Letter from the Producer LXII

I'm just going to leave this here because it comes to me every time I hear devs mention things like this. If you know of this game's modding scene, his post becomes especially laughable.

https://i.ibb.co/DLZXzR0/59923422-36...92952064-n.jpg

Hmm, I hope they are at least focusing on head gear from level 71 to 80 for Viera and Hrothgar. I can understand not going back and update that gear but shouldn't stop them from moving forward.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I'm just going to leave this here because it comes to me every time I hear devs mention things like this. If you know of this game's modding scene, his post becomes especially laughable.

https://i.ibb.co/DLZXzR0/59923422-36...92952064-n.jpg

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Already been discussed in this thread, you are wrong, the modders routinely say they can't fix certain bits of gear they mod to make them right,frequently break character models and textures. Plus, from the pictures I've seen, most of their work looks flat, like an image basically just laid onto a model. There's no texture, no feel to it.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I'm just going to leave this here because it comes to me every time I hear devs mention things like this. If you know of this game's modding scene, his post becomes especially laughable.

https://i.ibb.co/DLZXzR0/59923422-36...92952064-n.jpg

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I've seen videos of modded works. And some of them can't fix simple stuff in their work and don't know what causes it. Take for example modding armor pieces. The modded armor can't interact with other pieces of armor. So if you had a long sleeve coat, it will just clip with any long sleeve gloves. It won't interact like the armor made by the designers so that both pieces fit harmonically with any other that interacts with it. Another example is those using very long hair mods. You will see the animation moves really bad since it was made from a pony tail or any of the long hairs we have that has very few and short links to move them. So the hair moves like it's a pendulum.

Not to mention also that the majority of the modded works only work on certain races/genders/faces etc. Unlike what the dev team does each time they make a new gear.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

I too often suspect that too much money from FFXIV goes to other projects, which is... not great.

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I've had this notion since FFXV's release. The obvious cut content, the in-game product placement...these are things that show signs of a troubled development. I can't imagine how much money had been wasted. SE is probably using FFXIV profit to recover from FFXV's shortcomings, which is sad.

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Originally Posted by Physic

Every race is actually less valuable the more races you have, because most players only use one or two races. There is a 1/16 chance that new race is going to be the most appealing race. Then, every race also makes every piece of gear more expensive to make, forever, and increases the costs of every skill with a unique animation/emote, cutscene etc (due to QA and development). And the upfront cost per race increases the more emotes/unique skills/armor etc the game has.
[...]
basically, at this point new races are no longer worth how much they cost, that doesnt change no matter how much money i make. Are you going to spend 2x the street value of a car, just because you have a good job when you already have 14 cars? Is that logical?

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You can have 14 cars and access them for free, when in FFXIV to play another race you have to pay money (Fantasia).
Normal people and fantasia addict people will for sure allow SE to make great profits once new races will arrive.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

That's another story. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My comment was more for those who thinks that "10.000 armor" thing is an exaggeration, while it's not.

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There is a huge number of duplicate items as well so it is a bit misleading.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Here's the problem with the number of likes. That number had a sharp increase to 1400 in 4 days. But that number only increased to 1666 in a span of 7 weeks after that initial increase. Where do you think the initial influx came from? It was from those that were watching the live letter and those that were told about the thread after. So the main question becomes "how many actually saw that announcement, heard about the thread and didn't bother to like it?". That's the actual pool size that the number of likes must be compared to. And that number exceeded 48K (that's only if you count the EN and JP twitch views for Tokyo live letter, let alone the number of players that didn't watch it).

If you were now to calculate the percentage of players that posted their like on the mega thread, that's 3.4% only. The reason many thought that 1666 likes is a big number to show profitable demand for SE was because they thought the number of likes was huge but they fell to what's called "non response bias" in their calculations.

And then we have the google poll that was done. That also falls into the same issue of "those that didn't participate in it, already should be counted as neutral". Hence the "non response bias" again. And it also has the issue that some can vote multiple times and even non players can vote. So that skewed the results drastically.

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Most players aren't even aware there is a forum and if you believe reddit 90% of people are banned lol.

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Originally Posted by enthauptet

Most players aren't even aware there is a forum and if you believe reddit 90% of people are banned lol.

