Viera and Hrothgar Megathread

[Juzjuzz]

It's clear that they want to be sure to know where they are going and how go deal with the most problematic things before starting to add hair and hats/helmets.
And some helmets/hats need more than a little adjusment, Hrothgar and hair don't seem to have a bright future together and even Viera is better for hair idk what kind of parameter is making the job difficult... I'm curious ><

[BiddyBatnana]

Hats won’t happen they will give us 2-3 more specific racial hairstyles and call it fixed. ✌

[lalin]

Hats won’t happen they will give us 2-3 more specific racial hairstyles and call it fixed. ✌

which is fine we already knew we wont ever get hats , i am just hoping those hairstyles wont take years to be implemented .

[Strika23]

As the poster above pointed out, they can make certain head gears work with no issue. Helmets can "crop" the ears out. A lot of helms already work on Hrothgar. Hats they can "cut" the ears out. Things like bandanas and hoods can easily have the ears crop through (as posted above). I think the main issue right now is getting hairstyles to work on viera and separating the faces/hairstyle choices for hrothgar. If they are building fem hrothgars for the future, they cannot keep hairstyles and faces tied together as it is not fair that this race has to pay for a fantasia to change their hairstyle because they are tied to faces.

[Akimori]

https://gamerescape.com/2021/06/07/f...ctors-edition/

"Naoki Yoshida: For both the Viera and Hrothgar, there were certain characteristics we wanted to emphasize in their design—the long ears of the Viera and beast-like features of the Hrothgar. Due to this, there was a limit to the range of customization, and we worked with these conditions when creating these races. If we wanted to make these features more customizable, we’d have to sacrifice those unique features, so it would be great if everyone could understand that at a fundamental level, it is not simply a matter of whether or not we make adjustments to accommodate this.

I have mentioned this on several occasions, but I understand why players request this—I really do. In an effort to accommodate this, even if just a little bit, we have continued to spend a lot of time assessing possible changes in structural design of the models, as well as potential additions to our current workflow. Even as I write this, I just met with the team to get an update on their testing status for this. We may not be able to get them to be exactly the same as the other playable races, but I hope to be able to give you some kind of update soon, including the status on the stubble for Hyur as you asked about previously, so your patience on the matter is greatly appreciated!"

Well..

to be fair...those "unique features" are so limited as well that it definitely doesn't *feel* unique when you play them since you keep running into your twins in game

[LuciaMirain]

to be fair...those "unique features" are so limited as well that it definitely doesn't *feel* unique when you play them since you keep running into your twins in game

Yeah I keep thinking of what "unique" features they mean? I would gladly sacrifice the ability to have 4 different static ears if that meant getting more hairstyles. Or if they made it possible to change all features at jandelaine if one is a viera or hrothgar. Then I would be for instance changing skincolour every now and then, or eyecolour.
But now? I feel like I have less options as viera than what I do as Au ra. Hairs are so important for how you view glamours. It is not the easiest to look like a dangerous warrior when you have a bunch of flowers in your hair. At least give the option to remove said flowers. Looks dumb.

[Jettinson]

to be fair...those "unique features" are so limited as well that it definitely doesn't *feel* unique when you play them since you keep running into your twins in game

It doesn't help the race already feels like having a particular face to be the least popular from what i see (and i speak the one with Coeurl moustache, the beard\pointy stuff looks so off but i like the hair and looks alright shaved, still not enough to make me use that for my alt character).
There's a limit on how much you can make different between other players' hrothgars as you have to rely on colors and eye.

[Yencat]

Yeah I keep thinking of what "unique" features they mean? I would gladly sacrifice the ability to have 4 different static ears if that meant getting more hairstyles. Or if they made it possible to change all features at jandelaine if one is a viera or hrothgar. Then I would be for instance changing skincolour every now and then, or eyecolour.
But now? I feel like I have less options as viera than what I do as Au ra. Hairs are so important for how you view glamours. It is not the easiest to look like a dangerous warrior when you have a bunch of flowers in your hair. At least give the option to remove said flowers. Looks dumb.

I feel like that part of the answer is mostly talking about headgear rather than hairstyles, even though he calls it customization. What makes me think that is that he specifically mentions "the long ears of the Viera" and those would indeed interfere with some headgear, and that's why they can't get them to be exactly the same as all the other races because like Raikai showed in those images some of them are sized/positioned in a way that just won't work.

