Lack of updates on Viera and Hrothgar.

[Controller]

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la
After nine days I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
there was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with it's life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

[Melichoir]

Are you thinking the devs might be working on a Neon Genesis:PSO2 style of update?

Could you clarify? Im not familiar.

What I am under the impression is that they are cutting back development from current content to drop something big in our laps for the upcoming patches/xpac. Consider somethings here:
- Nier Raid will resuse assets broadly, and requires a lot less concept work than a raid from scratch because they already have something to work from. It doesnt mean its easy, but it means it's not as burdensome as a raid from scratch would be.
- Cutting down two dungeons to 1 per major patch. Thats literally a 50% cut in development in that department.
- Mogstation seems to be getting pushed harder (they used Mogstation money to give us more data centers, so having them push it again means they need revenue for something.)
- There has been no word that they cut down their dev team. From what Ive seen on places like Reddit a while back, the opposite seems true, theyre trying to expand their dev team.
- FFXIV ShB is a success, finanically, and currently is a big part of SEs overall income. Letting it degrade or sink doesnt make financial sense.
- There is obvious issues with Viera and Hrothgar in terms of customization. the fact were literally over a year into this xpac and theyve done very little ot address this is out of character. remember, the devs worked overtime behind YoshiPs back to bring us some headwear when they initially told us there wouldnt be any. They couldve easily by now done atleast some things to alleviate the issues the two races face, but almost nothing at this point?
- People obviously want the off sexes. The disappointment was palpable when Hrothgar was revealed. And rather than just catagorizing them both together for cleaner UI, they purposefully made them separate. Bit of a stretch on this one, but this is a deliberate choice. It left open the possibility of it.

Theres a lot going on here that doesnt add up, unless they are planning something. I suspect it will either be a complete fix to hrothgar and viera, and possibly-maybe even the off sexes. But for the latter there is one major hurdle.
The issue with adding races, from what I understood from YoshiP or hte devs mentioning this, is everytime they create a new race, they have to manually fit the armors and gear. All of them. This isnt as big an issue in other MMOs because of how the character creator engine operates. It's more streamlined, where as FFXIV is running off a dated 1.0 engine. It must take them a ton of resources to keep setting up gear individually. This is, also from what I understood, part of the reason why Viera and Hrothgar were a pain in the ass to implement. The best way to solve this would to rebuild the character creation engine from the ground up. This part might be a stretch. It is incredibly expensive to rebuild the character design engine, but doing so would prolong the lifespan of the game, and resolve a lot of the development issues they run into. It would also allow them to more easily implement the off sexes. It is also an item that is in demand pretty much across the board. People want more customization for their characters.

But if they did, it would be a huge selling point for the next xpac and may be worth the cost.

Im not saying this is for sure, but I personally feel like something is up. There's just to many wierd things going on, Covid aside. Again, these are my personal feelings. Im not suggesting this is what is happening for sure. Im am saying that if something incredible isnt on the way, I am going to be sorely disappointed and wonder what the hell the devs were doing with all that spare time and funds.

[Elkanah]

Me as Bern: I am once again asking for Vierra and Hrothgar updates

[reivaxe]

Could you clarify? Im not familiar.
.

What he's referring to this.
Basically it's like the ultimate "Have your cake and eat it to". New game/ entry set 1k years in the future, new graphics engine, new combat systems, open world, FAR better Character Creation and ontop of that all of these visual updates are going into the current PSO2 that you can play right now ... and you can keep the same character with all your unlocked emotes and play them in either PSO2 or PSO2:NGS whenever you want. So they get to keep the PSO2 title and branding and playerbase but also overhaul the game

PSO2 is a very successful Japanese MMO that's going on 10 years at this point, it's new to the west but it looks dated af to many.

I can dig it. I've said for a long time that I don't think we're getting the other genders unless they cut back on content like Dngs or until they make a new MMO cause though this game is lovely and visually aged very well it's built upon a tower of old outdated systems and you can see the devs trying their best to do what they can with in these limits. The world of gaming has advanced a lot since this game was blitzed into being to save the franchise, and it's far too popular to let die yet many of the core problems and limits with it are things that would be easier solved by just making a new game instead of trying to fix this mess. Like, we just can't get Ass Sliders because it's a stupid amount of work because of system of how gear in this game is made. Making hats and helms fit beast heads? That's a thing GW2 can do ... but much like ass sliders, it would be a LOT of work to get into this game for the same reason. So I can dig the idea of them basically overhauling the whole thing with a new engine for a new story for your character that's basically a new game set in FF14.
They basically did that already with ARR.

