Viera and Hrothgar Megathread

[LuluLavender]

After seeing the question answered, I do have some small hope they will eventually come to releasing the hairstyles for viera. Before I address the rest of my thoughts, I want to C&P the translation of what he said from the discord that pushes translations out to discord servers.

"First off, the reason why Viera and Hrothgar can't wear hats right now is the following. We have very standardized specifications when it comes to head gear and the unique design with the long ears on Viera doesn't always meet these specifications. If we allowed every head gear piece, it would lead to clipping or other errors. The unique design of Viera and Hrothgar just prevents us from allowing these pieces, if we want to follow our specifications. Nevertheless, we are aware of player feedback and we are definitely not the kind of dev team that ignores their players feedback. There were a few things we said would be immpossible to do, but we worked hard on it and made it possible in the end. We have regular meetings, I was in one just yesterday and we're planning on having another one this upcoming week, where we discuss how to lower development costs or which options we have to add more hairstyles. The players can be assured that we are aware and are thinking about this, but I am asking for a bit more patience and that you wait a little longer. I hope to have some good news soon."

So to me, this confirms that they are aware we are upset, that this does need addressing. But it looks as though like I said, a large part of the problem is that they don't have the resources to focus on sorting this out. So this is absolutely something that will get worse with releasing male viera and hrothgar. It does irritate me that the people who have been the loudest are the ones who will get what they want, even though they too will end up feeling the same frustrations after 2 years of playing the race they want.

But in the hopes that someone might see this, I want to say, please please just let us choose how much clipping we're ok with in regards to hats. We're fine with ears sticking out when they might not make sense to. We're totally ok with picking our hairstyles to suit a particular hat, back when I played other races, I had to do that anyway. Viera heads are really not shaped so differently. So please, stop blocking hats for it. You don't need to put anymore resources in to makign them fit "right". To back myself up, I'm going to post a picture of the healer headband that just came out in the newest Bozja stuff. https://imgur.com/7Fps7gZ

This hat clips pretty badly with the hairstyle I was using. Had I wanted to wear it, I would have just switched styles. Players make this choice on a regular bases, why can't we? Why do SE find other undesirable visual aspects such as pixelated textures completely fine, but clipping is not? It's completely baffling.

[LuluLavender]

Also, I wanted to point out the wonkiness of the translation for this line: "We have regular meetings, I was in one just yesterday and we're planning on having another one this upcoming week, where we discuss how to lower development costs or which options we have to add more hairstyles."

The way I have read this is that they have regular meetings discussing how to cut development costs and that can include what they can do about hairstyles, but I wouldn't read it as having weekly meetings about hairstyles. I would love a Japanese speaker's perspective on this.

[Yencat]

Also, I wanted to point out the wonkiness of the translation for this line: "We have regular meetings, I was in one just yesterday and we're planning on having another one this upcoming week, where we discuss how to lower development costs or which options we have to add more hairstyles."

The way I have read this is that they have regular meetings discussing how to cut development costs and that can include what they can do about hairstyles, but I wouldn't read it as having weekly meetings about hairstyles. I would love a Japanese speaker's perspective on this.

Not Japanese or German but that makes a lot more sense. Weekly meetings to discuss various things, hairstyles and headgear being among them, and he happened to have one such meeting yesterday and will again next week.

Weekly meetings about just hats and hairstyles seems overboard and unlikely lol

[Roda]

Thank you for sharing. What I don't get is that they mention Viera ears as one of the reasons for not adding hats, but I'm a bit puzzled as to why Hrothgar can't wear them. I understand their snout/muzzle can get in the way for some full helms, but for everyday items like a traditional mage hat or the calfskin cap?

It's also oddly inconsistent, because we can wear the Bozjan Hood of Fending, but not hoods that share a similar design like the Rain Hood.

It's probably because viera/hrothgar don't have "hat hairs" made for them. (a secondary hair model that is slightly less puffy to not clip with a hat)

[BiddyBatnana]

As I said in an other thread :
No new hairstyles nor hat compatibility for Vieira/Hrothgar as I expected. These races are really a waste if they don’t plan on making them fully customisable as the other ones. Adding male Viera/female Hrothgar won’t help.
As for clipping the game has already plenty of clipping/alpha/transparency/seethrough issues.
I think people can choose on their own if want to deal with it or not by hiding the hat/headgear with the toggle button.

[Penthea]

Why do SE find other undesirable visual aspects such as pixelated textures completely fine, but clipping is not? It's completely baffling.

When you create a low res texture that's a decision, not an accident. Clipping is not intentional. It's when two or more elements not designed to work together end up trying to occupy the same space instead of having collision. As to which is more irritating depends on the situation and the person. It appears that SE are far less fond of clipping than low res textures.