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Those banned can still like a post but not comment (as far as I know). And also, that thread was circulated a lot on reddit and even in game on the first days (which further increases the sample size).

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Those banned can still like a post but not comment (as far as I know). And also, that thread was circulated a lot on reddit and even in game on the first days (which further increases the sample size).

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You can't even log in. So you can't like.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

You can't even log in. So you can't like.

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Oh, you can't? Well, that completely ruins the sample then.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

You can't even log in. So you can't like.

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This. You can only read threads.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Oh, you can't? Well, that completely ruins the sample then.

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Also, depending on the mod, you can get banned for the pettiest things if someone is feeling angery enough. On the other hand, similar posts will stay up forever because the mod deemed it A-O-K. This kind of community deters people from joining the forums in the first place because they figure, "I'll get banned anyway so there's no point." And then they go to reddit/4chan/discord communities.

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Originally Posted by griffinborn

I've had this notion since FFXV's release. The obvious cut content, the in-game product placement...these are things that show signs of a troubled development. I can't imagine how much money had been wasted. SE is probably using FFXIV profit to recover from FFXV's shortcomings, which is sad.

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Actually, ppl have been saying that since it was known that games like the FF7 remake were being funded by the success of FF14, and considering that i1.0 nearly kille SE and Japanese corporate culture: They may not have been in any position to ask for more assistance or funding etcetera. Seriously, even things like all the current remakes could have been funded by FF14's earnings. It does look to be improving. They totally had their boss on stage

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Originally Posted by MPNZ

Actually, ppl have been saying that since it was known that games like the FF7 remake were being funded by the success of FF14, and considering that i1.0 nearly kille SE and Japanese corporate culture: They may not have been in any position to ask for more assistance or funding etcetera. Seriously, even things like all the current remakes could have been funded by FF14's earnings. It does look to be improving. They totally had their boss on stage

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I'd point to it being more of a two-way road. The rebuild/rebranding of XIV came at the expense of other SE titles including almost certainly KH3 and also most likely had a hand in Verses XIII becoming XV to ensure they have a good product out in a reasonable time frame. In many ways XIV is paying back for what it has taken, and that its also doing well helps with that.

I wouldn't be surprised if the FFVII remake was also a case of "emergency break glass" given how much they loved teasing it and knew people wanted it but never gave any indication it would happen until after the XV switch as well.

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Originally Posted by Physic

its not worth it because its not worth it. Every decision they make has a value and a cost, and a benefit, and must be compared to other costs.

Every race is actually less valuable the more races you have, because most players only use one or two races. There is a 1/16 chance that new race is going to be the most appealing race. Then, every race also makes every piece of gear more expensive to make, forever, and increases the costs of every skill with a unique animation/emote, cutscene etc (due to QA and development). And the upfront cost per race increases the more emotes/unique skills/armor etc the game has.

Then, you compare that cost, and benefit, with all the other things you could do with the same money/manhours and sometimes it no longer is worth it.

just because i make 1 million dollars off a tv show, doesnt mean its a good idea to spend 50% of my budget on one actor.

basically, at this point new races are no longer worth how much they cost, that doesnt change no matter how much money i make. Are you going to spend 2x the street value of a car, just because you have a good job when you already have 14 cars? Is that logical?

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Much harder to swallow when your largest competitor just modified their engine so they could add 6 new races an expansion.

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Originally Posted by Reeereee

Much harder to swallow when your largest competitor just modified their engine so they could add 6 new races an expansion.

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As someone who doesn't play said game, my understanding of it is that those 6 new races are closer to XIV's subraces rather then being full on new races. A little bit more like the difference between Midlander and Highlander.

Also everything I've heard is that it isn't doing much to help retain their playerbase, much less add new people. Again I don't play it to begin with and my sources are almost certainly biased against it.

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

As someone who doesn't play said game, my understanding of it is that those 6 new races are closer to XIV's subraces rather then being full on new races. A little bit more like the difference between Midlander and Highlander.

Also everything I've heard is that it isn't doing much to help retain their playerbase, much less add new people. Again I don't play it to begin with and my sources are almost certainly biased against it.

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You're correct. I think only one of WoW's new allied races is using a unique model (the Kul Tiran Humans), while the rest are reskins of existing models.

