Regarding Hrothgar hair issue

Hi, new to the forums! I decided to join after the Live Letter where we were encouraged to give feedback on the hrothgar hair situation on the forums and as a hrothgar player I wanted to throw in my two cents and suggestions in hopes they will potentially be reviewed and taken into consideration in the future.

I can understand and symphatize with the fact that the hrothgar head model is unique and difficult to work with, but even so, cutting the ears was a questionable design choice. And without dissing on the hard work of the 3D artists (love the work you do), I think the hairstyles chosen look just outright bad on hrothgars, it's like ill-fitting wigs on cats. Even with ears they're just not going to look good.

Game development is difficult and not to mention expensive, so I also understand it would take a very long time to redo the entire head model in a way that would make converting hairstyles to hrothgars easier, but in terms of design cohesiveness, is that truly necessary? Probably an unpopular opinion, but vast majority of the current hairstyles in the game shared by the other (way more human-like) races would look just as bad on hrothgars as the ones we're getting now, with or without ears. It would be a lot of resources dumped on something that makes the characters look bad. Personally, I wouldn't mind not getting most of the current hairstyles. There are few exceptions, like Gladion's undercut-mullet... thing, for example.

Don't get me wrong, hrothgars do need way more customisation options which they've been severely lacking since their introduction. I'm just saying there are better ways to go about it, namely exclusive hairstyles and/or hairstyles designed with Hrothgars in mind first and foremost. The unique appearance of hrothgars would, in my opinion, warrant exclusive hairstyles that actually fit and compliment their design, instead of just slapping whatever's currently in the game on them and calling it a day. It would not require an overhaul of the hrothgar model and would be reasonable to the devs and hrothgar players both. How would you acquire these? Make them available through the cosmetician and/or character creator when making a new character. But if exclusivity is an issue, then future hairstyles should be designed with hrothgars in mind so the hair looks good both on them and on other races. Mohawks, short hair, undercuts, things like that. Why not both options, preferably?

I hope the devs truly mean to listen to the feedback and suggestions they receive and deliver something that makes both parties pleased, because hrothgars really deserve something after so long. The race's design and lore are very well done and they deserve as much love and care as the other races.

Cutting the ears off is a questionable decision for sure, but not too unexpected.
The more pressing question is; if ears can be cut off for hair... why not ALL HATS?

I absolutely agree with your points here-- at this point, if it's going to take them more work to go back and fix things, they'd might as well focus on actually making things that will work with what they have.

I am in the camp that porting all of the older hairtyles is largely a waste of time. However, if the model design is also (as it sounds) preventing them from also being included in NEW hair designs, I think you have a problem.

If the model has to be updated to allow for new options and that takes time, then you might as well kill two birds with one stone, and do Viera too.

Lets be honest, Character Customization has been the same since roughly beta in terms of options. The whole thing needs a massive facelift, but I'm guessing they're saving this for the graphics update in 7.0.