6.2 Hrothgar Update

[Oizen]

They must read something be it here or other venues they seemed fix the ears pretty quickly probably a lot faster than most expected.

We also got Male Viera and Female Hroths are on the way. I think they got the message Male Hrothgar weren't happy in the least.

Probably Twitter.

[Vahlnir]

They must read something be it here or other venues they seemed fix the ears pretty quickly probably a lot faster than most expected.

We also got Male Viera and Female Hroths are on the way. I think they got the message Male Hrothgar weren't happy in the least.

The forums weren't the only outlet set on fire by this when 6.1 dropped. Heck, I'm pretty sure a few Youtubers, including Zepla, covered this and were basically like "WTF?" as well. So yeah, the backlash probably came from a little bit of everywhere, and it was well deserved. Whether these forums had a hand in it...it's hard to say. But I would like to think that we contributed.

[Midareyukki]

The forums weren't the only outlet set on fire by this when 6.1 dropped. Heck, I'm pretty sure a few Youtubers, including Zepla, covered this and were basically like "WTF?" as well. So yeah, the backlash probably came from a little bit of everywhere, and it was well deserved. Whether these forums had a hand in it...it's hard to say. But I would like to think that we contributed.

Reddit memed it super hard, Discord communities went "wow, this is BAD" and moved on and Twitter spent the whole week praising the patch's positives but then scowling that weird choice and acknowledging it was bad.

It was not localized at all xD And nah, I doubht these forums had any hand in it. We may have contributed to some content creators acknowledging the situation, but the room was already on fire when we started making threads.

[ElizanderNorisse]

Eventually? You mean, in another 3 years?

Glad they changed the hairstyles to include ears after the complaints, but I'm still remembering how they said it took them years to get 3 incomplete hairstyles out. Things look grim for Hrothgar still, as we see more races get newer hairstyles while we're just fixing older ones from a previous patch. Hopefully, it doesn't become a pattern where it takes Hrothgar 2 patch cycles to get the same hairstyle other races do in 1 patch cycle.

What will you have me do? Whip the devs to death?

[CidHeiral]

it is very obvious to anyone with two functioning eyes that they deliberately screwed over hrothgar in 6.1 so they could fix this later, act like they did something, and give hrothgar jack

I wasn't aware Hrothgar could equip tin foil hats.

[Midareyukki]

What will you have me do? Whip the devs to death?

Can we stop with the fake exaggeration? It's dismissing what people are saying and needlessly aggressive.

You don't have to do anything. It's people coming in here and saying crap like that that makes others think that we're out for dev blood.

No, asking for basic decency isn't the same as being a douche.

We're just trying to get the devs to stop ignoring us and address this race. Look, I'm tired of explaining this to people here so I'll just start writing in bullet points from now on, for more info just bloody read the threads...
- FF14 is made with Agile Software Development. Yoshida himself admitted to it. A super quick explanation of this is that development is divided into iterations called Sprints. You do a task, finish it, then loop back to solve issues, add stuff to it, change stuff, so on until the final product is ready for shipping. Agile Development is a popular method because it lets you catch issues in time and correct development and allocate resources required to do so early on.
- This means that on Hrothgars, they had several Sprints before the release in 5.0. These sprints should have alerted them to the issues the race would present and for the demanding complexity in comparison to all the other races.
- The fact they shipped Hrothgar and Viera with lacking features means they agreed to make those sacrifices to ship them on time, rather than asking for more time (delaying the game) or hiring staff to help out.
- It's been 3 years since. During these 3 years, every patch had countless Sprints until each got published, and at no point did Hrothgar get any customization designed, nor was this addressed at all.
- The one time we got anything was in 6.1.
So on all those Sprints, the people porting those gaudy hairstyles couldn't find a way to do it without a bit more effort to incorporate the ears?
Hell, the ears being missing is an on\off switch: they took time to do it themselves rather than just letting it happen. They went out of their way to mess with it.
Not to mention it got delayed anyway, so...
- We're back to Hrothgar not having anything. Turning a switch on or off doesn't take any effort at all... but look closely. This is all we've gotten thus far: shoddy hairstyle implementation and low effort.
- And going from past experience, we're expecting to be ignored for years again with missing basic features.
Now, they may have their reasons... But those reasons don't justify them ignoring the basic aspects of Agile Development. And unfortunately, it's just not that ethic to do so, and from a consumer standpoint it makes the low effort put into it feel very noticeable.
They had several chances to address this. They didn't. And the one time they did, it was low effort. So forgive us from not wanting history to repeat itself.

No need to whip anyone, we're just asking for a more aware and transparent dev team. That should not be too much to ask for.

I wasn't aware Hrothgar could equip tin foil hats.

It's called having a pair of eyes. An accessory likely locked out from Highlander Hyur.

Maybe the reason you think that way is because you haven't experienced what Hrothgars have been experiencing for 3 years. Perhaps if you had, you'd sing a far different tune.

