VIERA AND HROTHGAR COMPLAINT MEGATHREAD

[Midareyukki]

I'd be careful with diminishing the work and skill of the people in the art team. That's like shouting at the guy who mixes the pizza dough for your pizza order being messed up. I don't want to defend sloppy work, but considering what else the art team can come up with, this smells a lot like horrible priorities given by the higher-ups. You only have so much time and effort to work with and if your boss' boss says you should spend this on parasol poses or new housing furniture, it doesn't matter how well you are able to model a character nor how much you would rather spend your time with this instead of the next potted plant. The priorities, the designs, what time is allowed to be invested in what.. this is nothing that an artist in a studio has any influence in. They can make suggestions and give feedback to their lead artist, the lead artist can forward those suggestions and maybe structure them/filter them and give an estimate on how much time it would take. But it is not up to any of them if a thing gets made. Same goes for community managers, programmers etc. btw. They are not the ones making decisions about stuff and just saying they all collectively are bad in their area of expertise is unfair and will not tackle the actual issue.

We understand that. Here's what I hope people are aware of so far:
- Every decision needs to go through Yoshida. He's the one that ultimately approves it all.
- Even if he does, there are people around him that push for certain directions. He isn't in charge of everything in the game.
- The 3D team in general has been reduced. We know that certain stuff stopped being implemented overall because the member who could do it left the team.
- It may be that what we have at the moment is all that the remaining ones can do. Maybe they are good at making monster models or area models, but when it comes to character customization, they're not used to what they have to work with.

However someone needs to be blamed so there's attention brought to it. Even if said "blame" is diffuse and spread out. What I mean by this is:
- Hairstyles don't fit the races.
- Players cannot wear headgear that would fit them under fears of "clipping".
- Hrothgar ears are attached to the head, unlike other races where the ears are a part of the hairstyle
- To make Hrothgar hairstyles work in Jandelaine, the dev team had to double each individual head rather than decoupling the hair from the head. Meaning that when you go into Jandelaine, you're not changing hairstyles. You're changing your head.
- To make hairstyles work for Hrothgar, they didn't adjust the hair itself but instead shrunk Hrothgar heads
- The file organization and the way parts go into each race is messy and inconsistent. Which makes the problem worse when you try to tweak something on the races.

1/2

[Midareyukki]

cont

So there are ultimately 3 people we can attribute blame for this:
- The people who made these races in the first place, whose laissez-faire attitude and shoddy\inconsistent work came to bite them in the end. But, naturally, they're constrained by their own know-how and the decisions of higher ups. It's why crunching doesn't work in the long run, and we know Yoshida counted their bathroom breaks to ridiculous levels. He said so himself.
- To Yoshida himself, who approved of this and possibly pushed for his team to work under those conditions. But he's constrained by how much he knows of how a department works. Meaning his faith in the 3D modelling team is based off of "Well, it works, doesn't it?" and not "Oh, the way you guys did it isn't the best and it's now causing tremendous problems". He's also constrained by higher-ups or peers.
- Said higher-ups and peers, who definitely don't know how the game works and is designed and just want the money.

I think Yoshida is at least aware that the races are not well done. Hence why he wants to rehaul and upscale the base races and get to Expansion Races later on. But the issue is that the longer this drags out, the worse it's going to be for his team to properly clean up. And even harsher will be the outlash the players of the races that are suffering the most, which are NOT the base races, because they'll be playing an inferior product even longer.

The "Main Character" issue is a whole 'nother monster. Viera portrayal has been lacklustre, but Hrothgar teeters on either "too cute for this world" or violent and disgraced. Or just plain traitorous. There's no worse display of this than Bozja overall, where characters are either Bajsaljen and Marsak, fed to monsters\Misija's mind-control and disfiguration, everything involving Dabog... or everything involving the original Blades of Gunnhildr.
But we're not the only ones. Roegadyn also suffer from this, with the only two sympathetic "secondary characters" being either dead (Moen) or disgraced and having to pursue another lifestyle (Gosetsu).

The only ones to have consistently positive protrayal and a good main role have been Elezen and Miqo'te. Even the "cheeky bastard" type Lalafell are redeemed by having predominantly good characters consistently show up.

But as I said, that's another can of worms. The real issue is who to blame for the customization. And unfortunately, we need to place blame on someone, otherwise nothing will ever get done.

[MRBJ1978]

Don't talk about them like that! They are doing their best! Be patient, it's such a hard job. Not that I haven't already posted here, a photo I found on twitter of a person who made this helmet work in vieras. Far from it, it's all a lie

And no, when they have two helmets that look identical and you can wear one but not the other, that is not something hard to do, I work in computer programming and it's basically the same code for the same helmet is all they had to do is stick it on there and change the color scheme so you have no idea what you're talking about and as far as that goes last I heard Yoshi p said they were going to spare no expense so where is all that going...

[MRBJ1978]

Just fantasia problem solved /s

No, I'm sorry, that is not a solution to the problem! If they weren't going to make it to where every race could be equal then they should have never added them in the first place especially when the two helmets look identical and you can wear one but you can't the other and all of you people who keep saying just Fantasia just Fantasia just Fantasia, you wouldn't be hollering that if they screwed up something on your favorite race...

[Midareyukki]

No, I'm sorry, that is not a solution to the problem! If they weren't going to make it to where every race could be equal then they should have never added them in the first place especially when the two helmets look identical and you can wear one but you can't the other and all of you people who keep saying just Fantasia just Fantasia just Fantasia, you wouldn't be hollering that if they screwed up something on your favorite race...

The /s means sarcasm. They likely know the whole fantasia nonsense solves nothing.

[Adamantini]

And no, when they have two helmets that look identical and you can wear one but not the other, that is not something hard to do, I work in computer programming and it's basically the same code for the same helmet is all they had to do is stick it on there and change the color scheme so you have no idea what you're talking about and as far as that goes last I heard Yoshi p said they were going to spare no expense so where is all that going...

Hi friend. Are you in need of something? A therapy? Did you see that I was being ironic with that emote at the end?

[SamSmoot]

Bowlegged Hrothgar idle stance. Why can't they just stand up straight with their legs together occasionally.

[Fairymore]

A few days ago I was content with only having Viera receive more haircuts but when I used a fantasia to play a Miqote my opinion changed. I am shocked at how different my character feels to play now that they can wear every helmet in the game. I dont want to spend too much time trying to explain how different my experience is now but I will say it has improved significantly. Though I have reservations about playing a miqote for the long term I can see myself playing it for a while if only for the ability to wear every headpiece in existence.

I am now asking that head pieces to be visible on Viera, even if they "hide" the ears.

[Midareyukki]

I am now asking that head pieces to be visible on Viera, even if they "hide" the ears.

Well, they've made it clear in 6.1 they are 100% capable and willing to hide a race's ears when providing stuff for them, so have at you!

[LyraMaru]

Be careful what you're asking for. Don't touch my ears
But you have a point, most helmets would just look fine with just clipping the ears through. The lack of helmets don't bother me really, I don't use them very often on Miqo. But I sure understand that others need them for their outfit.

The last patch with ported common hairstyles really made it. And that the Lyse hair included viera too made me hope. I wish they will put more styles for viera every major patch now. Hoping for form and function and early to rise. Gyr abanian plate pls!

Sorry hrothgar players, I think of you all too. But I don't get what SE is thinking with their ear solution. If they don't remodel this... who would want to use shared hairstyles if they have to lose their ears. Just wow.