VIERA AND HROTHGAR COMPLAINT MEGATHREAD

[Midareyukki]

I feel like this thread needs assessing on what it's meant to convey now.

• Hrothgar and Viera have started getting some hairstyles
• Hrothgar ears have regrown
• Viera have a male counterpart and Hrothgar female is on its way

Though, and this might just be me, some stuff do still feel unadressed. With more or less relevance

• Headgear is still a hot topic with some new entries not having any adaptation for these races
• Communication on both races seems to be a bit on the lacking side. Hrothgar feel especially hard by this, given how the development team has proven itself disconnected from its fanbase for a while and how little feedback there generally is about Hrothgar specifically.
• Viera hairstyles give them an obscenely large forehead. Don't know how you guys feel about that tbh.
• Hrothgar hunchback is generally considered a bad addition, with very niche support for it; most people would rather it went away
• Portrayal of these races has been very hit-or-miss, either lacking in the spotlight or just relegated to a forgettable background. Though these aren't the only races to suffer from this. It's just jarring because they're the two latest races overall.

I don't know, it just feels that right now a major component of this thread has been addressed. And though not everyone feels at ease (especially given tensions the past year), it's still a decent enough step in the right direction.

Question is if all the rest will be addressed.

[Caro178]

Concerning "Viera hairstyles give them an obscenely large forehead" I would like to analyze it a bit. Is it actually true or is there a separate detail at play here that has been oft ignored in favour of saying the devs have done lazy work specifically on the port of these hairs to Viera? Let's compare the exact same hairstyles with some other races for a moment.

Let's start with a recent addition, Adventure:









These two look exactly the same on Viera as they do on every other race. The female style definitely gives female Vieras a large forehead, but it's not like the female Hyur's forehead is any smaller. Billboard brow all around on this one.

Let's check out the most prolific example, Ponytails:





Again, the Hyur's forehead is just as big as the Viera's. So what gives? I thought it was common knowledge that this was a Viera exclusive problem?

Another one that gets fingers pointed at it a lot: Artoriel's style





This kinda 50s style short one:







Great lengths:




A short hairstyle, Modern Legend:




With this real visual evidence in mind I posit that hairstyles do not actually look significantly different on Viera. Rather, it is the opposite - Viera base game hairstyles have incredibly low hairlines with widows' peaks in comparison to other races. As a result they also have eyebrows positioned lower on their faces. That's what is different, the visual dichotomy between Viera base game hairstyles and hairstyles ported from other races. They actually look virtually the same on everybody, we're just so used to seeing Viera with extremely low hairlines that seeing them in hair all the other races usually wear gives us the illusion that Vieras have a larger forehead in them when they mostly don't.

[Yencat]

Apologies for bad grammar, I am on the phone rn.

The hunch is looking very bad in a lot of glams (if not all), the texture wrapping is stretched a lot to the point that it has an ugly pixelationon on the back and it doesn't look any better on the front where it is verry obviously squished around the abdominal area. All hairstyles (if they are not very very short) clip through every chestpiece if it has a collar.
You won't hear/see me complain if they remove the hunch.
I feel it was added because it was popular with the western devs to add hunches with beast races, i say the devs cause the players in 98%of the cases hated it. The other 2% that was liked was when it made sense to add a hunch (like Charr). If your character will run by dropping on all 4's then it is accepted as a feature rather than an empty aesthetic. Which is where the FF devs saw the hunch on beast races and were like "ok, hunch=beast, got it!", but forgot to make it work by using the hunch to their advantage rather than for looks. Even the source material (the Ronso) had a straight back because they were supposed to walk and run like humans.

Tl Dr: Just get rid of the hunch, please.

Thank you, it's not talked about as often (though with how many other problems Hrothgar has had I guess it's not surprising) so I did wonder, it would be a bigger change than the potbelly/slouch fix but hopefully if there's enough noise about it they'll be open to changing it. Ideally it'd be optional because I'm sure like how it is whenever Elezen animations/proportions are brought up there's people who like how they are now, though I don't know how likely that is.

