Gender Locking and Hats: This is a constraint issue

There are a lot of threads already talking about fanfest overall, but none that seem to be focusing on something that seems increasingly apparent to me.

The news on genderlocking and lack of hats to me reads overwhelmingly like SE is trying to navigate behind the scenes restrictions in a limited time period to the best of their ability. Maybe they hoped to have more for the immediate premier, maybe they always understood it would be a staggered content release. But the hat visibility in particular makes me think what we're seeing ties to pragmatism and navigating limitations as well as they can.

Coming from that standpoint, I seriously don't think it's sexism and homophobia. Seriously. If I thought the gender locked version was going to be a forever thing and they actively wanted to prevent players from playing as bunny boys or lady ronsos that would be a different story, but that would also be hugely out of character given SE's track record. If it's a pacing thing and trying to manage resources along with possible pressure from higher ups, accusations like that are uncalled for.

This isn't the last update for FFXIV. Come on. They're making money off of this game. There's time and especially if there's demand, it makes sense for them to address that for greater profit.

SE has been pretty good about stuff like this. Patience is a weak point for this fandom, and there are plenty of players with no idea how anyone could like something they don't... but honestly. It's not helping anyone to be impulsive OR spiteful. We're not twelve.

SE not being able to handle their scope isn't really much better than yoshi p literally saying male bunnies are weird.
It's just a different kind of bad.

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Originally Posted by Roda

SE not being able to handle their scope isn't really much better than yoshi p literally saying male bunnies are weird.
It's just a different kind of bad.

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I linked this previously, but idk I don't think it's about not being able to handle scope so much as company politics. And tbh I don't mind if Yoshi P thinks that male viera are weird as long as he doesn't allow his personal preferences on that front stand in the way of providing an option many fans want. That's just a question of professionalism and I don't see reason to doubt his at this stage. My understanding is that even if he thinks male viera are weird, he also doesn't like gender locking.

lack of hats and gender they better be very vast options with there customization options

The game has always felt like the budget is too small.

It's a small indie company, please understand. /s


Seriously, though, it's also in their responsability to not bite off more than they can chew. I'd rather have a polished, complete xpac than one riddled with problems and weird choices, even if it meant waiting more time.
Yes, at the moment it's all cutting corners in cosmetic (which, honestly, are very important for people in MMOs. There's a good reason Mogstation makes that amount of money) but it's already not a very good indicative of what is to come. Imo, it's the small details that shows the directions they are taking.

Of course it's a budget allocation issue. Half the genders requires half the effort. It's pretty obvious which genders, for which of the new races, they feel will have the most demand. In addition to the standard fare "radio silence" by anyone on the dev team, doesn't make this type of decision any less cynical.

Considering the "snails pace" that they seem to take, for anything that isn't battle related content, I'm not going to expect any of these to be implemented any time soon.

Now I'll go back and wait patiently for my proper glamour log, 3rd complementary retainer, and glamour restrictions to be lifted...

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Originally Posted by Jaywalker

I linked this previously, but idk I don't think it's about not being able to handle scope so much as company politics. And tbh I don't mind if Yoshi P thinks that male viera are weird as long as he doesn't allow his personal preferences on that front stand in the way of providing an option many fans want. That's just a question of professionalism and I don't see reason to doubt his at this stage. My understanding is that even if he thinks male viera are weird, he also doesn't like gender locking.

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I mean I've seen rumors saying it might've been ff12-man-i'm-bad-at-names who bound xiv to not having male viera, and he has since stated that it's not true. So I'm going off of what I've seen and what's been publicly said until someone gets officially thrown under the chocobus. Yoshi P has stated in interviews that he was considering genderlocking female viera and replacing the males with another genderlocked race because he thinks male viera are weird. As long as he keeps his opinions about his playerbase's tastes to himself it should be fine, but since exactly what he said he wanted to happen... happened, combined with his rather forced jokes at "lol we put pants on the male dancers, ur welcome" it really REALLY seems like some personal preferences have gotten in the way of finishing the Viera and Ronso races.

