New hrothgar hairstyles are really bad.

[Karowolus]

Ok. With a friend experimenting with a piece of software that is used for stuff like doing custom poses and such in Gpose, you can edit the character's appearance, change the gear they wear, etc. Through this you can change the hairstyle of the Hrothgar... And
A) Our ears don't change. What a surprise.
B) The differences that are there are things that can be changed with slight adjustments to the hairstyle itself. For example holes in the hair that usually the ears would cover. Etc.

Example A

Example B

Again. These are all changes that a single modder has been able to fix. And made adjustments to the hairstyles themselves. This being the same modder who made basically all of the hats compatible with both hrothgar and viera. A single person was able to do this. This same modder also does the Viera hat and hairstyles mod as well. If one developer who, according to their twitter is studying a Bachelors in Game Design. So someone who is doing this in their spare time. Can complete this and do it in a manner which is overlaying game files and flipping switches. Why is it so hard for a multi-million dollar company to do so?

But alas. Small Indie Company I guess.

[Denji]

Ok. With a friend experimenting with a piece of software that is used for stuff like doing custom poses and such in Gpose, you can edit the character's appearance, change the gear they wear, etc. Through this you can change the hairstyle of the Hrothgar... And
A) Our ears don't change. What a surprise.
B) The differences that are there are things that can be changed with slight adjustments to the hairstyle itself. For example holes in the hair that usually the ears would cover. Etc.

Example A

Example B

Again. These are all changes that a single modder has been able to fix. And made adjustments to the hairstyles themselves. This being the same modder who made basically all of the hats compatible with both hrothgar and viera. A single person was able to do this. This same modder also does the Viera hat and hairstyles mod as well. If one developer who, according to their twitter is studying a Bachelors in Game Design. So someone who is doing this in their spare time. Can complete this and do it in a manner which is overlaying game files and flipping switches. Why is it so hard for a multi-million dollar company to do so?

But alas. Small Indie Company I guess.

This just makes me so bloody frustrated.

[Karowolus]

This just makes me so bloody frustrated.

Yup. People wonder why we're so irritated and this is why. It's because these are fixes that are being ACTIVELY FIXED by a single modder with Pre-Bachelors level game design experience.

There are other things that have been changed too. Apparently face 4's forehead was reduced in size in order to fit the other hairstyles onto it.

So instead of you know... Editing the hairstyle. They instead changed the shape of the head. I guess next time a hairstyle doesn't work on me irl I'll just change the shape of my head. The orange outline is the new head shape for head 4

[Midareyukki]

Again. These are all changes that a single modder has been able to fix. And made adjustments to the hairstyles themselves. This being the same modder who made basically all of the hats compatible with both hrothgar and viera. A single person was able to do this. This same modder also does the Viera hat and hairstyles mod as well. If one developer who, according to their twitter is studying a Bachelors in Game Design. So someone who is doing this in their spare time. Can complete this and do it in a manner which is overlaying game files and flipping switches. Why is it so hard for a multi-million dollar company to do so?

Yeah. A lot of people don't understand that some mods aren't adding polygons anywhere. They're just as simple as them flipping an on\off switch. And Square, a company that's been throwing out AAA games with photorealistic quality excuses this sort of "effort" by saying it's too hard? Square, you know we understand what booleans are, right? If the ability to see our ears boils down to a boolean, then it's not as hard as you insist it is. You've done far harder for this game. This is peanuts.

Yup. People wonder why we're so irritated and this is why. It's because these are fixes that are being ACTIVELY FIXED by a single modder with Pre-Bachelors level game design experience.

There are other things that have been changed too. Apparently face 4's forehead was reduced in size in order to fit the other hairstyles onto it.

So instead of you know... Editing the hairstyle. They instead changed the shape of the head. I guess next time a hairstyle doesn't work on me irl I'll just change the shape of my head. The orange outline is the new head shape for head 4

I don't think we can call this "lazy". Because lazy implies there is no work being done at all.

This is just unnecessary, roundabout... insert word here that describes how awkward this change is for something so futile in the end.

