Hrothgar and Viera Support

[PanzerMobius]

With the announcement of male viera coming for 6.0 and female hrothgar on the horizon afterwards, I was extremely disappointed when I did not hear any mention or acknowledgement of the severe lack of support for these races in glamours and hairstyles.

My question, for any dev or anyone else on the FF14 team, is this: Are there, or are there not, plans for allowing Viera and Hrothgar as much customization and uniqueness that is afforded all the other races, when it comes to hairstyles and visible headgear?

Some of us worked hard and excitedly to get hairstyles we thought were cool, or fit a specific look we wanted to have for our glamour, or perhaps our idea of our WoL had changed over the time they had been adventuring. Yet, if we want access to any of that, we have to pay for a fantasia. We are not allowed that level of customization with our characters, our avatars in this game that we love.

Or perhaps we worked hard in our spare time for that piece of armor that we wanted for a specific glamour, only to find out that it wasn't compatible after the fact, or discovered this upon the switch to viera/hrothgar.

And the most egregious of this entire thing, is the fact that *new* armor sets, that were created from start to finish *after* viera and hrothgar were brought into the game, are being added to the game that are *not* available to one, the other, or both races. With how much the team and Yoshi-P have been trying to convey the fact that they are trying to give players more options and more ways to emphasize their own ideas (removing gender requirements on some gear, etc), one would think that *this* would be something they would want to inform someone about.

We were specifically told in the Paris FanFest 2019 that the viera would have "a high level of customization". At the Tokyo FanFest 2019, we were told "with exactly like the viera, we have a lot of special customization [for hrothgar]". "The character creation will be very detailed, there's *so many* different options". The number of times I see an identical hrothgar or viera to me or my friends, with maybe a different color or two, is ridiculous. In fact, we were even told by Yoshida himself that "but after seeing how many people called for us to do something, anything, to address this after the announcement, the character team took it upon themselves to use their spare moments to make it possible" and "Every day, the FFXIV development team strives to make the impossible possible. Together, we’ve taken another step forward and surmounted yet another hurdle we once considered impossible. We hope you’ll continue to support us as you experience everything the world of FFXIV has to offer."

So after nearly two years of this issue, when we have not heard an answer one way or another, it would be nice, and fair to the player base, to have an actual, straight answer to the question.

[Wyndallus_Fanboy]

Judging solely from their silence on this issue, making the Viera and Hrothgar races up-to-par with the older races isn't on their agenda. After all, why would they announce male Viera and female Hrothgar yet make no comment on the hairstyles or hat support for these races? It seems clear to me that adding standard support for these races is not a priority for the development team. It baffles the mind to think that the developers of an MMORPG would be willing to add new races that can't use new hairstyles or wear the vast majority of headgear in the game. The rare cases in which headgear is displayed is only thanks to the rogue developers who implemented such features in their spare time. The first DLC race, the Au Ra, received full hairstyle and gear compatibility at launch. However, with the confirmation of male Viera at Fanfest and zero comment on the issues of the new races, I fear a new precedent for the game has been set: all Hrothgar and Viera players are doomed to be treated like second class citizens because of the race they chose.

[Destati]

My guess (and hope) that once male Viera and female Hrothgar are implemented it will be easier/more efficient for them to make hair and hats compatible, since they will all be able to be worked on simultaneously.