More viera hair (And the ability to use modern Aesthetics hair)

[reivaxe]

Was nice to have them acknowledge that this isn't a good situation in the art stream, with a clear statement that development cost is a challenge with this. Even if that wasn't really anything new. Here's hoping we'll get more than that soon.

You can be happy the races exist and still disagree with and criticize SE's decisions. The "you should be grateful to have anything" argument as I've seen it usually comes off as more of a "stop complaining" argument than anything else. Who says all of the people complaining aren't grateful for having the races at all? I've said more than once they're my favorite race in the game, but SE clearly bit off far more than they could chew in adding them, and evidently making them so limited was far more a resource management decision than an artistic choice. The resources here apparently being memory and development time/money. Which is extremely unfortunate and something I'll continue to be disappointed by, no matter how good the bunny girls look.

Nah

It was an artistic choice to do something new and different and unique that would require sacrificing things. It's not a case of biting off "more than you can chew", they went in knowing that they would have to sacrifice things to make these happen this way. They could have made a bunny and cat men race that had all the bells and whistles ... they just wouldn't look like what we got at all. Hrothgar wouldn't have beast shaped heads, they wouldn't have the ability to change their fur color or have fur patterns. Bunny race wouldn't be "Viera" the way we know them to be, they would look like longer eared cat girls without ear style options (so that their ears could be built into their hair styles) cause that's what would work in the game's system.

They decided to say fuck it, lets make something unique. They were successful in that (with Hrothgar at least. I personally don't think bunny ears is worth the trade offs). They made it clear that they made the decision to cut helms and hats from early on.
With what the devs do with this game it's easy to forget that its built on a dumpster fire of a game code ... I don't see them ever having the time or money to treat heads like these the way every other race's heads are treated given the way the game works. Next MMO, sure! Not in this one though and they knew this going in.

Biting off more than you can chew would be going "Yay, we completed these races! Oh shit, how we gonna put head gear and hair on them?"

That's what people are saying, if you LIKE what you got then know and accept that there was no chance of you getting what you got with any less limits.

As for the stop complaining stuff I think it's more along the lines of "whats the point?". What's done is done, the ball has been thrown, the bullet has left the chamber ... no amount oh whining is gonna change a design decision made that far back that lead to core features for these races. Understand what happened and hope you get what lil they said they would deliver on.

[DBriggs304]

Perhaps they just need to take both races out and be done with it.

I dont know how these developers maintain their sanity.

[grinkdaboy]

Was nice to have them acknowledge that this isn't a good situation in the art stream, with a clear statement that development cost is a challenge with this. Even if that wasn't really anything new. Here's hoping we'll get more than that soon.

You can be happy the races exist and still disagree with and criticize SE's decisions. The "you should be grateful to have anything" argument as I've seen it usually comes off as more of a "stop complaining" argument than anything else. Who says all of the people complaining aren't grateful for having the races at all? I've said more than once they're my favorite race in the game, but SE clearly bit off far more than they could chew in adding them, and evidently making them so limited was far more a resource management decision than an artistic choice. The resources here apparently being memory and development time/money. Which is extremely unfortunate and something I'll continue to be disappointed by, no matter how good the bunny girls look.

some people just like the taste of boot in their mouth

[BunniEclair]

There are a ton of threads on here complaining/criticizing/whining (whatever term fits your agenda) about issues that have already come to pass. The great thing about the dev team is they tend to take into consideration these issues and work their best to find solutions when there are solutions available. They do look to the community to see what we are dissatisfied with-look at the 2B butt nerf debacle.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with or ungrateful about using the official forums to ask for these things, and to express disappointment with the current state of customization for these races in hopes the dev team listens.

While it may have been an artistic choice to make the new races the way they are as far as not being able to wear hats or use cross-race hairs, I doubt it was an artistic choice to give them extremely limited unique customizations from the get go. That’s more of a resource and time thing, and in this case comes across as being stretched too thin trying to pull everything together in time for the expansion. It’s not really a secret that the gaming industry has a serious crunch time issue. I don’t want the devs to kill themselves trying to make us some bunny hairs, but I think keeping the thread active is a good way to show them that the issue is important to some players and hopefully they can move some stuff around to pour a little extra love into viera, or the unfortunate perma-mane hroths.

[Avidria]

...

Let me rephrase the problem I have with how these races were handled.

They set out to make something unique. Alright. I can respect that. I understand that they needed to make sacrifices to make it happen. I get it.

However. From what I've seen and heard. They were fighting with resources every step of the way. Sacrifices due to memory problems, sacrifices due to lack of developer time, sacrifices due to limitations on their race design and development capabilities. Their original artistic choice led to them full on chopping off a chunk of customization, with the result being one mostly unique race and one mostly not unique race, both of which are limited. They had to make all of those sacrifices, from what I can tell, because of both resource and capability constraints. Which is a shame.

