Radio silence about any Hrothgar issues whatsoever yet again

Hello (or meowdy? :p )

I was very much looking forward to today's announcement about graphical issues, considering there has been this big issue with the rigging on Hrothgal's shoulders and arms basically since the benchmark (where it just wasn't as obvious). Additionally there has been quite some "baggage" Hrothguys had to deal with already that was repeated when creating Hrothgals. As a player of a Hrothgar since 2021 I think, I didn't expect there to be much info, or changes, considering we have always been an afterthought apparently, even more so than our Viera siblings.

However. Hrothgals are the shiny new kids on the block and the topic of visual changes is actively discussed for all sorts of things in the game. And having a ton of unfitting gear that keeps people from playing Hrothgals will surely be worth a mention, right?

Well, apparently not. Yet again there was no mention of Hrothgals whatsoever. The devs described in detail the issues about round shapes, eyelash growing directions and mouth corners, but avoided mentioning the big lion shaped elephant in the room. Hrothgar might not be the most popular race, but this shouldn't be a reason to pretend we don't exist and our concerns are invalid. Multiple people also have said the visual issues (especially the shoulder rigging in Hrothgals, the lack of hairstyles) are the main things why they don't switch.

I get the point about not being able to list every single issue, but if the issues of your character race are not mentioned every single time for years, it sure as hell looks like a pattern. If this is a Japanese way of avoiding saying "no" or "we don't know" to anything, please be aware it looks like "We don't give a damn about your game experience, be happy with your table scraps" to players from the "Western" world by now. Is this really the message you want to send to your customers?

Many threads have been created and continued in this forum for years, I'm sure I am forgetting some of them. The most glaring current one is this:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...gging-problems

Here are some comparisons in a bug report I sent:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ager-s-Cuirass

That and the point that racial hairstyles are restricted to certain faces yet again, an issue Hrothguys already had since release and that was complained about since 5.0.

I even summarized common complaints about both Hrothgar and Hrothgals in Japanese via Google translate after the Benchmark dropped. None of them were addressed so far:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6471376

There was also another thread during the benchmark where some things were pointed out (although I'm not sure which version, possibly both):
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...thgar-feedback

There is also the obvious and well-known issue with Hrothgar and Viera not being able to wear hats and a ton of hairstyles - issues many modders manage to fix in the first three days after a new thing got released. Instead of fixing the issue on a core level, we got a ridiculous number of circlets in EW and now headgear with glasses where the glasses show (better than nothing, I like my glasses, but still yet another workaround instead of an actual fix). Yes, modders have more options because their changes are only local, but SE had years, a bigger team and more money to do the same. They just don't prioritize this in anyway. Of course we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but so far it looks like the topic of actually fixing the hairstyle and hat issue on a basic level so they don't have to adjust it one by one doesn't even seem to be on the To Do list.

And if some of you might think "Well, maybe you need to give more info and explain more", these threads have been around for ages and have so much constructive feedback, suggestions, even concept art for new hairstyles etc. in them. We don't spam the first three pages of this subforum, but the info is there.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...INT-MEGATHREAD

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...w-your-support!

And yet, despite so many info, criticism, feedback, design ideas and bug reports for years, we still don't get any sort of acknowledgement of our issues being looked at, of our concerns being valid and us being taken seriously in lodestone posts. Don't get me wrong, I am happy the people whose eyelashes and eyebrows were off hear about improvements. Or the mention of fuzzy facial markings being improved. (Knowing things like this are being addressed is why I bother opening this thread and not just shrug it off, it's what gives me hope it will be seen at some point.)

I am not asking for any special elevated treatment, we just like to be respected just as much as anyone else. Please acknowledge you messed up and are trying to do better, just like you have done so for Elezen, Miqo'te, Au Ra, Roegadyn and many others in the past already.

(I hope all the links work out. Please let me know if anything leads to a wrong post. And of course feel free to add your own and own concerns if you are playing a Hrothgar, too.)

yeah its wild, i remember seeing an image of a hrothgal wearing the clown hat, and the nose was like, between her eyes almost, they 100% didnt rig them just took hrothdudes or smth :(

Well said, OP.
I'd like to add a thread I've made sometime ago (and an issue you listed on your JP post) that got some traction but no acknowledge whatsoever.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...osture-setting

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NoonDawn

yeah its wild, i remember seeing an image of a hrothgal wearing the clown hat, and the nose was like, between her eyes almost, they 100% didnt rig them just took hrothdudes or smth :(

---

This was posted in the same thread. They're comically low-effort even compared to viera and their male counterparts, who are still waiting to be able to wear hats after 5 years.