Keep in mind our ears are stuck to our head model. Meaning that to trigger an ear metadata, they had to go to the head model, cut out the ears and turn those into a switch. Rather than just plop the hair in and let it clip like a lot of players said they're fine with.

Someone had to do all that work. That's more work than just fitting hairstyles. "Oh we had to go through roundabout methods to get to this", no you didn't, you just chose the most long-term patch you could find that doesn't solve your problem at all rather than address it directly. And don't say you couldn't do the ear thing, you've proven willing to mess with ears AND that you could do it for Viera and Miqo'te. It's only hard because SE keeps making it hard on themselves for no reason.

[Kelev]

If they want us to congratulate them for McGyvering their way through this…And it isn't at all the rocket science they make it out to be.

That’s my core issue, Midare. The double-standard.

You see, you can’t have this “kludge” design philosophy - which isn’t just normal for games, it’s normal for maintenance programming in any discipline - and not come back and fix it, or it will bite you on the ass someday.

But when that happens, it’s what you do about it that makes you the company you are.

If you’ve said “when I say I’m going to do something I do it” and “we’re researching Hrothgar and Viera to make hairstyles easier because we promised” unfortunately, you might have to do some one-off design work that you will have to throw away later because you never resolved that kludge.. And if, internally, you’ve said “because of the technical cost of doing race-specific implementation we’re not doing that any more.” (Which is my guess what’s going on) you’ve got some serious problems.

1) Either the Hrothgar are “special” or they aren’t. If they are special then that means that you have special constraints that you haven’t resolved and you’re going to have to do one-off work on them to make things that aren’t nightmare fuel and you’re going to have to throw that work away when you’re done.

2) Either the Hrothgar are worth additional work or they aren’t. That means that you’re going to spend the additional time required to un-kludge them at some point or another. That may not happen now, but if you want the Hrothgar to survive into the next expansion or not depends on this. This future-proofing is a completely different task from hairstyles.

3) Either you’re going to honor your promises or you’re not. The “hairstyles” you selected were by and large inappropriate, implemented poorly, and belied every time you said Hrothgar were supposed to be bestial, or that you cared about clipping, or that you were going to do something about it.

But the reason there is the faint odor of and community reaction to bull crap here is that everything that’s been done here either seems like an attempt to not do work, a hope we’ve forgotten what you promised, a desperate attempt to buy time, or a contradiction in terms.

And it doesn’t have to be. Just say you knew what you did sucked and you need more time to put out a quality product AND MOST IMPORTANTLY HERE’S WHO IS WORKING ON IT AND HOW LONG THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE.

As a developer, you have, before touted and backed up your reputation of listening to your fans. As fans we have been patient with you before and will be again. No harm done.

But tell us you understand you screwed up. Not that you’re “torn,” not that you “need feedback.” This was bad. And you knew it. But you intend to make it right.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I think that’s what would help me the most.

[Pip_Chick]

I can’t speak for everyone, but I think that’s what would help me the most.

This. What I want from them is plain and simple transparency. I think there are more than enough resources out there to find out about 3D models, rigs and coding, for people to know and understand what goes into it. Just come out and talk to your players like they are adults, cause let's be honest, the people that follow the LL are in majority adults. Tell us the truth, apologise for the insult done (cause that laugh that accompanied the wigs was taken as an insult by a lot of people). And tell us exactly what you will do to fix the problem and give us a date. If a gaming company can put a hard date on a AAA, hyper-realistic game, then you can put one too on the changes that will be made for the Hrothgar heads.

[Denji]

This. What I want from them is plain and simple transparency. I think there are more than enough resources out there to find out about 3D models, rigs and coding, for people to know and understand what goes into it. Just come out and talk to your players like they are adults, cause let's be honest, the people that follow the LL are in majority adults. Tell us the truth, apologise for the insult done (cause that laugh that accompanied the wigs was taken as an insult by a lot of people). And tell us exactly what you will do to fix the problem and give us a date. If a gaming company can put a hard date on a AAA, hyper-realistic game, then you can put one too on the changes that will be made for the Hrothgar heads.

