Female Hrothgar as a playable race. Show your support!

[reivaxe]

At that point if we swallow this so-called pill we’re openly advocating for lazy design.

Make the already existing cat girl race a little taller - slap on a minimal amount of fur texture - and tweak their face.

At least the male Viera actually look like their female counterparts. I guess Fem Hroth don’t deserve the same.

Lazy design?
First off, legit every non-lala female is an altered Midlander, so they were always gonna be based on that. Accepting that Roe are described as the "largest, most rugged" race easily puts things in perspective to me. Any "less rugged" version of Femroe is gonna look like a female that's in the game already.

Secondly, let's run down the list of added player models ...
Au Ra- Males= Taller Fixed Elezen/ Females= Updated Shorter Miqote
Viera- Males= Updated taller Miqote/ Females= Shorter Fixed Elezen
Hrothgar Males= Shorter Fixed Roe

Everything added to this game is based on something else because it's smart and efficient. MV isn't some bold move either, they just took the most popular male body in the game, updated it and made it as tall as the 2nd most popular male in the game. As shown with Au Ra they don't GAF about making genders "match" and they've yet to make a race be full on "X race but better". So I guessed a long time ago that Hrothgals would be [insert any non-Femroe female] updated and made taller.

3rdly, IDK who looks at this data, knowing that most of a new race is converts, and thinks "we should triple down on the muscle women".
Before ShB, RoeBros were easily over twice of Femroe's numbers ... they were the only males to decrease in popularity in ShB because so many converted to Hrothgar. There's nearly 200k female Miqote, it makes utter sense to try to eat at that population over eating the choice that accounts for only 1% of active players, and the only way you do that is by giving them something they would want to play. So yeah, I get exactly why Hrothgals look like taller Miqote/ updated Mithra in that art, and I can't fault them for that. It makes far more sense, and no amount of internet gold stars for making an option you know would result in less than 0.5% of the player base being happy is gonna make up for the colossal amount of effort that goes into it.
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IDK ... the more time passes, the more I be feeling like a prophet in these streets.
Like over a year ago, people were getting on my ass for pointing out that if they made MV and Hrohgals they would likely not have the same head limitations as the current genders because that was a stupid core design decision that need not be repeated. Laughed at for suggesting Hrothgals have the ability to change hair without paying $10. To me, it would be asinine to ignore ALL the negative backlash this hair **** has gotten since even before ShB came out JUST to keep things "fair", but people assumed they would keep it evens-Stevens OR that female Viera would get some in EW and MV would release with only race hair, having to wait 2 years like the females for more. Fast-forward to now, and they are finally giving Viera some hair after working to make that easier ... yet reaffirms that they aint getting a large selection.
MV? Oh, they were made with not limits in that regard. We know that they're working on a way for Hrothgar to select between their head's styles for 6.1, wouldn't be shocked if Hrothgals are like MV in this regard and are made to have reg ol hair support.

We saw the Mural and I pointed out how Hrothgals had a face that was very ... Avatar/ Bless cat races/ That-ONE-popular-Female-Ronso-art like. Very humanized, which interested me as my artist bones can tell it's easy AF to make a generic cat face in the style that mural is, yet they didn't. Was laughed at yet here we are, finalized Queen art looks exactly like that mural (and that mural is in fact canon art that's in the game).
We'll see what they look like in game (hoping for a cheeky 6.0 Hrothgal character myself) but I'm feeling confident that I see what's happening, and it makes sense for the reasons I just listed.

[Roda]

This. Furries spend HUNDREDS of dollars on art alone.

Hundreds? for a single piece of art sure. But for like a year's worth of commissions, I'm sure the average is around the THOUSANDS.

-ronso art-

The problem with using ronso art as a base, is that the males have strayed away from their ronso roots.
And the females should too as to not look like a different species from the males.

I'm not talking about the hunch either. Male hrothgar have been given a considerable snoot. Their faces are FAR more animal-like than the original ronso. So, you can't just slap a kitty nose on a human face and call it a day with the females, and not have it look like my miqote comparison.

[Setesh45]

IDK ... the more time passes, the more I be feeling like a prophet in these streets.

People don't know how the engine handles equipment in this game.
The core limitation is such that the equipment is basically all hand fitted on every single body part. In case of hats this effort is multiplied by the amount of different hairstyles.