[Amnmaat]

PSO2 is a very successful Japanese MMO that's going on 10 years at this point, it's new to the west but it looks dated af to many.

I can dig it. I've said for a long time that I don't think we're getting the other genders unless they cut back on content like Dngs or until they make a new MMO cause though this game is lovely and visually aged very well it's built upon a tower of old outdated systems and you can see the devs trying their best to do what they can with in these limits. The world of gaming has advanced a lot since this game was blitzed into being to save the franchise, and it's far too popular to let die yet many of the core problems and limits with it are things that would be easier solved by just making a new game instead of trying to fix this mess. Like, we just can't get Ass Sliders because it's a stupid amount of work because of system of how gear in this game is made. Making hats and helms fit beast heads? That's a thing GW2 can do ... but much like ass sliders, it would be a LOT of work to get into this game for the same reason. So I can dig the idea of them basically overhauling the whole thing with a new engine for a new story for your character that's basically a new game set in FF14.
They basically did that already with ARR.

A calamity will happen, since I agree with you on most of these points.
What Yoshida and his people should be considering is basically this; upgrade textures, game engine, but not the graphics.

What they should do is not update the graphics beyond adding more bones to characters and clothing. Why do I say this? It would take way too many years to do upgrade the graphics and we'd lose too many things like minions, mounts, hairstyles; we'd just lose too much if they rebuild the game from the ground up graphically. Keep the same graphics, so to speak, but port it over to a new engine. The engine is really XIV's problem, not so much the graphics. In my opinion this is the best solution out of any, because it keeps all the work they've worked hard on while allowing them to make the game with fresh 2020 code, server code, and game engine. A new engine would definitely fix the problem with clipping and sliders and how the server transfers data to the game.

So I wonder, would people be ok with no graphical upgrades but instead just engine upgrades which would allow for more detailed physics, clothing, and character creation?

[RoseyDevlin]

I went viera ever since shadowbringer expansion came out and still haven't changed yet but I keep thinking of switching back to hyur. I have definitely grown tired of looking at the same 8 identical hairstyles with only difference is the bangs. I have thrown out majority hats I could not wear but what makes it more frustrating is that you can't even wear majority achievement hats like crowns that could easily just make it smaller so it fits on viera/hrotghar.

And making new hairstyles isn't even that time consuming especially for vieras, waiting a year with no updates to the newest races is just stupid...New patch is on the way with no information regarding the new races yet again...And another patch where they gonna give new hairstyles to every other race except for the new one.

Is it so hard to just give one new hairstyle/new face for hrotghar/viera? Just anything at all would be so much more better than being out in the cold while looking everyone else unwrapping their new presents but you can't use them unless you pay for another fantasia...

[SturmChurro]

At this point, if they do release only one for each on their first update, I'd wanna peaceful protest, so hopefully we get like a large amount of them at once for each and that's why it's been taking so long.

[Genbe197]

I miss my Gyr Albania plat and Artifact hats. ; ;

[Yencat]

At this point, if they do release only one for each on their first update, I'd wanna peaceful protest, so hopefully we get like a large amount of them at once for each and that's why it's been taking so long.

I really hope so, one is still better than none but not by much.. I'm hoping for between 5-7 unique ones (actually unique, not counting the fringe/no fringe as a full style) and whichever Modern Aesthetics they managed to adapt, but that already feels overly optimistic so not holding my breath for that.

[EtherRose]

At this point, pretty much every playable race is in need of an update to the character customisation system. Let's not forget that Highlander men have been stuck without the option for real eyebrows since the launch of ARR.

Perhaps the delay is due to everything being bunched together for a major overhaul, especially since one of the game's major competitors is doing just that with its upcoming expansion.

And which MMO is that? WoW? The MMO that's been on life support since they tried reeling players back in with classic to hold them there until Shadowlands?

On a side note - For this thread and those wondering about the "Updates". I think you guys forget that Yoshi-P said he didn't want to add new races because of the resources and manpower. This was before ShB came out. But they did anyways. So when you take that into consideration, Hrothgar and Viera will always be at the very back in terms of importance. Actual content comes first. But i'm fairly sure at the next fanfest we will see a surprise video of our male Viera and female Hrothgar. I assume that's why it's been fairly quiet for a while and maybe some other surprises.

Also on another note - I've said this before in other threads. They should scrap Hrothgar. We already have a cat race. I'd prefer Lupin, the wolf race.