Low res textures aren't nice but they're generally only noticeable from up close whereas clipping can often be easily noticed even from far away. From this my guess is that SE feel the potential horrific clipping from viera ears would damage the image of the game so they have opted to not permit most hats to be shown until, hopefully, a later date.

Low res textures are easier to handle from a design point of view because you can be strategic with where you place them. Clipping in the case of player characters is very dependent on the players' choices in how they choose to look which isn't easy to control without placing restrictions on what they can do such as not permitting certain hat models to be shown on certain races.

I'm not saying I agree with SE's decision to make most hat models invisible on the ShB races, I'm just trying to look at it from a designer's point of view.

Yes all of this would have been avoided had the new races' head issues been completely sorted out before they were released, but it's clear it would have meant that we would have gotten those races much later than 5.0. SE made the choice to release mostly finished races earlier than finished races later. I suppose they made that choice hugely because of the story they wanted to tell in ShB. Now that we are very late in the expansion we know that many major characters and plot points use the existence of viera and hrogthar to tell those stories.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut none of this justifies giving the pre-ShB races 10 hairstyles while viera and hrothgar got literally nothing. Not even racial hats. There's no reason why SE couldn't shave off a few of those hairstyles to give something to the new races. The blatant uneven distribution of attention given to in-game rewards for heads is very frustrating.

[Evergrey]

...But in the hopes that someone might see this, I want to say, please please just let us choose how much clipping we're ok with in regards to hats...

I understand what you're saying and all that.
But remember that this is SE's game and they have to feel like they are doing it right.
Imagine how games would turn out if the players got to decide what was OK or not.
Thousands of voices and opinions clashing but all of them are right in their own.

Just let SE take their time and work on their game.
It's not easy to keep up with everything when people keep requesting more and more when they probably already have a busy schedule to keep up with.

[Amnmaat]

In hindsight his answers in that interview are pretty good; if you notice how he says to "wait a little longer" and "hope to have news soon." He could have said "wait longer" or to "please wait"

I understand what you're saying and all that.
But remember that this is SE's game and they have to feel like they are doing it right.
Imagine how games would turn out if the players got to decide what was OK or not.
Thousands of voices and opinions clashing but all of them are right in their own.

Just let SE take their time and work on their game.
It's not easy to keep up with everything when people keep requesting more and more when they probably already have a busy schedule to keep up with.

Requests, suggestions, and feedback are good situations for them to be in. It's when these stop that you should be worried as a game dev. At that point you become out of touch with your customer-base which then results in both parties being disinterested in the product/service.

[Akimori]

Im happy that they finally addressed it and Im glad that they didn't completely leave it on the back burner (or maybe they're only doing it because the flak that comes with releasing an incomplete race is beginning to go into terminal velocity again is making them work on it), but the issue with the clipping...I mean....my feet clip through the ground some times. I honestly cant get behind the clipping reasoning because literally everything clips

When you create a low res texture that's a decision, not an accident. Clipping is not intentional. It's when two or more elements not designed to work together end up trying to occupy the same space instead of having collision. As to which is more irritating depends on the situation and the person. It appears that SE are far less fond of clipping than low res textures.

Honestly, I've dabbled in 3D modeling and animation in my younger years (with free programs no less, but I definitely made 3D models from the ground up) and a better physics engine could help mitigate the clipping. I mean..lets face it..you have these large poofy dressed in this game that just looks so awkward when they're static or barely moving at all when in reality, these things flow depending on how heavy the material is and how strong the force of wind is

I do hope the issue of Hrothgars having to pay money to change their hairs will be fixed...or literally, I kid you not, if they let me wear the calfskin riders cap, I will literally shut up haha. I REALLY love that hat

[Evergrey]

Requests, suggestions, and feedback are good situations for them to be in. It's when these stop that you should be worried as a game dev. At that point you become out of touch with your customer-base which then results in both parties being disinterested in the product/service.

Yes ofc those are important.
But people tend to get more and more demanding and that's not the right way of doing it.
We know SE listens, we've seen it multiple times.
But with a busy schedule, getting the time to add new stuff people are asking for isn't always as easy as people seem to think.
MMOs need to follow a time schedule for updates and expansions to keep the game and its content fresh and interesting or else people will stop playing.
That is and will be the top priority for any MMO I think.
And yes, I know everyone is aware, but with the pandemic things have taken a hit for everyone and the speed of development of stuff have been noticable due to it.
So priority has to be set and made.
I just wish more people would chill a little and be happy that things are at least on the way.
It's not like SE will forget unless people keep spamming them daily about it.