And not being able to finish your character race options because something internal is dragging you down is still technically something you should've accounted for when setting your deadlines and making promises.

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Originally Posted by Boreal

It's a small indie company, please understand. /s


Seriously, though, it's also in their responsability to not bite off more than they can chew. I'd rather have a polished, complete xpac than one riddled with problems and weird choices, even if it meant waiting more time.
Yes, at the moment it's all cutting corners in cosmetic (which, honestly, are very important for people in MMOs. There's a good reason Mogstation makes that amount of money) but it's already not a very good indicative of what is to come. Imo, it's the small details that shows the directions they are taking.

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This! This! This! This! This! This! This! This! This! This! This! This! This! A THOUSAND times THIS!!!!

So I seem to have missed something - what is the lack of hats? :X

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

So I seem to have missed something - what is the lack of hats? :X

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Apparently they couldn't figure out how to make hats work on the races before they promised them to the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/
Oopsie~

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

So I seem to have missed something - what is the lack of hats? :X

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Interview here.

I mean, okay, refitting all those headpieces for new races is hard work, but this is the kind of basic stuff you expect to be done when a new xpac drops.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Apparently they couldn't figure out how to make hats work on the races before they promised them to the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/
Oopsie~

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Originally Posted by Boreal

Interview here.

I mean, okay, refitting all those headpieces for new races is hard work, but this is the kind of basic stuff you expect to be done when a new xpac drops.

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Thank you both! And I would agree - if you're making a new race, you kinda-sorta need to try and make gear work with it. Modify it if you need, but hiding it completely is just bad D:

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Originally Posted by Boreal

Interview here.

I mean, okay, refitting all those headpieces for new races is hard work, but this is the kind of basic stuff you expect to be done when a new xpac drops.

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It's like, do the basic things new races are expected to do (available to both sexes, be able to wear the gear of the game) or just don't add the race yet (or even at all)... Like this is bare minimum requirements for a finished player race!!!

You'll never take away my burger king crown.

I mean I guess I can let it slide for a while. I'm curious where the twin Cross earrings will go that come with my crown.

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Originally Posted by Boreal

It's a small indie company, please understand. /s


Seriously, though, it's also in their responsability to not bite off more than they can chew. I'd rather have a polished, complete xpac than one riddled with problems and weird choices, even if it meant waiting more time.
Yes, at the moment it's all cutting corners in cosmetic (which, honestly, are very important for people in MMOs. There's a good reason Mogstation makes that amount of money) but it's already not a very good indicative of what is to come. Imo, it's the small details that shows the directions they are taking.

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Oh please, are you seriously going to push a strawman and try putting words in my mouth because I'm not screaming "BURN THEM"? Come on. Don't be rude.

I never said I thought the constraints had to do with budget, and I certainly never called SE indie. They have a large staff and this is a high quality game with a lot of resources behind the team. However, it is still human beings making the thing. It takes a lot of time and effort, and if an ultimatum was given that the last races introduced will be in Shadowbringers it makes sense they'd prioritize getting both Viera and Hrothgar through the door. I never named who I thought was responsible specifically on an individual level for possible restrictions on the patch. And frankly, I never claimed to know everything either. But it would make more sense under these circumstances than SE pissing away money and making deliberate outrage because screw the fans. If you want that check out western media for a while.

I agree it's not ideal for there to be unfinished elements. That said, SE is generally good about fixing these things. You can be wary without the level of hysteria people are showing right now. I want the new races too, but the "WE WANT IT NOW" attitude reads extremely spoiled.

I'm not really bothered about the hats. We know that being able to use them as the new races will come at some point. However the genderlocking could be forever : /

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Originally Posted by Jaywalker

Oh please, are you seriously going to push a strawman and try putting words in my mouth because I'm not screaming "BURN THEM" along with you? Come on. Don't be rude.

I never said I thought the constraints had to do with budget, and I certainly never called SE indie. They have a large staff and this is a high quality game with a lot of resources behind the team. However, it is still human beings making the thing. It takes a lot of time and effort, and if an ultimatum was given that the last races introduced will be Shadowbringers it makes sense they'd prioritize getting both Viera and Hrothgar through the door. I never named who I thought was responsible specifically on an individual level for possible restrictions on the patch. And frankly, I never claimed to know everything either. But it would make more sense under these circumstances than SE pissing away money and making deliberate outrage because screw the fans. If you want that check out western media for a while.

