New hrothgar hairstyles are really bad.

[Vahlnir]

probably won't find out for sure until ~2025 at the rate we are going

My estimate is 2125.

[Jybril]

"CAN I SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER?"

LOL YIKES. Does anyone even want the female version of Hrothgars anymore?
They just fail at every turn. Like, what is the excuse of the ears?
Modders can work this out in an hour but SE just can't do?
I gotta wonder who they're hiring up there lmao.

[Midareyukki]

Does anyone even want the female version of Hrothgars anymore?.

I personally do. If not for fairness, then at least for the lore.

But I do dread what will become of them. They're slated to come in 7.0, but considering how we're being handled, I don't want them to make them just yet. I want them to get their bs together and treat their content seriously and with effort.

They did open spots to hire people. Question isn't just who they're hiring them, but for what.

As for whether modders do a better job and the excuse with the ears. I'm going to be kind and give them the benefit of the doubt. That their process is a lot more complicated than people make it out to be, including modders. It shouldn't be, but for argument's sake, let's just assume it is.

Modders aren't paid to do it, they do it in their own free time, yet SE is paid to do it. Modders are amateurs while I ASSUME SE hired professionals in their area? They seem to be professional enough to make photorealistic games like FF7, KH4, Stranger of Paradise...

Perhaps it's a matter of resources? After all, we cannot go beyond the limitations set by minimum specs. Yet they've kept pushing for more complex structures and textures. Heavens know my old craptop fried rendering anything with steam on it, but it didn't care with an overly geared up Hrothgar. I doubt it would care for anything further either. And Hrothgar, even at their most elaborate, are nowhere near as bad as a 1.0 vase. It really isn't that.

Maybe it's a time thing? If so, priorities must be established, and this should be a priority to be kept in mind. Not making content that's trivial in comparison, nor making updates to the other races without fully understanding what it is they have right now.

Maybe the new system will help. Better races implies a better method to deal with the races overall, and thus a more finished product in the future! ...yet the present also should be kept in mind. If they are so willing to give us unfinished products time and time again, it won't be a far-flung promise that will save it. Maybe in the future there will be a better system. But why not start now? Why not start with races that clearly need the polish the most?

[Rathmir]

I once again bring up GW2 and their Charr which are a strong deviation from some of their other humanoid races, yet are still able to be catered to like their counterparts.

Other MMO with beastial races - WoW Tauren & Worgen, maybe Vulpera - or even GW2 with their feline Charr deliver open slaps into the face of Squex.

In both games, it doesn't take me more than 5 minutes to see another player with the same race, and it almost doesn't matter where I crawl around. In FF I can look around in Limsa... LIMSA, the dead crowded place of FF... for 3-4-5 hours and get maybe just a handful of Hrothgar, and that with plenty of luck. In both cases no matter the time.

But the other games show, that the people are not against playing beast races, or hesitant around them. In both cases the beastial features are more outstanding, with Charr even going to the almost max possible within the humanoid limits. And still players chose them more frequently than here.

This just shows, that a lot around the concepts went into wrong directions. Not only the issues we are talking about now.
The first that comes into mine (and maybe most other people's) mind, when thinking about FF and feline race are Ronso. At least they were more prometed than inside other FF games.
Beside the heads, there's not about to tell around connection around Ronso with Hrothgar. Not really the main issue, as nothing speaks agains having a feline race working on the own. But something, something more, went wrong to adress the greater part of the targeted audience.

Sure, we can also open another can of worm with feet (& hunch) now. WoW has already shown, that people steadily complained around their beasts only have ankle wraps. No idea if they learned to live with it.
As much as I love to have digitigrades feet with exact the mentioned consequence, but the plantigrade also also okay.
It's not like I'd put any bet on Squex at the moment with any regards around Hrothgar, sooo... let that rest. No need to overstress the animation department with such tasks like doing fully matching walking animations and emotes.

For now it's even the easiest task by the all mentioned "band-aid fix": Hairs

[Adamantini]

Similar hot take, I would've sacrifice all boots to Zodiark if I could get digitigrade paws. At least as their starter racial boots, it's not as if a paw-looking model wasn't there already :C

Just dropping by to say that I'm all for paws over feet. For both viera and hrothgars.

"But what about the shoes?"
Examples:

[MonsutaMan]

The Karen Hroth

[Fukuro]

no because 1.2 hours after the change there would be a bunch of threads calling square lazy for not making digitgrade footwear.
I just want ears.

Ahhh how I wish customization in this game wouldn‘t be so god darn limiting! Imagine a character creation system with the options to have normal feet (so you could use the normal footwear and all the gear that comes with it) but also a couple of options for digitigrade feet but without footwear. The only problem I would see would be the inconsistency in their racial traits (lore).

Would love a on/off toggle for hunching also.

But going back to topic: Give Hrothgar ears and better hairstyles!

[SherlottaEryut]

Just dropping by to say that I'm all for paws over feet. For both viera and hrothgars.

"But what about the shoes?"
Examples:

I would love these... And it's like Yoshi said, what's the point of a beast race if you can't go "all out" on it? (Almost certain he said that, or maybe I dreamt it. Either way, it's legit)

In my personal opinion, I would rather have limitations on footwear... But it's easy for me to say that considering I've never taken off my Viera sandles.

[Denji]

man I just want ears.
please keep your digitgrade foot fetish ideas out of the thread meant to discuss hairstyles.

[Minali]

Does anyone even want the female version of Hrothgars anymore.

I do, since my first day in this game... I like my current Hrothgar, but at the end of the day I am still a woman (like, in real life,) and I prefer playing one in this game, especially a big cat one. Just haven't been super vocal about it bc. I knew from the start in 2020 that this is something that may happen in the far far distant future, if at all, but that doesn't mean I don't like the idea.

If I would want Hrothgals as long as the dev team has this kind of "enthusiasm" regarding everything Hrothgar though... that's a different thing. If they turn out to be more muscular Miqo'te, I might as well just keep playing Miqo'te with my main. Gimme FFX Ronso amazon like warriors!

Regarding the legs: I'm ok with both, but considering what we've seen so far how SE handles hats with slightly varied anatomy of the head shape (namely: not at all), a change would likely lead to us losing yet another visual equipment slot. We barely have options for the hat and if we want to use new hairstyles, the one for the ears is gone, too. And the way they are now is what is already established, changing it after years would be odd. (Same goes for the hunch, but making this a choice that can be turned on and off by the player wouldn't lead to us using chest gear, so this would be cool.)

Edit: I wouldn't want them before SE finally solved the core problems of the Hrothgar we have though, detaching hairs and ears from the head so they can be adjusted with hairstyles better, and choosing hairstyles that actually suit their core design. Otherwise Hrothgals will have exactly the same issues and then we have two broken character choices.