Hairstyle Concerns for The New Races

[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.