Frankly, the only unique things about these races as they are, is Hrothgar phsyique and head shape, bunny ears evidently being harder to work around than cat ears, and the fact that they're so limited. They have nothing else to make up for their lack of options. They don't have much more in the way of unique options than anyone else (unless I've somehow totally missed something?). Several other races already have something "unique" about them even beyond their general body shape. Pointy ears, cat ears/tail, dragon scales, what have you. I have bunny ears and invisible hats.

In my opinion, Viera and Hrothgar didn't get enough uniqueness to make up for the sacrifices. I'd argue Viera very nearly got none at all, despite my personal preference for them.

As for the point of complaining... well frankly, part of it is just venting frustration. I'm frustrated that a race I absolutely love is far more limited than any other race in the game, and that they have, in my opinion, nothing that really makes up for it. That one of my favorite parts of the game, character customization and re-customization, is hindered so badly purely by a lack of options when I play Viera. The other part is to continually give feedback that this, as they've stated they agree, is not an ideal situation, and that there is still desire and demand for changes to bring the new races more in line with the others. Even to suggest alternatives to improve their customizability - though I suspect and fear the memory resource juggling they mentioned in the stream may restrict those options. I'm no game developer though, so maybe it wouldn't.

[Yencat]

In my opinion, Viera and Hrothgar didn't get enough uniqueness to make up for the sacrifices. I'd argue Viera very nearly got none at all, despite my personal preference for them.

I'm gonna frame this and put it on my wall because this is really the crux of the matter to me.

[Gula]

You can do that and still not be happy about everything you got. You can be thankful that something was given, understand why it couldn't be exactly what you wanted and also be disappointed with aspects of it lol.

This, this right here. Thank you.

[SturmChurro]

I'm gonna frame this and put it on my wall because this is really the crux of the matter to me.

They are gorgeous, but yeah the only thing truly "unique" about them is their adjustable ears - that SE sacrificed headgear for. Otherwise they are about as unique as any other race with minor racial specific features like the bunny nose, and actually a bit less, because they don't even have their own hempen set. Hrothgar however, while yes, are more unique in their overall model/heads that is at the cost of switching hairs. Requiring that fantasia.

[Yencat]

They are gorgeous, but yeah the only thing truly "unique" about them is their adjustable ears - that SE sacrificed headgear for. Otherwise they are about as unique as any other race with minor racial specific features like the bunny nose, and actually a bit less, because they don't even have their own hempen set. Hrothgar however, while yes, are more unique in their overall model/heads that is at the cost of switching hairs. Requiring that fantasia.

If it was just headgear that would be 1 thing, because while disappointing I can absolutely see why that's a problem, but it's hair too. People keep saying Viera have same-face syndrome, and while it's true that face 1 is the most popular face it's mostly the hair that does it. The different ears and lengths barely even register to me as a unique identifier, "lop" bunny ears aside (but IMO those look terrible, sorry everyone that likes em but they could've been so much nicer looking than 2 half snapped twigs).

I do wonder if they had gone with 1 ear style and length if it would have been easier to do all or more of the hairstyles, and if Viera players would have prefered that. I know I would.

Hrothgar problems are just a big oof, even when they release more faces with hairs on them who's gonna realistically Fantasia everytime?

[Penthea]

If it was just headgear that would be 1 thing, because while disappointing I can absolutely see why that's a problem, but it's hair too. People keep saying Viera have same-face syndrome, and while it's true that face 1 is the most popular face it's mostly the hair that does it. The different ears and lengths barely even register to me as a unique identifier, "lop" bunny ears aside (but IMO those look terrible, sorry everyone that likes em but they could've been so much nicer looking than 2 half snapped twigs).

Personally I chose the most popular face because two of them look like just typical models and the other has a perpetual smile. I think that one face is popular because the expression is neutral but still beautiful without looking like a fashion model.

The hair is the biggest issue though. With such a tiny choice in hair it's easy to run into a viera who looks similar. Almost half of the hairstyles are merely slight variations of another. There are 17 hairstyles...but if we are talking about how many actual unique hairstyles there are it's less than 10. That is freaking tiny.

I do wonder if they had gone with 1 ear style and length if it would have been easier to do all or more of the hairstyles, and if Viera players would have prefered that. I know I would.

I don't think so. The ears cover the same basic part of the head and most hairstyles don't have anything that would clip into them. Certainly the Asahi hair I used to use on my miqo would have no issues with viera ears. A lot of cross racial hair would be a pretty simple addition to the viera range.

Hrothgar problems are just a big oof, even when they release more faces with hairs on them who's gonna realistically Fantasia everytime?

Sooner or later they will have to unlock the hair from faces. They're shooting themselves in the foot with making it more difficult to bring in more options for players with things as they are now. No one is going to be okay with needing to buy a fantasia to try out new hair. That essentially makes the new hair a mog station item.