Closer to the difference between a midlander and a highlander than it is the difference between a hyur and a lalafell.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

You're correct. I think only one of WoW's new allied races is using a unique model (the Kul Tiran Humans), while the rest are reskins of existing models.

Closer to the difference between a midlander and a highlander than it is the difference between a hyur and a lalafell.

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Not even that it sounds like, as midlanders and highlanders are pretty different. Seems more like the differences in the other races in XIV, as they all are just palette swaps for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

As someone who doesn't play said game, my understanding of it is that those 6 new races are closer to XIV's subraces rather then being full on new races. A little bit more like the difference between Midlander and Highlander.

Also everything I've heard is that it isn't doing much to help retain their playerbase, much less add new people. Again I don't play it to begin with and my sources are almost certainly biased against it.

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Oh no, it went over spectacularly. They made a fortune in race change/faction change fees. It's the gameplay features in the new expansion that have tanked and the story elements have not gone over well.

Three are pallet swaps, two are in line with midlander/highlander and one is new.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

Yeah, but I think the reason the Lalafell don't fulfill that particular character fantasy is because of how pear-shaped they are.

I used to be one, I switched because (and I'll freely admit this is silly) a lot of my glamour just plain didn't work on a Lalafell model.

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i switched because i wanted to be young link and just couldnt get lala tall enough. tried to make sora and the other models look like old men

I just made this......I'm just gonna leave it here for all to enjoy!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...ffxiv20191.jpg

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Already been discussed in this thread, you are wrong, the modders routinely say they can't fix certain bits of gear they mod to make them right,frequently break character models and textures. Plus, from the pictures I've seen, most of their work looks flat, like an image basically just laid onto a model. There's no texture, no feel to it.

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He isn't entirely wrong. When they claim we can't have barefeet because it would cause us to float... you can only laugh since modders more or less accommodated for that exact issue—even adding toes on an otherwise paddle model. Furthermore, the excuse becomes absurd considering how often we float or clip through things anyway. Can modders fix everything? Of course not. But the work some of them have done are far better than many of the outfits SE comes up with.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

But the work some of them have done are far better than many of the outfits SE comes up with.

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In terms of what ? Personal preferences/styles ?

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

He isn't entirely wrong. When they claim we can't have barefeet because it would cause us to float... you can only laugh since modders more or less accommodated for that exact issue—even adding toes on an otherwise paddle model. Furthermore, the excuse becomes absurd considering how often we float or clip through things anyway. Can modders fix everything? Of course not. But the work some of them have done are far better than many of the outfits SE comes up with.

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Can I see this accommodation? I'm curious what was done. I've got some suspicions that their "fixes" absolutely ruin the appearances of certain gear that they either never use or just don't care about. I don't doubt modders talent and enthusiasm, however they work without a lot of the restrictions actual devs have.

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

Oh yes, the <10 who spam the male Viera thread sure show me this huge number lol

And yeah, this forum is small ... maybe try looking at more places yourself to see better what people want? I visit a number of popular sites to discuss FF14 and the ENGLISH side of this forum is the only one that's this hung up on Viera Male.

And no, just no. This is the best route to pleasing the most people with the final addition to this game.

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So the biggest like thread on this forum is no indication of wanting male viera (and no its not just 10 people spamming it, there has been even new people only logging into the forum to post about their support) but somehow its the truth for beast races? Why is one side allowed to be counted but the other side does not count?

In the end the most talk about a beastly race started with the Lupins and yet even that paled to the discussion about Vieras.

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Originally Posted by zeylos

Lol then the <3 who spammed beast race are also a huge number lol

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What are you talking about?

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Originally Posted by Alleo

So the biggest like thread on this forum is no indication of wanting male viera (and no its not just 10 people spamming it, there has been even new people only logging into the forum to post about their support) but somehow its the truth for beast races? Why is one side allowed to be counted but the other side does not count?

In the end the most talk about a beastly race started with the Lupins and yet even that paled to the discussion about Vieras.

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No, I think that the likes are more so people voting against "genderlocking" than supporting an addition because they personally plan to play it or even like it. Explains why it has so many more likes than the reg old Viera support thread and why Female Hrothgar are so close to it in numbers. Are you saying Female Hrothgar are "highly wanted" as well as a way to say that a large number of people would play as them? Or when you say "Wanting" do you mean people just want the option to inevitably ignore it?

