You say you don't care about realism, yet you keep bringing up how a tail would be lost so easily in battle. You can't play both sides of the debate like that.
I was thinking that, honestly.. but i didn't want to be the one to come out and say it; and possibly derail any conversation. Especially since i don't think anyone has said anything about realism.. but more "This is the race we picked. Show the features!"
One thing though..
Do you know what a tail is and how it connects to a creature's body?
Like.. I don't mean to be rude at all and sorry if I am, but to say this makes me think you've never even seen a skeleton before.
I tend to avoid excessive tail clipping wherever possible and not use certain outfits. I can enjoy a race and still have a couple bones to pick. Having the tail poke through a robe or jacket is one thing and I don't really mind it, but the whole cape issue annoys me. If we could get a toggle for this sort of thing (even if it's only client side), I'd enjoy them that much more.
Noticed they keep on making capes on a nice potential looking glam..
Like the lvl 83 dungeon. The healer jacket has a cape. Understandable since cape represent «power». But the jacket alone was just fine….
The current game doesn't seem to have cape physics at all, and their solution when they wanted to start adding capes to outfits was to attach them to the animation "bones" for a long skirt or coat.
This was explained at a Fan Fest panel on gear design a few years ago. I don't recall them saying there was any possibility of adding cape physics at the time – going from memory, I think they said there were limited bones that could be added to gear and they couldn't be added for capes at all, which is why the costume designer came up with the idea of using the coat hem to anchor it instead.
It's a similar thing I want for Viera, but about the hat situation.
I'm well aware that some headgear designs would clip horribly with the ears, even with holes for them, because those ears sit right on top of the head. However, an alternative model of ear could be designed, pushed more to the sides (drawing on the right, pointy hat):
https://i.redd.it/kwtlwemzy1j31.png
Said model would be used when the hat is equipped.
But yeah, the tail situation was what made me shift from miqo'te... As annoying as the limited hairstyle options are and the lack of 2/3 of the headgear, it bothers me less than the tail clipping, not just on capes, but on many other amor attachments.
I highly doubt that the game model can handle changing the position of ears like that, particularly given the way that it currently handles things like high ponytails under hats – as far as I'm aware, they can turn off entirely but they never convert to a "flattened by the hat" form with strands of hair in a different position to the default style.
I think they should have put Viera ears in that position to begin with – there is precedent in Viera designs and they could share hats with Miqo'te. Plus I just personally think the ears sit too high even before you factor in the other issues.
My suggestion entailed even looking into making that viable, as opposed to just working with the current tech, which I also agree that is kind of unlikely to have such possibilty, since we had the weird example of how the stubble was implemented on midlander males.
But beyond that... If they finally make "flattened hairstyles" (aka hat friendly) versions of the 9 styles unique to Viera, they can add a lot of headgear by just letting the ears clip through the headpiece. Like it already happens in some head items that are available because they don't show any hair underneat at all.
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/w/imag...Male-Viera.png
When you choose a race with tail or long ears.
You have commit yourself to see those tail/ears all the time, no matter what you do, no matter what you wear.
It would be weird if you want to play catgirl without tail.
Or Elezen without neck…. I mean ears.
Honestly I rather have a different gear model for races with tails than hiding the tail altogether just to have less clipping. Some of the older gear had a different model for Miqo'te where the back part looked different so that their tail wouldn't clip as much, but they stopped doing that by HW or so (things like Woolen Bliaud for example, it's different on Miqo'te, but strangely Au Ra have the Hyur version). I'd like to see different versions for Au Ra and Miqo'te again. Their capes could just be different than the capes on other races. As Au Ra I wouldn't wear an outfit with a normal cape in the first place. Same with that as a small person irl I don't wear clothes made for huge people.
What the Evenstar Coat does (besides look disastrous) is switch off the tail, just like the Moonward ones do, except there's a fake tail built into the coat model to give the illusion of it being the same tail covered up instead of it just vanishing without a trace.
Viera eats wouldn't work the same way because they have multiple possible shapes.
Plus you still have to deal with whatever technical issue is preventing them from using hats that switch off the upper half of the hair model.