Why did you replace avatar faces in this latest patch??

[why-becauseIcan]

[why-becauseIcan]

The new faces has no visible improvement in graphics(some looks like a downgrade in quality), so why didn't you just add these new faces as seperate options rather than replacing the old character faces? And honestly, all your new faces and hairstyles look weird and out of place. Sorry.

[TesalionLortus]

Yeah my previous human characters turned into some awkward men with strange lips because of it and definitely need to be readjusted. My guess is... the old ones don't fit with the new sliders? And yeah, definitely deficit of new options, the new ones aren't just garbage but they're highly specific, so if you wanna create anything on the Westerner spectrum, well, nothing but the old stuff for you. And even then not exactly anything useful for Haradrim, Easterlings or Umbarrim in the lines of the ones from the game.

[why-becauseIcan]

Yeah my previous human characters turned into some awkward men with strange lips because of it and definitely need to be readjusted. My guess is... the old ones don't fit with the new sliders? And yeah, definitely deficit of new options, the new ones aren't just garbage but they're highly specific, so if you wanna create anything on the Westerner spectrum, well, nothing but the old stuff for you. And even then not exactly anything useful for Haradrim, Easterlings or Umbarrim in the lines of the ones from the game.

The sliders should have been added for the previous available faces.. They have literally replaced all faces for the second time now. What a joke.

[wispsong]

I thought I was imagining my character changes.

[Ameranth]

That last row of pics looks like a mighty hero of Middle Earth as an adult, followed by his grade 9 yearbook photo.

[why-becauseIcan]

I thought I was imagining my character changes.

No, they have replaced all the previous faces..

[istvana]

Thank the Valar I have no characters of the race of Man - the old faces look not just better than the new ones but a LOT better. Maybe I shouldn't have asked for them to fix the racial traits - I might create some and have to look at them.

On second thought it is not that bad - all I ever see of my characterrs as they adventure is the hair and the behind and the Woman hairdos still have some I like.

[Cerridwen]

/sad



I haven't done this for my Woman characters yet, but this is just a downgrade in looks and graphics quality from the original, to me. I fiddled with the sliders some, but nothing was looking good so I gave up and logged off; maybe I'll try again later.

Thank the Valar I have no characters of the race of Man - the old faces look not just better than the new ones but a LOT better. Maybe I shouldn't have asked for them to fix the racial traits - I might create some and have to look at them.

On second thought it is not that bad - all I ever see of my character as she adventures is the hair and the #### and I doubt if they wrecked the hairdos as badly as the faces.

This is coming to the other races at some point, too, at least the ones that got avatar update 1 (such as Elves, avatar update 1 ruined my Elves).

[Venaala]

Absolutely hideous! This is a downgrade - not an update.

Not only the faces are ugly, but the cleavage seems to have disappeared on female toons. Is there somethign wrong with feminity? Is the dev team trying to downgrade women by giving them flat chests on purpose?

On the other side, I find it good that there are new hairstyles. Those are welcome. But not worth downgrading the already existing looks by that much!

[TesalionLortus]

Honestly, if they just added new things to choose from for face details and hairstyles alone (and upgraded the ones we had so they're better fidelity, like these new ones) then even Avatar V1 would look decently - as long as they make actual real improvements for graphics, shaders, clarity, detail, sharpness, colorfulness, and so on... because there are really no major differences for all these avatar faces. More like just different visual approach/shapes, but not truly better or anything, just different. Though the old avatar women used to look a bit meh and I found the new "star model" faces better - but, the old ones were certainly better if people didn't want such soft skin stylish face, and that was gone. Not sure what's changed now for my females but looks like they've gotten uglier. It's such a pointless back and forth in a way.

[Lambtron]

I really wish there was a way to keep the ORIGINAL avatars. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I specifically untick the update box so that I can use the old look. There's something charming and distinctly 'LOTRO' about the original style.

[ertr]

If the changes make the faces look better or worse is subjective, but also quite irrelevant.
They are different, which is quite enough to complain about.

