VIERA AND HROTHGAR COMPLAINT MEGATHREAD

[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.

[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.

[Avidria]

snip

I mean yeah, people were unhappy, and part of that unhappiness from what I remember WAS the long process to obtain them. Personally I never had issues with the races themselves because I never expected anything more than recolors of existing races, my big beef was with how stupid the process to unlock them was. They could've made the Gilneans have a more interesting human model but, they were always human and always gonna be human.

But I'm not here to debate WoW races. My point was more that in WoW they at least felt complete or different enough that the limitations weren't as frustrating to me. The copy paste races were always going to be copy paste races. ...and I'll admit idk anything about any races added after dark iron dwarves and the pirate dudes because I stopped playing before they actually added Vulpera. I have a ton of beef with WoW and their choices but at least Tauren not being able to wear boots was never something I really cared about.

Anyway, here, Hrothgar and Viera are SUPPOSED to be completely separate standalone races, allegedly "unique" enough to justify them lacking a huge amount of customization options, when really the only unique things about them are Hrothgar having a hunch and snout, and *the way they decided to design them.* There'sz again, arguably nothing unique about Viera at all except the way they were made, and the only bit of that you actually see is that they're... Arguably prettier than any of the other races. Which frankly I'd expect from a new race vs an 8 year old race anyway. The difference is that Hrothgar and Viera feel incomplete and have a cool zip to make up the difference and make them feel more "unique." Hrothgar I could see more than Viera, but the frankly absurd choices to give them what, two??? Options in hair per face and then require actual real cash to change it really throw out any tolerance I might have had for that.

If they were going to do these races, they should have done them entirely separately. They should have treated Viera the same as any other race, the same as the cat and lizard people that already do weird things to hats and hair, and then **committed fully to a unique beast race with its own unique options**

But that's just my opinion.

[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.

[Denji]

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.

It's the making of new skulls just to screw us over that drives me insane. It seems like the entire point was hoping that we would just accept not having ears in the hopes that they can just remove all our ears in general so they can just say "jobs done" and mass-port over the Roegadyn version of helmets with 0 effort.

Turns out we actually cared about our ears. What a surprise.

[SturmChurro]

It's the making of new skulls just to screw us over that drives me insane. It seems like the entire point was hoping that we would just accept not having ears in the hopes that they can just remove all our ears in general so they can just say "jobs done" and mass-port over the Roegadyn version of helmets with 0 effort.

Turns out we actually cared about our ears. What a surprise.

Well, that was exactly the point. A quick(er) solution, to easily port over hairstyles. A drop in quality has been happening for awhile, and none of it should be accepted.

[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

[XiRon]

It's the making of new skulls just to screw us over that drives me insane. It seems like the entire point was hoping that we would just accept not having ears in the hopes that they can just remove all our ears in general so they can just say "jobs done" and mass-port over the Roegadyn version of helmets with 0 effort.

Turns out we actually cared about our ears. What a surprise.

I mean totally understand HATS covering ears, not HAIR, and certainly not hair that doesnt remove miqo or viera ears.
But because Yoship loves to prove cynicism correct at every turn, I know the real reason is because they a) wanted hrothgar players to shut up and b) did not to work on hrothgar. To support this, consider it took four extra months from Endwalker launch, when Viera got nu hurr, to give hrothgar earless, headmisshapening wigs, and also consider theyre adding an extra month to the patch cycles to """"""""""""""ensure quality"""""""""""""" yet xenomorph head hrothgar2B was approved, which....is absolutely NOT quality. Now consider despite taking 3 years to give hrothgar the option to use their faces 2 hairstyles at the aesthetician and now because we astonishingly do not want anatomy removed to have our Modern Aesthetics actually function for us it will take "longer" to make hrothgar options, like....how much longer? you had all of shb and we still had to buy fantasia to use a basic ingame feature.
They hate hrothgar and only added them because they didnt want uguu femboi bnnuys in the game. Plain and simple.
But please GOD prove me wrong by making an effort for once design team, PLEASE.

[Adamantini]

I was spending some time on twitter and saw this post (I won't disclose the author so he doesn't suffer punishment due to the use of mods).



That's what I'm talking about, when I say that the viera's ears could have more animations. Imagine if this were part of the emotes, it would be awesome!

[RecoveryPotion]

I was spending some time on twitter and saw this post (I won't disclose the author so he doesn't suffer punishment due to the use of mods).



That's what I'm talking about, when I say that the viera's ears could have more animations. Imagine if this were part of the emotes, it would be awesome!

This is exactly what the buns need (and hrothgar). I think they're so bland when it comes to animation, they need a lot of work done and I hope Square is reading through all of these for ideas!