have bigger eyes and their heads are a little narrower). I'm very grateful for that (keep up the good work!
ADDED
Ok, on this screenshot you can see, that the team did more to halflings than narrowing the face and increasing the size of the eyes. The first row shows my character with her pre-patch face, in the middle is the face she got, when she was made on the preview sever. On the bottom is the newest version of her.
Thanks for the improvements over the preview server, now the halfling faces can look attractive again (aside from the huge nose). Please, keep on fixing all the races, so our characters can look as we want them to.
And about female halfling body (sorry that I talk only about halflings, it's because they are my favourite race and they were given the most "love" in this new patch):
1. Pre-patch halfling body.
2&2a. Post-patch halfling body.
3&3a. Post-patch dwarf body.
I used the slim version on all three versions, all sliders in the middle.
The feet are tiny, calfs are way narrower than thighs, the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> are smaller (boo!), the waist is wider, the arms and legs are narrower. I'm sorry to say this, but the halfling body seems really off. I have compared dwarf and halfling body, and I would pick dwarf anytime, she's proportional and she's meant to be wide. Seems like now every halfling is a cartoonish endomorph, even the slim version of them.
Here is an exapmle of an endomorph:
As always, I'm sorry for poor English, I hope everyone understood me. Thanks for the work so far, the new options in character creation are great and I'd love to be able to use them with the old face and body.
Here's mine, I did the best I could recreating her:
This is as calm and constructive as I can be: I do not prefer these new halfling models.
But here is my hysterical and nonconstructive response: Burn it with holy fire!
Here, take a look.
The old faces were so well done; I had no complaints and character creation sucked me right in. Speaking as a new player, I do not have sentimental or nostalgic ties to this game or my characters. I'm only speaking as a player who has noticed the aesthetic change so drastically in a day that it is almost alarming.
Why in the world have you decided to EXCLUDE the old face options and replace them with the ones in PWE?!?
I hate the new "emo-plastic" look! I really don't mind having new presets, but why delete the old ones? Now female characters look like either barbie dolls or if they came from some very cheap Korean game, also, while most races are ok, the elven males have no chin at all!!! Seem like their faces are all the way down in their heads. Please allow us to use the old presets too!
It bother me to a point that I know I cannot create a decent looking elven male ever again and I kinda consider not investing money in this game any longer. Again, I dont mind if someone wants to make her character like a cheap prost...
But, please, PLEASE, let me choose the old face models/templates back.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
They listen, they actually really improved the new halfling faces since the preview version. Then they were ugly, now they can vary from sorta-attractive to not attractive. A few more fixes and it will be alright.
Zebular, the overall feedback was negative while this was still in the mimic server and yet, with no previous note, they just implemented. "pronto!"
We would not have this level of noise if they just added new models and kept the older ones as an option.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
God i don't like style mixing...
Ok, so maybe saying they don't listen is not true. What they do is selective listening obviously (you know, ignoring opinions they do not agree with).
So now I'd like to know if we can get the old faces back? I do not even ask when, I ask if.
The new character creation has still some bugs, like ears not connected to the head for some races, but I hope they'll fix it in time.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
It's... ok... but the BIGGEST issue is that.. blink! The Devs have got to polish up the head model so it'll blink... with the eyelids. That's the main reason for me why I can't use the new looks right now.
The other crippling issue are hurt eyes need more color added to the center because it's completely red still, wither it's white, yellow, or black. All of my drow use hurt eyes and use different colors, but they're all red now.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
First of all, the real 800 pound gorilla:
If they had simply left the original system in as an option, I would not care at all. I might even make a character or two eventually with the new system; there are a couple of faces that are actually appealing - Half-elf male #5, for example, can be made quite nice.
However, the removal of the options I've had and enjoyed since I started playing this game in Beta Weekend Three rubs me so far the wrong way that it actually predisposes me to dislike the new system. It is already fighting and assaulting me from the beginning. There are not new options. There are entirely different options. I cannot ever alter the appearance of any of my existing characters should I decide I want a different hairstyle. I cannot put a new hairstyle on one of my old characters, as doing so would force me to the new system entirely. I cannot create a new character now that will be in line with my existing characters.
I do support this game. I've bought zen on several occasions, most recently this morning for the first time buyer pack; and Monday morning I bought the Hero of the Feywild pack as I had long wanted to make a particular character who needs to be a moon elf and realized I needed to make him that day or never. My characters enjoy their sparkly unicorns and fancy outfits and fairies and I'm quite happy with my moon elf char. I've spent 60 bucks on games I've gotten far less playtime and enjoyment from.
So, I've been here a while, I plan to stay a while, and it's rather irksome to suddenly for no readily apparent reason have something familiar and enjoyed yanked out from under me. This rubs, and rubs hard. Nothing at all was wrong with the existing options, indeed, they were in my opinion more varied and robust than the new ones despite having really only one base model with various morphs available(Head shape in previous system). But those morphs and a large assortment of textures available(Complexions in old system) made for a hell of a lot of variety. It was good, and generally free of glaring errors.
So, now, let's move to those glaring errors. I haven't run into the blinking issue as none of my characters actually uses the new system outside of previewing changes in the Tower of Alteration. Let me list a couple of massive, glaring bugs that have been in since we first saw the new system:
- Half-elf males have ears that do not touch their heads. They float in mid-air.
- Drow males suffer the exact same problem. Floating ears.
- The male hairstyle Long with Braids has a severe clipping issue in back where two large triangular bald patches occur on either side of the central braid. This makes the hairstyle, IMO, unusable until a fix is implemented.
