Hairstyle Concerns for The New Races

[Avidria]

Alright, so here's the full run down as of now (thank GOD they decided to ask about this. Tilted tf outta me that at the tour everyone asked basically the same job stuff)

"Q: Can we chose existing hair styles for Viera or Hrothgar?


Yoshida: We developed Hrothgar to be a “human beast”, so face patterns and hair styles are linked. I told the staff “You don’t need to implement common hair styles” and thats why we have our current design of the Hrothgar. We will be introducing more hair styles for Hrothgar, but those will be to strengthen the image or the roll playing of a “beast” so those will be only for Hrothgar. Please look at it as a race that is different from the existing ones from the base concept.

Q: That means there will be new face patterns as well…?

Yoshida: “We probably have to do that” so we are prepared, but I told our team that we will release 5.0 first so that will come at some time in the future *laugh*


Q: What about the Viera, will they have access to other hair styles?

Yoshida: Viera have a lot of unique hair styles as well. There will be some others you can use and some that you can’t. There will be more available, but it won’t be all. "


So Hrothgar gonna get more Hrothgar hair styles/ faces post release (still not known if you need a potion or if we can change faces with the aesthetician. He does say that they're a race different from the others from the base level so maybe they're given that freedom as a result of this set up.)

Viera will get some common hairs but not all.

Hmmm... I hope the hairstyle from HoH makes it onto the "some" list somehow, because I spent ages in there to get that. :c

[Mylionare]

I think the hrothgar are unique enough design wise to stand out among other characters. I am not bothered by the hair being tied to faces but understand the frustrations of those that are. I am okay with how they have been implemented as they are more unique than most of the current races to me. I am however looking forward to any additions to them as the expansion proceeds and hope that they come without burdening the dev team too much.

[Cidel]

While it is pretty reassuring to hear that there will be forthcoming "special" hair styles just for Hrothgar, I still have some lingering doubts about its implementation. Will they all be usable by every face type? Or will certain new hairstyles end up being locked to corresponding faces, just like those in the benchmark/character creator? How many options does visiting the Aesthetician have (I suppose this will be answered in a couple weeks)?

What is the interviewer referring to with "face patterns" anyway? Depending on Yoshida's interpretation, that could just mean tattoos and/or stripes rather than additional face types.

I honestly have more questions now than I did before.

Also, I take his whole comment about new "face patterns" with a grain of salt as well. Summoners still haven't seen any "new" actual egis and that was brought up since like Heavensward. So you'll have to excuse me for my pessimism at the idea of them giving Hrothgar more face options in any timely manner when they've previously gone on record about being very resistant on giving any of the other races new face options not so long ago.

[reivaxe]

YoshiP didn't need to tell us Hrothgar would be getting new hairstyles, if people wern't getting excited and jumping the gun, they could have considered that new Hairstyles would be added later. So this is just common sense to think that more options would be added.
People really need to calm down over this subject.

Seemed like common sense to ME that there would be more to this but it's always good to have things cleared up when it's different from before.

Like, I still have questions. Many in fact. But time will tell and I'm hoping he speaks about this in the LL.

[YatoShishi]

Bit bumped that we cant use the common hairstyles (speaking for viera) - only a few. But I understand the reason for it, I hope the ones that were a pain to get can still be used in the future x)

[Penthea]

I'm not too bent out of shape over this. I mean yeah it sucks a little bit but I'm so excited for what I will be getting that i can patiently wait for my fave hairstyle to be supported. I think thats kind of a trend on threads lately people are more concerned about not getting something than being excited or thankful over what they are getting.

First of all there is no guarantee your favourite hairstyle will be supported.

Secondly I don't think it's fair to imply players complaining about the character creation restrictions on the new races are being ungrateful. Au ra isn't a legacy race and it has access to the same amount of hairstyles as them, and hair is chosen in the same manner. So of course players expected the same to happen to hrothgar and viera. Being annoyed about this isn't being ungrateful, it's being disappointed that the new races aren't living up to the standards of the current ones.

The most puzzling thing is why the hrothgar hair selection method got such different treatment, while for viera the method in choosing hair is identical to current races. Most of the viera hairstyles are not entirely unique. You get two versions of most of them, one with bangs one without etc. Hrothgar has a similar thing going on but the difference is they're locked to faces. Why? What is there to be achieved by this? What is the gain with creating a restriction here? The utter lack of explanation over this adds to the disappointment and confusion.

I dont know is this is an American only issue but it definitely is a trend. though I suppose my mind works differently because of all the things I never had and had to work towards.

Why do people here so often assume that english speaking = american? I'm european and the language my country primarily uses is english. My fc is full of people from all over Europe and some from the Middle East. All but one are fluent in english. I have also encountered australian players in the forums. More than one part of the world speaks english proficiently. Furthermore SE lets players play on whatever regional data centre they want, so you can only guess where a player is from or located judging from their server.

I have discussed the issues this thread highlights with many members of my fc and they're of the same mind as I am - the hrothgar restrictions are both disappointing and make little sense. Chances are if my non-american fc feels this way, many other non-american players also do.

[Anarnee]

Yeah, I am very much against them limiting Hrothgar like this. A very important key part of customization is hair, and to lock the hair to the face like they did with Au Ra horns is a BAD idea. People have complained about the Au ra horns for years so why would they do that to the hair???

[Seraphor]

I'm not one to change my hair very often if at all, so hair being tied to face doesn't really bother me that much... so long as there are enough options for each face type.

[Crushnight]

YoshiP didn't need to tell us Hrothgar would be getting new hairstyles, if people wern't getting excited and jumping the gun, they could have considered that new Hairstyles would be added later. So this is just common sense to think that more options would be added.
People really need to calm down over this subject.

But that is a problem this locking of hair is a turnoff for players. People may rarely if ever change hairstyles but if they don't like any of the current ones on Hrothgar but they do like existing hairstyles in the game then that is one less potential fantasia for SE and one less Hrothgar player and that is bad for gauging return investment from implementing them. People are going to compare(they already are and did so before they were even announced) male hrothgar and female viera numbers and how they measure up to existing races, some people will even compare these stats with the hypothetical male viera and female hrothgar and this is just adding more fuel to fires about doing just 1 race.

Hrothgar deserved better than how things have been going for them and more and more limitations added onto them really is saddening, i feel sorry for any artist winner of the cloud hair who may have wanted to play Hrothgar, to the pvpers who like those hairstyles, the HoH/PotD, Alma/Ramza people, lightning/snow, Eureka, any other currently integrated hairstyle. Hairstyles are a good way to express yourself since its unlikely to come across a complete clone of yourself despite the limited faces on all races but with Hrothgar that is more likely to happen.

[Reinha]

New race specific hairstyles, well that is exciting. I do hope there will not be any favoritism with Hrothgar faces receiving the styles. To keep things fair either give one new style to each face at the same time, or attach the new hairstyles to new faces.

Not knowing the options we get at the barber guy is worrisome.