With this real visual evidence in mind I posit that hairstyles do not actually look significantly different on Viera. Rather, it is the opposite - Viera base game hairstyles have incredibly low hairlines with widows' peaks in comparison to other races. As a result they also have eyebrows positioned lower on their faces. That's what is different, the visual dichotomy between Viera base game hairstyles and hairstyles ported from other races. They actually look virtually the same on everybody, we're just so used to seeing Viera with extremely low hairlines that seeing them in hair all the other races usually wear gives us the illusion that Vieras have a larger forehead in them when they mostly don't.

This is even further exacerbated by Veena having only half the eyebrow (both in length and fullness in most cases) compared to Rava, so the amount of empty space looks even bigger.

[Pip_Chick]

Thank you, it's not talked about as often (though with how many other problems Hrothgar has had I guess it's not surprising) so I did wonder, it would be a bigger change than the potbelly/slouch fix but hopefully if there's enough noise about it they'll be open to changing it. Ideally it'd be optional because I'm sure like how it is whenever Elezen animations/proportions are brought up there's people who like how they are now, though I don't know how likely that is.

In my expirience as an animator and rigger for 3D models. It wouldn't be hard at all, literally an axes tweak. The problem would come in remaking almost all animations for them. And even then, it would be just the personal emotes and idles cause the rest, like all job idle animations have a straight back. And they put our backs straight in almost all cutscenes, minus walking.

My secret wish for 7.0 is that with the addition of Female Hrothgar they will also tweak the male posture in such a way that they would stand straight and keep 1 of the idles hunched (like male Miquo'te). Everyone happy!

[Yencat]

In my expirience as an animator and rigger for 3D models. It wouldn't be hard at all, literally an axes tweak. The problem would come in remaking almost all animations for them. And even then, it would be just the personal emotes and idles cause the rest, like all job idle animations have a straight back. And they put our backs straight in almost all cutscenes, minus walking.

My secret wish for 7.0 is that with the addition of Female Hrothgar they will also tweak the male posture in such a way that they would stand straight and keep 1 of the idles hunched (like male Miquo'te). Everyone happy!

Oh I don't think it would be hard for them to do either if they wanted to do it, but for male Viera it was a relatively small change that didn't impact their emotes or idles and was done before they even released vs. a more involved change on a model that's been out for 3+ years.

But if they couldn't make it a toggle for some reason then a hunched idle sounds like an elegant solution.

For what it's worth I think your WoL is absolutely gorgeous and Great Length fits her perfectly. Ironically the newer hairstyles mostly have more natural hairlines, it's just hard to separate our brains from what we all got so used to on Viera because all we had for 2 years were hairstyles with low hairlines and deep widows' peaks. Anyway, yeah, she's super pretty and perfect.

You're very sweet! Thankfully (since it's my favourite hairstyle) I don't have an issue with how Great Lengths looks on either Rava or Veena, it's mostly the ones that already look a bit higher up that look slightly worse on Veena because of the brows. It's unlikely they'll go back and change them though so I'm not too fussed, but I wouldn't be opposed to them lowering the hairline on the worst offenders ever so slightly.

[Caro178]

You're very sweet! Thankfully (since it's my favourite hairstyle) I don't have an issue with how Great Lengths looks on either Rava or Veena, it's mostly the ones that already look a bit higher up that look slightly worse on Veena because of the brows. It's unlikely they'll go back and change them though so I'm not too fussed, but I wouldn't be opposed to them lowering the hairline on the worst offenders ever so slightly.

Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to a few hairstyles being adjusted, but that list is very small and I think they should be adjusted on every race, not just Viera. As it is right now to quote one of G'raha's best scenes all it means is we're "the same as everyone else."

I DO have one request for Viera character customization for 7.0: a new tab for ear decals. I absolutely adore the fawn spots and other patters Viera have in FFXII, and I would love the option to add these to my own Viera.

[Caro178]

This is even further exacerbated by Veena having only half the eyebrow (both in length and fullness in most cases) compared to Rava, so the amount of empty space looks even bigger.

For what it's worth I think your WoL is absolutely gorgeous and Great Length fits her perfectly. Ironically the newer hairstyles mostly have more natural hairlines, it's just hard to separate our brains from what we all got so used to on Viera because all we had for 2 years were hairstyles with low hairlines and deep widows' peaks. Anyway, yeah, she's super pretty and perfect.