Character Customization needs an update.

[Iscah]

for some completely and utterly bizarre reason they decided to go with customizable limbal eye rings for au ra instead of not having horns attached to the face. boggles the mind as to why a completely and utterly worthless and unnoticeable feature was selected and not horns

Because they're working from a template, basically. Each race gets the same kinds of settings, even if they control different things.

Limbal rings are controlled by the same setting that other races use for racial tattoos (and Wildwood Elezen's built-in earrings). There are two on/off switches and a linked colour palette.

I don't think that setting ever could have been used to control horn shape, unless perhaps they were more like branching antlers and you could turn sections of them on or off - but they probably still would have to be linked to the face design and not interchangeable.

If any of the current settings could have been replaced with a choice of horn shapes, I think it would have to be the tail shape selection, but that seems to be linked to the tail length slider and there's a pattern of similar linked settings on other races. (Miqo'te and Hrothgar have a choice of tail shape and a length slider, Elezen and Lalafell (and Viera?) have ear shapes and ear length.)

So it's possible that they couldn't have horn shape as a choice without also making the slider control horn length - and that might warp the horns in strange ways since the ears/tails it normally controls just get stretched out.



Personally, as much as it would be nice to have a choice of horns for my Au Ra alt, I also appreciate having that choice of tail length and shape - I only really like the spiked tail design that doesn't seem to get used much, and at maximum length. I didn't like the horns that were attached to the face I wanted for him, but I got used to it and now it'd be odd for him to have something else.

I also don't think the limbal rings are "unnoticeable" at all - they can be very visible and striking, especially on male Xaela's dark eyes.

[HeyMcFly]

Just gonna throw out that Viera have 8 "unique" hairstyle shapes total compared to like 40+ on everyone else :P They're very pretty but plagued by minor but amusing clipping and limitations

But yeah, *everyone* could use some improvement. I've thought that for a while. Was kinda spoiled by Aion and BDO and some other games' character creaters, and after a decade odd of dealing with WoW's character creation limitations but at least seeing new options added now and then...

I mean really some of the limits just don't make sense. They brought up memory issues when they were talking Hrothgar options and as somebody with nil computer design experience I'd really like to know exactly what those problems are that mean they have to keep sacrificing and chipping things off what we get. Idk if it's that reason or something else, but the biggest eyebrow raisers are things like coupling au ra horns and Hrothgar hair with face, and only allowing the use of one face paint option. And just having so few options in general for what we do have. I mean four face options is... tiny.

I agree with you about the concern over what the heck happened to Hrothgar? I would have rather SE released 1 new race entirely, then as we trail into the areas involving the other race- have those released, that way we wouldn't of had the unfinished mess that Viera & Hrothgar are- mostly Hrothgar.

[reivaxe]

I mean really some of the limits just don't make sense. They brought up memory issues when they were talking Hrothgar options and as somebody with nil computer design experience I'd really like to know exactly what those problems are that mean they have to keep sacrificing and chipping things off what we get. Idk if it's that reason or something else, but the biggest eyebrow raisers are things like coupling au ra horns and Hrothgar hair with face, and only allowing the use of one face paint option. And just having so few options in general for what we do have. I mean four face options is... tiny.

Seeing as you seem to want a proper answer I'll try to explain it. Though I'm no expert on the field by a long shot I can say that this game SUFFERS GREATLY from it's bad dark times. It's old, it's out dated and it was built on a dumpster fire. The devs hide this SO VERY WELL that it's easy to forget. As such it does things in ways that are not great but are stuck that way cause that's the core of the game.

Example, your character doesn't "really" have a perma body. The game works on a system of "Replace X with Y" so your character's torso and arms and legs and so on "are" whatever the glam or gear appearance you use. So when things don't fit right you can get funky outcomes. Tis why some tops give you bigger or smaller boobs, they're not laying that on top of a model, they replaced your torso with a different model.

What am I getting at? Welp, the Hrothgar have an unique customization option. Something that no other race has. They have the ability to change the color and pattern of parts of their arms/ torso/ legs. Given how this game works, that's a whole lot of stuff the game has to account for when looking at how gear interacts on them. Where does all that space and processing come at the cost of? The only character option that other races have that can be altered greatly and has tons of different looks and "patterns". Hair. Hair changes shape a lot and anytime you wear a hat most hair models change a good deal.

Hrothgar do NOT have "hair", they have a character creation option (Manes) that can be slightly altered with face features tab. The devs had to sac hair to make fur patterns a thing cause this game was not built on a system to handle that kinda freedom with body color and patterns. Just like how this game wasn't "built" to have butt customization so the devs gave us a big ass glam to fill that ass void. Game wasn't "built" to have body tattoos ... so we get a few glams that have tats built in.

Game wasn't built to have a system for beast heads like that to have helms that fit them so unless they can insure no part of the face will ever be visible they don't give them a helm.

With Viera it's a different story where their ears are to blame. But yeah, Hrothgar are a race that required letting a number of things go to work in this game the way they do. I'm hella grateful for them as I think that regardless of their limits they bring a ton of creativity and life to this world. It's perfectly possible to make them have all the bells and sch next time in a new MMO, just not this one.

[Iscah]

What am I getting at? Welp, the Hrothgar have an unique customization option. Something that no other race has. They have the ability to change the color and pattern of parts of their arms/ torso/ legs. Given how this game works, that's a whole lot of stuff the game has to account for when looking at how gear interacts on them. Where does all that space and processing come at the cost of? The only character option that other races have that can be altered greatly and has tons of different looks and "patterns". Hair. Hair changes shape a lot and anytime you wear a hat most hair models change a good deal.

