VIERA AND HROTHGAR COMPLAINT MEGATHREAD

[XiRon]

I really absolutely never want to hear "oh hrothgar players are so ungrateful" again because a) this is subscription based game not a soup kitchen the devs arent making the game out of the kindness and warm smiles of their heart and b) its bad enough to, 3 damn years later, have 98% of a gearslot not work at all but also if you deign to use any of the new hair we got 6.1 use lose earrings, that TWO gear slots you dont get to use and yes you cant use hats with new hair options despite being badly photoshopped from hyur skulls.
I could totally see them giving female hrothgar digitigrade feet and stripping them of a gearslot because "it's so hard making gear fit a model that isnt a 4'2" scrawny little uguu anime gurl please understand".
I'll never get over this games insane yoship cult defending losing ears and telling players who waited the entire expansion a race was introduced in- and got jack diddly except a storyline that was a decidely meanspirited hrothgar snuff film and a bug fix so hrothgar wouldnt run on the camel mount- to be "grateful". And we still can't even use our races own hairs.

[Ardeth]

I'll keep banging on about this, but releasing them unfished it the most Blizzard thing SquareEnix could've done. What a joke. You know Female Hrothgar are going to come out and they will still be borked.

[XiRon]

I'll keep banging on about this, but releasing them unfished it the most Blizzard thing SquareEnix could've done. What a joke. You know Female Hrothgar are going to come out and they will still be borked.

The best possible news for 7.0 will be hrothgar and viera finally get to use every headpiece but a new graphical update 6ish years after hrothgar and viera were released cant possibly do it, we know better than to hope.

[Ardeth]

The best possible news for 7.0 will be hrothgar and viera finally get to use every headpiece but a new graphical update 6ish years after hrothgar and viera were released cant possibly do it, we know better than to hope.

You know they won't. The only thing we got lately that I noticed is as a Hrothgar you can change your hair without paying $10, but you only get what like 4 or 5 choices? It's a joke. I know people have said that the community just wanted them out and they didn't care they were half finished, but the whole thing is just gross. Like I said it's the most Blizzard thing they could've possible done outside of making them a separate micro transaction to unlock.

[Puksi]

To be fair, Blizzard was way, way more transparent with the state of the Allied Races before launch of BfA, and they had the KTs/Zandalari ironed out with the first patch iirc. We knew before launch Mechagnomes weren't ever going to display arm and leg gear.

In Hrothgar and Viera, Square's done the worst of ActiBlizz and then some. The Fantasia cash grab singling out Hroth players who wanted haircuts was just a scam.

You know what would've prevented all this? Not rushing the models and welding the ears to the heads in the hat slot, and the hair to the faces in the case of Hroths.

[ronibosch]

To be fair, Blizzard was way, way more transparent with the state of the Allied Races before launch of BfA, and they had the KTs/Zandalari ironed out with the first patch iirc. We knew before launch Mechagnomes weren't ever going to display arm and leg gear.

In Hrothgar and Viera, Square's done the worst of ActiBlizz and then some. The Fantasia cash grab singling out Hroth players who wanted haircuts was just a scam.

You know what would've prevented all this? Not rushing the models and welding the ears to the heads in the hat slot, and the hair to the faces in the case of Hroths.

It's really a spit in the face of Hroth players, the way SE has been treating them. Hroth players are paying the same sub as the rest of us; they deserve better.

[Avidria]

To be fair, Blizzard was way, way more transparent with the state of the Allied Races before launch of BfA, and they had the KTs/Zandalari ironed out with the first patch iirc. We knew before launch Mechagnomes weren't ever going to display arm and leg gear.

In Hrothgar and Viera, Square's done the worst of ActiBlizz and then some. The Fantasia cash grab singling out Hroth players who wanted haircuts was just a scam.

You know what would've prevented all this? Not rushing the models and welding the ears to the heads in the hat slot, and the hair to the faces in the case of Hroths.

Y'know it's funny, I've been thinking a lot about why this bothers me so much in FFXIV but the limits WoW has never bothered me nearly as much. And I think it's twofold really.
One, in WoW I played a ton of alts. I maxed multiples of my favorite class, I raided (very casually) on more than one character, I goofed off with different playstyles on different alts. So I could play every race in the game whenever I wanted at no additional cost to me. Whereas in FF... I got one character. I've already spent a stupid amount of money on fantasias because sticking with one look for too long gets boring for me. And when a race is more limited than literally every other race, with absolutely nothing to make up the difference in any way... It's harder to justify spending actual real money to change to that race. Even if it's my favorite by a very large margin otherwise.

The second is that glamour and hairstyles just generally feel like a bigger deal in FF than wow? Like wow's style is more goofy and cartoonish, but it also has a huge variety of styles, and lacks the inventory space limitations FF has for glamour. So yeah, mechagnomes can't wear arm and leg gear, and the races that don't have human feet get their boots chopped in half, but it was always like that for all of those races, always expected, and they otherwise have options on par with the races that don't have those limitations. It's part of the aesthetic really.

Whereas the only special thing about Hrothgar is their head shape (which I liken to Worgen, who could still wear hats no matter how ungodly stupid it looked) and the only special about Viera is.... they have rabbit ears instead of cat ears. Like, those limits were part of the design decisions behind them. They chose in advance to just not bother giving them more options, apparently assuming everyone would be chill with that (I vaguely remember a statement somewhere that they didn't think it would be that important? But can't remember where so meh). And just. The disparity in options is massive. Viera are barely unique at all from a player perspective. I'd argue they aren't when we have cat and lizard people already. Which just makes it even more frustrating.

