Thread: 6.2 Hrothgar Update

Honestly, I hope Square actually addresses this in the PLL on July 1st, but I'm keeping my hopes way low for that...

I wish Square did acknowledge the outcry from Hrothgar players. That they acknowledged that the way they've been handling the situation hasn't been healthy either. That they'd set aside snark and, for once, actually addressed Hrothgar players directly and with the seriousness we deserve. And that rather than pinning blame on the playerbase for playing Hrothgar, acknowledge their responsability on the matter and give us a straight answer. Not one that dismisses reality and makes fans accuse them of laziness and ignorance.

That it isn't fair for us to hear "Oh it's too hard" when the Legacy Races are getting their visual lift and the world will have better textures.
That it isn't fair to have a render of the 2B hair look like the world's ugliest April Fool's joke. Someone rendered it, someone printed it, someone put it on Yoshida's file and someone approved every step of this. When the whole community, not even Hrothgar players alone, acknowledge that it looked bad and it gave off the wrong impression, you can't tell me no one at Square Enix also thought the same. And the giggling made it look far worse than it may have been.

And it isn't fair that we still have really stupid people telling Hrothgar and Viera players to shut up because "oh you knew what you were getting into". Not only does it dismiss the gravity of the situation, because it's escalated beyond mere "lack of customization", it also forgets the game's own roots. And if the 1.0 argument convinces very few, then imagine this:
- Hrothgar was announced by the devs. Not that many people actively asked for it, yet it still has a playerbase who enjoys it and is asking for updates and attention. It's become a part of the community. Square doesn't give a damn.
- Diadem was recycled four times now. The first two failed, no one liked playing them. The third one became Eureka, which also had massive problems on launch. And the fourth was shoved into the Firmament because Square can't let an idea go.
Why insist so much on Diadem but not Hrothgar? "Oh costs"? That's BS and you all know it. Even if the problem were costs, these guys plan things well in advance, they should assess their priorities.
And I honestly blame the development team so much for these fans's responses. Because if they had adressed this any sooner, we wouldn't be having to constantly repeat ourselves.

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

To be fair, asking a team that was clearly not equipped to create and maintain a beast race of sufficient quality was indeed the wrong thing to do.
...
Instead of fighting with players who for various reasons do not like Hrothgar or take issue with the manner in which they were implemented, focus instead on keeping the conversation focused on getting the updates this race needs because the fact that we are in the year 2022 and we are still having this discussion regarding their limited state is unacceptable.

No it's not fair at all.

Because that team specifically wanted this race to be in the game, and then promptly abandoned it.

If we're attacking anyone, then all they need to do is present it to their superiors so that someone allocates the proper resources for it.

Because that McDonald's analogy is a terrible analogy as it is. That isn't the situation at all whatsoever. You're just making up crap to sound smart and think your point got proven, but it did not. This isn't a case of some Karen at McDonald's, this is the playerbase of a given content that has been sitting for 3 years for any update and just got the ugliest trash the development team could have brought forth. Those aren't the same, and if anything, you've just proven you know nothing of the situation.

But guess what, to take your ridiculous analogy and actually make it work: If A VAST MAJORITY of the people asking for a certain type of burger have come out and said "Yo, this burger is awful", and you don't do anything about it, then it's on you.

Because otherwise, we know full well who to go for. It's just that given how the situation has escalated, SOMEONE needs to move their butt.

And it's not by accusing us Hrothgar players that you'll defend the development team any harder. Because you can think all you want about the method, but what Mosha said was nothing but inappropriate.

Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Because that team specifically wanted this race to be in the game, and then promptly abandoned it.

If we're attacking anyone, then all they need to do is present it to their superiors so that someone allocates the proper resources for it.

Because that McDonald's analogy is a terrible analogy as it is, but guess what, it also proves one thing. If A VAST MAJORITY of the people asking for a certain type of burger have come out and said "Yo, this burger is awful", and you don't do anything about it, then it's on you.

Because otherwise, we know full well who to go for. It's just that given how the situation has escalated, SOMEONE needs to move their butt.

