Thread: 6.2 Hrothgar Update

Originally Posted by XiRon

The problem with that line of thinking is they clearly didn't. Or some programmers didn't because they had to break into SE hq in the middle of the night to allow hrothgar and viera ANY headgear whatsoever rather than just accept Yoships original intent of purposefully screwing those races out of an entire gear slot.
It also makes no sense. How could any developer just sit there and be like "Oh hey fans, we made a new race for our game! Also the new race can never do anything besides what you do at Character Creation, isn't that neat!" and expect fans to just be fine with that? If a hrothgar pops a modern aesthete it still says "New hair options available", not "Hey numbnuts, go buy a fantasia and play a race we actually deign to care about".
So developer intent doesn't matter, not when you and me and he and she and they and GOD KNOW nobody would ever want to play a race that they can't do anything with to set it apart from ingame premade npcs. Thats mind-bogglingly stupid and if that were in fact the intent they should've made Hrothgar a beast race a la Vanu Vanu or Lupin wherein none of them look at all different from one another instead of a player race.

Yeah, some devs might have thought the original design was not enough (no headgear whatsoever), but that doesn't change the intent from higher up: the decision maker(s). Like you say, they were originally intended to not have anything - not even headgear. In my opinion, the intent was clearly that hrothgar are a novelty race. To make the race look more unique, the choice was made to make their development so convoluted - which has now led to the current issues, making them difficult to update. Like I have stated, having them so difficult to update doesn't matter if they never intended on updating them in the first place. Anyway, the thing about hairstyles is, they are just a bonus to a race. A hairstyle isn't really "finishing" a race in the first place.

Originally Posted by XiRon

They just decided hrothgar and their players are not WORTH creating options for.

I do not believe that - well, nowadays probably, yes, but originally Yoshida said this was probably the "last chance" they would have to make player races. I have said before on these forums, that I think FFXIV's future was more suspect at that time. I don't think they had their ten year plan greenlit, or anything else. Originally, they might have actually had good intentions. As the "last chance" to add races, Yoshida wanted to add a beast race for players who like that kind of thing, and Viera a fan favorite, and heavily requested race. Compromises were made to allow their creation without adversely affecting their patch schedule (as he has stated).

Originally Posted by SturmChurro

If you really want me to search through the big hrothgar thread to pull up newer quotes of him where he said he said they weren't going to receive any hair previously, or the discussions around that original quote being a supposed "mistranslation" I will.

That's fine. My apologies on misunderstanding your sarcasm. Sometimes my sarcasm detector doesn't work, and people saying "you guys aren't supposed to get haircuts" raises my hackles (pun intended).

You don't need to find the thing. I've read Zhexos' reply many times. Mostly when I'm wondering if he got sucked out an airlock somewhere.

Hrothgar aren't finished to SE. Or, at least they shouldn't be. When a developer says "unorthodox methods," what that *historically* means is "we hacked something together we were intending to standardize later." That's what I mean by "beta" - they're full of kludges, and design decisions that make these things difficult to modify later. In addition, they're unfinished from the standpoint that the end implementation is not what the specification says. Maybe they're saying it now, but if you look at what makes a beta a beta, and what makes early access early access:

1) Not all features are implemented.
2) There are problems we know about.
3) We're still working through design issues.
4) People outside the company are using/testing the code.

Saying "When I initially designed Hrothgar I said no hairs" doesn't undo Live Letter 53. It doesn't mean he forgot. So even Zhexos' post doesn't say that. In fact, I can find no reference to him ever saying at announcement "There will be no additional hairs for Hrothgar ever." So sarcasm and my middle age bluster aside, he's going to have to cite his source too.

The haircuts, ears, no ears - are buggy. And clipping has been the excuse for not implementing more things, but they've always clipped. Look at Radomil's collar sometime. Half the gunbreaker trainer's mullet is clipping through his class armor. The Ronso horn punches through the new hairstyles. They don't stick to the skull.

And what, personally, I have asked for, is the allowance to use all of the hairstyles released with Hrothgar, and all the ear types - the features that were included with every other race and indicate that the modeling is, in fact, done. That modularity is, I would argue, what differentiates "early access" from "done." The Viera came with these features. The Hrothgar did not.

