Letter from the Producer LXII

[Tenil]

I completely disagree with your stance on the races and their explanation regarding them, because it seemed very reasonable to me.

It seems reasonable if you take everything he said as fact. In actuality, though, all races except roegadyn and lalafell share a body - they aren't unique. Even roegadyn share a body with hrothgar now.

Then there's this line: "FFXIV has around ten thousand equippable items already implemented, all of which must be manually modified by our designers". That's a blatant lie. A large number of items share models, and an even larger amount are racially universal, like accessories and weapons.

I'm not suggesting that no or little work goes into new races (even though this game has cut corners massively on races), but I don't appreciate being lied to about it being more work than it is. If the actual amount of work required is too much work, then just say it's too much work.

[PharisHanasaki]

Then there's this line: "FFXIV has around ten thousand equippable items already implemented, all of which must be manually modified by our designers". That's a blatant lie. A large number of items share models, and an even larger amount are racially universal, like accessories and weapons.

Let me explain it to you. The fact that an item can be worn on multiple races, does not mean it is or can be the same item. For each race, each item has to be appropiately set so that it looks good, we have 6 races, so each item has at least 12 different files (one for female, one for male) . Earrings are not in the same spot, whether your a miqote, lala, au ra, roe, etc. Cuz every race has a different shape. So even if say, some items do not need any changes for the new races (which I doubt, given that their heads are completely different, and hrothgars body shape is somewhat different too) you still have to go ahead an review each to make sure it's acceptable.

It is not a lie.
And if you're asking yourself, why is it harder now than back then? Back then was 2 expansions ago, how many more items, jobs, and emotes, have been added since then? Many. They have to review all items made up to this day, plus new ones, which is a very time consuming task.

[LyraKuroneko]

.

A lot of items do share the same models though and are just resized to the needs.

For example : earring seems to at best have 2 models. Else there are moved and resized.

for chest piece it seems to have hyur midlander m, f, roe m, lala m (most of them at least) it is adjusted for the rest of the races. For more difficult attire there is obviously more models but you have the idea.

As the benchmark isn't out I can't tell you if Viera and Rhoth share what piece, or if they reworked them all, obviously. However they did said that all headpieces had to be reworked and that will take time.

[PharisHanasaki]

A lot of items do share the same models though and are just resized to the needs.

For example : earring seems to at best have 2 models. Else there are moved and resized.

Yes, but the reszing and moving doesn't happen magically.

[LyraKuroneko]

Yes, but the reszing and moving doesn't happen magically.

I wouldn't bet it's the same team doing both. It can be moved/resized by code alone.

[PharisHanasaki]

I wouldn't bet it's the same team doing both. It can be moved/resized by code alone.

But it still needs to be worked on. Are you trolling D:?

[LyraKuroneko]

But it still needs to be worked on. Are you trolling D:?

It doesn't. Because they just gotta ajdust their resize algorythm once. Not for every single model.

Don't call me a troll because you don't get something please.

For example an earpiece as simple factor each time it is used.
-The races. For the position. Which is fixed for each races.
-The character size.
-the character ear size if their is the option.

And that's it. With that they can chose the factor of their liking to resize by a % for example. But that is using the above thing. So in the end is "fixed" too.

If there isn't a model it is because an automatic code does the rest. As the race is created now. It is done and shoudln't need any modification unless they rework the race altogether.

[Alucard135]

It seems reasonable if you take everything he said as fact. In actuality, though, all races except roegadyn and lalafell share a body - they aren't unique. Even roegadyn share a body with hrothgar now.

Then there's this line: "FFXIV has around ten thousand equippable items already implemented, all of which must be manually modified by our designers". That's a blatant lie. A large number of items share models, and an even larger amount are racially universal, like accessories and weapons.

I'm not suggesting that no or little work goes into new races (even though this game has cut corners massively on races), but I don't appreciate being lied to about it being more work than it is. If the actual amount of work required is too much work, then just say it's too much work.

Modders would be laughing at you.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Modders would be laughing at you.

Except even a lot of modders can't get gear to not break character models. Even simple edits sometimes screws up displays. I've seen pics of gear straight up deleting bits of character models when looked at from certain angles.

[Dualblade]

Except even a lot of modders can't get gear to not break character models. Even simple edits sometimes screws up displays. I've seen pics of gear straight up deleting bits of character models when looked at from certain angles.

I think his post was more about laughing at it not being hard when the modders would tell you that no, there is actually a lot of work involved for the dev team?