Less in the realm of bugs, but well within the realm of issues, is the proportions of the heads now. Everyone's jaw is extremely small. I like a bit of the girly pointy look in my male elves, and all of my existing male elf/half-elf/drow characters have their jaws pretty much the narrowest possible, with about midway on the jaw height slider. Any attempt to make something in the new system sees me pretty much maxing out both jaw width and height in an attempt to get something that doesn't look like an anime girl's chin. This is an almost universally shared opinion.
This small jaw issue creates issues with the rest of the head and neck area as well - The faces often feel crammed into a tiny area. And the much smaller jaw and thus head means that even with the neck length slider at its minimum, swan necks are common. It all adds up to feeling disproportionate and wrong to me.
The textures themselves need quite a few quality passes. The skin is universally shiny, to where you can actually see the texture transition on the models between the faces and the bodies. If I have my settings at full now and don't turn off bloom, a pale moon elf with white hair is so shiny it actually *blows out* the virtual camera. My dark-skinned wood elves would have big white shine blotches on their noses. Everything looks coated in oil and actually *less* realistic for it. Real people are not shiny unless they are sweaty/greasy. Realistic rendering uses textures and subsurface scattering that *avoid* shiny and give a matte look. Despite models that are, technically, an improvement, the texturing and lighting on them makes them look bad. Too much reflection, too much shine. It's awkward.
The new hairstyles, too, suffer from this - They're even shinier than the skin, but have inadequately detailed texturing that makes them look like... Well, honestly, the hair on my lego minifigures. They're so shiny that moon elf hair colours do not at all render on them properly - Most of the pale blues end up bizarrely blonde. True black is also not an option even if you select both colors to be black. It's so shiny it's grey. This texture issue is actually passed to the new eyebrows as well - You cannot actually have black eyebrows. They're dark grey. This is especially noticeable when using an old hairstyle that *is* a pure black.
Speaking of the old hairstyles, little to no work seems to have gone into making them fit the new models or vice versa. They all float oddly and the long straight and long draped hairstyles especially illustrate the weirdness of the new head shapes and lack of jaw - You can see them drape around where it SHOULD be. Regardless, almost all old hairstyles without bangs are barely usable as they tend to float off the face and very obviously do not connect. I will illustrate with my half-elf here; the images of the new system are from Preview, but in my experiments this week since Mod 3 hit nothing has really changed:
(First image is his current original look. Second image is defaults when first loaded to the new system - This consists of sliders in all the same positions as in the original system, with the system defaults to the first face in the list, and 'natural' eyebrows. Third is full customization under new system with completely different slider settings, face 5 and thin eyebrows)
Also of concern are, as many have noted in this thread already, body proportion changes. Male halflings are freakish, female halflings little better. Most other races got off somewhat OK, but 'lings are quite disturbing now.
The mouth height slider on most faces/races is also somewhat unusable. It has improved greatly and has a good third of it usable in most cases, but trying to go very low with it folds the faces oddly. Also, certain combinations of this and the jaw height slider create faces where the mouth is almost always open, which is IMO creepy.
There's also, as you can see in the middle image above, a bit of an issue with brow height - There is no longer any distance between the tops of the eyes and the eyebrows unless the slider is raised all the way. Not only can you no longer make a surprised/amused-looking character; you can now barely make a neutral one who isn't grumpy and squinting.
So, this new system has gone live looking extremely unpolished and with several bugs that were reported over a month ago. The old options were completely removed. Nothing was wrong with the existing options and no change was actually needed - Don't get me wrong, I am for more options, but I'm for actually having MORE options. This system is not more options, it is simply different options. Ones that I find unappealing and buggy, and which prevent me from using the prior options I greatly enjoyed.
Again, they could leave it exactly as it is if they simply added an option to toggle between the character creation modes and let us use the legacy system. I would be happy with this. But removing options and replacing them with buggy, awkward new ones does not in any way work for me.
It's also, in my opinion, a really bad move for them to have let it gone live with the errors it has when it has. New module means new advertising pushes/new promos/etc, so new people will be coming to the game. And what is the first thing someone sees when making a new character going to be if they decide to, say, make a male half-elf? Awkward texturing, ears that don't touch the head, and a prominent error on the very first hairstyle in the list. This does not make a good first impression for new users. In fact, if I saw that as a new player, I probably wouldn't bother continuing. What kind of half-assed game is this, would be my thinking.
So those are some more detailed reasons. I will give them that female elf eyes have been improved TREMENDOUSLY since we first saw this system, for which I am happy and grateful. Minimum size eyes on a female elf are now actually small and proportionate and don't bulge through close hairstyles or have eyelashes jutting through hair. That's a massive step in the right direction, and one I hope continues, but the real issue is going to remain: I want the old options back too. Keep the new ones, some of them aren't bad at all, and people like them and should be able to have them. But I should be able to have the ones I like too.
Some are better than others but in my opinion it's a mediocre job overall, female elves look especially atrocious and it is even worse from the profile with the huge overbite.
At any rate this is a dealbreaker for me, especially having in mind how certain other game is revamping char models and doing a much better job of it.
Indeed, the plastic look is bad...And my neck is too long/thin. I should have messed with the sliders, but when I did, and re=set them again, it reset EVERYTHING, so I gave up. For some reason she reminds me of Sandra Bullock
Edit: A lot of that "shine" is also showing up in the standard graphics. Snow super glaring, armor colors a bit too shiny, etc.