New hrothgar hairstyles are really bad.

[Rehayem]

I originally was convinced they would eventually do nice things for hrothgar, "Hope" is as far i can go after this.

That said, the more loud noticeable and proper feedback everyone gives the better...

The only way for them to actually step in and do something is through bad public press. If they could rebuild the entire game from scratch during 1.0 failure due to the extreme negative press, all it takes is for some newspaper or blog to do the same in regards to Hrothgar. I don't really buy the "we listen to our players from all over the world" when that is limited to JP playerbase, if they even listen to them at all to begin with.

[Denji]

Honestly...at this point they should just unlock all customization options except race and gender at the hair guy.

That, or lower fantasia prices.

Lmao as if
The square president released a tonedeath new years letter that was basically "buy nfts, also we intend on adding more microtransactions because ¥£€$¥£€$¥£€$"

[StriderShinryu]

-The lack of communication over the past three years regarding Hrothgar hairstyles is staggering and is largely the cause of this whole situation. Asking for feedback now is slightly insulting after three years have gone by with just a handful of comments, maybe a one sentence bullet point on a Live Letter slideshow, and virtually no interaction with the community from the devs on this topic.

This. So very much this. If there's one piece of feedback from this thread that I hope does make it up the line to Yoshida, it's this one right here. Many of the issues currently facing the game hinge on a near complete lack of communication. Live Letters and blog posts are great. They're extremely appreciated. But they are a one-way street. It has come to a point where some of the player base is, frankly, feeling taken for granted. We never know what feedback actually does reach the development team. We also never know, if it does, what form it takes when it's being relayed. Clearly issues such as this one, the healer engagement debate, the "streamlining" of job designs, etc. are crossing Yoshida's desk but it almost always feels like the message that's being sent is a watered down, sanitized, point form version of what the player base is really asking for and talking about. I don't put this on Yoshida himself as much as I put it on the almost completely non-existent community engagement team. As an example, this thread went over a hundred pages of essentially pure, complete negative perspective in only a handful of days, and the only community engagement response we received was a slightly prettied up version of a translation we already had thanks to fans already having done the work. That's just sad. And I can only hope that this isn't the last time we see Zhexos for another few months or years.

So, again, if there is one problem here it's not really even Hrothgar hair (though, don't mistake me, that is a big issue), it's a near complete lack of meaningful, two-way communication. No one is asking for the developers to design the game by committee, or by community. The design choices and decisions are yours to make. We just want actual respectful communication.

[MaxTitan]

The moderator has received the feedback they asked for.

The feedback most of us gave isn't about haircuts at all.



Well, what's weird is what was I heard you say was:



Now, I didn't hear of anyone working on either Viera or Hrothgar before the Zepla video came out so I assumed you hoped we forgot.

I also heard "quality" with respect to why we couldn't have headgear. But then "you have to imagine the ears inside the hair?"

I heard that clipping was a problem with official implementation. But then I looked at the back of the Gunbreaker trainer, and looked at how badly his hair clips in his class armor. And of course I assumed when you say "clipping is bad" you're referring to "all clipping" and not just "the kind of clipping that would result in you having to do some work."

But, it got worse. Because I remember this from 5.55:



So, it's OK to devote resources to fix clipping on not just any hairstyle's clipping, but some pieces of gear clipping on one race with LITERAL BEDHEAD, but not even the one-of-two-possible hairstyles on your NPC? Were you afraid we might "hope too much and hurt ourselves?"

So you were "torn" about having to "maybe make hairstyles more slowly?"

1) Slower than 1 every six months?
2) Until such time I have 0 options that don't involve me paying you $10 to decapitate me?
3) When you say "I need feedback," does a reasonable person just "Release with no QA so that things like the haircuts not sticking to the heads" get out? Or do they get input first?

If they can't say that those hairstyles weren't up to par in terms of:

1) Quality
2) Consistency
3) Lore
4) Human Empathy

...what feedback do you still need? What can I tell Zhexos that will make him understand that was a crappy thing to do to one patient group of people?

When I see something like:



I wonder - should read this as a promise or a threat?

Did Yoshi think those hairstyles looked OK?

The haircuts have no ears, have nothing to do with Hrothgar lore, and DO NOT STICK TO MY HEAD.

Sure, dedicate a resource to the Hrothgar. Trot him out on PLL days, or have him there to ask questions of. Call him Hrothgar Steve, and dress him up in a little tan zookeeper outfit.

Or just make the other legacy hairs available to all the faces? I'll shut up. Promise. And I keep mine.

But if that's not clear enough feedback for Zhexos or anyone else: Your excuses are clipping.

As always, Kel delivered. Thanks man, was looking for this quote but this is exactly where most of my frustrations come from.

[Alacran]

This entire thread forgets that when Hrothgar was released they were billed as unique & as such would be harder to develop for. To have the met player base half way only to have the work done be a source of complaint boggles the mind after the known limitation oft said race before hand.

As one who was against Hrothgar, i can only see it as proof that they should have never created a second cat race no one asked for & saved themselves the monstrous headache incurred with their inclusion.

I read through 13 pages of comments just to see if anyone would bring this up. Grats on being the first.

I was always against Hrothgar to begin with feeling their look was just to rubber faced & unnecessary to the game, but understood that was just MY opinion & others wanted them.

