New hrothgar hairstyles are really bad.

[SturmChurro]

Because unless it generates bad press (see: not being able to marry the same gender) the non-JP forums are largely ignored.

There are several examples in this thread of mods and such saying they'll "pass it along" and we never hear of it again, including stuff from 7-8 years ago.

The sad truth is that this is a Japanese game and outside of trying to nickle and dime you with the cash shop, they generally don't care.

When it comes to the west, I'd say they get most, if not all, of their feedback from Twitter.

[Vahlnir]

When it comes to the west, I'd say they get most, if not all, of their feedback from Twitter.

Which is not necessarily a good thing. Twitter is a cesspool of rage and ignorance.

[Denji]

When it comes to the west, I'd say they get most, if not all, of their feedback from Twitter.

Because Japan loves hellbird and hashtags so seeing foreigners use ff hashtags — particularly the ones popular amongst JP users— drives them batty since they feel its an invasion of their personal space. It's the same reason posting in the JP section of the forums is so taboo. Additionally, JP devs themselves heavily utilize twitter for personal reasons.

This is also why users who had their IGN up on twitter with screenshots of them using mods were targetted by a massive ban wave yet hundreds of YT and twitch streamers who use them were largely ignored. They got targetted because it's one of the few places that JP and English users can see eachother's posts via the hashtags and twitter's algorithm suggesting tweets.

[Arkfrost]

Because unless it generates bad press (see: not being able to marry the same gender) the non-JP forums are largely ignored.

There are several examples in this thread of mods and such saying they'll "pass it along" and we never hear of it again, including stuff from 7-8 years ago.

The sad truth is that this is a Japanese game and outside of trying to nickle and dime you with the cash shop, they generally don't care.

Reminder that NA/EU/Non-JP players are second class citizens.

That's a common misconception. While people here in the west always claim the devs only really listen to the JP community, the JP community says exactly the same about us. It's a common meme in the JP official forums here, that "Yoshida never listen to the demands of JP and only do what the western audience wants".

また仮にJPプレイヤーが満足していたとしても、EU等の他フォーラムのフィードバックを無視するなどということはあり得ないので、その点はご安心ください。

むしろJPプレイヤーの中からは、吉田Pは海外の声ばかり聞いていると言う声も聞かれます。

"And even if JP players are satisfied, there is no way they would ignore feedback from other forums such as EU.
In fact, some JP players say that YoshidaP only listens to overseas feedback."

___________

Yep, this quote is the elephant in the room. It seems a bit specific to be a horribly mistranslated? How could they have told us that we weren't originally going to get any hairs, when there is that literal quote right there.

No, it is not mistranslated. As you can see, that quote was from the Liveletter LIII. You can go on the forums, right here, and look up the official translation:

(01:51:49)
Q: I used fantasia to change to Viera and I'm enjoying it. As they're a special race and it may not be possible, but feel like the number of hairstyles available for Viera and Hrothgar is quite limited. Do you have plans to add more in the future?
A: We certainly plan on adding more, so please wait for future patches. However, it will still be race-specific, so there won’t be as many selections when compared to other races.

Meanwhile, little fun fact, I just noticed yet another lie from Yoshida:

(02:10:17)
Q: Are there plans to make it easier to tell if an attack is physical or magical?
A: I believe we answered this before, but we haven’t implemented this yet as it would delay the patches. We often make last minute balance changes, and we might have to change a physical/magical attack right before release. If we were to display this information, we’d have to change the UI whenever we make such an adjustment, which would delay the patch release. Please understand that we are not intentionally trying to hide information.

Well that is a fkn lie. There's a Dalamud plugin called "DamageInfo" that literally lets you choose which color magical damage has, which color physical damage has, which color unspecified damage has, and none of that has to changed on a per-attack basis on the UI. You can simply set it so ALL magical damage has a specific colour, just based on the fact that it's magic damage. So "we'd have to change the UI whenever we make such an adjustment" ist just pure bullshit.

[Caramen]

That's a common misconception. While people here in the west always claim the devs only really listen to the JP community, the JP community says exactly the same about us. It's a common meme in the JP official forums here, that "Yoshida never listen to the demands of JP and only do what the western audience wants".


"And even if JP players are satisfied, there is no way they would ignore feedback from other forums such as EU.
In fact, some JP players say that YoshidaP only listens to overseas feedback."

So either:
A. They listen to the both forums and communities *inhales Copium*
or
B. They say f**k the feedbacks from players, they hurt our feeling anyway, we do what we want!

[Minali]

So either:
A. They listen to the both forums and communities *inhales Copium*
or
B. They say f**k the feedbacks from players, they hurt our feeling anyway, we do what we want!