Then again, you're a Hyur. You may think going Highlander hides it, but no sis, you're still showing off unoriginal and insipid Default vibes.


I love it how it's always the Hyurs coming in thinking they get to have an opinion on other peoples' race issues.

Not that other races don't do it, but they tend to be fewer and more varied.

Cheers Defaults <3 Enjoy your gameplay experience as the visual representation of unseasoned mashed potatoes!

[AnotherPerson]

I don't think anyone is asking here to jump up and down clapping your feet together like a big dumb baby over the devs fixing their mistakes.

But it's also still bratty to at least not be happy that they ARE still listening when something players have asked is finally being given. Who the hell wants to even put in the effort to give something players want if it turns out theyll still be angry about it anyway? I would just not even bother at that point if I had that type of hindsight.

We should be happy when they fix things that should be fixed and angry when stuff still isn't. There's literally no point to continue being vitriolic in this situation.

I doubt Hrothgars are not happy that the change has been implemented. Rather, the feeling not having much expectations on the team in general for improving their race since they have been given a below-standard expectation outweighs any potential feeling of happiness when they think about the future updates based on current results.

The current feeling?
It's like getting a hand-me-down toy years after everyone got the new toy, but you still have to pay for the broken hand-me-down while everyone gets the same one for free, but much earlier than you as well. Everyone gets new toy(s) and then when it comes to you - only after another couple years later, you'll get the fixed version of the old toy when everyone else realize something's off with the way you're being treated.
Then you wait for another gods know how long (since so far, it took them 3 years to release 1 incomplete update) for your next possibly hand-me-down toy that everyone else already has --- while you look at everyone else getting a new toy(s) in the meantime.

You don't actually look forward to the toys other people get when it was new. You just... accept it. That you're just the inferior race and you aren't given as much care. You're not unhappy to get something, but you're paying for the same amount everyone else is to get less AND inferior quality hand-me-downs. At least to not be happy? It's hard to say whether you would be happy in this situation at all, rather than numb and indifferent as the disparity gets worse and worse.

And this comparison is wholly accurate:
We waited for over 3 years to get an old hairstyle in ShB that other races already had access to, except it still had our ears amputated.
We pay for a fantasia to change our existing hairstyles for 3 years until the complaints snowballed out of control in 6.1 while other races can just naturally change their hairstyles in the aesthetician for free AND get new options. The fact this wasn't addressed for 3 years should be a big red flag on how less hope Hrothgars have towards the future if no change was shown or written on patch notes until everything spiraled out of control on the forum threads.
We finally got the 'new' hairstyle fixed, while new updates are still being rolled out for other races -- but there was no mention on new hairstyles for us, only fixes for the sparse number that was recently released.
We still don't have a second update for our hairstyles. There is no update or comparison with the changes, so we can only judge from what we know after this kind of treatment tapering our expectations. Judging by the speed at which they put out Hrothgar hairstyles, the current expectation is that we'll get 3 more old hairstyles in 3 years -- which means one more expansion of waiting.

Is there anything that really makes you happy, looking at the trajectory of the updates? They were listening only after everyone took notice how bad the treatment was. Another 4 months or so, all they did was slap on the ears and call it a day? No, It just made people more aware now how big the difference in treatment the race gets if nothing is brought up.

Which is very unfortunate. The difference in treatment had to be brought up to even be scrutinized. If no one flooded the forums about all the issues Hrothgar dealt with since their release by 6.1 - including still requiring a fantasia to change hairstyles when other races can do that naturally with the aesthetician for free, do you honestly think they would have made the update to allow Hrothgar to change hairstyles? When it was already brought up from patch 5.1 to 6.0? Of course not. This is just players having very realistic expectations after being treated poorly for years. Is it vitriolic when Hrothgars say they probably have to wait another 3 years for updates? No, because that's what the expectation has been set to be, and there hasn't been a single instance to prove things will be different otherwise. This is just a natural tapered expectation that sounds vitriolic because other people will never expect to put up with this kind of treatment and subconsciously will think that's outlandish to say when they compare it with their treatment.

Do I expect them to drop everything for Hrothgar? No. Do I expect them to actually show proof that they care about our race by giving us updates other than the bare minimum? Updates that get released at the same time as other races? Yes - because THAT is what the BARE MINIMUM should have been if our races were getting equal treatment - even after accounting for the limitations and lack of updates to old existing gearsets. As one of the higher rated games out in the market and a public statement in Endwalker saying they "will spare no expense" ... something like this happening... Until they show a similar level of treatment for this race that every other race has naturally, it's more surprising if Hrothgars show anything other than indifference.

[Akimori]

Eh. Seeing these comments in here that are dismissing things are not even worth the headache, especially if they have nothing to offer other than being an incendiary... Just ignore them and move along.

[Rawr18]

I wasn't aware Hrothgar could equip tin foil hats.

I wasn't aware you could equip a big red nose.

[Rolder50]

I like how this thread has basically devolved into actual Hrothgar players being almost universally upset, while non-Hrothgar players try to convince them they are wrong.