6.2 Hrothgar Update

[Vahlnir]

This is what I was getting to with my criticisms toward the other two stooges a while back.

They had years to prepare, gather feedback and information and design hairstyles that fit Hrothgar. They did not.
They wrote it on their calendars that they had to give something to Hrothgars by 6.1. A thing that some people even pointed out got delayed (I have no sources though, would appreciate if people could link me to that).
They had ample time, and what they gave us on April 1st of 2022, April Fool's day, was easily the most cringeworthy low-effort meme s**tpost things I've ever seen. So poor, in fact, the dev team were giggling all throughout and the rest of the community agreed was not acceptable.
A reaction they weren't expecting, apparently. Despite the majority of the community finding it awful. Are you really telling me that in an entire office, not a single one thought it looked in bad taste? When millions of fans voiced their displeasure?
And that to do them, they needed to stretch them beyond belief and causing Peanut-Shaped Skulls and a complete removal of our ears.
So you mean to tell me a team that plans in advance, simply throws us bad copy-pasted content from another race with restrictions to make it easier? And that they can't afford to now prepare and act accordingly?

I made a feedback thread so they could understand why Hrothgar feel such outrage and why the community reacted poorly to their announcement. So that they can better orient and prepare accordingly. Not to randomly "acquiesce to our every demand", but to treat Hrothgars with respect and make quality content. One that won't garner such a horrible response. So they could reconsider, and make quality stuff in the future.

When they make furniture and hairstyles for other races without a lick of problems, doing the same for Hrothgars should not come with such a lazy response as "It will take a lot of time". It should take as much time as it has to. People clearly want it, far more than anyone asked for the Fellowship System, so get to it.

Time to really spare no expense.

Very, very well said.

[Payadopa]

At this point I'd already be happy if they'd adopt the code from modders even if only I can see the headgear. That would at least be something.

[Kazhar]

At this point I'd already be happy if they'd adopt the code from modders even if only I can see the headgear. That would at least be something.

If they adopt the code from modders, everyone would be able to see it. Sharing the appearance with others has never been the issue. Everything is on the client and the only reason people can't see your mods is because they don't have it installed.

The reason they can't implement the code is because they have some limitations and clipping aversion they didn't really ever elaborate on.

[Midareyukki]

This exactly. There were many better ways to go about making this race, and they fumbled the bag at every turn. Now they gotta lay in the watery poopy sheets they made when they shat the bed on this race.

The only issue with that is that they had 3 years to realize they needed to do that. And they just dug themselves a deeper hole. They knew the race was in the proverbial crapper, and they just decided to ram it further down the drain. Because the impromptu ear surgery they gave us and the head squashing a) doesn't fix anything, b) actually makes the situation a lot worse because now you have awkward code in the way of a proper fix, and c) opens up a precedent for them to be lazy with these things. And if it can happen with us, how far will they then push for similar on the other races? Because yeah, it's easy to think "Oh, it's just Hrothgar now because they're the hardest to design for", but if we're not careful (and with how many people actually defend this mess), we'll see them cut corners on other races or other content.

It's why it's important to set your foot down.

The only saving grace for me is the hope and assumption that they learned from this when it comes to the females.

That's the thing, isn't it? :T

I hope they've finally seen what the Hrothgar playerbase and the rest of the community thinks about their methods. Not just for the males, but so that female Hrothgar doesn't get thrown into the drain before release.

But given how Male Viera were released, my hopes are in the pipe with the rest of the race.

If they adopt the code from modders, everyone would be able to see it. Sharing the appearance with others has never been the issue. Everything is on the client and the only reason people can't see your mods is because they don't have it installed.

The reason they can't implement the code is because they have some limitations and clipping aversion they didn't really ever elaborate on.

Something something quality control and their own set of rules, think of low-end PCs, something something. I honestly even think at least half of the 3rd party tools people use aren't heavy anyway, so they could take a few hints.
But they never will, because pride or something.

> clipping aversion

Endsinger's hair.

The final boss of the whole saga has hair locks clipping through themselves on her idle pose.

And that's not even getting into the VERY NOTICEABLE clipping in cutscenes.

Proper Hrothgar content? "Nah fam".
Animating sugar cubes and Miqo'te Ears? "THAT'S THE SH*T"

They ain't fixing ur furry race, so stop complaining or go back to Vulperra.

Hello WoWfugee, the WoW cesspit is over here, you got yourself lost. Stop gatekeeping.

Let it be known the community is easily the worst part of being a Hrothgar. And I blame Square Enix for every second of it.

