6.2 Hrothgar Update

[Midareyukki]

"mmm guys expending effort might make this take another eternity :/"

This is what I was getting to with my criticisms toward the other two stooges a while back.

They had years to prepare, gather feedback and information and design hairstyles that fit Hrothgar. They did not.
They wrote it on their calendars that they had to give something to Hrothgars by 6.1. A thing that some people even pointed out got delayed (I have no sources though, would appreciate if people could link me to that).
They had ample time, and what they gave us on April 1st of 2022, April Fool's day, was easily the most cringeworthy low-effort meme s**tpost things I've ever seen. So poor, in fact, the dev team were giggling all throughout and the rest of the community agreed was not acceptable.
A reaction they weren't expecting, apparently. Despite the majority of the community finding it awful. Are you really telling me that in an entire office, not a single one thought it looked in bad taste? When millions of fans voiced their displeasure?
And that to do them, they needed to stretch them beyond belief and causing Peanut-Shaped Skulls and a complete removal of our ears.
So you mean to tell me a team that plans in advance, simply throws us bad copy-pasted content from another race with restrictions to make it easier? And that they can't afford to now prepare and act accordingly?

I made a feedback thread so they could understand why Hrothgar feel such outrage and why the community reacted poorly to their announcement. So that they can better orient and prepare accordingly. Not to randomly "acquiesce to our every demand", but to treat Hrothgars with respect and make quality content. One that won't garner such a horrible response. So they could reconsider, and make quality stuff in the future.

When they make furniture and hairstyles for other races without a lick of problems, doing the same for Hrothgars should not come with such a lazy response as "It will take a lot of time". It should take as much time as it has to. People clearly want it, far more than anyone asked for the Fellowship System, so get to it.

Time to really spare no expense.

[Vahlnir]

This is what I was getting to with my criticisms toward the other two stooges a while back.

They had years to prepare, gather feedback and information and design hairstyles that fit Hrothgar. They did not.
They wrote it on their calendars that they had to give something to Hrothgars by 6.1. A thing that some people even pointed out got delayed (I have no sources though, would appreciate if people could link me to that).
They had ample time, and what they gave us on April 1st of 2022, April Fool's day, was easily the most cringeworthy low-effort meme s**tpost things I've ever seen. So poor, in fact, the dev team were giggling all throughout and the rest of the community agreed was not acceptable.
A reaction they weren't expecting, apparently. Despite the majority of the community finding it awful. Are you really telling me that in an entire office, not a single one thought it looked in bad taste? When millions of fans voiced their displeasure?
And that to do them, they needed to stretch them beyond belief and causing Peanut-Shaped Skulls and a complete removal of our ears.
So you mean to tell me a team that plans in advance, simply throws us bad copy-pasted content from another race with restrictions to make it easier? And that they can't afford to now prepare and act accordingly?

I made a feedback thread so they could understand why Hrothgar feel such outrage and why the community reacted poorly to their announcement. So that they can better orient and prepare accordingly. Not to randomly "acquiesce to our every demand", but to treat Hrothgars with respect and make quality content. One that won't garner such a horrible response. So they could reconsider, and make quality stuff in the future.

When they make furniture and hairstyles for other races without a lick of problems, doing the same for Hrothgars should not come with such a lazy response as "It will take a lot of time". It should take as much time as it has to. People clearly want it, far more than anyone asked for the Fellowship System, so get to it.

Time to really spare no expense.

Very, very well said.

[reivaxe]

The logical way in which the Hrothgar race could have been implemented without the chaos that later ensued is the following:

- *1* base round head shape that can accommodate the various in-game hairstyles and 4 unique faces for that head shape
- No hunchback
- The highlander build which generally looks better in armor due to no stretching of textures
- More expressive eyes
- Eyebrows for more than just one face (and from what I understand those eyebrows were only added at some point during Endwalker)
- No genderlocks and releases at the same time as the female variant

The result of this would have been a far less controversial product that strikes a good balance between catering to beast-race enjoyers and the otherwise anime style loving FFXIV crowd. The drama that erupted over gender locks and stereotypical "male" vs "female" races would have also been avoided. However, instead of choosing the logically sound option, a wrong turn was chosen at every other juncture. For what reasons, no one can say, all I know is it resulted in widespread unhappiness, frustration, and anger on all sides..

This exactly. There were many better ways to go about making this race, and they fumbled the bag at every turn. Now they gotta lay in the watery poopy sheets they made when they shat the bed on this race. The only saving grace for me is the hope and assumption that they learned from this when it comes to the females.