Do you think someone saying "I'd like to see some buff cat ladies and bunny bois!/ Genderlocking is so outdated!" means they themselves want to potion change into one?

And yes ... the male Viera thread's life blood are just a few obsessed posters spamming. Recently the only time it slipped off the front page is when those posters took a break for a few days. Logging in and plopping a single "I support this!" post and leaving is not why that thread is so stupidly long. And yes, I say stupidly long when I can pick a random page and see that 80% of post on it are from 1-2 people spamming replies to keep the thread bumped.

(Also, "beast race" was a common request not just for Lupin. Ronso and Burmecian and so on commonly showed up though it really did kick off with Lupin seeing as they're in game and look very humanoid. Explains why Ronso is a head option as well as the wolf like head, they want to cover as much ground as they can when naturally a race wouldn't have such extremely different heads. )


This is a good write up for the situation..

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Here's the problem with the number of likes. That number had a sharp increase to 1400 in 4 days. But that number only increased to 1666 in a span of 7 weeks after that initial increase. Where do you think the initial influx came from? It was from those that were watching the live letter and those that were told about the thread after. So the main question becomes "how many actually saw that announcement, heard about the thread and didn't bother to like it?". That's the actual pool size that the number of likes must be compared to. And that number exceeded 48K (that's only if you count the EN and JP twitch views for Tokyo live letter, let alone the number of players that didn't watch it).

If you were now to calculate the percentage of players that posted their like on the mega thread, that's 3.4% only. The reason many thought that 1666 likes is a big number to show profitable demand for SE was because they thought the number of likes was huge but they fell to what's called "non response bias" in their calculations.

And then we have the google poll that was done. That also falls into the same issue of "those that didn't participate in it, already should be counted as neutral". Hence the "non response bias" again. And it also has the issue that some can vote multiple times and even non players can vote. So that skewed the results drastically.

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Originally Posted by Tharne

In terms of what ? Personal preferences/styles ?

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Design. Of course, subjectivity plays a factor but considering some of the outfits modders have either ported from other games or designed themselves. They are typically better. Sadly, I cannot post pictures because the OF isn't exactly going to approve of it lol.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Can I see this accommodation? I'm curious what was done. I've got some suspicions that their "fixes" absolutely ruin the appearances of certain gear that they either never use or just don't care about. I don't doubt modders talent and enthusiasm, however they work without a lot of the restrictions actual devs have.

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For the barefeet mod? It doesn't ruin anything. They simply redesigned the foot to essentially cover where the sandal would be otherwise. It looks seamless for the most part, but as I said above. I can't link an example here.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Can I see this accommodation? I'm curious what was done. I've got some suspicions that their "fixes" absolutely ruin the appearances of certain gear that they either never use or just don't care about. I don't doubt modders talent and enthusiasm, however they work without a lot of the restrictions actual devs have.

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https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ydJTpczXi...00/tEVREJH.png

Looks fine to me. The major drawback with a community mod rather than something official from SE is that this only applies to certain character models. For instance, this mod wouldn't work on a Lalafell or a Roegadyn because their feet are shaped differently.

Still... better than nothing.

They can let us run barefeet i said before there are NPC that are like that, its rly just the "floating" and i wonder how much that actually is, like the shortest sandals are like 2cm max, i wonder if would even notice.

And what i dont get at all is, the game comes from the ppl that traditionally move without shoes inside their homes so its kinda rly weird...

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Originally Posted by Callinon

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ydJTpczXi...00/tEVREJH.png

Looks fine to me. The major drawback with a community mod rather than something official from SE is that this only applies to certain character models. For instance, this mod wouldn't work on a Lalafell or a Roegadyn because their feet are shaped differently.

Still... better than nothing.

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for modders better than nothing is good enough, for SE they have certain artistic standards, utility requirements, and QA.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

Looks fine to me. The major drawback with a community mod rather than something official from SE is that this only applies to certain character models. For instance, this mod wouldn't work on a Lalafell or a Roegadyn because their feet are shaped differently.

Still... better than nothing.

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That is not a good defense when trying to sell something to people who play Lala and Roe, especially JP which has a very high concentration of lala players. As someone else stated, SE has standards, status quo and QA. Not to mention these mods are only for PC players, meaning console is entirely locked out. Better than nothing is literally nothing for a major percentile.