https://i.imgur.com/WUNAKWD.png

The rigging is hit or miss. The actual hrothgal models are fantastic and I have zero regrets becoming one, but the gear is all over the place in the arms and shoulders department. Thankfully, my current glams all work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daralii

https://i.imgur.com/WUNAKWD.png

---

Wow.
I don't play Hroth, so I never knew you had it this bad... The pics I've seen in the linked threads really give me WoW male orc vibes... This particular one is a shop outfit too, you'd think if anything these would fit the best.
Hope they fix them for you guys, but I wouldn't get my hopes up - it's been 3 expansions and they've still not fixed head slot items for Viera/Hroth... I guess your best bet would be to play on PC with mods, which have fixed the hat issue years ago (dunno about this shoulder thing) - one of the reasons I gave up on being male Viera in EW was due to playing on PS myself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Willemdarke

Wow.
I don't play Hroth, so I never knew you had it this bad... The pics I've seen in the linked threads really give me WoW male orc vibes... This particular one is a shop outfit too, you'd think if anything these would fit the best.
Hope they fix them for you guys, but I wouldn't get my hopes up - it's been 3 expansions and they've still not fixed head slot items for Viera/Hroth... I guess your best bet would be to play on PC with mods, which have fixed the hat issue years ago (dunno about this shoulder thing) - one of the reasons I gave up on being male Viera in EW was due to playing on PS myself.

---

The racial set somehow doesn't even fit. It has an armband that fit properly in the reveal trailer, but when the benchmark came out it was oversized and just floating around the arm, and it's never been fixed.

There have been so many frustrating and questionable decisions surrounding Hrothgar and Viera. Why did they think it was a good idea to not let them be able to wear hats and not have the universal hairstyles? Some of the team knew this was a mistake or else we wouldn't of even had glasses. But no one stopped and said hey, this is a bad idea let's actually do this correctly so we don't have more problems down the line? Really?

And now we have female Hrothgar with similar issues to the males after all the complaints and mega threads and feedback. Did they just not learn? Did they do this on purpose because they don't want to have to fix the males too? It just feels terrible. Males have that super hunch and females have the weird arm rigging. We get limited hairstyles, limited hair colors (look at the variety of colors all the other races get, we're SUPER limited!) all because who the heck knows.

I love this game but this whole issue is incredibly frustrating. I was really positive when Viera and Hrothgar first came out. I trusted SE. Now I just don't. They've done some stuff but it's not enough, not nearly as much as they claimed they would do anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lazariah

There have been so many frustrating and questionable decisions surrounding Hrothgar and Viera. Why did they think it was a good idea to not let them be able to wear hats and not have the universal hairstyles? Some of the team knew this was a mistake or else we wouldn't of even had glasses. But no one stopped and said hey, this is a bad idea let's actually do this correctly so we don't have more problems down the line? Really?

And now we have female Hrothgar with similar issues to the males after all the complaints and mega threads and feedback. Did they just not learn? Did they do this on purpose because they don't want to have to fix the males too? It just feels terrible. Males have that super hunch and females have the weird arm rigging. We get limited hairstyles, limited hair colors (look at the variety of colors all the other races get, we're SUPER limited!) all because who the heck knows.

I love this game but this whole issue is incredibly frustrating. I was really positive when Viera and Hrothgar first came out. I trusted SE. Now I just don't. They've done some stuff but it's not enough, not nearly as much as they claimed they would do anyway.

---

I'm guessing it all boils down to them biting off more than they could chew regarding new races (hence why even their genders were initially limited), and then caving to pressure when the community wanted more. But it seems they plain never had the resources/staff available to add two more races into the game, especially when you take an ever-increasing amount of gear into account. And they did it again with the graphics update. Instead of fixing existing issues with Hrothgar and Viera, they took on the bigger and more impressive-sounding task of updating all the graphics. I'm guessing because its something that will hype people up more when announced.

I have a personal dislike which I haven't seen mentioned, of the hair coloured fur on the hrothgar shoulders, which I note their main NPC hrothgar character Wuk Lamat does not have. Really wish they'd not linked it to hair colour so that there would be a choice to have it the same colour as the body fur if we wanted. And I agree they don't seem to have learned from feedback, you'd think the au ra would have taught them that people don't like features being tied to faces, but then they made it worse with hrothgar and hair. Yet they didn't tie viera ears to faces. Was also disappointed in the hair colours as I couldn't make the hrothgar with white fur and green hair like I wanted (stayed a roe instead)

Radio Silence is exactly what SE has been doing best with issues lately.

unless they are things that almost no one has complained about... ie. Viper changes