Because they've not been implemented. Hrothgar are unfinished by my estimation, and if the trouble they're having now is any indication, I think they'd agree.
That's beta/early access.

Finish the race.

-Kelly

Originally Posted by Kelev

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The thing is I completely agree that they are in a bad state, and the comment about him saying he said they wouldn't receive any hair, when he clearly said they were during ShB is really.. odd. Especially when there are official quotes all over the place, saying they would get hairs. You can find quotes of me from when that was said, confused, trying to figure out when and where he supposedly said they weren't getting hairstyles. I played viera, on their launch, and have switched back and forth to viera for the past few years hoping for our supposed hair update. We all trusted that quote by Yoshida. Obviously, hrothgar have it worse, but it's not like I am not also bitter about it. When they do update these races, the quality is pretty much objectively bad across the board.

Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

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Are you talking about the quote I'm talking about of him saying he said they weren't going to get hairstyles previously? I promise you there is a real quote. That hrothgar hair thread is HUGE(!), I suppose I didn't come prepared to "cite my sources" when I was making fun little replies, but I am telling you there is a quote of him saying that. The mistranslation thing I am not 100% sure if he said that, but I know people were talking about it quite a bit as well.

They literally said on release that it was the "last chance" for player races, and that they were to be 'gender locked'. Just because some people's definition of finished is both sexes, doesn't mean that is theirs.

Originally Posted by Midareyukki

..

A lot of my posts are literally just hyperbole or sarcasm. Maybe I just assume that people can pick it out easier. Especially when I have been an ardent complainer of hrothgar/viera since their launch.. Then again, I have fantasiad so much that my avatar is only recognizable when I am playing my Au Ra. Luckily, I have already gotten past the angry stage. I still hope they fix the races, but I have serious doubts they ever will. I still post in support of them fixing them regardless - Yes, I prefer the word "fix" or "update" in regards to the hrothgar/viera situation, rather than "finish" (explained many times).

The thing is hrothgar didn't really make their voices heard until, briefly, they were noticed during the hairstyle fiasco. Now they are back to seemingly being ignored. Male viera supporters were MUCH more vocal, and relentless, for their inclusion. Now, granted, male viera aren't really niche like hrothgar are. On top of that male viera, I'm pretty sure, are quite popular in Japan. Hrothgar are neither very popular in the west or east, as far as I am aware. Quite a bit less popular in Japan, if I recall. On top of that, while there may be, now, a quite vocal backlash from hrothgar players, obviously not much has come of it. For that matter, a lot of people I remember saying they unsubbed or were unsubbing are still subbed. Thing is though, even if many hrothgar players did unsub, I think Yoshida probably sees it as negligible considering the population and play habits.

I do constantly advocate, on these forums, for quality changes to the game. It's crazy to think that SE saw these hairs, and thought it was alright to just release it like this, but, frankly, quality seems to be going down across the board.

Originally Posted by DBriggs304

They need to work on content that is sustainable/replayable first before worrying about ears.

A race is sustainable content, though. You can't even access stuff without making a character.

Originally Posted by reivaxe

Hrothgar were never planned to have SHARED hair, hair that other races have. They were also not designed to be able to change their own hair outside of $10 potions. The plan was to add new heads with unique Hrothgar "Manes" and have people pay $10 to potion to them.

See, you had me until the fantasia bit. That we wouldn't have shared hair is fine, a lot of people want race-exclusive hair since stuff wouldn't otherwise look good on a lion face.
But if that's the model they're going with, despite the fact that no other race had to buy fantasias to do it, then wow Square Enix is ten times worse than I ever thought. And I had to endure All the Bravest!

Like, I know they're not that good. The CEO wants NFTs, and Tabata was fired unfairly. But let it be clear: if that was their intention, then that's just predatory. If no other race had to go through it, then yeah, it's discrimination.

Originally Posted by reivaxe

A lot of the male's problems just naturally shouldn't be expected on the females. We have 2 full new races to look at, neither Viera nor Au Ra have both genders made from the same base race's body type. So Body wise, I expect them to be a taller version of literally ANY non-Femroe female. Hunch? Design wise that's a non-starter for females seeing as anything with boobs being hunched is a pain in the butt to animate/ design for/ model for and looks unappealing af so that's not happening. Heads? Outside lala, every female in this game has far less face diversity than their male counterparts.

