Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Halivel]

The ears are the reason. Miqo'te ears are small, and on the sides of the head. Viera ears are large, and can become larger. They are also in the middle of the head. That isn't to mention the different shapes. To do headgear properly, without jarring clipping (as in, massive clipping - like so bad it covers most of the helmet on a certain ear type) they would have to presumably make unique models in mind of the ears and various ear shapes.

Miqo'te ears can be small, but they aren't less annoying modeling-wise for it.

Though it depends a lot on what kind of helmet they would like to do, if it's ever to be done, since there are 2 types of helmets for Miqo'te.

If it's a helmet with open ears, than it's not much of a problem since they only need to add holes in appropriate places. And since ears itself, no matter their shape, a placed in more or less the same area, this can be worked out well without too much of a hassle even.

Hovewer, if it's a helmet with closed ears - that's where the real issue begins since every helmet would ask for 4 models with sizeable ears in mind. Though frankly speaking, I could quess that players would be fine with having only open ears helmets, as long as it means that they can wear them at all. Not that I can say for sure, since people are different and can have different opinion on this matter.

P.S. Welcome back to Viera squad, I see?

[SturmChurro]

Miqo'te ears can be small, but they aren't less annoying modeling-wise for it.

Though it depends a lot on what kind of helmet they would like to do, if it's ever to be done, since there are 2 types of helmets for Miqo'te.

If it's a helmet with open ears, than it's not much of a problem since they only need to add holes in appropriate places. And since ears itself, no matter their shape, a placed in more or less the same area, this can be worked out well without too much of a hassle even.

Hovewer, if it's a helmet with closed ears - that's where the real issue begins since every helmet would ask for 4 models with sizeable ears in mind. Though frankly speaking, I could quess that players would be fine with having only open ears helmets, as long as it means that they can wear them at all. Not that I can say for sure, since people are different and can have different opinion on this matter.

P.S. Welcome back to Viera squad, I see?

Well, mi'qote ears are the same on every head, for either gender. Viera ears have 4 different shapes, they are too big and different to put socks on them, and again they are in the middle of the head. I'm sure there are a few pieces of headgear that could actually work, yeah. Still I think, for example, even wizard hats would suffer with some of the ear shapes. Granted, personally, I think wizard hats with miqo'te ears look bad as well (at least they can wear them!). If we add male viera to the mix we are talking like probably 8 different ears, and variable sizes.

Yeah, I switched back last night. Don't know how so many people already know. At least for me my avatar is still my au ra with sunglasses! Viera is my favorite race, and my veena is my canon character. I like to do story with her. Plus she, obviously, looks WAY better than my au ra!

[Tabbs]

Miqo'te ears can be small, but they aren't less annoying modeling-wise for it.

They don't really model anything for Miqo ears anymore. They just hide the ears 9/10 times. They can't do that for Viera, so if they start making ear holes for Viera I can promise you'll see a handful of Miqo complaining on the forums for the same exceptions. It's more work than you think. All that besides, has anyone actually pictured a Viera trying to put on a hat with ear holes? I can't imagine it would be that easy considering how tall their ears are, lol.

[Roda]

They don't really model anything for Miqo ears anymore. They just hide the ears 9/10 times. They can't do that for Viera, so if they start making ear holes for Viera I can promise you'll see a handful of Miqo complaining on the forums for the same exceptions. It's more work than you think. All that besides, has anyone actually pictured a Viera trying to put on a hat with ear holes? I can't imagine it would be that easy considering how tall their ears are, lol.

I mean same issues as putting on pants or dresses with tail holes. Either buttons or suffer for fashion. Elezen and lalafell have it weirder since they put on plate helmets with their ears, and those don't give as much as hats do, not to mention their head-protrusions are on the opposite sides of their heads so they can't do any clever entries into their hats (and don't get me started on au ra!).

[Tabbs]

I mean same issues as putting on pants or dresses with tail holes. Either buttons or suffer for fashion. Elezen and lalafell have it weirder since they put on plate helmets with their ears, and those don't give as much as hats do, not to mention their head-protrusions are on the opposite sides of their heads so they can't do any clever entries into their hats (and don't get me started on au ra!).

