New hrothgar hairstyles are really bad.

[Budimir]

Greetings, everyone.

As there have been a lot of feedback surrounding Hrothgar and their hairstyles, we wanted to share a recent update from Yoshida during the recent patch notes reading. On the stream he discussed the specifications of Hrothgar and the difficulties regarding adding hairstyles for them.

Thank you very much for your response. I genuinely appreciate the intent to fix the situation. Still, I must admit that it is very disheartening to know that it will take a long time to address the problem when it has already taken years to add the poorly received hairstyles we got today. Nevertheless, I am happy that the developers are aware of the issue and willing to investigate it.

While I cannot speak for everyone, one thing that I feel would have been very beneficial throughout this implementation of Hrothgar hair is more developer transparency. As I've mentioned in a previous post, the developers did not give much information besides saying that they were adding more hair options for Hrothgar. In fact, anytime Hrothgar hair was brought up (such as during live letters), it got incredibly brief mentions, with no pictures or meaningful updates on how things were going. I feel that if the developers used the live letters to show some work in progress images of the upcoming Hrothgar hairstyles or even spoke a little more in-depth about what they had planned, they could have saved time and effort. They would have found out sooner that this was not the direction a lot of players were looking for in new Hrothgar hair and changed course. It would also have likely made much of the community feel better about the situation as they would feel listened to and, as a result, would be more willing to wait for changes.

Also, to add my overall feedback on what I am looking for in more Hrothgar hair, I would rather see hairstyles that fit Hrothgar and do not remove the ears over hairstyles that remove the ears and look out of place on the Hrothgar character model. In particular, the default hairstyles launched with Hrothgar are an excellent example of well-done hairpieces that fit the race, and it would be nice to get more like them that all of the Hrothgar face options can use. It would also be nice to have the options currently tied to certain Hrothgar face choices be made universal and selectable by all Hrothgar players regardless of their starting face style.

[Denji]

"Far less frequently"? I guess you all can expect the next hairs to drop in 6 years.

Don't make Yoshi-P turn this car around and send us back to 1.0.

[Minali]

Greetings, everyone.

As there have been a lot of feedback surrounding Hrothgar and their hairstyles, we wanted to share a recent update from Yoshida during the recent patch notes reading. On the stream he discussed the specifications of Hrothgar and the difficulties regarding adding hairstyles for them.

Thank you for taking the time to give us an "official" translation of everything he said. That makes it easier.

When it comes to the content however, one of the problems is that we hear, that it is extremely difficult and time consuming - but at the same time also see modders delivering something that looks very well and seems to solve the problem, in their free time. Now, I worked in QA, I know that solutions and problems seem simple from the outside might have some unknown side effects. Not to mention that mods only have to work on a single client, not for the whole game. Nevertheless it is really hard to believe that these troubles are so incredibly hard to overcome and we, as players, can only judge by what we see and hear. And what we hear (Yoshida-san's message) and what we see (the mods who make them look really well) is contradicting. Even infuriating for some players, considering that there was no progress shown or talked about since the release. Additionally we also got "clipping" as the reason why the devs decided against showing the ears - although basically every race has hairstyles, gear and minions that heavily clip into each other without raising any concerns. So it makes it really hard to believe that the reasons we are given are actually the reasons - or that it was thoroughly looked into making it possible.

I can imagine that you can't just directly contact the people who create the mods with mods themselves being technically prohibited. But if the devs really can't think of a solution, can't you simply get a laptop, install the game, and install one of the mods, and look further how they did it? How they can show ears on hairstyles, how they can get hats?

Also, I implore you to have a look at all the beautiful suggestions in this thread. There are parts of mods but also concept art from players and the like. And many people name existing hairstyles that would work well with the bestial visual style of Hrothgars:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...est-MEGATHREAD

When it cames to ears or no ears: Giving us two hairstyles instead of six prolongs the process but in my opinion as Hrothgar player it would definitely be worth it, if we can keep the ears, especially if the hairstyles involved are not the very human-like ones but a few "wilder" ones.
Also, please detach the existing original hairstyles and features from the heads, so that every Hrothgar head can use every Hrothgar hairstyle. Currently every "head" is limited to two options. These options wouldn't even have to deal with ears or no ears, the hairstyles are already made with Hrothgars in mind.

[Retrisar]

Greetings, everyone.

As there have been a lot of feedback surrounding Hrothgar and their hairstyles, we wanted to share a recent update from Yoshida during the recent patch notes reading. On the stream he discussed the specifications of Hrothgar and the difficulties regarding adding hairstyles for them.

They think that we stupid or something?
Mods in day one was able to add ears to those abomination which they dare call a hairstyle.

When they say that it would take them more time to add something new then now... so it's gonna be now 6y ? They rly doesn't have any shame to say that?

