Still Don't Get the Stubble Face WoL

I still don't understand why they went through the effort to make an in-game model of the stubble face hyur male Warrior of Light who is a generic representation of the player base and not give players the ability to use that face. Its not like the WoL seen in the CGI trailers have had a 1-to-1 recreation in game, in fact the only thing shared between the Stormblood trailers and in-game model was hairstyles.

While I "get" (but disagree with) why NPC models have unique characteristics that the player base doesn't have access to (Estinien and Hilda's unique hairstyles, Misija's unique skin color for Roegadyns) in order to make them distinct, having all the material of this expansion showing the "Your Character Here" representation not actually be something your character can look like is odd. I would have understood if they decided to give Ardbert the new stubble face to make him more distinct like other NPCs, but that didn't happen.

Highlanders get stubble....

But I do agree that this should be something added to more races.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Highlanders get stubble....

But I do agree that this should be something added to more races.

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Well yeah, they've had that face option since launch, but this would be like if they made a Highlander model with eyebrows to be the in-game face of the playerbase for Shadowbringers but never actually let players use that option.

Someone should correct me if I remember this wrong, but I thought the issue is, like most of these sort of deep system issues, is they can't easily add to it without huge potential repercussions. So some sort of memory issue in the programing, perhaps the amount of space they allotted is already max used up and to add this would require in effect updating their character creation code itself (like the core).

You might ask what about "x" npc or something that breaks the rules or has their own special stuff.

Each person is a package of info that has to be passed by the server (so you can actually see the person as they are meant to be), meanwhile NPCs are stored locally and don't need to be passed around. Besides the package being greater meaning more work for servers and such it also can be a problem for your device. The more unique objects on the screen means the more unique things your computer has to deal with at one time (this is one of the reasons you might see repeats in the crowds of video games, a lot less stress on the computer if they reuse stuff a bit). 1,000 clones is easier to work with than 1,000 uniquely dressed individuals that all use their own assets. 1 NPC breaking the mold wont do much to anything. Plus the assets on a specific setup may work but not on another, so SE would have to do further work if they opened up those options. Multiple reasons on top of each other why NPCs get to break more rules than us lol.


LLLLLLLLLLLLONNNNNGGGGGGGGGG ago I remember Yoshida mentioning that their program team made the system with older school strict memory designs in mind so that it was lean and mean... but made it difficult to expand dynamically. Which may be why FFXIV is one of the few mmos to be on consoles (not really a challenge for the recent consoles I imagine but PS3 was, at least to me, a pretty neat feat).

Of course stuff like that, which we hear for a lot of things (glamour, house wards, account bind all mog purchases, etc), is why you might see some people both like this game and also wish they are working on another that is ground up more dynamic (or preparing a metaphorical cataclysm to the base code).

Midlander stubble is the only thing that would get me to switch from lalafell for more than a week.

Lala stubble would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by Hank_Hotspur

Well yeah, they've had that face option since launch, but this would be like if they made a Highlander model with eyebrows to be the in-game face of the playerbase for Shadowbringers but never actually let players use that option.

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They did. Last year for the Valentine's day event. Bert had eyebrows :(

I'm hoping to see it added in 6.0 or even 5.5.

It's jarring seeing it in promotional footage. Deceptive, even. I'd happily go back to playing a Midlander if they added the stubble.

To be honest, I thought that this was a cultural thing. And I concede I may be incorrect, but at the very least thought beards weren't really a priority in Japan as it so happens to be embraced in the west.

Either way, if something to do with memory encoding or whatever was the reason... sort it out, Square. Because that's P**s Poor.