Viera Feet - Aren't they supposed to be digitigrade?

[JunseiKei]

I think their only option for adding races was to make compromises like this and basically have them mimick the proportions of an exisitng race for every body part except the head, and then the cost of having a unique head is not being able to fit all head gear unless a lot of additional work is done on every gear piece.

[...]

Yeah, because male Miqo'te, Lalafell and Midlanders are buff and female Lalafell, Au Ra and Miqo'te aren't just cute.

When Heavensward was announced, along with the Au Ra, they had said then they didn't want to create a race that required drastically different bodies because that'd require every piece of gear they'd made to be altered. Having unique feet means needing to go back and putting in the work and resources to edit every piece of footwear created in the past and future. Currently, there are 1,358 uniquely ID'd footgear, set to raise in another 15 days. Or disable all gear on feet, but considering how people reacted with headwear not showing on Hrothgar and Viera, this seems unacceptable via a vocal group. Same for two single-sex-playable races; there were two groups asking for two different things. SE wanted to attempt to please both. That turned out to not be enough for a vocal group. In the end, I hold the belief SE should have stuck by their original statement of Au Ra being the last playable race because clearly the playerbase is being extremely ungrateful and highly entitled. This is not on the same scale as a system in the game breaking or an unintended bottleneck early in an expansion (looking at you SB's Raubahn). Or the dozens of fetch quests stuck in ARR content that greatly diminished the feel of being a 'champion of the people' and "Hydaelyn's Chosen." This is an aesthetic choice.

Blue Mage is much of the same thing. The playerbase kept asking for something, despite the developer saying, "No, I don't think this would work in the confines of XIV." People kept asking and asking and asking. Finally, Yoshida gave in and gave us what he felt was staying true to the identity of the job, but it's own thing because the identity of the job doesn't mesh well with the main game. I can't fault him for the logic - it makes sense. However, Blue Mage is both OP and incredibly lackluster. Playing level 50 content in a normal group with a BLU in the group quickly shows that the job is actually very strong when running with other classes locked at the same level (even with better gear that's been synced down and still gaining stat caps that weren't really possible at that ilevel cap). I just felt more than a little mislead by the presentation that was given when they showcased the job.

I still continue to get irritated by people that think placing meshes on models is as easy or painless as the [second] quote may imply. That or the person I quoted simply didn't even think about it - which is just an even worse thought seeing as they go on to talk about SE squeezing money out of the game on the same level as EA. SMH.

[Enla]

I still continue to get irritated by people that think placing meshes on models is as easy or painless as the [second] quote may imply. That or the person I quoted simply didn't even think about it - which is just an even worse thought seeing as they go on to talk about SE squeezing money out of the game on the same level as EA. SMH.

This. Regardless of how you look at it SE is perfectly within their rights to look at the amount of work proper digitigrade feet would bring to the table and say 'no' to the prospect. Especially when Viera have never had them in the first place barring concept art.

Making meshes and applying textures isn't simple work. At least not when one wants to do it with any amount of standards and en-masse. As I stated in previous pages it's precisely the reason why Bethesda changed the Khajiit and Argonian models between Morrowind and Oblivion from digitigrade to plantigrade, and they had far less armor to rig than SE currently has to contend with. It's a lot of work and more often than not companies like Bethesda had to simply say 'no' to half of said work because it was too much to take on. Those Beast Races in Morrowind? They couldn't wear boots. It's not even that they rigged new meshes and textures for every set and just didn't want to do it again. They flat out had trouble doing it and switched models for the next game to avoid the same hassle.

Well someone might be saying, that was then and this is now? Maybe work flow has become easier as developers have streamlined a lot of the development processes due to new tools and a good deal more knowledge? Yeah except here's the thing. We have an analogue for this situation already in FFXIV that a lot of people are ignoring when they state how easy this would be to do - helms. The /only/ reason we're getting /some/ of the helms pre-baked into the expansion for Viera and Hrothgar is because the asset team took it upon themselves to crunch themselves in their off hours to do so. They didn't have the time or resources to do that within the bounds of company time, which is why the developers initially denied support for these items when both races were revealed. And this is just /helms/. Now imagine how compounded this would be if they had to work around legs and feet as well? We likely wouldn't be getting either new race in a timely manner if at all.

[Saix027]

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That is of course understandable and i know that that it needs alot of rework on already existing stuff, but that is the point, eather i try hard and make a full race and also work on older stuff and life with it or i let it be with races in my opinion, as said u blame Square on this part, not Yoshida for refusing to support his team and givign them more resoruces to provide full works and reworks on things instead of those what we getting.

FFXIV is simply a game that started way to late with new races and also having way to much gear in game causing this problems, i mean we have like a new set every two level, its way overdone even in newer content you got white gear from traders every two level, on top of the dungeon gear, each one with its own design, apart from some lazy redesigns like makign them colourable way to late in another set.

Point is i do understand there limitations and decisions, people should understand that overall and stop demanding such then, or else as i said we get more and more halfbaked things and over such no one is happy about. Bluemage as example could work, switching abilitys and needign a simple basic aibltiys for dugneons while the rest is optional and or updates simply like other classes like SCH and SMN dots as example. Because lets be honest, its not about the identity anymore, look at SHB changes to classes, Warrior looses his health boost, etc. It is all about balance and games liek this need balance, even fi it goes against a class status, it shoudl still be identificable but needs a basic gamepaly to work with the rest of the game and Bluemage on taht hadn is justa gimmick they put in because they listend to demands of people.

I like Yoshida and his team as said often enough but no one is perfect, in my eyes they need to show some strength on there side, as dumb it sounds, but listening always on the community is also not as good at times, because as often stated, we not knwo what goes on in the background so we are no experts to recommend changes, sure they sitll can listen but not to everyhing and should and need to show that they not bow to everything.