And it's not by accusing us Hrothgar players that you'll defend the development team any harder. Because you can think all you want about the method, but what Mosha said was nothing but inappropriate.

We agree that something seriously went wrong on the development side and that fixes need to be implemented, the sooner the better. Feeding into people who either are deliberately trying to get a rise out of you or expressing their opinion, regardless of whether you think it's "inappropriate" or not isn't the good look some Hrothgar players think it is. They are not the target to aim for, and the last thing Hrothgar players need to be doing is getting into heated arguments that result in forum bans.

I still maintain that the development team was clearly out of their league when it came to this whole project and that the expectation of making them "as beastly as possible" culminated in the situation we find ourselves in now. Trying to pass off WoW-style allied races as full FFXIV races was not something that was ever going to work out without severe backlash from the FFXIV playerbase.

The logical way in which the Hrothgar race could have been implemented without the chaos that later ensued is the following:

- *1* base round head shape that can accommodate the various in-game hairstyles and 4 unique faces for that head shape
- No hunchback
- The highlander build which generally looks better in armor due to no stretching of textures
- More expressive eyes
- Eyebrows for more than just one face (and from what I understand those eyebrows were only added at some point during Endwalker)
- No genderlocks and releases at the same time as the female variant

The result of this would have been a far less controversial product that strikes a good balance between catering to beast-race enjoyers and the otherwise anime style loving FFXIV crowd. The drama that erupted over gender locks and stereotypical "male" vs "female" races would have also been avoided. However, instead of choosing the logically sound option, a wrong turn was chosen at every other juncture. For what reasons, no one can say, all I know is it resulted in widespread unhappiness, frustration, and anger on all sides.

Continue being vocal about the issue but please do better in your arguments *in support of needed Hrothgar updates* rather than taking aim at people who are not fully aligned with you. Draw up concepts of what hairs/hats can and should look like on Hrothgars. Draw and post the racial hairstyles you want to see added for Hrothgar. The development team literally took the fan art that was on the first page of the male Viera thread and turned that into reality, so the same is still possible for Hrothgar, assuming that cooler and more convincing voices prevail.

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Continue being vocal about the issue but please do better in your arguments *in support of needed Hrothgar updates* rather than taking aim at people who are not fully aligned with you. Draw up concepts of what hairs/hats can and should look like on Hrothgars. Draw and post the racial hairstyles you want to see added for Hrothgar. The development team literally took the fan art that was on the first page of the male Viera thread and turned that into reality, so the same is still possible for Hrothgar, assuming that cooler and more convincing voices prevail.

So basically do their job for them. Dude, we're not the design team, we're not even aware of what they can or cannot do. Remember: they have rules that we aren't subjected to.
Not to mention, we have, we keep showing them work done by modders and say "this is what we want". As well as the fact that what we want is honestly simple, it's nothing elaborate like new designs, and if you want them, then you'll find them in the thread made during the April 1st announcements. It's all there. Just read.

Worse still, we've disproven their claim that it's too hard and there was nothing to be done. Not to mention, even if they didn't have the money and the resources to do it, we do at least know one thing: Before any Sprint, Yoshida asks people what they can do, what it will take, and a minimum + a maximum time to do it. He himself admitted to this in the documentary about 1.0 into ARR. So if it's so hard, then they should really prepare beforehand. If they don't have money and resources, don't promise anything. But if you do promise things, allocate stuff properly and treat your content with respect. And they clearly did not. So when people criticise the development team, this is what they're referring to. The lack of attention and care that went into 6.1's updates was really poor.

We HAVE had posts and threads in support of Hrothgar updates. But that won't matter for jack all if Hrothgar are constantly curbed to the side, now will it? And who has the power to do that? The dev team. So all our complaints are forwaded to the development team, and if they can't do anything, then they need to forward it to the person who can provide them with the tools to do so.

Just saying cutely "Oh please present your stuff" isn't enough. Because we have, for three years, and this is the best we got.
You do better in being aware of what it is that we're doing and what is possible and what isn't. Rather than coming up with ludicrous analogies. Because that McDonald's comment just shows that you haven't the faintest idea of how this discourse of Hrothgar updates has evolved.