At least with tail holes they could grab the end of their tail and needle&thread it, so to speak. One hand for tail, the other for the clothes. Harder to do that with two tall ears when one hand can only position one ear and the other has to hold the hat :P Au Ra definitely have to have it rough though. I often wonder how they even sleep with horns so large, lol.

[Halivel]

They don't really model anything for Miqo ears anymore.

They actually do, quite a lot. It's just that those hats aren't common to see as glamours, and well, most Miqo'te I witness don't use hat for glamour at all. Though yes, they started to make more hats without ears (and in most cases I'm honestly glad to see it this way, but that's personal opinion).

Also I didn't say that the work is easy or fast to do. I only said that there are ways to make it a bit easier if do just holes instead of covered models. Even then there will be hats that are difficult to adjust, but for a big chunk of helmest there is a somewhat simple solution. Still long to do anyway, so I doubt that Viera will ever get the 100% amount of hats, though who knows.

[Tabbs]

They actually do, quite a lot.

Can you give me some examples of this happening in SB or SHB? Genuinely just curious as I do play as a catboy sometimes and don't recall seeing maybe more than 1 or 2 hats made with Miqo ears in mind.

[Halivel]

Can you give me some examples of this happening in SB or SHB? Genuinely just curious as I do play as a catboy sometimes and don't recall seeing maybe more than 1 or 2 hats made with Miqo ears in mind.

I'll go for ShB:

Eden Gate: Tank, Dragoon, Rangers
Eden Verse: Tank, Gragoon
Ronkan set: Tank, Dragoon, Ninja,
Shadowkeeper Tomestones set: Tank, Dragoon
80 lvl 450 craftable set: Healer, Ninja, Rangers, Casters
76 lvl white set: Healer, Monk/Samurai, Rangers, Casters
74 level white set: Tank, Healer, Monk/Samurai, Dragoon
72 level white set: Dragoon
70 level white ShB set: Tank, Healer, Casters

That's what I found like... in 10 minutes, and didn't deeply check what Dungeons or DoH/DoL have, and also didn't sink into Stormblood. Also some of those are probably recolors of HW/SB sets, but not all of them anyway.

[Tabbs]

...

Ah, ear socks. I can't find them all on garland tools, but I assume they're all helmets with metal ears on them? Correct me if I'm wrong o: While I'll give you that its something done with ears in mind, I was thinking more along the lines of ear holes. I don't count ear socks because it wouldn't really work for large Viera ears and isn't, I imagine, what most Viera players are asking for when they ask for hats.

EDIT: And thank you for going out of your way to find so many btw!

[Halivel]

Ah, ear socks. I can't find them all on garland tools, but I assume they're all helmets with metal ears on them? Correct me if I'm wrong o: While I'll give you that its something done with ears in mind, I was thinking more along the lines of ear holes. I don't count ear socks because it wouldn't really work for large Viera ears and isn't, I imagine, what most Viera players are asking for when they ask for hats.

Oh welp, holes. There is a hat with ear holes in that list I wrote, but I can't say which one exactly now. You didn't specify that you talk exactly about them, so I checked just everything what doesn't remove them completely XD And if it's about this, then yes, "socks" are much more common for Miqo'te than holes, but I can't say that it's just about SH and ShB. It was like this for earlier expansions too, more or less.

On a more bright note, almost every hat I checked (including those that cover Miqo'te ears completely) has failry simple design on upper part, so making there holes for Viera ears shouldn't damage the overal design. The main type of design that I can see as a potential pain are long hats, but on the other hand they're probably pretty much the type of a helmet where you could cover Viera ears... in case if we imply that they're soft and that there is a toggle for "hide ears" in code (since they're a changable part of body, such toggle will be necessary, unlike with Miqo'te).

At any rate, adjusting helmets for bunny girls isn't really impossible, despite the fact there are few flashy hats that can cause troubles. Honestly, Hrothgars heads are more tricky - they need a complete remodelling, not just for ears. The main issue at this point is the amount of them (considering there are 1800+ of them) and the schedule that the team has, with also the fact that they still need to make armors for umpcoming patches as well. If they ever plan to adjust hats for them, they probably should make a separate team for that tbh so they would be focused just on this and nothing more for a while.