Mods are more capable than this entire studio... and they charge us monthly for this game. Its just show how lazy they are, adding half finished races and complaining that we want them to finish their work.

[Vahlnir]

They think that we stupid or something?
Mods in day one was able to add ears to those abomination which they dare call a hairstyle.

When they say that it would take them more time to add something new then now... so it's gonna be now 6y ? They rly doesn't have any shame to say that?

Mods are more capable than this entire studio... and they charge us monthly for this game. Its just show how lazy they are, adding half finished races and complaining that we want them to finish their work.

I really don't think that they think we are stupid. But I do think that they are blindsided now that we aren't praising their every decision.

[Denji]

They think that we stupid or something?
Mods in day one was able to add ears to those abomination which they dare call a hairstyle.

When they say that it would take them more time to add something new then now... so it's gonna be now 6y ? They rly doesn't have any shame to say that?

Mods are more capable than this entire studio... and they charge us monthly for this game. Its just show how lazy they are, adding half finished races and complaining that we want them to finish their work.

Be prepared to have this transcript pasted several times instead of having any proper answers. Infuriating but considering how long it took for them to tell us what they were and were not going to lock behind a fantasia I suspect we won't hear any news for several weeks, if ever.

[Vuk_Varvarasch]

Greetings, everyone.

As there have been a lot of feedback surrounding Hrothgar and their hairstyles, we wanted to share a recent update from Yoshida during the recent patch notes reading. On the stream he discussed the specifications of Hrothgar and the difficulties regarding adding hairstyles for them.

Thank you for bringing us an update on this issue.

Personally, I would much prefer a low number of customized hairstyles that look good on our heads, either carefully selected from the existing hairstyles available to the other races, or new custom creations made specifically for us.

After waiting so long for any updates on this issue, what was presented in the live letter simply crushed any hopes I had of this ever improving. Five out of the six hairstyles felt like an insult, and I'd honestly prefer them to be removed.

I do hope you will take the time to give us both the hair and hats that we deserve. It really does hurt every time a new head piece is added to the game, and it does not work for us.

A detailed explanation of why you are unable to achieve this when mod creators can would also be nice. Clearly it can be done, so what is keeping you from implementing it using the same method? What rules are they breaking that you cannot?

[Maxilor]

I really don't think that they think we are stupid. But I do think that they are blindsided now that we aren't praising their every decision.

Uh oh....Constructive Criticism!?

How dreadful.

But seriously, if modders can do this stuff way better than they could couldn't they have asked/compensated the modders for their work and just implemented the mod into the base game?

It's not like doing that is unheard of.

[Karowolus]

Ok. A bit to unpack here.

So. A friend of mine who modifies his game noticed something. He uses a mod that's is called 'Hrothgar Whisker and Lip Markings', which adds some small markings on the upper lip, and also whitens the teeth. We clearly been munching on dentastix or something during the patch.

But one thing he noticed. Was that on his screen. He had his lip markings, wheras I didnt. We both use the same face.

After looking into it with the software that is used, Textools. He found out that us Hrothgar...

Now have 8 faces per clan.
As shown Here

Of these 8 faces. Only half were affected by the mod, Faces 0001 to 0004 and faces 1001-1004 respectively. From this... I hate to say but it looks like instead of being given new hairstyles. We were given new faces. Mainly for these initial hairstyles. At least that's how it seems from looking at the files. At first, he was wondering what had caused this though, because we both use the same face. Right?

But... I had used the... Aesthetician earlier. TO swap my hairstyle to the other version, without the braid. I feel like this changed my face to the 'new' face. New in quotation marks because there's nothing different about it.

This... It is a way of doing it... But it's not the right way TO do it. It actually seems like a more roundabout way that makes it simply more difficult.

Oh yes. By the way. Apparnently our ears are still part of our head

[Arkfrost]

Its just show how lazy they are, adding half finished races and complaining that we want them to finish their work.

I don't think it's specifically "laziness", but simply the fact that they don't give a damn about Hrothgar players' wishes (and Viera likewise).
They rather spend 80% of their budget and dev time on creating the MSQ with fancy, extensive animations of Y'shtola having a book fall on her head or G'Raha's ears wiggling every other cutscene, than to take 2 weeks of dev time and focus 100% on fixing the mess that are Viera who can't wear hats & helmets + are lacking most unlockable hairstyles (both things that modders could do in a matter of hours; and keep in mind that those modders work alone, not with a big team) and Hrothgar with their garbo hairstyles, the lacking ears and the absolutely ridiculous decision that they cannot change their hairstyle at the aesthetician, but their unnecessary fur pattern you never see whenever you wear armor anyway can be changed there (it should be vice versa).