Possible Ideas to Address Hrothgar/Viera Hat Disparity?

[DPZ2]

I'm sorry, the first part is a pathetic excuse for Square Enix if we're really going to go with that. We're talking about a cosmetic, a hairstyle, and a hat.
This isn't rocket science. If they can make a brand new hairstyle ( Wind Caller Hair ) work for 10 races, ( Hyur, Miq, Roe, Lala, Aura, and each has an additional tribe ) across both PS4 and PC there's no reason they couldn't figure this out a SINGLE brand new hairstyle or fixing a single existing hat cosmetic for Viera and Hrothgar over the course of a year.

For the second part, what legal issues do they have with adding all the hairstyles and hats to all the races...they literally own all the rights to them?
And for the last part, I literally have no idea what you meant.

You were inferring that it was 'easy' because some third-party PC-only application can make changes that sorta look good. I merely pointed out that the PC-only application couldn't work on Playstations, which can't run PC applications. It isn't as easy as you think, and there are no repercussions if that third-party application blows things up somewhere else.

By the way, don't do this at home kids. It's against the ToS, and can get you booted permanently.

Sure, Joe Schmoe can create an awesome hairstyle and get it to people using the illegal application. But there is no way a company can use 'ideas' or 'art' from people who do not work there. It's a setup for a long dance in copyright court. Which is why writers don't read fanfiction based on their characters, especially for ongoing series. Clear enough?

[Yencat]

You were inferring that it was 'easy' because some third-party PC-only application can make changes that sorta look good. I merely pointed out that the PC-only application couldn't work on Playstations, which can't run PC applications. It isn't as easy as you think, and there are no repercussions if that third-party application blows things up somewhere else.

By the way, don't do this at home kids. It's against the ToS, and can get you booted permanently.

Sure, Joe Schmoe can create an awesome hairstyle and get it to people using the illegal application. But there is no way a company can use 'ideas' or 'art' from people who do not work there. It's a setup for a long dance in copyright court. Which is why writers don't read fanfiction based on their characters, especially for ongoing series. Clear enough?

You're still misunderstanding what he's saying.

He's not talking about SE using someone else's original hairstyle designs or saying people should use mods as a solution, he's saying Joe Schmoe has figured out how to make almost every hairstyle currently available in the game usable by both Hrothgar and Viera. Even the ones that are locked to other faces for Hrothgar.

Now if Joe Schmoe can do all that in his spare time how can you make excuses for a company with the resources SE has to not put out a single thing in all this time?

If you had argued there's a different standard of quality for mods or that Joe Schmoe doesn't have the workload the devs do I actually might have somewhat agreed, but that wasn't your argument.

But even then, not a single thing in +/- 17 months?

[HyperiusUltima]

The Modding Community I'm pretty sure has been playing with XIV's textures on Hrothgar and Viera for the longest time to make them work. The problem is, it's against ToS to modify anything inside FFXIV. If anything, I want to say this: Hire them.

If the modding community can make some amazing things(like clothing models, various different mods for body parts, and styles) then HIRE THEM ON, SE. It's not difficult to appease a entire race's community if you bother to pay for them to fit existing headgear properly onto Hrothgar and Viera.

[Iscah]

He's not talking about SE using someone else's original hairstyle designs or saying people should use mods as a solution, he's saying Joe Schmoe has figured out how to make almost every hairstyle currently available in the game usable by both Hrothgar and Viera. Even the ones that are locked to other faces for Hrothgar.

Now if Joe Schmoe can do all that in his spare time how can you make excuses for a company with the resources SE has to not put out a single thing in all this time?

I genuinely have no idea how Joe goes about making it possible, but if it involves switching out game models for other ones then the problem may not be with the models but with the interface, particularly for Hrothgar hairstyles - they simply don't have enough settings in the character creator to assign one for it.

[Yencat]

I genuinely have no idea how Joe goes about making it possible, but if it involves switching out game models for other ones then the problem may not be with the models but with the interface, particularly for Hrothgar hairstyles - they simply don't have enough settings in the character creator to assign one for it.