This is all speculation but I don't think it's to do with "space and processing power", I think it's to do with the character template options (as I was saying above re. Auri horns).

They wanted to give fur pattern options, something that hasn't existed for any other race, so they had to repurpose the hairstyle setting (and the linked base colour and highlight colour palettes). Instead of choosing a hairstyle with highlights, Hrothgar choose a fur pattern with stripes.

So fur patterns go in the hairstyle "slot" and the manes have to go in the face slot.

I also think the lack of hats is due to this - when a normal character wears a hat, it turns off part of the hairstyle. But that doesn't work for Hrothgar because the "setting in the hairstyle slot" isn't their hair, and hats aren't programmed to affect the face slot, so it can't turn it off and would clip through instead.

So that would explain why Hrothgar can wear a helmet that replaces the head model entirely (so there's no mane underneath to clip through), but not one that sits over it.

[reivaxe]

This is all speculation but I don't think it's to do with "space and processing power", I think it's to do with the character template options (as I was saying above re. Auri horns).

They wanted to give fur pattern options, something that hasn't existed for any other race, so they had to repurpose the hairstyle setting (and the linked base colour and highlight colour palettes). Instead of choosing a hairstyle with highlights, Hrothgar choose a fur pattern with stripes.

So fur patterns go in the hairstyle "slot" and the manes have to go in the face slot.

I also think the lack of hats is due to this - when a normal character wears a hat, it turns off part of the hairstyle. But that doesn't work for Hrothgar because the "setting in the hairstyle slot" isn't their hair, and hats aren't programmed to affect the face slot, so it can't turn it off and would clip through instead.

So that would explain why Hrothgar can wear a helmet that replaces the head model entirely (so there's no mane underneath to clip through), but not one that sits over it.

It's not an "either/ or" thing, they literally used memory as a reason in the PAX stream.
They did what they did with the slots to make their vision come to fruition. In order to make room for fur stuff to happen they had to leave out hair. I read this post as a "the chicken or the egg" problem, doesn't matter what you think the cause is when we can see that Fur took the place of hair and normal hair or heads that could wear hats and helms was never something YP wanted them to have.

[Hiruki]

I well know that we're not getting any character customization if the base of the game is the same, but when the day come... I want these updates. Yoshi actually said something about improve graphics for the next expansion, I have my hopes on it.
At the same time if the problem is how the game was made, a graphic improve will not fix the real problem. Am I right? D:

[Iscah]

I well know that we're not getting any character customization if the base of the game is the same, but when the day come... I want these updates. Yoshi actually said something about improve graphics for the next expansion, I have my hopes on it.
At the same time if the problem is how the game was made, a graphic improve will not fix the real problem. Am I right? D:

"Improving graphics" isn't really the issue here - as I understand it, that would be a bit like hoping that repainting the house will change the impractical room layout. They're working with a lot of weird underlying code and they just tend to add new pieces onto it rather than fixing the core.

[grinkdaboy]

This is all speculation but I don't think it's to do with "space and processing power", I think it's to do with the character template options (as I was saying above re. Auri horns).

They wanted to give fur pattern options, something that hasn't existed for any other race, so they had to repurpose the hairstyle setting (and the linked base colour and highlight colour palettes). Instead of choosing a hairstyle with highlights, Hrothgar choose a fur pattern with stripes.

So fur patterns go in the hairstyle "slot" and the manes have to go in the face slot.

I also think the lack of hats is due to this - when a normal character wears a hat, it turns off part of the hairstyle. But that doesn't work for Hrothgar because the "setting in the hairstyle slot" isn't their hair, and hats aren't programmed to affect the face slot, so it can't turn it off and would clip through instead.

So that would explain why Hrothgar can wear a helmet that replaces the head model entirely (so there's no mane underneath to clip through), but not one that sits over it.

am i taking crazy pills right now? who on earth on the dev team thought people would want to pay $10 to change your hairstyle/face in order to have customizable fur options? who asked for this???

WHY JAPANESE PEOPLE???

[Iscah]

am i taking crazy pills right now? who on earth on the dev team thought people would want to pay $10 to change your hairstyle/face in order to have customizable fur options? who asked for this???

WHY JAPANESE PEOPLE???

Perhaps they're not thinking of it in terms of people constantly changing hairstyles? Or they just decided that it was a necessary sacrifice to achieve their vision for the design, whether players would actually agree or not.

I can't know what the rest of the dev team think of altering their characters or not, but Yoshida's Lalafell character has always used the same hairstyle as far as I can recall, and doesn't even change her outfit.

And at a totally different level, for my own case, I rarely if ever change my characters' physical appearance. Their hairstyle is part of their appearance, and they look odd if it's different. If I had a Hrothgar character I wouldn't be remotely bothered by the lack of changeable hairstyles because I wouldn't feel the need to change it.

I guess it's more of the same mindset that goes into designing NPCs, or fixed player-characters in games that have them. Create a distinctive appearance and stick to it.

So perhaps they simply underestimated how strongly people feel about being able to change it regularly - or maybe the people that do that are a minority of players. I'd be interested to see a random poll of players about whether or how frequently they change their character's appearance.

[Michiko]

Thumbs up from me.

Been asking for updates to the character customization for the past 8yrs. We always just been given excuses as to why it's not doable.
Just once, I'd like to see some headway in this.