[RobynDaBank]

Honestly not fair. Allied Races in WoW have a relatively long process to obtain - was a longer process before BfA? - and were highly copy-paste. People were not happy with their state, there were long arguments over Void Elves for instance, with BElf players actively looking to put them down so they couldn't tread on their toes. Lightforged Draenei were literally just Draenei but a few golden marking choices. Nightborne looked constipated. Devs promised more customizations in 9.0 but didn't do much for Allied Races aside from VElf, mostly because Alliance players had always wanted to play something that looked BElf since Burning Crusade. In short both Horde and Alliance wanted to play the coveted High Elves (which were initially Alliance in lore) but only Horde got to, and wanted to keep it that way even.

Comparing Viera and Hrothgar to Allied Races is kinda unfair overall. They are unabashedly copy-paste, and yes the devs have been "transparent" about it. Dracthyr, Vulpera, Pandaren and Worgen have honestly catered to a very... specific taste, with a "compromise" of a humanoid form which is also copy-paste in some way. Worgen human form is just human. Dracthyr humanoid form is Blood Elves but oddly elongated. They monkey's-paw all the time.

[XiRon]

Honestly not fair. Allied Races in WoW have a relatively long process to obtain - was a longer process before BfA? - and were highly copy-paste. People were not happy with their state, there were long arguments over Void Elves for instance, with BElf players actively looking to put them down so they couldn't tread on their toes. Lightforged Draenei were literally just Draenei but a few golden marking choices. Nightborne looked constipated. Devs promised more customizations in 9.0 but didn't do much for Allied Races aside from VElf, mostly because Alliance players had always wanted to play something that looked BElf since Burning Crusade. In short both Horde and Alliance wanted to play the coveted High Elves (which were initially Alliance in lore) but only Horde got to, and wanted to keep it that way even.

Comparing Viera and Hrothgar to Allied Races is kinda unfair overall. They are unabashedly copy-paste, and yes the devs have been "transparent" about it. Dracthyr, Vulpera, Pandaren and Worgen have honestly catered to a very... specific taste, with a "compromise" of a humanoid form which is also copy-paste in some way. Worgen human form is just human. Dracthyr humanoid form is Blood Elves but oddly elongated. They monkey's-paw all the time.

Yes but you see everything about a Vulpera or a Worg or Panda is decidely different than...human with silly ears no.86.
Hrothgar and Viera have terrible terrible terrible restrictions not because of unique models (the devs can sure find time to alter cutscenes and resize every single piece of gear for lalafell) but because...head shape and a supreme lack of consideration.
"Its hard" was our explanation for the shitheap hrothgar got in 6.1 which resulted in lost ears except the dev team made it decidely harder. Thanks to modders we know hrothgar heads have the ears attached to their skull. The new hairstyles however have NEW skull models that do not have ears. They made entirely new skulls just to screw over hrothgar again.
So "its hard" or "unique heads" are the worst excuses we've ever seen because they can clearly alt these things whenever they want and they decide instead to make things objectively worse. For no reason. They couldve cut the hair to have earholes for hrothgar (like they did with viera!) but no, we lose anatomy because...god, I couldnt tell you why.

[XiRon]

Y'know it's funny, I've been thinking a lot about why this bothers me so much in FFXIV but the limits WoW has never bothered me nearly as much. And I think it's twofold really.
One, in WoW I played a ton of alts. I maxed multiples of my favorite class, I raided (very casually) on more than one character, I goofed off with different playstyles on different alts. So I could play every race in the game whenever I wanted at no additional cost to me. Whereas in FF... I got one character. I've already spent a stupid amount of money on fantasias because sticking with one look for too long gets boring for me. And when a race is more limited than literally every other race, with absolutely nothing to make up the difference in any way... It's harder to justify spending actual real money to change to that race. Even if it's my favorite by a very large margin otherwise.

The second is that glamour and hairstyles just generally feel like a bigger deal in FF than wow? Like wow's style is more goofy and cartoonish, but it also has a huge variety of styles, and lacks the inventory space limitations FF has for glamour. So yeah, mechagnomes can't wear arm and leg gear, and the races that don't have human feet get their boots chopped in half, but it was always like that for all of those races, always expected, and they otherwise have options on par with the races that don't have those limitations. It's part of the aesthetic really.

Whereas the only special thing about Hrothgar is their head shape (which I liken to Worgen, who could still wear hats no matter how ungodly stupid it looked) and the only special about Viera is.... they have rabbit ears instead of cat ears. Like, those limits were part of the design decisions behind them. They chose in advance to just not bother giving them more options, apparently assuming everyone would be chill with that (I vaguely remember a statement somewhere that they didn't think it would be that important? But can't remember where so meh). And just. The disparity in options is massive. Viera are barely unique at all from a player perspective. I'd argue they aren't when we have cat and lizard people already. Which just makes it even more frustrating.

You really would think races developed ten years after 14 became a giga success that saved Square Enix from bankruptcy after the disaster that was 1.0 would be BETTER than said races that began in 1.0. They have the means and make untold profits from subs and online shop purchases. But no. Races developed ten years later are actively made worse than everything else. When au ra popped out in heavensward they didnt have to buy fantasia to alter their hair and headpieces made in hw were equippable by them, regardless of how stupid horns stabbing thru metal or cloth might look.
But no consideration was/HAS been made for races thatve now been in the game for 3 years