Support for NPC Hairstyles, Character Creator Focus

[anhaato]

+1

This game has a lot of feminine or gender neutral options, and very little for the masculine side. Short hair CAN have variety, and long hair CAN be made masculine. They just need to put a slight bit of effort in. Even then, the feminine options still lack stuff like super-long or voluminous hair or good looking bangs or up-dos. Also, we have to be honest that the color picker is depressingly limited. 192 colors sounds like a lot on paper to pick from, but there's no vibrant colors to choose from and the spectrum, especially for hair, is way too rigid. Face paint colors are even more egregious about that. And regarding face paint, I'm seconding everyone saying it's ridiculous that we can only use one. The freckles are especially aggravating because everyone has to use face paint to get some and then here come the male viera getting them as a facial feature.

IMO, this game uses "lore" way too much as an excuse for limitations, and this bleeds into customization. We can't have bright piercing red eyes, why? Because of the ultra-special Allagan eyes? Why can't highlander men have eyebrows? Who cares about what their "culture" is, as if they're a racial monolith like that? Why can't male viera have options for looking more distinctly masculine, more than a femboy with an awkward beard? Why can't we use the height slider to make our characters abnormally tall or short?

Actually, why do we have so few sliders to begin with? Other games have sliders for EVERYTHING like nose length, jaw width, shoulder width, weight, and so on, meanwhile we can only get a slider or two for some ugly muscle contouring or a smidgen more tail length. Body types are nonexistent; male characters always look twinkish and female characters always look anorexic. I realize that this makes gear modeling a pain, but I refuse to believe that it would be a waste to invest in accomplishing that.

The worst part is when they display that they most definitely do have the propensity to design beautiful hairstyles and outfits and interesting unique faces, but they lock it all behind NPCs because they just HAVE to look special, you may look but you may not touch. If they're able to design something as lovely as (6.0 NPC)'s hair then why shouldn't we get it or something similar for ourselves? Why do we get stuck with lame, thin, stringy, short hairstyles?

Listen, like everyone else is saying, if this game intends on continuing for years to come, we need to stop being trapped in 2010. Customization is one of many facets of the game in desperate need of being modernized. It's probably right up there with glamour as the most important, since we know they clearly like pandering to the casuals and roleplayers who care more about looking pretty than raiding. Modding communities exist at odds with TOS because whatever they want isn't in the game. If it was there to begin with, modders wouldn't be as much of an issue.

[anhaato]

Also, we can't overlook the whole issue of gear clipping. The more voluminous a hairstyle is, the worse certain headpieces look on it. I'm sure you can all see the one I use, I can't wear any sort of circlet because it'll be invisible because it forms around the head and not the hair. Then you have the tailed races... three whole tailed races and no support for modeling gear around them. It's a travesty.

AND THEN... we have the dye system. You want to talk about LIMITED COLORS, we lack for vibrant colors there as well, especially for purples, greens, and oranges. And at the same time, there's also a poor selection of desaturated or "dusty" tones. Basically the majority of dyes in this game are a selection of shades for each color range made dull, with very little options on either end of the tint range. The metallics all look cheap, and their selection is dreadfully boring. And because of the outdated nature of the dye system, in which you can only put one color on a gear piece without getting to pick which part changes, you have certain pieces that dye atrociously. Running into a nice looking piece only to find out that only a small portion of it dyes brightly while the rest of the dyeable parts are either darkened or lightened version of the dye color has given me so much grief over the years. If this game only had a dye system like GW2 or any other game that uses dye channels the glamour scene would explode in a second.

Not everything I said here has to be implemented from the base. I thought adding new dyes to Ishgard restoration was a great idea, same with making unlockable hairstyles or face paints. I'd even be ok with them adding unlockable hair colors, but stuff like basic customization of your face or body DOES need to be improved from square one.

[CrayonsAndPaint]

I don’t want to discourage you but this has been asked for, for years now. And to this day, they still choose to not add these hairstyles and probably never will. These types of things just don’t reach Square Enix unless it has 900+ upvotes like the Male Viera thread.

Source: I supported threads like this back in 2017/2018 and still nothing.

[SherlottaEryut]

+1
People have been asking for these hairstyles for years... Yoshi (allegedly, based on what I heard) said he would implement them if there were a high demand, and there is. I'm not sure what's taking them so long, it's making me wonder if SE are severely understaffed. They would make so much money if they made these mogstation hairstyles, it just feels like bringing in new items/hairstyles are just too slow.

[anhaato]

+1
People have been asking for these hairstyles for years... Yoshi (allegedly, based on what I heard) said he would implement them if there were a high demand, and there is. I'm not sure what's taking them so long, it's making me wonder if SE are severely understaffed. They would make so much money if they made these mogstation hairstyles, it just feels like bringing in new items/hairstyles are just too slow.

Don't say that cursed word, we need more demand for customization options that aren't paywalled. Mogstation would be a horrific copout.

[SherlottaEryut]

Don't say that cursed word, we need more demand for customization options that aren't paywalled. Mogstation would be a horrific copout.

I figured it’s normal to release NPC hairstyles on the mogstation, no? I can’t see SE making these an exception

[Haruka_R]

I figured it’s normal to release NPC hairstyles on the mogstation, no? I can’t see SE making these an exception

Some NPC hairstyles do end up on the Mogstation, and some don't. But like, it's weird. Minfilia's, Thancred's, Y'shtola's are available but not Lyse's? Aymeric's available and unisex, but not Thancred's for the latter? Alphinaud's available and unisex, but not Ryne's? It's weird.

[SherlottaEryut]

Some NPC hairstyles do end up on the Mogstation, and some don't. But like, it's weird. Minfilia's, Thancred's, Y'shtola's are available but not Lyse's? Aymeric's available and unisex, but not Thancred's for the latter? Alphinaud's available and unisex, but not Ryne's? It's weird.

I feel like @Isach could explain potential factors why these hairstyles could be difficult to implement.

My personal guess on Lyse's hair is; they're struggling to animate the hair when our characters run? Because her hair is so overly thick and very layered, it probably looks strange when it's going side to side?

[Beytran70]

I figured it’s normal to release NPC hairstyles on the mogstation, no? I can’t see SE making these an exception

Some do, some don't, but either way it is a practice that we should NOT encourage. I personally heavily dislike SE's willingness to put things on the Mogstation that could easily be unlocked in-game, and this also goes for things like older holiday rewards that could be brought back.

[Iscah]

Some do, some don't, but either way it is a practice that we should NOT encourage. I personally heavily dislike SE's willingness to put things on the Mogstation that could easily be unlocked in-game, and this also goes for things like older holiday rewards that could be brought back.

Whether we like it or not, major character costumes and hairstyles are prettymuch a 100% rate of being released on Mog Station rather than in-game and I don't think any amount of "discouraging" is going to stop that. We really just have to cross fingers and hope that they judge supporting characters below the threshold of being Mog Station-able (if we ever get their hairstyles at all, at this rate).