Ehhh, I'm detecting a little bias there. You really think they won't be hunched over femroes? Do you really? :^)

Ok but no really, considering how Hrothgar are made at the moment, I do think they will be femroes. Like, who knows, they'll break the mold. Don't let that be an indication of much.

Also, stuff being unappealing is to be expected.

Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Yeah, perhaps initially after launch they did think racial specific hairs would work, but, obviously, considering the recent official reply from Yoshida on how these hairs would take significantly longer, I feel like that's the actual reason why: it would be too much work. Shared hairs are easier to implement and they were supposed to appease people wanting them. Why Yoshida was "surprised" there was such backlash over the hrothgar hairs.

I don't think people are understanding the situation.

A) We KNOW it would take time to make Race-exclusive hair. Not just to make the 3D model, but design it to begin with.
B) We KNOW that just converting stuff over is easier, albeit still a mess to go through.

The issue isn't there, though. The issue was them converting stuff in such a shoddy way and picking the absolute worst ones. That is why he had such a backlash.


The rest I can say is just... "I hope he understands people who play Hrothgar do take the game seriously and that we don't want to be discriminated. We understand it's hard, but after so much crap aimed at us, we've had enough. And that sentiment is valid and understandable. You can't just expect a portion of the playerbase that's felt miserable for the past 3 years because a) the devs ignore it and b) the community trashes it, to not feel absolutely gutted when the only content we asked for is presented to us like we're a laughing stock."

Originally Posted by Midareyukki

See, you had me until the fantasia bit. That we wouldn't have shared hair is fine, a lot of people want race-exclusive hair since stuff wouldn't otherwise look good on a lion face.
But if that's the model they're going with, despite the fact that no other race had to buy fantasias to do it, then wow Square Enix is ten times worse than I ever thought.

I ... I don't know what you thought this was.
Hroth couldn't change hair without paying $10 ALL throughout ShB. It was ALWAYS the intention that Hrothgar's hair was a part of their CC, it allowed them to make very different heads without having to make their hair look good on each face. People have been b*^*^in at them about that for years, it's part of the reason they went outta their way to make shared hair work on them. Now people are throwing a fit again, so they asked for a final bit of feedback. The options are unique Hrothgar hair that's VERY rare (coming in between large spans of time) and VERY few in number (This is a game that gives normal races 6-8 hairs an expac MAX ... could easily mean 1 every expac) or go the shared hair route, and try to make that work.

Race made from poor logic and mistakes.

Ehhh, I'm detecting a little bias there. You really think they won't be hunched over femroes? Do you really? :^)

Yes, I really think that. They're not giving females with boobs a hunch. And no bais, the game has 2 whole races to look at. Neither race 1:1 copies the body types of the gender of the same race.
FV are shorter, fixed Elezen ... MV are taller, updated Male Miqote.
Male Au Ra are taller, fixed Elezen ... Female Au Ra are shorter, updated Female Miqote/ Middies.
Hrothgar are shorter, fixed Roebros ... fill in the blank. My guess is taller, updated Highlander or the Queen's body from Bozja (which is a mix of Female Viera and Female Au Ra proportion/ shape wise)

Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Yeah, and I was quite active in the male viera thread saying I don't think they should release male viera yet, prior to 'fixing' female viera and male hrothgar. I'm sorry female hrothgar wanters, but their inclusion will only be bad for the game, unless they somehow figure out how to completely overhaul how they fit gear, and everything else.. We will likely be looking at even less customization options than before, for something even more niche than male hrothgar! A race counterpart a couple people might play. I'm all for options, but at the expense of everyone else SUCKS.

How niche they are is completely dependent on how they're designed. Make them look like the dudes-but-with-boobs that the woke people on twitter (who REALLY want to challenge gender norms to feel special) keep pushing, even though we know the arvg person wants no part of that? Yup, a bunch of time and effort to please like 3 people and make something less popular than Femroe.
Make them look like some amount more-furry, taller Mithra as seen in the queen's artbook art and murals? Easily more popular than the dudes, at least, and could make a decent fanbase.

Regardless of how many people whine about Au Ra, the females are hella popular and show that a few people online crying don't speak for the majority.

Anyway, it's not a matter of talking about it at this point. They're coming regardless of what effects they have on the reg dev time, so the time to warn against that is looong gone.