Hairstyle Concerns for The New Races

[SturmChurro]

I honestly think that this makes me want that they only chose 1 single race even more, since if they did chances are they would have as much customization as the others, and while it's easy to make a female viera stand out its super hard to make a male hrot that stands out, so I wish SE only did 1 but to its fullest potential and with both genders. Guess we will have to see if they decide to add new hairstyles and the missing genders, lets hope so I guess

Which race do you think they should have focused on?

[Wolfyboy]

My issue with this is that wearing armour will cover up fur patterns/colours, so what is the point of all that customization if its hidden ?

I'm hoping with the inclusion of Viera and Hrothgar (Two races that don't exactly dress prudish) that we'll have more options that expose our character's skin/fur.

[FallenArisen0990]

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if this is done deal with the current Character Creation options in the Benchmark. I've been wanting SE to fix the CC since 2.0 and so far, they've been very adamant in not adding or changing anything from the CC other than Hairstyles (And the one(two?) face paint options they added). I'll be optimistic and give them the benefit of doubt that they quickly put the Benchmark together and didn't have time to add or make other options available to the two new races. Hrothgar's hair tied to the faces is a locked deal. That's not gonna change. Viera will get more hair options opened to them later on.

[reivaxe]

After mulling over the different customization options, I've come to the conclusion that I prefer being able to change the pattern and colors of fur to being able to change hair styles and colors. The former offers a lot more variety. Ideally we should be able to do both independent of the selected face but it's very likely going to be one or the other because of memory limitations. It's amazing how much you can do with fur options and I hope we can have them available at the aesthetician since they replace hair customization for Hrothgar.

I had some fun with my current favorite character trying out how many styles I can wear by changing only the fur, tattoos and face paint.

Here's the original panther design:


Tiger, snow leopard, black lion and cheetah styles seem nice.


Less realistic styles can look pretty amazing as well. The right one is "snowflake obsidian" by MelodyCrystel. Really beautiful! I'll probably wear the blood runes on the left when leveling DRK for that extra edge.

From a game design perspective, and from perspective on the existing characters and their current state of customizations, it indeed makes zero sense and could possibly be a killer for Hrothgar when a player is given so much more customizability concerning the other races. I want to say the benchmark is what we get, on the other hand this sort of logic of perpetually spending $10 is illogical and of ill design.

Oh, it should be known that the Hrothgar have an amazing amount of customization as is.
The most impressive in the game IMO. Kinda scuff at anyone that floats the notion that Hrothgar will suffer from same-face and all look alike because of this. As a Femroe player I know that of the few of use there are like most use the same face ... but the very nature of the race encourages creative use of skin color and hair color and glams. So no matter how many I saw on my old server ( the one where they weren't just soul less ERP bots >_>) we always looked uniquely different because of the colors and glams we picked. Viera on the other hand I see as being like Kitty girls. Sure, they have the option to go for the extremes ... but most people are gonna make a generic pretty white girl, pick one of the 8 hair styles and get lost in a sea of sameness because they don't pick options that let them stand out cause the race allows the "normal" appearance of a human. There is no "reg/ arvg/ normal" for giant furry people.

The reason I don't think this is all there is for Hrothgar is because ... it legit makes zero sense to leave things like this. This isn't like Scale Bois, they get a racial "extra bit" that comes with their face that they can't swap between ... but they can still wear horns they buy in the game, earn in the game/ in rl or buy on the mog station. It doesn't gate them from content. Even if the Hrothgar can't wear the default reg shared hairs I feel like both them and the Viera will get some version of what you've unlocked in the game or gotten on the Mogstation. Cause again, it makes no sense the way it is now. No other race needs you to pay money just to change hair styles so either face changing is gonna be a part going to the style guy or there's more to this. If not then I can deal with what we have now, but logically gating out people who pick a certain race makes no business sense.

Also I think people are setting themselves up for disappointment if they really think that SE would release both these races and say "lets give Viera all the hair annnnd give Hrothgar absolutely nothing". Either both are screwed or both are getting something more than this IMO. But w/e, I'll let the train run it's course.

[Penthea]

The reason I don't think this is all there is for Hrothgar is because ... it legit makes zero sense to leave things like this. This isn't like Scale Bois, they get a racial "extra bit" that comes with their face that they can't swap between ... but they can still wear horns they buy in the game, earn in the game/ in rl or buy on the mog station. It doesn't gate them from content. Even if the Hrothgar can't wear the default reg shared hairs I feel like both them and the Viera will get some version of what you've unlocked in the game or gotten on the Mogstation. Cause again, it makes no sense the way it is now.

Pardon my cynicism but SE, while I have intense respect for their work on the game, have a history of doing things that make no sense.

The housing situation has been deplorable for several years and despite the tremendous amount of feedback, there has been very little improvement. There are a multitude of ways housing can be vastly improved without an overhaul, but SE seem disinterested in little other than token tweaks that often just swap one problem for another. If you're unaware about any of this, just take a peek at the housing forums and you will see the vast majority of posts are complaints from players who meet the prerequisites to get a house, but are unable to to get one.