Looking at what the devs rolled out looks like something i would have done via malicious compliance... & that's saying something, even i feel bad for those that waited for this wretched showing.

However, this was to be expected. Back when they were announced Yoshi did say they were going to be very unique in their design, so certain aspects of their build necessitated certain limitations to the mapping of gear/ hair options.



Didn't think i would get to use this again...

heh

What i meant by this is the fact that such over bearing complaint will only serve to push Female Hrothgar to the back burner, something that while it wouldn't bother me in the slightest, means those that want the will have to wait even longer.

Congrats, you played yourselves.

Hrothgar were always going to appeal to the lowest amount of individual player counts, their inclusion creates more hassle for the dev in terms of design. It would have been better to demand not needing to buy a fantasia to change smaller aspects of the character model at the aesthetician like other in game models, perhaps then, when female Hrothgar came on the scene, they need not have the same issue & could just have more race specific hair styles better mapped to their heads. Now their inclusion is on the line...

Could have dogged a bullet Yoshi & stuck with a full race drop with Viera only at the beginning but the half measure bought you all this instead.

[Denji]

*snip*

dang bro that's crazy

[Evergrey]

This entire thread forgets that when Hrothgar was released they were billed as unique & as such would be harder to develop for. To have the met player base half way only to have the work done be a source of complaint boggles the mind after the known limitation oft said race before hand.

Same thing was said about Viera, that they would have limitations when it came to headgear and people were like "We're fine with it. As long as we can play Viera we're happy."
But see how that went.
I knew that people would sooner or later start asking and/or demanding more eventho it was a known fact long before about the limitations.
I just hope that SE has learned now that giving people something they want they will only want more and more.
It's better if they just focus on their own vision of what they want the game to be and what to put in it.

[aveyond-dreams]

snip

I agree with some of the things in your post. I had little, if any confidence that they could somehow do a beast race in this game. They did, and did it badly. Given the overwhelming preference of FFXIV's target population favoring attractive, anime-beauty standards for lack of a better description, both genders of Viera was objectively the correct choice to add rather than chasing after niche things only to do them badly.

It is said that during the fanfest when Hrothgar were revealed that the audience booed the stage. Now in 2022, everyone is collectively upset at how poorly done these new hairstyles are, nevermind that they are coming 3 years too late. Should Hrothgar players be receiving more than they currently are getting? Absolutely. But should Hrothgar have been implemented as a gender-locked, limited race at the cost of taking male Viera's spot back then? Absolutely not.

I'm not interested in entertaining conversations about what race was decided to be included first whether it was Hrothgar or Viera, what is clear is that from concept artists to 3d modelers that there is clear bias in favor of Viera. They may have decided to add Hrothgar in Stormblood, but it was Viera who was nearly added back in Heavensward. Male Viera are also the result of individual passion that was likely shared with fans-they took everything from the first post of that thread and made it reality.

Viera are the result of what these concept artists and modelers wanted to do.

Hrothgar are the result of what these concept artists and modelers were instructed to do.

However, I cannot stress this enough, there were so many people who shunned the supporters of causes like male Viera/female Hrothgar all while arguing with others to "just be patient!" in terms of waiting on new hairstyles and hat options. It is your responsibility as a customer to keep the producer of a product in check, and not argue against people who feel as if they were given an inferior product. This situation could have been avoided early on if the playerbase had made it clear that limited races with hardly any hair or hat options wasn't acceptable, and this is the result of what happens when things like that are let to slide.

[Vahlnir]

However, I cannot stress this enough, there were so many people who shunned the supporters of causes like male Viera/female Hrothgar all while arguing with others to "just be patient!" in terms of waiting on new hairstyles and hat options. It is your responsibility as a customer to keep the producer of a product in check, and not argue against people who feel as if they were given an inferior product. This situation could have been avoided early on if the playerbase had made it clear that limited races with hardly any hair or hat options wasn't acceptable, and this is the result of what happens when things like that are let to slide.

A large part of it was that they had been running on player faith since ARR, so when they were told "we got you, don't worry" in regards to the hair and headwear additions both coming at a later time, people believed them. And I don't think it was unreasonable to expect them (at that point in time) to follow through on their promises. But they did not. So, here we are. What happens when that faith has been shattered? Customers get angry. And they should be!

[aveyond-dreams]

A large part of it was that they had been running on player faith since ARR, so when they were told "we got you, don't worry" in regards to the hair and headwear additions both coming at a later time, people believed them. And I don't think it was unreasonable to expect them (at that point in time) to follow through on their promises. But they did not. So, here we are.

In my case, I remember seeing bad signs that wore on my faith ever since the abysmal implementation of Eureka, that and the huge controversy at the time that Blue Mage launched as a limited job and the playerbase allowed for that word to enter and even be used in their vocabulary, when it never should have been. I remember that they somehow thought that releasing Baldesion Arsenal with its convoluted method of entry was also ok at the time-thank goodness Bozja, while imperfect, is nowhere near as bad as that was.

No amount of promises could hold up to the stacking evidence that I saw mounting up at the time, in any case it seems I was correct to be suspicious of the situation. There is no excuse for Hrothgar to be in the state that they are in now, and while Viera have had great strides they are still missing various hair options, saying nothing of how little hats work on them.

And supposedly the excuse for all this is clipping. Enough already, we do not care about clipping. We never did.