6.2 Hrothgar Update

[Midareyukki]

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.

What Kazhar said. Everything about your character on the server is just text saying "ON\OFF" and "option 1, 2". It's not rendered in the server at all, your PC does all the work. It's what we call "client-side", and it's why mods only work on the computer of the person using them and not on the people affected.

[Denji]

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)

oh my god why do you guys always believe server side matters when it comes to graphics.

it's the most infuriating parts of these threads. there is nothing and i mean NOTHING server-side when it comes to displaying ANYTHING. the servers likely don't even have a graphical user interface. it'd be such a waste of resources if they did.

everything you see in-game is what your computer is told to display by the server. that's it. it says "hey, this person is a white and grey furred hrothgar wearing the radiant's fending set" and your PC/the engine on your machine is what actually shows the graphics. it would be an utterly ABSURD waste of resources to send literal graphical information over the internet. in fact in terms of data sent/received, FFXIV is extremely light. i was playing on mobile data and it used approximately 50-60MB of data over the course of 3-4 hours. that's all.

i'm sorry to be blunt but every 3-4 pages of threads like this there's someone who comes flying in saying UM AHCKSHULLY THE SERVER CAN'T HANDLE IT and it's just so entirely clear they've never actually looked into it or checked it for themselves and are just talking out their ass.

[Ayuhra]

oh my god why do you guys always believe server side matters when it comes to graphics.

it's the most infuriating parts of these threads. there is nothing and i mean NOTHING server-side when it comes to displaying ANYTHING. the servers likely don't even have a graphical user interface. it'd be such a waste of resources if they did.

everything you see in-game is what your computer is told to display by the server. that's it. it says "hey, this person is a white and grey furred hrothgar wearing the radiant's fending set" and your PC/the engine on your machine is what actually shows the graphics. it would be an utterly ABSURD waste of resources to send literal graphical information over the internet. in fact in terms of data sent/received, FFXIV is extremely light. i was playing on mobile data and it used approximately 50-60MB of data over the course of 3-4 hours. that's all.

i'm sorry to be blunt but every 3-4 pages of threads like this there's someone who comes flying in saying UM AHCKSHULLY THE SERVER CAN'T HANDLE IT and it's just so entirely clear they've never actually looked into it or checked it for themselves and are just talking out their ass.

I said limited by the engine, not the server (A better way to say that would be anything live on the server has to be engine compatible... but I didn't say that). Something about the way the game allocates data is very weird.

But this seems to be an excuse for everything: Inventory, character customization, glamour systems... It took forever for them to let us queue with our chocobos out for some reason...

The whole thing needs a fix if we're really going to be in this for the long haul. Ten more years of these limitations will be very rough.

[Denji]

I said limited by the engine, not the server (A better way to say that would be anything live on the server has to be engine compatible). Something about the way the engine allocates data is very weird.

But this seems to be an excuse for everything: Inventory, character customization, glamour systems... It took forever for them to let us queue with our chocobos out for some reason...

The whole thing needs a fix if we're really going to be in this for the long haul. Ten more years of these limitations will be very rough.

you absolutely did not say that. stop trying to save face.

also, there is no limitation. otherwise modders wouldn't be able to do it. we -know the reason-. the heads simply weren't designed correctly for some of face choices and it would've required more than a day's work to fix it to work properly so that the ears would appear without clipping through some of the hairstyles.

modders can get them in - they got them in before the game even came back up. there are no resource constrains caused by them. in fact, viera ears take so many more resources than hrothgars entire body/model because hrothgars are just roes with a slouch.

[Ayuhra]

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

That is what I said, literally.

But it's a moot point. Whether there are limitations on devs that are not there on modders or not I agree that Hrothgar need hats and hairstyles.

[Karowolus]

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

[Karowolus]

Snipped like my ears

The thing is. It's just incorrect. Mods are Client-Side. Yes. As is your graphics settings... Your character model. All of the models, textures, meshes, bumpmaps. G-shade shaders. Your graphics card's potential. Everything is clientside. Because in that FFXIV game file is a bunch of Indices with all of this information. This is how datamining works. And thanks to that. We know how modding and such works. If people had never datamined xiv as much as they did, we would have likely never had mods because we wouldn't have figured out how it all works. Etc. Every time you spawn in, the server tells the game 'Display Au Ra with Hair X, Face Y, Other Attributes A through G and then Gearpieces H through R.' Your game client and your graphics card are what render that information from bits to visual models.

