Hrothgar Feedback Thread

[Nav_Blue]

It goes against my better judgment to offer an opinion online of all places, but my capacity for concern over the past couple of weeks has been shot so here goes something. Who knows, maybe I can offer a new perspective and solution as a Hrothgar main (and frankly exclusive).

With regard to the horrifying ways Hrothgar meet their end throughout the Save the Queen questline, I honestly appreciate it. The story as a whole made me intensely proud to play as a Hrothgar. I know, it's a direct contrast to the loudest voices in this thread, but allow me to explain.

By comparison to the liberations of Eorzea, Doma, Ala Mhigo, and to an extent Werlyt, Bozja's was depicted as easily the hariest, if you'll pardon the pun. We fought the deadliest beasts Garlemald could find. We fought death machines of immense destructive power. We fought voidsent, lucavi, and undead. We fought our own false goddess and the brothers and sisters she turned against us. We fought some of the most vile scientific experiments the Garleans could come up with. We even fought Diablos riding around in an Ultima styled Allagan Weapon.

The IVth Legion threw so much at us that after the revolution they simply couldn't hold onto Dalmasca or Nanxia. Yet we still won.

For this reason and more, I'd like to see the devs lean into this. I want to see a New Bozja of whom her neighbors are secretly terrified, because they were only ever conquered by Allag and Garlemald. I'd like to see new fur patterns, facial features, and even hair styles that showcase the most grizzly battle scars in the Three Great Continents, because they've shown that while they know exactly what death is, they are no more afraid of it. I'd even like to see new gear sets that convey Bajsaljen's vow to apply what the Resistance had learned from the IVth Legion.

I love that with Hrothgar, we were shown to be a warrior race, rather than just told. I hope this gives the devs better feedback than "just pay more attention to us" and that this perspective may just soften the blow of how they've ignored us in the past. I don't plan on responding to reactions to this post, but if my two cents have made a difference I can be content.

[Midareyukki]

Full Quote

One thing I'd like to add is that even before, while Zadnor was still fresh content, most of my friends weren't Hrothgar players. Many had never even touched the race. But an overall feeling that they expressed was that Bozja did seem to feel more realistic. That we got to see the actual struggles they had gone through, and thanks to that, some of them managed to empathize with their plight. It being so brutal ended up serving the race and giving it credit once they managed to bounce back and reclaim their territory in the end. Like Nav_Blue said, there is pride to gain from Bozja's story if we care enough about our characters to explore it. And it shouldn't be discredited.

It was only after Zadnor that I got more involved with a predominantly-Hrothgar playerbase and found that people felt Bozja as a whole was a little too dark and visceral for what it already was. Though many attribute this to the change in writer: Yasumi Matsuno is NOTORIOUS for his dark and apathetic stories that don't shy away from showing you that cruelty is real. It's what tends to make them memorable. A criticism of this was that there was a tonal shift from the rest of the game, with side-content being more brutal than the MSQ actually had been overall. But it's what we get with different writers altogether: the same happened from Stormblood (warzones) to Shadowbringers (existential dread).

I personally feel like it's a mixed bag. I wouldn't have qualms with the way Hrothgar were portrayed had the race been treated fairly thus far. It just felt like it was compounding onto the situation, as no other form of content thus far had been so predominantly and consistently dark. But the comment has since been deleted, so at least I hope it's now more fair for Square Enix to assess the situation without unnecessary extras.

Still. I'm sorry to have derailed this conversation to a Bozja discussion xD

Keep giving feedback on the race overall, if possible. And I hope Square does at least look into what we say.