But maybe that's an overly optimistic interpretation by me? I just don't see why why he'd specify that the "long ears" limit customization if he was referring to hairstyles when the length of the ears has no bearing on hairstyles because no matter the length they don't interact or interfere with hair, but it does with headgear obviously.

How the 'beast-like" features of Hrothgar factor into this being a problem isn't as clear though.

Personally I'm a little miffed that questions about headgear keep muddying the answers he gives because limited headgear was actually something they were upfront about, hairstyles not so much. It's only annoying to me when the only event reward is a hat, or a particular hat design or model is so simple and basic there's no real reason it shouldn't work beyond the fact we don't have "hat-hair" versions.

I'm not against more headgear being visible if that's what they're doing but I'd much rather see more hairstyles for both races and the Fantasia requirement removed for Hrothgar., but since Gamerescape asked a pretty broad question (or 4 questions wrapped into one, really) it's not immediately clear what part exactly he's responding to.

So in the end all we know is they're testing and working on something, but whether that's more headgear, hairstyles, Hrothgar's Fantasia requirement or all of the above is still up in the air.

[Renik]

Naoki Yoshida: For both the Viera and Hrothgar, there were certain characteristics we wanted to emphasize in their design—the long ears of the Viera and beast-like features of the Hrothgar. Due to this, there was a limit to the range of customization, and we worked with these conditions when creating these races. If we wanted to make these features more customizable, we’d have to sacrifice those unique features, so it would be great if everyone could understand that at a fundamental level, it is not simply a matter of whether or not we make adjustments to accommodate this.

I have mentioned this on several occasions, but I understand why players request this—I really do. In an effort to accommodate this, even if just a little bit, we have continued to spend a lot of time assessing possible changes in structural design of the models, as well as potential additions to our current workflow. Even as I write this, I just met with the team to get an update on their testing status for this. We may not be able to get them to be exactly the same as the other playable races, but I hope to be able to give you some kind of update soon, including the status on the stubble for Hyur as you asked about previously, so your patience on the matter is greatly appreciated!

I see a lot of people miss interpreting Yoshi's words constantly, please keep in mind that there has always been a problem with translations, like "free time" is meant to be "downtime during work schedule", not unpaid labor, and "unique features" doesn't mean better customization, but features that didn't exist in game mainly because of gear/hairstyle model limitations.

As always with Yoshi you have to use interpretation because his answers are vague and there is always something lost in translation, so here is mine:

First he starts mentioning the features that are limiting the races from being like the other's, in short for both races, head shape and ears, and yes hrothgar ears are not the same as miqo ears, their placement and shape is slightly different, and viera head shape is not the same as the other races. He also talks about having to limit the range of customization to add these "unique features", now this weight a bit more in the hrothgar side, because every race have about the same customization slots in the character creator, and hrothgar have so many things to change, fangs, tail, fur, and hair, they had to remove hairstyles to fit them all (big bad decision, hope they can fix that), for viera it's mainly head shape and ears. Now, he says these features limit their customization, here it's open to interpretation, hair is definitely customization, but is being able to show headgear also considered customization? Could it be even considered a race feature? I think not, that's why I think his answer refers mostly to hairstyles, and not headgear, which was also stated since the start that it would not be possible.

But there's more, he talks about changes in the structural design of the models, putting this in context with the rest of what he said it's clear he's talking about the character models and not hairstyles and headgear models. Now if we change part of the structure of the head that is mostly being hidden by hair or mane, you might be able to fit normal hairstyles in their heads without many clipping issues, but that wouldn't make a helmet fit in any of them without masively destroying their features, hroths beast face and viera bunny ears, so I think it's safe to assume that the changes in the structural design are aimed to fit hairstyles and not helmets, ofcourse I think the headgear restrictions could also be eased a bit by these changes, but I think there is just no way to fit some headgear without severe clipping Issues without heavily modifying said gear, specially for hrothgar.

Yes all this lenghty text wall just to say that he's most likely talking about hairstyles and not headgear, I'm sorry. But also to clarify some common misinterpretation about how the races were supposed to be more customizable, when what Yoshi meant was unique compared to the other races, not between individuals of the same race.

PS: I have been wrong in the past, probably has something to do with my human condition, so take this with a grain of salt.

[tehneyrzomb]

to be fair...those "unique features" are so limited as well that it definitely doesn't *feel* unique when you play them since you keep running into your twins in game

Once you've seen one Viera or Hrothgar, you've seen them all.