Hairstyle Concerns for The New Races

[Alleo]

It seems kinda illogical to create/implement hairstyles separately for hrothgar, viera and the rest of the races for each patch now. They are literally give themselves 3x the work whenever they introduce new hairstyles.

I mean if for some reason the 2 new races are limited to their own exclusive hairstyles then what's the point to even create new races if it can't be included together with the existing races. I think if for some reason we don't see them on release i would expect at least 5.1 if not i think we might have a problem.

Not only that but they kinda have to create extra amount of hair/or fur pattern for them if they give out hairstyles as a reward, otherwise these races are completely left out. And imo there is nothing on the Viera that feels like they could not have the other hair. Also if they are limited why not tell us that? What if someone bought hairstyles but cant use them anymore?

Honestly if both are that limited then I truly wonder why to even bother with them. Why not create more customization options for existing races instead of that.

At this time, the Viera hair options have a little icon on the bottom stating "Toggle Bangs On/Off" with the mouse button:

As far as an official source on the fringe-toggle, I'd like to say this is something that had been mentioned back when they were talking about the expanded character creation for Viera, but at this point I'm struggling to find a source. My memory is quite horrible, so I'm not sure where I had heard it originally. If I find something, I'll post it It could very well be that they had just stated that styles would have the option of with or without bangs, and it morphed into it being an actual toggle. :3

This seems to be a wrong translation because in the german benchmark it says that you can right click to use a pin and then if you click on the box at the top only those will be shown that have a pin. So it seems that its simply a way to show only those hairstyles that you want.

[Skivvy]

This seems to be a wrong translation because in the german benchmark it says that you can right click to use a pin and then if you click on the box at the top only those will be shown that have a pin. So it seems that its simply a way to show only those hairstyles that you want.

Ahhh, well that makes a lot more sense!

[Aeliott]

Gotta say I'm underwhelmed
I feel apart from fur colouring there isn't really much to diversify these guys. I know all races have very limited options, and Miqo'te especially have the same thing where most people tend towards the same one or two faces. But with hair being tied to face, I see the vast majority of people using the 2 upper right ones. The nose / jaw / facial features just don't really offer enough differentiation. Shame because I really like the rest of their design, torso not as doughy as Roes, the patches of hair on arms, legs and chest.

[JBee]

I was interested in trying out Hrothgar, but the restrictive hairstyles is a dealbreaker for me, personally. Hoping the hairs are not tied to faces at launch, but I suspect they will be, or else why put them in like this?

Oh well, no fantasia money from me I guess.

[Tempest222]

I feel like viera might have some hope of being opened up to more hairstyles, but hrothgar are kind of up the creek since they don’t even have a section in the creator for hairstyles; it’s just face and fur. Also when you go into the facial features tab there is one that toggles an extra piece of hair that is linked to whatever hairstyle your face has. How would they even allow more hairs? List them all under the face category with each face/hair combo as a separate entry?

I think they made the decision to tie hair to faces on these guys and that’s that, just like the aura face/horn situation. I’ll honestly be shocked if they end up giving even 1 or 2 more styles let alone the huge number all other races have.

As far as the aesthetician goes, I would imagine fur color will be alterable, and maybe they will let you swap between the hairstyles that are available for the face you have. So like you would essentially just be able to choose the one other option for your face that you aren’t currently using?

[Penthea]

I'm noticing the palette on the left that usually maps to the hair color is instead mapped to the accents, while the less saturated colors on the right seem to be mapped to the main hair color:



I'm a little worried that even if we do get the hairstyles implemented later or even at launch, we won't be able to recreate the same hair colors as Viera and the other races

It's very subtle, but there are differences between the hair colours of the current races. The selection looks the same in the colour picker, but the displayed colour itself on the hair can sometimes be less or more vibrant than other races. That being said I agree that the colour palette selection is VERY different for hrothgar.

I suppose in the case of hrothgar it is different because their fur is their "skin" and some of the mane/hair colour is on the body so I guess it's treated kind of like skin, and as we know skin tones among the current races have distinct palettes from one race or tribe to another.

But none of this explains why hrothgar hair is tied to faces. This is a very strange decision. Surely it would make more sense to allow each face to have any hair their race can use? Like every other race?

We really have no clue where this is going seeing how something like this is unprecedented.

As been pointed out hair styles are something you can win from real life contest and also pay real life money for and earn through in game events. Would be a huge over sight to tell everyone who has paid money for or won a hairstyle they can't use it if they become either Hrothgar or Viera. Like the Cloud hair ... "sorry people who won this hair, you can't use that as these 2 races".

The viera could well be just unfinished due to how hair is chosen being an identical process to the current races. However for hrothgar it is definitely not. I feel like tying hair to faces is a strange decision considering you can buy hairstyles from the mog station, they're awarded for finishing content, they're prizes, etc. Being unable to use any of that hair would be a deal breaker for so many players.

Perhaps the hrothgar will be able to change their hair like everyone else in the 5.0 character creation...but this begs the question "why tie hairstyles to faces if this was not the intention in the first place?". Maybe it was a decision they decided to scrap. Or well at least I hope they will scrap it.

And also let me add how AWKWARD it is to choose hair for hrothgar. You have to constantly switch back and forth between faces and facial features to see all the variations of the hair.

[Nestama]

But none of this explains why hrothgar hair is tied to faces. This is a very strange decision. Surely it would make more sense to allow each face to have any hair their race can use? Like every other race?