That's why some races share the same body model. A female Miqote uses an identical body model to Hyur midlander female. This way the devs only have to do the fitting once for both races. It's also why certain pieces of armor change your bust size, completely ignoring your character creation choices. There's simply only one default 3D model for that specific armor created for your race.

The more similar a new body model is to another race, the easier the re-fitting.
Unique heads like in the case of the Hrothgar and the Viera require the most work, manually adapting every single headgear in the game to fit, 3D model, textures, everything and not only to the head shape, ear choice, but also to the hairstyle choice.

It's a very poor and costly way of doing things, but a huge benefit of this manual fitting it nearly no clipping issues.

I imagine getting rid of this system and replacing it with something more automated would require a complete engine overhaul. I don't see that happening any time soon.

[Caurcas]

Highlanders with Khajiit-esque heads, I am telling you. The hunch is stupid, and would make them very unpopular. Possibly more unpopular than FemRoe and that'd be an achievement. Somehow making the least well recieved race...worse.

[White_Wolf_X]

This is the style i want them to go with.

[xxmiamorecadenza]

Lazy design?

Sorry, my apologies. I mean boringly basic whilst suffering from extreme sexual dimorphism.

You could be right and SE may just decide to make a slightly different flavor of Miqo'te again.

And there's no point in referring to them as Mithra/Viera. It's literally just a sub-race of Miqo'te if that's their end game.

I'll give it a try to see if I can stand the design. But knowing me - I'll probably end up switching back to Lalafell since you were kind enough to point out that race is decidedly different model-wise.

[Allegor]

stuff

See, you're right, femroes and thighlanders are by far the least played race/gender combos and it's just as likely the devs would go for the safe route of making the females look like Miqo'te 2.0, but the thing is, if that ends up being the case...why make a B E A S T race at all

If males had looked like this, nobody would be complaining, really - heck, even I would've been on board with it ...but they don't, and instead, we're potentially being bait and switched into the tired and overused Beauty and Beast trope, for a race that wasn't even meant to be popular or cater to the broader audience [literally what a niche is].

If popularity was a factor, they would've just done both Viera genders and be done with it, yet here we are.

[aveyond-dreams]

There is nothing wrong with making a beast race that avoids the things people do not like. When they revealed Hrothgar to be hunchback Roegadyn 2.0, the response was predictable. If they had made something that leaned towards more normal standards of what people look for in male characters, the people who wanted a beast race would've been content and so too would have been the general population that went on to demand male Viera. Instead, the gamble they took ultimately failed as people slowly realized just how many things went wrong in terms of the race's design and its limitations.

Making niche races for the sake of being niche is not worth it when they could make something that more people will pay for, play as, and appreciate. Female hrothgar have been depicted as queens, and shrine maidens/star seers. Seeing the murals of them back in 5.35 got me interested in them. When I think of a character that fits in with this lore, I think of something like what was in the concept art from the art book. I do not, nor will I ever, think of this:



If they release something like this, the inevitable result would be a mix of general backlash and a slew of memes made about how they "wasted resources!" on this instead of literally anything else and would not be worth the hassle. There are exponentially more people who would prefer something more slim, elegant, and beautiful who will actually engage with and play with the race. I do not believe for a moment that catering to "diversity!" and making a model that will be reduced to nothing but a setpiece is worth it. Just like they didn't go to extremes for male viera and ended up making something that appeals to most, putting to rest the "nobody will play a bunny boy!" arguments from back in the day, I would like for them to read the room: realize that the playerbase here overwhelmingly likes things that look good and not things that look bad, and give us something worth our money.

[xxmiamorecadenza]

Wow a female design that looks like their male counterparts. Say it isn't so. Awful.

They should have totally just went with this.



Edit ; If you can't tell already I'm being sarcastic.

[Dracosavarian]

As someone a while ago once said, “ I want to be able to play a refrigerator thick cat momma. “

A joke perhaps, mayhaps serious, but regardless, the sentiment of wanting to play a bestial female hrothgar that looks like she can wreck your day and put you in the hospital for weeks on end if you anger her is something I can appreciate. It’s also what I want to see come about of the race.

I don’t want Au’ra females 2.0 to happen. I don’t want Miqote 2.0 to happen. I want to take my miqote and turn her into a powerful Tigress that leaves naught but slaughter in her wake as a Dark Knight.

You can do female Hrothgar and make them look both regal and attractive, as well as feminine and feral at the same time. It’s a balance to strike if they choose to go that route.

Personally? The art displayed in the quote above my post where it espouses that they are the same species is along the path that I would like them to take.