Viera hairstyles

[Iscah]

I really would love to know how SE found the time to make seven new hairstyles for all the pre-ShB races, who don't all have the same shape head, while viera and hrothgar got nothing.

It just looks like intentional exclusion.

The other races all have much the same head shape, minus some squashing and stretching, and adding ears for Miqo'te.

For what it's worth, the Controlled Chaos style didn't even make any effort to adapt its shape for the non-human ear placement on Miqo'te. There was just a big empty space on the side of the head. They at least corrected that part, but the longer hair at the top is still tucked behind a non-existent ear. It's clear that it's not being custom-built for them, just the regular version with ears stuck on.

All this doesn't explain why Viera don't get access to it, but it certainly implies that for whatever reason they've done it this way, they can't rather than don't get new hairstyles alongside the other races. Otherwise they'd just receive it, and wouldn't even need adapting because the ears are a separate piece.

Whatever the blockage is, it's not just that they make hairstyles for the other races and stop short of making a Viera version every time.

I wish the devs were more open about exactly how the models work and why they made the decision.

[SturmChurro]

Viera hair and stuff isn’t the only problem the game has. Content this expansion has been horrid, and covid can partially be to blame but it was bad even before covid. The next expansion isnt looking like we’re gonna be getting tons of new stuff or significant changes either so it just seems downgrade after downgrade. I wish SE would take these matters seriously but the truth is, a majority of the community acts as an SE cult and eats what little things SE spoon feeds them so a lot of our pleas most likely aren’t heard in the long run and won’t change much.

It's like I said, they would pretty much have to shoot themselves in the foot - with their core audience - to kill this game. What they are doing is seemingly 'good enough' for that core audience, casual and story players. Hardcore PvErs with their cut ultimate, looks to be a justifiable loss for them. We'll have to see in May, but I do feel like SE is mostly just coasting along.

It's a tradeoff. WoW is (apparently) increasingly unfriendly to casual players, so they come here. FFXIV hardcore PvErs can always go to WoW. Despite ShB's content issues, and then Covid, they aren't losing players. Well, I should say, because of Covid I bet they gained quite a few players.

[-JayJay-]

I don‘t want to be that guy... but im pretty concerned that ff16 and other projects might play a role in this.
just looking at the trailer of 16 shows us that there is a high possibility many developers from 14 are currently working on 16. (art style for example - just the feel of the game gave me ff14 vibes) yoshida being the producer of both games further supports my concerns. the story of shadowbringers was phenomenal, but content seemed a bit dry recently (even before covid), and i’m probably looking too much into this but i think it‘s a possibility that it’s connected to 16’s development.

Out of anything to look at for what possibly has us in the current situation I think this is likely the case. If I recall correctly, isn't it known information that a number of XIV's developers are actually working on XVI? If so, that could also explain ShB's being a little dry content wise. It's probably a management issue and manpower (people) are an important resource. The thing that I'm seeing from this whole thing that's been kind of irking me is the communication between SE and the player base. They have no choice but to leave us with vague statements for the sake of PR, but at the same time that leaves the players confused and speculative. Something I've noticed on these forums are the many users suggesting to "cut this content" or "cut that content" in favor of content they enjoy (That thread about the Ultimate raid being cut comes to mind).

Players are arguing amongst themselves and blaming the lack of content on existing content despite SE being better about managing everything on their plate before the current situation. And this might be the cynic in me but I think corporations like it when players start blaming the lack of content they enjoy on content that other players enjoy (Particularly in games like this where content updates are needed to keep the game alive and attract new players). It allows them to just easily handwave any grievances the player base has and make it seem like "Oh, they didn't want this, so we don't need to put forth anymore resources towards it."

[Amnmaat]

I still remember when people proclaimed FFXIV was a different niche from WoW and how it's too anime and japanese to attract a good chunk of WoW players. Yet here we are, that "niche" argument did not pan out.

[Shin96]

So far Viera has received nothing so I wouldn't expect anything. The way I see it, there will be two possible scenarios.

Scenario A: Viera will receive alot of hairstyles by the release of Endwalker, likely to happen.

Scenario B: Viera won't receive anything but maybe 1-2 hairstyles unique to them, and the headgear situation remains.