If you had created a character whose looks you were happy with, than any changes would be unwelcome, since they aren't what you chose.

But as it is it is hard to claim with a straight face that any of the changes (this or the previous one) actually made the faces look better. Different to be sure, and some people may prefer the new look, but not better in any kind of objective sense.

So, please SSG, stop changing how existing characters look. New options for characters are always welcome, and being able to change old characters is also good, but forced changes to their looks are not.

[DavidmeetHal]

Absolutely hideous! This is a downgrade - not an update.

Not only the faces are ugly, but the cleavage seems to have disappeared on female toons. Is there somethign wrong with feminity? Is the dev team trying to downgrade women by giving them flat chests on purpose?

On the other side, I find it good that there are new hairstyles. Those are welcome. But not worth downgrading the already existing looks by that much!

So, female characters not only lost their cleavage, but they now have beards!

[Pontin_Finnberry]

I think the changes to faces are mostly fine, and will have get use to seeing the new faces, just like we been use to faces since 2007 and 2017, its samething if saw different styles since 2007 then what we had, since we get use to seeing things, but sometimes gotta get use to an update/changes. Also very subjective but this imo was an upgrade, I don't see much of downgrade here other then some bugs that need be ironed out and fixed.

[Phantion]

I really wish there was a way to keep the ORIGINAL avatars. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I specifically untick the update box so that I can use the old look. There's something charming and distinctly 'LOTRO' about the original style.

Yeah, they should do 3 things:

1- Add the ORIGINAL hairstyles as hairstyle options.

2- Add both ORIGINAL (pre-current-update) and FIRST REVAMP faces to the list of facial options.

Then folks can choose between the original game (unaltered), the first avatar revamp, and the current changes - and have access to all the options as they see fit. That's how I think it should be.

Then, we could mix / match as we please at the barbers in-game.

I do like some of the new looks; I like that we can play younger humans in-game and that they all don't have to look like they're in their 30s / 40s. But I don't like that they removed those original avatars that look more mature. There's got to be a balance somewhere . . .


Cheers!

[TesalionLortus]

But as it is it is hard to claim with a straight face that any of the changes (this or the previous one) actually made the faces look better. Different to be sure, and some people may prefer the new look, but not better in any kind of objective sense.

This is like the bane of SSG recently and in the past too, though less visible. It's like everything created 2+ years back is automatically vastly inferior, sometimes not even worth careful consideration, and everything new is superior, no matter that it's in entirely different style and not vastly graphically superior in any shape nor form. Or, if something is 10 years old and something only 7 years old, sometimes the latter is automatically better and "better to use that!", even though these are exact same graphics and technically very similar.

At the very technical level, in a modelling software and zoomed in, maybe some of these newer things are somewhat superior, a few additional polygons here and there, some more modern rendering or whatever, yeah maybe, and maybe an artist feels like they're better now and they like their new style better for whatever personal reason in their artist growth. Sure, all understandable, but it shouldn't hijack the entire game design. Because the end result, due to game graphics being mostly the same and new things not being too heavily superior here, is that any visual improvement is minimal. Most of the time. Unless they were *really* some assets that *suffered terribly* from dated looks, like these bears and wolfs they updated recently, now that's something that made sense to be replaced entirely with new ones and they're really visibly better now. And Elrond's House was good change too, though still far from perfect so like 80% good, because the total emptiness before was dated, yes, but they overdid or mismatched in some subtler areas.

So they really need to take a step back here because they're just going to miscalculate again and again if they don't. Upgrade - as in change completely - stuff that actually need that, for everything else said upgrade should be expanding choices and variety of choices in addition to what already exists, and then use those choices, in appropriate and consistent ways, and don't oversaturate.

[Khluzainn]

All characters have toothpick necks now and it looks like trash. Was this so that male characters can look more female? This is not hate but seriously this round of avatar changes are some of the worst updates I have seen to the game and I have been playing since day 1 lifetime account. Wake up SSG and by that I dont mean get more woke.