Of course, I'm not at all saying it's as easy as swapping things like they do, which is also why it's not a good solution in the long run because you remain with a fixed number of hairstyles just swapping and losing one for another. As a workaround Joe might assign a hairstyle to a specific headgear item to function effectively like a wig, which is not at all something SE is likely to be doing but there's nothing inherently unusual or strange about the race models themselves that would preclude them from having more hair, especially not Viera.

You're spot on about the CC being the most likely problem for Hrothgar though. I'm assuming they can change their fur pattern and colour at the aesthetician since it's in the same spot as hairstyles/hair colour normally go for races without a muscle slider, so I guess for all intents and purposes they have fur patterns instead of hair.

So unless they're thinking about (and it's even a possibility) exchanging the fur patterns with the hair and having fur patterns be Fantasia only instead of the hair or revamping how limited the settings in character creation are, then they're probably screwed in terms of more hairstyles unless they somehow get really creative. And Viera with them if they intend to keep it even-steven between them.

I don't know how happy new fur patterns would make Hrothgar players as they only really show when you're shirtless, but they didn't even add those.

[Vahlnir]

I don't know how happy new fur patterns would make Hrothgar players as they only really show when you're shirtless, but they didn't even add those.

They wouldn't make much of a difference. Most people want actual hairstyles that don't require a Fantasia. I haven't really seen any mention of fur patterns anywhere.

[Yencat]

They wouldn't make much of a difference. Most people want actual hairstyles that don't require a Fantasia. I haven't really seen any mention of fur patterns anywhere.

Yeah I haven't either so I figured as much, I just didn't want to assume.

Baffling that they thought that would be a good trade off then.

[SturmChurro]

I'm just gonna be real right now, but I was just thinking about this, what could they even come up with for hrothgar? Like I don't wanna be mean or anything, but even if hrothgar had full hair support, 99% of the styles would look ridiculous. I've always argued against how SE handled them, but maybe they were thinking the same thing. Not saying it's okay if they were thinking "why bother", but I can see where they were coming from.

The whole hair locked to face, and fur patterns being the equivalent to hair in the creator sucks. The ridiculous thing is yeah, not even a single new fur pattern either. Nothing. Granted, I literally can't tell you the difference between any of the fur patterns, even on the many shirtless hrothgar I've seen. It's not even noticeable when you can see it. Maybe for the player? But considering the lack of good feedback or even a real want for more, I kind of doubt it.

[Raikai]

Many pointy hat models do not need any effort regarding the Viera ears, as follows:





(source: https://twitter.com/spinel9057/)

[Yencat]

I'm just gonna be real right now, but I was just thinking about this, what could they even come up with for hrothgar? Like I don't wanna be mean or anything, but even if hrothgar had full hair support, 99% of the styles would look ridiculous. I've always argued against how SE handled them, but maybe they were thinking the same thing. Not saying it's okay if they were thinking "why bother", but I can see where they were coming from.

Not as bad as you'd expect honestly. These are only 2 images I found but many hairstyles are of similar style and length so I imagine they'd look fine. Subjective of course, but I think they look pretty good all things considered.

Windcaller



Noctis



Not all of them are gonna look good but personally I don't think the Gyr Abanian Plait looks good on any male characters, but if the players like it they can decide for themselves if they think it looks good or not.

The whole hair locked to face, and fur patterns being the equivalent to hair in the creator sucks. The ridiculous thing is yeah, not even a single new fur pattern either. Nothing. Granted, I literally can't tell you the difference between any of the fur patterns, even on the many shirtless hrothgar I've seen. It's not even noticeable when you can see it. Maybe for the player? But considering the lack of good feedback or even a real want for more, I kind of doubt it.

Honestly the more I post in this thread the more it starts to dawn on me there's probably just not going to be a satisfactory solution to this in terms of hairstyles unless they redo how they set up the CC Hrothgar or they make some big changes in character creation that allows for more options. I guess it should have been obvious for a long time but I did expect better.

They shot Hrothgar in the kneecaps by their own design and tied Viera to the train tracks next them, they're not going to give anything to one without the other but fixing one on such a core level might be a bigger undertaking than they're willing to take on.

Would they be willing to actually fix Hrothgar so they don't require a Fantasia? And if not, are both races only going to be getting things in expansions? Are we even getting anything substantial in the next expansion?

When they broke the 2B butt by accident they very quickly released a statement but when it comes to this it's been crickets for a long time now.