It would really be nice if we could be spoken to instead of just the rambles of some lalafell DPS giving us conflicting information.

[Kelev]

If a gaming company can put a hard date on a AAA, hyper-realistic game, then you can put one too on the changes that will be made for the Hrothgar heads.

I mean, you can also show us that you took some pride in your work as well. Here are some examples of things you could do:

- Show us the heads in engine, from the sides like you do for everything from dungeon exploration mode to fashion accessories
- Make your documentation clearly state that the aesthetician can do the work
- Ask for feedback before, not after the hairstyles hit production
- Not undermine what you said about Hrothgar being bestial by offering some bestial haircuts
- Not undermine what you said about clipping by giving us a haircut that clips with itself
- Acknowledge that the patch notes were so bad they said the 2B hair was available at any point when it wasn’t.
- Acknowledge you have heard that there’s not a lot of armor that’s designed with Hrothgar in mind.
- Acknowledge that you’ve left the Hrothgar out of seasonal events.
- Tell us if additional hairstyles are in the works at all
- Clarify that this was not, in fact, an April Fool’s Joke
- Offer some transparency into how the haircuts selected were selected
- Give us access to the racial haircuts we had on all faces like everyone else has
- Show us a little bit why this was hard for you, and offer some insight into the development process.
- Spend more than 60 seconds on something some people have been waiting for for more than three years
- Say that you’re going to offer an update for Hrothgar every so often
- When you ask us to submit feedback to the forums, give us access to some kind of community liaison such that every now and then the thread gets some feedback from you saying you read something we wrote and aren’t just voices howling into the void
- Understand that saying you’re “torn” about trying to decide whether to put out 6 earless designs or to take more time putting out fewer designs more slowly but not have them involve amputation doesn’t sound empathetic or honest
- Expressing some kind of acknowledgment what you did missed the mark, and that some kind of lesson was learned
- Acknowledge that poor support on the developers’ part may have reduced Hrothgar population numbers

Just spitballing here. I know that I was told “don’t bitch, more flies with honey, blah blah blah,” but there will always be something in the game that’s more pressing, or that affects more people. There will always be something going on in the world that makes running a business harder.

None of that obviates that I would not be disappointed if I had not expected more from you. None of that removes that your promises should have been more important than animating sugar cubes. None of that shows me that you, or Tony “Zhexos” Caraway, or anyone else is listening.

So you want me to use the forums for feedback?

Here’s your feedback.

Again.

[Velnora]

This. What I want from them is plain and simple transparency. I think there are more than enough resources out there to find out about 3D models, rigs and coding, for people to know and understand what goes into it. Just come out and talk to your players like they are adults, cause let's be honest, the people that follow the LL are in majority adults. Tell us the truth, apologise for the insult done (cause that laugh that accompanied the wigs was taken as an insult by a lot of people). And tell us exactly what you will do to fix the problem and give us a date. If a gaming company can put a hard date on a AAA, hyper-realistic game, then you can put one too on the changes that will be made for the Hrothgar heads.

This isn't exclusively an issue with the Hrothgar hair. It's a result of years of people defending every single thing SE does, good or bad, and trying to silence any criticism of the game. We have reached the point of mundane patch cycles, with excuses for "why" they can't do something. But, when you have an army of people that fervently defend you, it must not come as a surprise when they think everyone must be ok with how things are going.

[Allegor]

This isn't exclusively an issue with the Hrothgar hair. It's a result of years of people defending every single thing SE does, good or bad, and trying to silence any criticism of the game. We have reached the point of mundane patch cycles, with excuses for "why" they can't do something. But, when you have an army of people that fervently defend you, it must not come as a surprise when they think everyone must be ok with how things are going.

Most people "complaining" are Hrothgar players or Hrothgar supporters, most people saying "it's fine" are potatoes or catgirls, with the occasional bunny boy ...I wonder who they'd listen to