[infinitewhimsy]

This is like the bane of SSG recently and in the past too, though less visible. It's like everything created 2+ years back is automatically vastly inferior, sometimes not even worth careful consideration, and everything new is superior, no matter that it's in entirely different style and not vastly graphically superior in any shape nor form. Or, if something is 10 years old and something only 7 years old, sometimes the latter is automatically better and "better to use that!", even though these are exact same graphics and technically very similar.

At the very technical level, in a modelling software and zoomed in, maybe some of these newer things are somewhat superior, a few additional polygons here and there, some more modern rendering or whatever, yeah maybe, and maybe an artist feels like they're better now and they like their new style better for whatever personal reason in their artist growth. Sure, all understandable, but it shouldn't hijack the entire game design. Because the end result, due to game graphics being mostly the same and new things not being too heavily superior here, is that any visual improvement is minimal. Most of the time. Unless they were *really* some assets that *suffered terribly* from dated looks, like these bears and wolfs they updated recently, now that's something that made sense to be replaced entirely with new ones and they're really visibly better now. And Elrond's House was good change too, though still far from perfect so like 80% good, because the total emptiness before was dated, yes, but they overdid or mismatched in some subtler areas.

So they really need to take a step back here because they're just going to miscalculate again and again if they don't. Upgrade - as in change completely - stuff that actually need that, for everything else said upgrade should be expanding choices and variety of choices in addition to what already exists, and then use those choices, in appropriate and consistent ways, and don't oversaturate.

Some of the new options for men also don't render properly on lower settings, I don't think they thought this through at all.

It seems like most of my characters look different now though and I don't like it. There's a reason I had the new portraits disabled. Why remove player choice?

[Bio-Flame]

I also dislike these changes.

I would be fine with adding new options (except Beards for Man race female, that's plain silly in a LOTR setting).

What I really *really* dislike is that my toon has had her face changed and I cannot revert it, no matter how many sliders I use.




SSG: you say you want people to feel included and represented...and you go and CHANGE player's avatars against players will?
Doesn't that go against your stated goal?

[Lambtron]

I also dislike these changes.

I would be fine with adding new options (except Beards for Man race female, that's plain silly in a LOTR setting).

What I really *really* dislike is that my toon has her face changed and I cannot revert it, no matter how many sliders I use.




SSG: you say you want people to feel included and represented...and you go and CHANGE player's avatars against players will?
Doesn't that go against your stated goal?

Agreed. I quite liked my characters the way they were.

[kn1123]

SSG: you say you want people to feel included and represented...and you go and CHANGE player's avatars against players will?
Doesn't that go against your stated goal?

It's kinda interesting because MMORPGs were always an excuse for me to play a role, not to necessarily find myself within the game. LOTRO allowed that, but these new options inhibit that. Not sure how to feel.

[phaelan2]

Holy Cow! Are the male characters intended to look like bobbleheads now? Those necks are unnaturally thin. Are there sliders to let us make the male characters look normal again?

Labeling this "inclusive" is a joke when it excludes the more natural appearances we already had. The facial progression on the last male character above goes from rugged to childish or impish (maybe). It's not the same character personality at all. I definitely do not want my warriors to look as silly as that last image. Hopefully, there are far better options than what we see in this thread. Can I still make a rugged, properly proportioned male human in LOTRO?

Note: I wrote this without having gone in to see the changes for myself yet. I'm hoping they will patch the bug that is setting all faces to default instead of retaining our existing appearances (whatever variation they have taken). Hopefully sliders and options will allow us to get something closer to what we prefer.

[WhimsicalPacifist]

The face I'd spent a decade with is gone. I don't know if it's possible to recreate it or if I even have clear screenshots capable of rebuilding the face. I don't know if I want to even try. I had spent days iteratively remaking the face originally.

[Baggins]

I doubt old faces would work on new models. The new face models didn’t work on old models caused strange overlapping and two mouths… it’s reason they removed the model toggle.