[NumenarMithrandir]

May be luxury issues, but in the end most of this games money is earned off luxury items and styles. SE is slow but they often provide.. In this case more than likely 6.0 will see a few styles added and such. At the end of the day, this won't break or make the game. People asking for this more and more eventually pushes SE to do something about it. More or less that is what this is about. I don't think this game is a downgrade after downgrade. It keeps getting better with each expansion honestly. I think they jumped the gun with everyone screaming for another race and SE botched trying to make it happen when they really wanted to focus on something else entirely. Them taking a whole expansion to make changes and fix their issues makes sense. They did that with 1.0 to 2.0. They already made the money they wanted for this game I imagine it sits at the top of the charts, has for a long time. It's hard to be patient for changes, but not like we can do anything else but wait and hope.

[Shougun]

The issue is the cost of creating then the permanent cost of maintaining new races after the fact. At the time, they probably saw they could fit ONE new race and still maintain their patch schedule (prior to Covid). Female viera are what was known, so that's of course what they would do, and female beast races just aren't that popular. It worked out anyway, they got a male and a female out of it.

The core technical systems are the issue, if they had an easier, more cost efficient way of maintaining our races, along with all the other updates for this game, we could see more things, like male viera and female hrothgar. Heck, it's apparently too difficult to add stubble for male characters! Hopefully the graphical update in the future alleviates some of these issues.

Oh yeah we're in full agreement / understanding of the why and how. I was just saying if it was either /only/ viera (both) or /only/ hroth (both), to me it makes sense they did the split then (as then you hit the biggest groups). I really feel Hrothgar being so beast like filled in a space that was previously entirely unfilled (Roe are not beast, they're just very big boys lol) and clearly Viera was just fan desired because Viera are Viera. Obviously the most player loved option would be all of the above, but seeing as technical limitations are such a hurdle it seems like they weren't going to do that ever no matter what (or it was so expensive they might only and only if they could see it was worth the cost). On the whole hair issue I still think they should offer both of these races a sort of free fantasia via the barber that only works for within their own race (so Hrothgar can get around their face bound to hair issue). Can make it even more strict by saying it works within the clan only too. Naturally then all mogshop hair (at least), imo, should always be available on all races.

But all that wraps around to why I hope for either major technical / code infrastructure changes for FFXIV or they're calmly and well making a new mmo in the background (not to be announced now, but when it is announced it wont be rushed or be a FFXIV 1.0 repeat of issues).

[Jandor]

Oh yeah we're in full agreement / understanding of the why and how. I was just saying if it was either /only/ viera (both) or /only/ hroth (both), to me it makes sense they did the split then (as then you hit the biggest groups).

I still wish they'd gone with this beautiful concept for a full Viera race:

[Britha]

It's really quite ridiculous that hairstyles post 5.0 aren't compatible with Viera and Hrothgar. There's really no excuse for it honestly. Not to mention that we were assured new customization options would be coming to Viera and that we just needed to "be patient". Well we're starting the hype for a new expansion already and we've been pretty patient. I wish someone with access would directly ask Yoshida about this oversight. Viera have gotten NOTHING since Shadowbringers released. If I come across as annoyed it's because I am a bit. They find the time to add new hairstyles for everyone else but Viera can't even get one.

At this point I just want some word from Yoshida and Co. as to where they are with this issue. If it's a "never" then rip that band-aid off right now and let us seethe about it but at least we'll know.

[Yencat]

It's really quite ridiculous that hairstyles post 5.0 aren't compatible with Viera and Hrothgar. There's really no excuse for it honestly. Not to mention that we were assured new customization options would be coming to Viera and that we just needed to "be patient". Well we're starting the hype for a new expansion already and we've been pretty patient. I wish someone with access would directly ask Yoshida about this oversight. Viera have gotten NOTHING since Shadowbringers released. If I come across as annoyed it's because I am a bit. They find the time to add new hairstyles for everyone else but Viera can't even get one.

At this point I just want some word from Yoshida and Co. as to where they are with this issue. If it's a "never" then rip that band-aid off right now and let us seethe about it but at least we'll know.

I don't believe they themselves have ever even told us we have to be patient, that's consistently been other players telling Viera and Hrothgar to shut up and be patient, they haven't said a word about it since they decided we'd get race specific styles back in 2019.

The only mention the races get is when someone asked him a month or so ago if we can get more hats and he reiterates that no, we cannot in fact get all the hats.

I don't know if people aren't directly asking them about the hair or they decide to ignore those questions.