Maybe one day SE will separate their manes from faces, but I have a feeling that they'd still have very limited mane options. Reason behind this is because of their ears and how every mane they have currently is designed around them.

[reivaxe]

The viera could well be just unfinished due to how hair is chosen being an identical process to the current races. However for hrothgar it is definitely not. I feel like tying hair to faces is a strange decision considering you can buy hairstyles from the mog station, they're awarded for finishing content, they're prizes, etc. Being unable to use any of that hair would be a deal breaker for so many players.

Perhaps the hrothgar will be able to change their hair like everyone else in the 5.0 character creation...but this begs the question "why tie hairstyles to faces if this was not the intention in the first place?". Maybe it was a decision they decided to scrap. Or well at least I hope they will scrap it.

And also let me add how AWKWARD it is to choose hair for hrothgar. You have to constantly switch back and forth between faces and facial features to see all the variations of the hair.

I tend to try to take things at face value.

Viera have normal human faces unlike the HROTHGAR. They weren't gonna get glasses until HROTHGAR got them to.

In the benchmark Viera have only unique race hair like the HROTHGAR.. also like them they only have 8 hair styles and a version that adds a lil bit to it. ( Viera hair and Viera hair plus bangs is no different than HROTHGAR mane and mane plus a braid or side burns or w/e)

They were both described as having unique heads.

Seems clear to me that they are a packaged deal. If one expects one to get more hair it seems like the other would get more as well. So yeah, I'm kinda expecting both to release with only what they have or that plus mog station hairs and the contest reward styles.

Question is what's gonna happen with HROTHGAR when we meet the hair style man. Could see them allowing us to cchange everything but the race pretty much seeing how you gotta change face to change manes.

[Penthea]

They were both described as having unique heads.

I think in the viera's case it has much more to do with the ears than the head itself. SE did very little work on the au ra horns as far as hats are concerned. They just clip through everything. The position of the viera's ears makes doing this impossible because it frankly would look terrible with most head gear, and people would immediately draw the comparison between them and miqo ears, which work fine with hats due to ear holes.

The actual heads of the viera are not too different in shape to any of the existing races. The head is attached to the neck in more or less the same way as the current females and their posture is very upright. However this isn't the case for the hrothgar due to their hunched posture. Some of the longer hairstyles would clip like crazy into their backs. However their ears are small enough to fit into almost any hat.

So they both have problems the devs would need to overcome, but pretty different problems.

However, aside from time constraints, I don't see why the viera shouldn't have access to most of the current hairstyles. The ears are the only complication and it's basically a non issue for most of them. Making the hairstyles fit on their heads correctly wouldn't be much more work than it was to do so for au ra.

Seems clear to me that they are a packaged deal. If one expects one to get more hair it seems like the other would get more as well. So yeah, I'm kinda expecting both to release with only what they have or that plus mog station hairs and the contest reward styles.

Hrothgar is a very different story to viera. Though it's obvious a great deal of the current hairstyles could work on them, the fact that their current hair is right now being presented as locked with faces is making me concerned that we will be forever stuck with what we see now. If the hair wasn't tied to faces, I would mostly assuming that the rest of the hairstyles are merely delayed.

Question is what's gonna happen with HROTHGAR when we meet the hair style man. Could see them allowing us to cchange everything but the race pretty much seeing how you gotta change face to change manes.

While it would be nice to not have to fantasia to change hair, I don't think this would do much to ease the concerns of people who don't want to be stuck with such a tiny amount of choice and be forced to change their face just to change their hair. For years players have been asking for au ra horns to be separated from faces. Presenting hrothgar hair in that manner is a step backwards.

[Iscah]

Question is what's gonna happen with HROTHGAR when we meet the hair style man. Could see them allowing us to change everything but the race pretty much seeing how you gotta change face to change manes.

I'm not sure that they can control which categories are available for different races. I think it might just be that set categories of data can be changed, regardless of what that data is used for on the particular character model.

The best evidence for this is that changing eye colour requires a Fantasia, but Au Ra can adjust their limbal rings because that data is usually for racial tattoos (treated like face paint, I guess!) or earrings.


For reference, the normal categories that can be changed are:
- hairstyle
- hair colour
- tattoos / ear clasps / limbal rings (turn on/off and select colour)
- eyebrows
- lip colour
- other features
- face paint (design and colour)

And the remaining categories that can only be edited in the character creator:
- height
- bust size for females (no male equivalent)
- skin colour
- face
- jaw
- eye shape
- iris size
- eye colour
- nose
- mouth
- ear shape / tail shape
- ear size / tail length / muscle tone


I can't find the screenshot showing the list of customisation options for Hrothgar, but I gather that those first three options are fur pattern, fur colour and tattoos. Assuming it's consistent, there's nowhere to put an accessible "face/hairstyle" editable category. They've either used the face category, or quite possibly repurposed the tail shape category - Miqo'te have eight options and it's affected by the hair colour setting, plus it has the 'two rows of four options' layout while the faces (for Midlanders who have 5-6 options) are in three rows of two.

It's also possible that this is the real reason why Hrothgar can't wear hats - it's not that they ran out of time to model them, but that this repurposed design setup doesn't let them do it. There are essentially two (back-end) versions of normal hairstyles - the one we see normally and a "hat version" with some parts of the hair removed. It's possible that they can't store the same kind of variable model for Hrothgar, and so they functionally cannot wear hats without their mane clipping all through it.