For a few weeks SE decided to take away need rolls from alliance raids and this decision was made based on the looting habits of the japanese community. Not only did they not obviously not look at how the western audience handles loot, they also misjudged how the japanese felt because they ended up hating it as well. After huge community backlash from all regions need rolls were brought back.

While the next two are not from the game devs themselves, it's still SE.

The Mog Station got a shopping cart only very recently. Before you had to buy everything individually. Not only was this very awkward, it also caused problems for players who bought duplicates of items. For some players their banks flagged these duplicate purchases as suspicious activity and locked the account, which meant SE didn't get paid. And SE's reaction to this? Ban the account of the player even if they explained that the charge-back their bank did was an automated response they had no control over. For whatever weird reason SE also didn't take the items back even at the request of the player, which would make sense if they considered them not paid for. Why SE would rather lose sub money by blindly banning accounts instead of retain it by helping players is beyond my understanding.

There is a thread on the front page right now from a player who was reported for offensive language but the GM does not explain exactly what the offence was, leaving the player to guess what they did wrong. This is far from the first time I have seen something like this. I have been seeing this particular issue pop up every so often since I started playing.

So yea while I would love to assume everything is going to be okay for hrothgar and viera hairstyle customisation, I simply cannot. As I said before for the viera it could simply be an unfinished product because how hair is chosen is an identical process to the current races. I am not too worried about them. However hrothgar are a different story, which brings up questions about what happens at the aesthetician, and if bought hairstyles from sources such as the mog station will be unable to be used due to the fact that there is literally no customisation option labelled as "hairstyle".

I would like to believe SE will go about this logically. I completely agree that forcing players to fantasia to change hair and preventing them from using hairstyles they bought would be ridiculous. But SE have already done ridiculous things : /

Also I think people are setting themselves up for disappointment if they really think that SE would release both these races and say "lets give Viera all the hair annnnd give Hrothgar absolutely nothing".

Actually people who assume everything about the hair situation is going to be okay would be setting themselves up for disappointment if it turns out not to be okay. Whereas for me if things remain unchanged I'm already used to the concept and have already processed the disappointment, and if they do change to be just as good as the current races then I will plainly just be happy.

[zeylos]

Which race do you think they should have focused on?

regardless. I think viera are super cool and fit the game's asthetic a lot better than hrotgar, but this game can greatly use of a bestial race and it adds more overall. I'd be fine with either

[reivaxe]

Pardon my cynicism but SE, while I have intense respect for their work on the game, have a history of doing things that make no sense.

We'll see soon enough so there's really no use in this.

Like I said, I tend to take things at face value. As someone who plans to flip flop between both races I can't help but be just as concerned about Viera. To me it's clear their unique head issues are being handled together so if Hrothgar get screwed outta hair I fully expect Viera to be limited to their 8 styles as well. I accept that this is diffidently a possible outcome and I'll still roll with both regardless ... but from even the most basic common sense they should know that leaving things this way will turn many off from these races. It also directly hurts players who do change into them if this is all there is.

So when ShB releases we will see. If things stay this way then people will understandable throw a fit. Hopefully this gets addressed in some way before we have to find out on our own.

So yeah, don't take me spit balling solutions as blind optimism. As far as I'm concerned this is all we get and they do some stuff to help Hrothgar out like unlocking the hairs or allowing freedom to change heads potion free at least. But when I apply logic I think there's more to this as it doesn't even make cartoon sense to leave it this way ... so we'll see.

Actually people who assume everything about the hair situation is going to be okay would be setting themselves up for disappointment if it turns out not to be okay. Whereas for me if things remain unchanged I'm already used to the concept and have already processed the disappointment, and if they do change to be just as good as the current races then I will plainly just be happy.

That's pretty much what I said lol

[Laerune]

I am worried, 98% of the time with FFXIV, what you see is what you get. The fact that we are getting glasses on the new races is great news, but I am worried for the hairstyles. I spend time, effort and real money to obtain, I do hope SE gives both of the new races the option to use current FFXIV hairstyles. I dont mind waiting for few months, aslong as I know there is a schedule for adding these hairstyles.

If the current hairstyles wont be added to Viera and Ronso, then SE needs to be honest and say this right away, letting us hope for something that wont be added, is cruel.

[Iscah]

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.

That's going to be a really useful feature for deciding between two or three hairstyles that are scattered around the list.

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.

I'm not sure about how to interpret the "no headgear" thing. It sounded like they may have just turned off visible headgear entirely because some items wouldn't work. (And did I read correctly that Fran's headdress is actually a customisation option for one of the faces, rather than equippable gear? In that case they might not want any helms to be visibly equippable because it would clash.)


I also think the "packaged deal" thing might be in place, as you say, so they may not have wanted to give visible gear to one but not the other, even if it would have looked fine on the Viera from the beginning.