Considering they specifically said for multiple topics that we should write our feedback into this forum, I don't think they say "f**k the feedbacks". And they wouldn't have done a bigger statement in a patch reading about this (or the samurai changes or..) that were discussed in the community either. However, giving feedback to any topic today doesn't lead to stuff being in the game tomorrow. (Obviously waiting 3 years for any sort of change or message whatsoever is way too long, but I am speaking about the general process here). Regardless, community feedback from the forum still has to be translated at times, transported to the right department, the department has to talk about it and make decisions, inform/work with other departments to make X happen and then have to pass it to QA for testing, being passed back for bug fixing, being tested again until it is finally considered ready and can be implemented in the game. How long this takes and if all steps are needed depends on the issue. Adding language options to the Adventurer Plate takes less long than reworking a character model or hairstyle. But most of the time when I read this take that the devs only listen to the other side, whichever it is, and it is not about something like the Hrothgar hair situation, I feel like some people are just super impatient or have a lack of understanding why a change that seems easy isn't actually easy enough to be up next day.

What would help would be a lot more communication along the way, the community managers seem to be awfully silent. I know from being a moderator for a forum for a much smaller company that their hands are often extremely tied and often have to wait for confirmation from "above" before they are allowed to comment on a topic. But just telling people "We hear you, all of you, collecting feedback from players in multiple languages just takes a lot of time" would go a long way, or telling us where in the part of the process I mentioned they are etc. Please, Community Managers, work on your community managing!

What absolutely does not help is being adamant about this "us vs. them" and stating "the team only listens to Japanese/English people" over and over again without actually knowing if this is true. It just makes the big cultural gap even larger and just hinders actual progress and giving constructive feedback. I found it very sweet that some Japanese players came over "here" and shared with us their feedback and support via texts translated with google translate or deepl. And from what I could read not everyone over "there" in the Japanese area was super p*ssed about English speaking people doing the same. At the end of the day we all want the same thing, artificially divinding the community with rumors like this "us vs. them" doesn't help anyone achieve it.

[Denji]

snip

You claiming it's a misconception without anything to back it up is negated by the fact that threads about both viera and hrothgar hairstyles have been around for years and for both races they did not listen to either of them.

Even if it were a misconception, the utter lack of acknowledging the community unless it's a controversial change that they always have already implemented without asking in of itself counts as neglect.

This entire thread is quite literally evidence of this neglect. They didn't listen for years, didn't listen to what hairstyles we wanted and didn't listen when we all collectively decided we would rather forego the earless peanut karen styles.

Example: At any point they could have said to us they were clarifying the fantasia patch issue but chose to wait until the 2nd version of the patch notes. They left us hanging for over a week while threads like this spiraled out of control and then in the patch notes without more acknowledgement added a single sentence.

That's either ignoring us or incompetence. Neither is a good look.

If square wants us to not feel like we're ignored, that's on them to recrify. Not you. They pay PR people to do the job you're doing for free.

[Iedarus]

I just don't understand why they felt the need to not only lie, but also expect us to be cool with the lead Hrothgar designer thinking it would be a good idea to attach ears to HAIR. Never in my experience playing MMOs have I ever heard of such a concept. Although now that we know the base head models are separate from the hair (and ears, apparently), they now have no excuse to not give more options to Hroth players.

It doesn't make any sense...if they just said: "Hey you guys only have two hairstyles to choose from right now," it would suck, but the backlash wouldn't nearly be as severe. IF THEY JUST LET THE EARS CLIP THROUGH THE HAIR, THE BACKLASH WOULDN'T NEARLY BE AS SEVERE!

Also can someone explain to me why cutting the ears off for hairstyles is okay but Hrothgar/Viera still aren't allowed to wear hats? Where's the consistency? Just letting the ears clip would look LEAGUES better than the "method" they're using now.

[Lily_Skye]

twitter is basically emo meteion

[Budimir]

I respect the view that the developers might not have intended to do more Hrothgar hair. Still, regardless of the validity of past quotes saying we would get more Hrothgar hair options, I don't think it is wrong for players to believe that there would be more options for Hrothgar made available. FFXIV is one of the most popular MMOs on the market right now, so no matter their reasoning, the development team intentionally not putting work into one of the in-game races they made seems odd. Even though Hrothgar isn't the most popular race in the game, there are still players who enjoy playing them, and these players, like all the others in the game, deserve attention.

Additionally, if it were the intention not to add further customization options for Hrothgar, adding a disclaimer that appears in character creation would be an appropriate move. It should indicate that the race is different from the others as most headgear will not appear visible, and customization options are limited, so players know what to expect. Right now, new players really won't have any idea what they are getting into when they create a Hrothgar (or Viera), as the game doesn't mention the limitations both races have. As a result, by the time these players figure it out, they may already be invested in their chosen character (especially since FFXIV is such a story-driven game) and have too much attachment to adjust their race, which will lead to frustration.

Nevertheless, my above concerns are really irrelevant since whether or not the developers confirmed in the past that they would be adding more Hrothgar customization options; they have made it clear that they currently are through their actions and words. Because of this, it is incredibly important that we give them feedback on precisely what we are looking for so they have a strong understanding of where to go next.