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Originally Posted by Physic

for modders better than nothing is good enough, for SE they have certain artistic standards, utility requirements, and QA.

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When SE's artistic standards are "draw black lines on paddle feet because we can't be bothered to make actual toes." I'm going to call BS.

So,getting Bunny ears you have already in the Golden Saucer on Humans make Helmets hard to remoddel? Same wit roes, you have the model already, you just added the Tekken 2 head on it. If it´s not in the Budget to just stick the ears on male Humans, i don´t wanna know how much is Copy Paste in Shadow Bringer.

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Originally Posted by Crowedclown

So,getting Bunny ears you have already in the Golden Saucer on Humans make Helmets hard to remoddel? Same wit roes, you have the model already, you just added the Tekken 2 head on it. If it´s not in the Budget to just stick the ears on male Humans, i don´t wanna know how much is Copy Paste in Shadow Bringer.

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You didn't bother to read about this, right?

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

They can let us run barefeet i said before there are NPC that are like that, its rly just the "floating" and i wonder how much that actually is, like the shortest sandals are like 2cm max, i wonder if would even notice.

And what i dont get at all is, the game comes from the ppl that traditionally move without shoes inside their homes so its kinda rly weird...

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Actually the tech to fix that is already in place. Currently in the game there exist foot gear that modifies the character's height. Not by much but modify it it does. So you just make that value negative. It adjusts the character model down the z-axis a few pixels and done, no floating.

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Originally Posted by Gula

That is not a good defense when trying to sell something to people who play Lala and Roe, especially JP which has a very high concentration of lala players. As someone else stated, SE has standards, status quo and QA. Not to mention these mods are only for PC players, meaning console is entirely locked out. Better than nothing is literally nothing for a major percentile.

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I'm not defending anything or selling anything. I'm demonstrating that this can be done without causing the space-time continuum to collapse in on itself. SE just doesn't want to. There isn't a good reason for it, they just don't feel like it.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

SE just doesn't want to. There isn't a good reason for it, they just don't feel like it.

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That doesn't make sense. Just because you don't know the actual technical problem, you can't assume that they don't want to or feel like it.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

That doesn't make sense. Just because you don't know the actual technical problem, you can't assume that they don't want to or feel like it.

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I could understand assuming there was a technical limitation here before we saw barefoot NPCs. There isn't.

Now I'll freely admit I don't know why SE doesn't just do it, but there certainly doesn't seem to be a good reason for it.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

I could understand assuming there was a technical limitation here before we saw barefoot NPCs. There isn't.

Now I'll freely admit I don't know why SE doesn't just do it, but there certainly doesn't seem to be a good reason for it.

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Which NPC was that? Would be interesting to check how they're modeled.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

That doesn't make sense. Just because you don't know the actual technical problem, you can't assume that they don't want to or feel like it.

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When it comes to barefeet, there is unlikely any technical issues they couldn't overcome. Why? Because the mod available now proves they wouldn't have to do any skeletal or rigging adjustments, which would be a significant task. They literally have to replace existing textures so the game loads them. It may not be an outright simple addition, but it wouldn't be a difficult one. Why I suspect they don't is they assume people care if we float even a little (very few do) and they don't want to dedicate any time to something they don't see as a big deal.

As for the NPC, I believe this was it. And no, this isn't modded.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

When it comes to barefeet, there is unlikely any technical issues they couldn't overcome. Why? Because the mod available now proves they wouldn't have to do any skeletal or rigging adjustments, which would be a significant task. They literally have to replace existing textures so the game loads them. It may not be an outright simple addition, but it wouldn't be a difficult one. Why I suspect they don't is they assume people care if we float even a little (very few do) and they don't want to dedicate any time to something they don't see as a big deal.

As for the NPC, I believe this was it. And no, this isn't modded.

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That NPC is swimming. If you look carefully at the foot, it's the same one with sandals but without them. So if the NPC was to stand on ground, you'd see them floating. This picture was on reddit about another NPC (probably during the moonfire event) And you can see it's the exact same foot shape and it's floating.

https://i.redd.it/we3dzu5j25g11.png

So the NPC we have ingame does not have a proper bare feet model.