But I'm not so sure about the argument that "if one expects one to get more hair it seems like the other would get more as well", because they're not equivalent at a programming level.

As I understand it, Viera hairstyles are equivalent to Hrothgar fur patterns. Not manes.

It's not about them being the same thing at a "real person" level. It's about the character creator functions, which seems to be a rigid template with a certain number of categories, and a certain number of choices in each of those categories.

There's a category that has lots of choices and the ability to add more, and for every race up until now, that has been used for hairstyles. But for Hrothgar it has been used for fur patterns. Meanwhile the Hrothgar face-and-manes are in a small, never-expanded category that only holds a fixed number of options.

Viera have the potential to have more hairstyles added upon the game release, because they're using the category that can be expanded and added to. And Hrothgar have the potential for more fur patterns - but not faces.

Perhaps it's better to not think of Hrothgar as having hairstyles at all. They have manes, which are a fairly constant style and length, and they don't get changed a lot.

(Which of course still raises the question of what will happen with paid hairstyles... but for now it's better to assume there will be an equivalent unique fur-pattern, and be pleasantly surprised if they're able to implement it as hair. But probably they regard it the same way they already regard gendered Mog Station gear if you Fantasiaed to the other gender - no exchanges, you just can't equip that item any more.)


It's possible that what's in the benchmark is all we'll get. But Viera have more potential for extra hairstyles than Hrothgar.

A single Viera face may have more hairstyle options because of how the Hrothgar have them tied to Faces but they have overall the same number of hairstyle (minus 1 but it's "The Fran" one) across the Race.

Viera have 8 hairstyles with each of them having a bang version and a bangless version (except the first one which has one more with "The Fran") for a total of 16(+1) = 17 hairstyles.
Hrothgar have 4 Faces with 2 hairstyles each = 8 BUT you can had bits to them with Facial Features making it 16 hairstyles.

I think the issue with this debate is that people are only comparing the number of hairstyles, when the question is the number of face and hairstyle combinations possible.


If you approach it from choosing your character's face first:

- Viera have four face options, then each of those four faces has 17 hairstyle options. 4 x 17 = 68.

- Hrothgar have eight options, then each of those eight faces has two hairstyle options. 8 x 2 = 16.


If you pick hairstyle first:

- Each of Viera's 17 hairstyles has a choice of four faces. 17 x 4 = 68.

- Each of Hrothgar's 16 hairstyles has a choice of one face. 16 X 1 = 16.


But again, this is because Hrothgar manes are not intended to be the equivalent "lots of interchangeable variety" customisation. You need to do the maths comparing their choice of fur patterns to Viera's choice of hairstyles, otherwise you might as well be arguing that Elezen have more customisation options than Miqo'te because you compared Elezen's choice of hairstyles with Miqo'te's choice of tail shapes.

I think the current hairstyles clip with viera ears, that's why they weren't able to put them with the current global hairstyles.

They have said they are working to make helmets and stuff work with them though so I think hairstyles may go along with that and we will see them later.

Whatever the reason is for not showing Viera with additional hairstyles here, I don't think clipping is it - because several of the Viera-specific hairstyles already clip through/under their ears. They clearly haven't thought about it - they've just made "pretty feminine hairstyles" and not something that actually makes sense for Viera ear placement.

(Whereas Hrothgar manes make sense, presumably because the head-and-mane has been modelled all at once by a single person, instead of separate work on the character models and hairstyle models. At least that's the only way I can picture it happening.)

Also, not a concern, more of a gripe, how the heck did no one on the team working on hroth think of a "bald" (not furless) hairstyle? I'd gladly play face 1 with no hair.

An interesting thought I'd already had regarding this: if they really are a lion-based race, and the males have lion manes rather than human hair... what does that mean for the females?

It would be quite possible that culturally for them, long hair is masculine and short/no hair is feminine.

My issue with this is that wearing armour will cover up fur patterns/colours, so what is the point of all that customization if its hidden ?

That just means that Hrothgar players will have to pick more revealing gear that shows it off, if they want it to be visible.

Au Ra are already in a similar situation, and I pick things for my alt character that keep his scales visible as much as possible.

That said, they probably should have had more fur-patterned patches (all up the arms, at least) since "underdressed" gear in this game tends to be a sleeveless shirt and gloves.

From a game design perspective, and from perspective on the existing characters and their current state of customizations, it indeed makes zero sense and could possibly be a killer for Hrothgar when a player is given so much more customizability concerning the other races. I want to say the benchmark is what we get, on the other hand this sort of logic of perpetually spending $10 is illogical and of ill design.

Not everyone wants to be able to change hairstyles constantly, though. As long as the character design looks good, I'm more likely to stick with it and not change it.

[Beardo04]

Having the Hrothgar's hair tied to the face is a big issue imo. Viera are and will be in a good spot. Hrothgar needs some more work