I agree it's not ideal for there to be unfinished elements. That said, SE is generally good about fixing these things. You can be wary without the level of hysteria people are showing right now. I want the new races too, but the "WE WANT IT NOW" attitude reads extremely spoiled.

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"Small indie dev" a common jab at big, very rich companies saying they can't meet the standards that they themselves set in the past because "it's too hard" "we ran out of time" or "we don't have money." People use it with Blizzard all the time. I don't think they were targeting you with that one.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Dude, that's a common jab at big, very rich companies saying they can't meet the standards that they themselves set in the past because "it's too hard" "we ran out of time" or "we don't have money." People use it with Blizzard all the time.

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I've been studying how corporations do this kind of thing across media for a while. Those are legitimate issues. Not every person working within a company is rich, and there is still a matter of division of labor as well as managing deadlines. I said before and I'll repeat, I don't think think this is a money thing. I do think it's a time thing with an internal power struggle about what will or won't be done, which is honestly common at big companies. Business and creative workforce tend to butt heads from time to time.

There are companies that legitimately don't try or care. Maybe it would have been better for SE to push release dates back, maybe it wouldn't have been. We don't have all the behind scenes information but even for big companies sometimes there are messes. As long as those messes are fixed it shouldn't be a deal breaker imo.

When I made a post trying to discuss the actual logistics behind this and suggest it might not be personal or hopeless, that reply to me read overwhelmingly like it was going passive aggressive with some word twisting nonsense. I just don't have patience for that.

Sometimes things don't work out in ideal ways, but this fandom has no middle ground between "it's perfect" and "it's absolute garbage". I get this isn't up to usual standards for SE. It's still way better than what most games do.

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Originally Posted by Jaywalker

Oh please, are you seriously going to push a strawman and try putting words in my mouth because I'm not screaming "BURN THEM"? Come on. Don't be rude.

I never said I thought the constraints had to do with budget, and I certainly never called SE indie. They have a large staff and this is a high quality game with a lot of resources behind the team. However, it is still human beings making the thing. It takes a lot of time and effort, and if an ultimatum was given that the last races introduced will be in Shadowbringers it makes sense they'd prioritize getting both Viera and Hrothgar through the door. I never named who I thought was responsible specifically on an individual level for possible restrictions on the patch. And frankly, I never claimed to know everything either. But it would make more sense under these circumstances than SE pissing away money and making deliberate outrage because screw the fans. If you want that check out western media for a while.

I agree it's not ideal for there to be unfinished elements. That said, SE is generally good about fixing these things. You can be wary without the level of hysteria people are showing right now. I want the new races too, but the "WE WANT IT NOW" attitude reads extremely spoiled.

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I...was rude? I was kind of joking with the indie company comparision, as shown by the barely visible /s. Where did I even try to put words in ya mouth? Calm down a little, jesus.

I just wanted to expose my opinion that problematic things about details popping up right now most likely are (as normally happens) a signal that bigger problems might arise on the xpac. It's normally not a good signal to have the dev team basically admitting they didn't think things through with the new races they added that they aren't even sure how to make the headpieces work in time for the deadline. They surely had more than a few problems during development but still want to perhaps rush a product that might not be ready yet.

I'd like to remind everyone that this isn't a free to play game. People pay monthly for this, they pay for the base game and xpacs, and finally we have the added honor of having what equals to a cash shop on top of that. I'd honestly expect a bit more from this team, ya know?

But for god's sake, I'm not trying to offend you or the devs personally, I'm just puzzled by the choices they made.

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Originally Posted by Boreal

I...was rude? I was kind of joking with the indie company comparision, as shown by the barely visible /s. Where did I even try to put words in ya mouth? Calm down a little, jesus.