This is something that can be fixed with some slight METADATA changes (Binary Yes/No coding) and some model tweaks. This is something that, as stated in quite a few forum threads now. Has been done by one person in a single stream. A single person. Not even using new models, just simply adjusting the models we already have in game. With that they were able to enable all hats for viera and hrothgar. Yes there's clipping. But... Why should we care? I'd be happy to just be able to wear a top hat or a fedora to look snazzy as all hell. But I can't. Because SE rushed Hrothgar to begin with and have showed almost no inclination of wanting to actually make a beneficial change for a race that has been begging for it for years. Instead... I guess more earsocks for lalafell.

This is nothing to do with the engine. This is nothing to do with data allocation. This is something which. Every copy of the game has, even PS4 and PS5 copies. They all have this root data. All that these modifications do is change this root data, whether it be 'SHOWMIQOTEEARS' being on or off, which. As the name says determines if ANY ears just clip through. Hell, as stated in another post, the reason why the new hrothgar hairstyles hide the ears is because they're treated like headwear and have the 'SHOWMIQOTEEARS' metadata string as OFF.

The only thing that the server struggles to do for some reason is placing Glamour dressers in player housing. It apparently crashed an entire dev server or something like that.

[Ayuhra]

Yes, I know all of that. I do remain skeptical that there are not challenges on SE's side we don't know about, given how often they bemoan technical issues.

I am a game designer and know how this stuff works, but not their specific challenges so I am still talking blindly. As a designer I wouldn't want people to think me not doing something was due to, say, laziness. I mean maybe it isn't a technical limitation but a pipeline one, getting someone to do the work, getting it into QA etc. They certainly talk like this is a non-trivial issue.

As for how modding works, I do not mod. Never have. So if I have implied anything about what mods do I am talking out my other end, I am not in that community.

Again though, and I want to make this VERY clear: I am saying all of this to indicate possible explanations for the delay and NOT as an excuse. It is long past time for Hrothgar and Viera to get their hats and hairstyles.

[Kelev]

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.

No. No, no, no. I am not settling. This is crap. The way this has gone down is crap. I’m not settling for crap.

I do not want ears on my crappy Whitney Houston haircut. I do not want my ears attached to my skull. I do not want to wait three more years for garbage that only shows me how haphazardly Hrothgar were crammed into the game, built off a jacked-up Roe model. The original spec for Hrothgar involved things like highlights in our tails and stuff. We’re in beta, prioritize a damned overhaul.

The Snow haircut doesn’t look “sort of OK” to me. It looks like it’s one bloodstain away from me taking a shot to the head hard enough basic arithmetic or remembering where my car keys are is going to seem like ESP.

And, frankly, as things are right now they *can’t fix it, because the form factors of the skulls vary wildly. Also, I don’t have the Snow haircut because “We’re introducing 6 haircuts after 3 years, oh by the way one costs $10” because “$10 haircut” be should enough to give you a PTSD flashback.

This isn’t that Hrothgar are hated - we got our own zone of the game. And you can say “representation.” and I’ll agree - but Square didn’t owe us representation. They don’t owe us plot involvement. Or Hrothgar housing NPCs. “Not doing work” doesn’t mean hatred. It means it’s hard and they put us off. Again. Speaking of, Queen damned Gunnhildr is a Femroe? The head of the Hrothgar is a Roegadyn? What the hell’d you do, shave her? Is she on chemotherapy? Can I start a Kickstarter to put her on Hrogaine or something?

They do, however, owe me a damned haircut. Not only because they promised one, then forgot about it until the Zella video, but because every other race gets to pick ears and hair, etc. Viera had 68 skull/hair/ear combos at launch.

Hrothgar had 8.

This isn’t “hatred.” It’s neglect.

-Kelly

[ReynTime]

Hrothgar can wear glasses and circlets by the magic of telepathy I don't think "fictional ear discomfort" should matter. I see miqote wearing the calfskin rider cap all the damn time theres no reason hrothgar would be less comfortable in a hat when their ears are smaller, especially not in some of the bigger hat like the flat cap or the lv.60 ast witch hat.

Those aren't even remotely comparable. One just "looks" goofy and the other looks flat out anatomically uncomfortable and impeding.
And I mentioned I don't think Miqo'te should be having their ears flattened either.

I thought the point of these countless Hrothgar complaints was to have SE treat the race with more respect? So what, you guys would rather they keep half-assing gear design for races with animal ears by IGNORING the ears completely?

Have fun then chaps. Sometimes I forget this is the community that saw the ARR dungeons join the fray of faceroll hallway sims and then clapped.