SWTOR’s Cyborg Faces Show Why Your Toons May Look Old After 7.6

SWTOR’s Cyborg race uses the same Heads as Humans, but offer multiple variations of a smaller selection of faces. These faces differ in the same way that faces were enhanced in 7.6, offering a ton of insight into how Broadsword wronged some players, and what they could do to make things right.

Broadsword managed to greatly enhance face details for two-thirds of SWTOR’s playable races in 7.6. Many players, including me, were happy with the results, and the devs are proud of what they managed to accomplish.

However, a considerable number of players are furious that their character now looks different, with one of the most common criticisms being that their toon now looks 10-20 years older, though some bugs are also being interpreted as changes, adding fuel to the inferno.

What went wrong? I think Cyborgs might have the answer.

All of Broadsword’s Statements on 7.6 Face Changes

Before we put Cyborgs under the knife, it would be good for us to all be on the same page about Broadsword’s intent with these changes.

I’ve compiled all of their statements following their release as part of the first 7.6 PTS build on November 15th, 2024 through the official release of 7.6 on December 10th, 2024.

SWTOR’s Senior Community Manager, Jackie Ko, and SWTOR’s Game Director, Eric Musco spoke for Broadsword on this matter.

As someone who has read over 90% of all dev posts ever written in SWTOR’s 13-year history, the timeliness and depth of response stand out. Full-blown essays from the devs are quite rare, and here we have 3 within the span of a month.

Cyborg Insight

Rather than adding cybernetics to Humans (and other races) as another customization slider, SWTOR’s character creator treats Cyborgs as a completely separate race from Humans.

Within SWTOR, Cyborgs are more different from Humans than just having access to cybernetics. They can’t wear any tattoos or have any unique scars, and the males can’t sport any facial hair. Head selection is more severely restricted, as you only get to pick from 1 of 3 models instead of 20/24.

Some of you might recall that Cyborgs still have 15 head options, and that’s where the story gets more interesting.

Each of the 3 unique head models has 5 normal map variations. The normal map is a texture that tells light how to interact with fine details on a model, without those details needing to be represented with polygons.

In essence, normal maps allow a low-poly model to look far more detailed without the resource cost. This is typically used to add pores, wrinkles, and produce a smoother head shape. I encourage you to check out my last piece on SWTOR’s 7.6 Character Art Improvements for more information.

I captured a headshot of all 15 male and female cyborg heads with most sliders set to 1 and the cybernetics minimized.

Many of the differences below are quite subtle. I tried to put the most distinct variations side-by-side, but I suggest you click/press to enlarge the images so you can appreciate them better. You’ll see the most significant differences between the faces around the mouth and below the eyes.

As a side note, I think even the most irate players had a hard time distinguishing some of these when looking at them side-by-side, but this is likely how the character artists (devs) saw it while working on the update.

It’s a lot easier to say your beloved character is ruined when you just know they look different from how you remember them in your dreams compared to 5 minuscule variations for each of the 20 face models.

The most important takeaway from these Cyborg comparisons is how the devs can and do make the same face look older or younger, or more or less attractive, by altering the normal map. This is key because these faces represent the full spectrum of how our characters turned out.

It also indicates that there is a systematic approach to creating these normal maps, and that they can apply said changes systematically. Each of these 6 Cyborg models exists as an option in the Head slider for Humans, and some version of each normal map is applied to the Human face.

For example, the third Cyborg Female Head (11-15) is the same model as the Human Female Head 15, and it specifically uses the same normal map from Cyborg Female Head 11.

Just to be clear, we’re done with the “spot the difference” portion of my TEDtalk. The pair of images above are meant to be identical. The point is to show that the devs reuse faces and that there are multiple normal maps that are used on the same face.

All of the other face textures involved in the character creator seem to be reused across all the models, and I see no reason that normal maps would be an exception. In effect, there are most likely 5 variations for each of the 20 Human face models, perhaps 3 sets for each gender.

For instance, the exact same texture file for Scar 7 is applied to all Human Male Heads. In the same way, the normal map for Cyborg Female Head 2 could likely be applied to all Human Female Heads.

I suspect that the reason a given normal map was chosen for a given face is arbitrary, or at least the rationale doesn’t prioritize the aesthetics of an individual face. They probably prioritized offering a diverse set of choices over any specific Head looking a specific age, as it were.

Many in the community have asked for an age slider in response to these changes, and I think the 5 normal maps available to each Head are the best we can hope for, but given how much stuff gets dumped into the Complexion slider, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

At the same time, there’s no way the devs aren’t acutely aware of the massive limitations of SWTOR’s character creator, especially after all seeing so many players outraged by their genuine labor of love. It would be so easy to promise to add something that already exists if it would make everything all better.

So why didn’t they? I’d wager there’s a massive performance cost associated with every slider they add to the character creator, especially on what was originally a 32-bit system.

With such restricted access to computational resources, it’s likely that having so many independent character customizations constantly loading and unloading as players run around the world is one of the most significant sources of performance issues in SWTOR.

An additional slider in the character creator may be as much of a performance hit as adding another slot for cosmetic armor.

We can corroborate this by examining other single-player open world RPGs. While they do have far more realistic environments, the characters that populate the world typically lag behind in terms of visual fidelity.

Faces are so often concealed with masks, helmets, or are otherwise non-humanoid, and their outfits are less detailed, just like the faces we do get to see.

Yes, player character creators are typically more detailed, but most of the time, you’re looking at the back of their head and the outfit, or are playing in first-person, or it’s a cutscene, so it’s not as much of a concern.

Game developers can slow the (cinematic) camera down or pull it in for a close-up, and they can rely on the pace slowing down because you can’t see the action or control your character very well while facing the camera.

Outfits are the bigger concern, but most of these games don’t offer more than 3 or 4 gear slots, even if the pieces are more ornate. There’s less of a performance cost the fewer unique configurations you have to deal with.

SWTOR, on the other hand, has a whopping 7 clothing slots AND offers nigh visual pairity between player characters and NPCs. The only real exception exists for major story characters, but that’s because they have custom models, which were notorious for having more detail than the player character!

Of course, the Galaxy isn’t populated solely by the player character and other NPCs. SWTOR is an MMO; its crowds aren’t simulated. Each and every one of those PCs is controlled by an individual somewhere else on the planet, and they designed their toon to be just as stunning as yours.

So what can we expect? The most realistic player-oriented solution I would hope for involves pentuple the number of options available on the Head sliders for all races to include all 5 hypothetical normal maps for each face model. This way, players can choose their toon’s face with the same precision afforded by the Cyborg Head sliders.

Since only a single texture should change, I doubt it would come with a performance cost to expand options in this way. It would also be good to define ranges in the interface using colors on the slider so players can tell when one face model ends and another begins.

Don’t pin everything on this. The notion that Broadsword can easily offer 5 normal maps for every face is contingent on those maps already existing. Our understanding of the performance impact of face options is also limited as we are on the outside looking in. Their hands may be tied tighter than I surmise.

While I don’t know exactly what they’ll do to make things right for disaffected players, I am certain that this is only the beginning.

As someone who quite likes the improvements they’ve made in 7.6, I’m looking forward to enhancements for the remaining untouched races, including Sith Purebloods, Twi’leks, Cathar, Nautolans.