I just wanted to expose my opinion that problematic things about details cropping up right now most likely are (as normally happens) a signal that bigger problems might arise on the xpac. It's normally not a good signal to have the dev team basically admitting they didn't think things through with the new races they added that they aren't even sure how to make the headpieces work in time for the deadline. They surely had more than a few problems during development but still want to perhaps rush a product that might not be ready yet.

I'd like to remind everyone that this isn't a free to play to game. People pay monthly for this, they pay for the base game and xpacs, and finally we have the added honor of having what equals to a cash shop on top of that. I'd honestly expect a bit more from this team, ya know?

But for god's sake, I'm not trying to offend you or the devs personally, I'm just puzzled by the choices they made.

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Alright. Maybe this is a "tone doesn't translate through text" thing. If I misread what you were going for, I'm sorry about that. I'm very used to fandom situations where you can say one thing and if it's not in line with general consensus, people jump in with their own skewed, totally disingenuous version of what was said.

Ex. Might type something like "I don't like vegetables." Reply would be "So you abuse and murder innocent animals for food?"

The /s thing tends to be common in situations like that too. From my perspective I've been looking into this trying to figure out what's going on and where I stand on the whole thing, made a big post trying to offer another possibility besides demonizing the devs or the opposite extreme of "good, hope the people who wanted full gender options don't get what they want". It looked to me like you were trying to take all of that and make out like I'm just being a company shill or something.

I have no problem with you discussing criticism for what's going on. I agree it would probably have been better to push the deadline back, but I seriously am wondering if there was pressure to meet fanfest deadlines and keep release fixed in case it hurt sales. I've seen a lot of stuff like that happen before.

Again, if you weren't going for the passive aggressive thing I'm sorry.

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Originally Posted by Roda

combined with his rather forced jokes at "lol we put pants on the male dancers, ur welcome"

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I didn't see that as a joke, but then I'd rather have the pants for both genders. Especially if the 'skirt' comes attached to the pants rather than the skimpy top.


(Also, it was kinda funny to me that they picked an Au Ra to show off the male version of the outfit - because that's the kind of stuff I've been putting my alt in anyway, based off what they wear for starter gear.)

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Originally Posted by Roda

Apparently they couldn't figure out how to make hats work on the races before they promised them to the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/
Oopsie~

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Unless the earlier claims that they were "redoing the heargear system" (or whatever exactly they said) was very optimistic PR speak for "we're going through the items and setting them to not display on certain characters". I hope it's not the case, but it seems possible in hindsight.

Overall it seems an odd decision, especially for Viera who should at least be able to share some Miqo'te headgear if it has open earholes - at least if they planned ahead and placed the ears in the same position on the head, which I don't think they have. And they could certainly wear glasses.

I totally agree with you on this. It really does seem like a budget/time issue more than anything else. With that said, I'm hopeful that future updates in the 5.x series will address the issues and fix these problems. That also said, for them to fix the issues as a priority, the hue and cry from the fanbase needs to be very loud and persistent. What I would really like is for YoshiP to at least acknowledge that he's heard the fan's issues and state whether or not they intend to fix the issues.

Don't bully. THey're a small indie company, you can't ask so much of them like a full complete race, or else it's entitledness and crying.

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Originally Posted by Boreal

I...was rude? I was kind of joking with the indie company comparision, as shown by the barely visible /s. Where did I even try to put words in ya mouth? Calm down a little, jesus.

I just wanted to expose my opinion that problematic things about details popping up right now most likely are (as normally happens) a signal that bigger problems might arise on the xpac. It's normally not a good signal to have the dev team basically admitting they didn't think things through with the new races they added that they aren't even sure how to make the headpieces work in time for the deadline. They surely had more than a few problems during development but still want to perhaps rush a product that might not be ready yet.

I'd like to remind everyone that this isn't a free to play game. People pay monthly for this, they pay for the base game and xpacs, and finally we have the added honor of having what equals to a cash shop on top of that. I'd honestly expect a bit more from this team, ya know?

But for god's sake, I'm not trying to offend you or the devs personally, I'm just puzzled by the choices they made.

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To be fair, your sarcasm marker was well hidden.