Why so few additions to customization options?

[Iscah]

I don't think they're able to add new options to the "template" that each character has and gets transmitted to other players.

They can add more hairstyles because you can only have one hairstyle equipped at a time. But the "face options" (that for some characters are beards) are just toggle switches so the template is just "option 5 on/off" and they can't add an option 6. The most they could do would be to add an identical new face option with a different beard style.

That said, I think there is some opportunity that the devs could explore, because they've figured out how to make Hrothgar change hairstyles, which apparently is by switching out otherwise-identical faces in the back end, so there could be room to add one more option for other characters in the same way. Different horns for Au Ra, different beards for other races, things like that.

[Packetdancer]

They can add more hairstyles because you can only have one hairstyle equipped at a time. But the "face options" (that for some characters are beards) are just toggle switches so the template is just "option 5 on/off" and they can't add an option 6. The most they could do would be to add an identical new face option with a different beard style.

To add a bit to this, the eyes/nose/mouth are actually part of the facial models—basically different 'options' within the facial model that you can flip between. And moreover, it seems like the characters basically have a set number of "slots" to contain values. The meaning of some of those values is common to every race, but others are race specific. So to use purely pulled-from-thin-air examples, it might be like:

• Slot 1: Which face to use (from the set valid for that race/gender).
• Slot 2: Which eyes to use (from the options specific to the face in slot 1).
• Slot 3: Which nose to use (from the options specific to the face in slot 1).
• Slot 4: Which mouth to use (from the options specific to the face in slot 1).
• Slot 5: Which hairstyle to use (independent of any face chosen).
• Slot 6: Muscle definition (Hyur) or ear type (Viera) or fur pattern (Hrothgar) or horns (Au Ra)...

And so on.

So as Iscah notes, if you want to add a new feature type, you'd have to add an entire new slot to how characters get described. Which is potentially a lot more work than it might sound like. But moreover, if you want to add new possible details to faces... they either have to be new versions of face-specific options (e.g., adding a new 'eyes' option to one specific face), or they have to be entire new faces. This is almost assuredly why the 'beard stubble' for Hyur midlander males is not available on all faces; they had to add it as an entire new face instead, because even if they added a stubble variant to all the faces, they likely don't have an unused slot to record 'stubble [Y/N]?' in.

The practical upshot is that about the only thing they can add in the way of customization options without doing rather more extra work than you might think is... well, hairstyles. Which are reasonably self-contained.