[reivaxe]

The only issue with that is that they had 3 years to realize they needed to do that.

Not really. Every misstake and misstep with Hrothgar was built into the foundation when they were designing them. From YP telling the team to not worry about making hair fit them to the very concept.

What did people cry for other than Viera? Playable Lupin, aka Wolf Headed Highlanders. This is why we got a beast race, people wanted it and YP wanted it.

What did YP do? Look for the WORSE male rig in the game to make a "better" version of that body shape and give it a cat head, even though we "have" a cat race.

WoW devs give Orcs back relief because people hated being hunched, YP runs right into it ... making the texture stretching problems of the Roe-Bro rig very noticeable despite having a smaller frame.

Devote a ton of design budget on the fur and fur pattern memory ish when males normally go full covered, meaning they have to basically be shirtless to show off their patterns.

Were NEVER designed with the thought of changing hair in mind ... in a game where "Head stuff" is a major side of customization, as there's nothing you can do to change your body shape. Result? They made 4 heads that are soo different that it makes it's even harder to go back and make shared hair for them.

EVERY choice was a fumble, everything a misstep. They shoulda designed for the game they had, don't go full beast heads if you can't do it right. Bless Cat Race woulda been the best route head-wise.
It's not lazy, it's being boxed into a corner by your own poorly thought out choices. Nothing the devs do is lazy, they clearly care a lot, even if people aren't happy with everything they do.

we'll see them cut corners on other races or other content.

They've already HAD to cut corners to support Viera and Hrothgar's effery. At this point in the expac, there should be a new in game reward hairstyle for all normal races. What did we get though? Nothing but updates for these 2 races AND LATER a mog female only hair attached to an NPC glam.

Anyone whining about EW not having as many unique gear set designs so far? Remember that they have more character body types to support now, and they're also making a graphics update AND they're making Female Hrothgar. Man power doesn't just come outta no where.

That's the thing, isn't it? :T

I hope they've finally seen what the Hrothgar playerbase and the rest of the community thinks about their methods. Not just for the males, but so that female Hrothgar doesn't get thrown into the drain before release.

But given how Male Viera were released, my hopes are in the pipe with the rest of the race.

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.

The biggest question would be hair ... seeing as they're NOW giving the males hair, it would stand to reason that they would take sharing hair into consideration for the females so that it doesn't look janked.

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.

I think you all are confusing some basic things.

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.

They actively had to change the shape of the heads for some of the faces to make this new shared hair system work.

So yeah, they were supposed to get "Hrothgar hair" that you pay $10s for, like the Stubble face for mids. They heard what people wanted and tried to make the shared hair system work instead.

[SturmChurro]

I think you all are confusing some basic things.

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.

They actively had to change the shape of the heads for some of the faces to make this new shared hair system work.

So yeah, they were supposed to get "Hrothgar hair" that you pay $10s for, like the Stubble face for mids. They heard what people wanted and tried to make the shared hair system work instead.

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.

[Vahlnir]

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 think he still would have gotten crap for them even if he left the ears on, but I do think that the removal of the ears was unnecessary fuel for the fire. Leaving them intact would have helped the situation, at least a little bit. Like I said before, they made MORE work for themselves by removing the ears for absolutely no reason. Especially since they had to stretch the "karen" hair which made it look like Voldemort was hiding on the other side of a Hrothgar's head. This isn't Harry Potter, dev team.

[reivaxe]

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.

Same thing happened with Viera, they were supposed to only get race hair.
There's also the fact that they made that choice (ONLY Race hair for Viera, no changeable Hrothgar hair but new manes and "faces" for them to potion to) waaaay BEFORE they decided to add in the missing genders. IMO it was THAT choice that made that path too hard. It may not be too much to add in, after years, 4 new Viera race hairstyles and 4 Hrothgar manes that are custom fitted & locked to their face/ not useable by other faces. Base Hrothgar manes are ... basic, they don't even have highlights. But adding in Male Viera and Female Hrothgar literally 2xs the amount of new, custom hair they would have to make.

It becomes far more logical to just make the shared hairs work on these races at that point and scrap the idea of unique, racial hair when you gotta do it for both genders of both races. There's also the years of people begging for shared hair and changeable Hrothgar hair to take into account. Plans can change, this is a living game ... it's never done. These races were never meant to have the counterparts when they were being made, any plans they had for them before deciding to add them can understandably be changed.

[Lubu_Mykono]

They ain't fixing ur furry race, so stop complaining or go back to Vulperra.

[RyuDragnier]

They ain't fixing ur furry race, so stop complaining or go back to Vulperra.

Cool story bro.