That being said, I completely understand why they can't go back and fix the dudes like people want. It's like not getting off at the right exit or getting on the wrong express train ... can't really just rip a U-turn, gonna have to ride this one out, you're not getting that time back.

[Payadopa]

At this point I'd already be happy if they'd adopt the code from modders even if only I can see the headgear. That would at least be something.

[Kazhar]

At this point I'd already be happy if they'd adopt the code from modders even if only I can see the headgear. That would at least be something.

If they adopt the code from modders, everyone would be able to see it. Sharing the appearance with others has never been the issue. Everything is on the client and the only reason people can't see your mods is because they don't have it installed.

The reason they can't implement the code is because they have some limitations and clipping aversion they didn't really ever elaborate on.

[Lubu_Mykono]

They ain't fixing ur furry race, so stop complaining or go back to Vulperra.

[Midareyukki]

This exactly. There were many better ways to go about making this race, and they fumbled the bag at every turn. Now they gotta lay in the watery poopy sheets they made when they shat the bed on this race.

The only issue with that is that they had 3 years to realize they needed to do that. And they just dug themselves a deeper hole. They knew the race was in the proverbial crapper, and they just decided to ram it further down the drain. Because the impromptu ear surgery they gave us and the head squashing a) doesn't fix anything, b) actually makes the situation a lot worse because now you have awkward code in the way of a proper fix, and c) opens up a precedent for them to be lazy with these things. And if it can happen with us, how far will they then push for similar on the other races? Because yeah, it's easy to think "Oh, it's just Hrothgar now because they're the hardest to design for", but if we're not careful (and with how many people actually defend this mess), we'll see them cut corners on other races or other content.

It's why it's important to set your foot down.

The only saving grace for me is the hope and assumption that they learned from this when it comes to the females.

That's the thing, isn't it? :T

I hope they've finally seen what the Hrothgar playerbase and the rest of the community thinks about their methods. Not just for the males, but so that female Hrothgar doesn't get thrown into the drain before release.

But given how Male Viera were released, my hopes are in the pipe with the rest of the race.

If they adopt the code from modders, everyone would be able to see it. Sharing the appearance with others has never been the issue. Everything is on the client and the only reason people can't see your mods is because they don't have it installed.

The reason they can't implement the code is because they have some limitations and clipping aversion they didn't really ever elaborate on.

Something something quality control and their own set of rules, think of low-end PCs, something something. I honestly even think at least half of the 3rd party tools people use aren't heavy anyway, so they could take a few hints.
But they never will, because pride or something.

> clipping aversion

Endsinger's hair.

The final boss of the whole saga has hair locks clipping through themselves on her idle pose.

And that's not even getting into the VERY NOTICEABLE clipping in cutscenes.

Proper Hrothgar content? "Nah fam".
Animating sugar cubes and Miqo'te Ears? "THAT'S THE SH*T"

They ain't fixing ur furry race, so stop complaining or go back to Vulperra.

Hello WoWfugee, the WoW cesspit is over here, you got yourself lost. Stop gatekeeping.

Let it be known the community is easily the worst part of being a Hrothgar. And I blame Square Enix for every second of it.

[RyuDragnier]

They ain't fixing ur furry race, so stop complaining or go back to Vulperra.

Cool story bro.

[Ayuhra]

They can't just do what modders do because they are limited by the engine on everything server-side. Fixing things like this probably IS difficult for the people who need to make sure everything runs with the engine and is optimized. I don't know how the game's engine operates exactly but by all accounts it is Lovecraftian in its horrors.

That said...

It's past time the Hrothgar got some love. It's been years at this point. They need to figure things out.

This is an entire playable race that misses out on unlockable hairstyles which are fun rewards for most players to target and they miss out on most hats which is a shame since holidays often only reward head pieces. This is made worse by the fact that there is no account progression in the game. It's not like you can learn a hat appearance or a hairstyle on a Hrothgar and unlock it for alts. Hats and hairstyles are just meaningless unless you pay real money to race change out of Hrothgar.

It's really a shame since when Hrothgar were announced and SE mentioned they wouldn't have hats/hairstyles they said they would get more customization options to compensate but that didn't really happen. Viera are in a similar position but they have had more work done on them and hairstyles are added to them more easily (They still deserve hats though)

[Kazhar]

They can't just do what modders do because they are limited by the engine on everything server-side.

There's nothing server-side. Whether your ears are showing, or your hat is being hidden, your character data is the exact same. Which is the reason why mods are able to display incompatible Hrothgar/Viera hats even on other players.
Mods don't exist in a different reality than the game. They say they can't implement those not because of a technical impossibility in a vacuum but because they don't want to for various reasons.