Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

I hope they get good Hazard pay, I can only imagine how dangerous and stressful it is to get such footage of the nonsense and trainwrecks that happen

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All they wanted was a pizza. Extra cheese with bacon. Seemed kinda strange but I wasn't gonna argue.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

And there ladies and gentlemen is a KO.

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And here ladies and gentlemen is someone who can't handle having their trolling called out.

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

And here ladies and gentlemen is someone who can't handle having their trolling called out.

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Don't project your status on me.
I'm not the one going "cool story bro" as his only argument during the current discussion. If that isn't the definition of "troll" I don't know what is.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

All they wanted was a pizza. Extra cheese with bacon. Seemed kinda strange but I wasn't gonna argue.

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You kidding?
Thats some Lit Cheesy Bread 8)

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

Don't project your status on me.
I'm not the one going "cool story bro" as his only argument during the current discussion. If that isn't the definition of "troll" I don't know what is.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

And there ladies and gentlemen is a KO.

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uh, right...

This

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

Cool story, bro. It's still just an opinion.

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Deserves the reply I gave to it.
Again, you keep projecting your own nature onto me, but clearly it doesn't work.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

This

Deserves the reply I gave to it.
Again, you keep projecting your own nature onto me, but clearly it doesn't work.

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Keep on tro... I mean trucking.

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

Keep on tro... I mean trucking.

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Your nature almost came out; are you ok?

I'm not sure what's going on in this thread anymore...

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

Your nature almost came out; are you ok?

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Well, fortunately unlike you, I can keep mine in check.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I'm not sure what's going on in this thread anymore...

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Don't try man. Its not worth it.

It's circled back into "Male Viera should look how I want them to look because X" except with a lot of barbs and dodgy "logic".

Honestly, I'd REALLY want someone to actually link BadLala to Yoshi-P's stance on the gender locks, i.e. the "promise" that gets thrown around (note: because I know my posts tend to be taken the wrong way, they have been asking for that source for about 20 pages but I REALLY don't want to look for it.). Mostly because it's already been shared in the thread but I really don't want to look for it. In general: it wasn't textually a promise, more of an acknowledgement of the fandom's wishes surrounding male Viera, female Roegadyns, and female Highlanders; sort of a "commitment" although the more accurate word would be "desire" to "do better" in the future. Nothing so binding as a promise (And I say that as a HUGE M!Viera/F!Hrothgar supporter, damn I'd play a Ronso Warrior-Lady in a heartbeat).

It'll probably circle back into "But Lore!" in 10 to 20 pages.

Since we seem to be on the "Male Viera should look like this/that because blah blah." bit again. I’ll just say this:
I just hope the male Viera will have giant beard options. They’re my last hope at this point. And that’s if they even get added.

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

Well, fortunately unlike you, I can keep mine in check.

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My nature is one backed up by facts and solid evidence. Yours on the other hand has no basis of anything, and when called out you resort to "good story bro." if that's the extent of your male Viera debates refrain from addressing my statements.

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Originally Posted by Fredco191

Since we seem to be on the "Male Viera should look like this/that because I want them to." bit again. I’ll just say this:
I just hope the male Viera will have giant beard options. They’re my last hope at this point. And that’s if they even get added.

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Yes, as well as more mustache options. Male Roegadyn dominates the beard options in a great way, but even they don't have a good amount of mustache options. Instead of racial tattoos I'd love if they changed that to mustache options.
Something like this would be great
https://i.imgur.com/saNKBBh.png

Oh, well...

I've had my fill of suggesting what they should look like. I'm not getting involved in that again.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Oh, well...

I've had my fill of suggesting what they should look like. I'm not getting involved in that again.

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i agree, it’s nothing but a headache

let’s talk about bangaa instead

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

It's circled back into "Male Viera should look how I want them to look because X" except with a lot of barbs and dodgy "logic".

Honestly, I'd REALLY want someone to actually link BadLala to Yoshi-P's stance on the gender locks, i.e. the "promise" that gets thrown around (note: because I know my posts tend to be taken the wrong way, they have been asking for that source for about 20 pages but I REALLY don't want to look for it.). Mostly because it's already been shared in the thread but I really don't want to look for it. In general: it wasn't textually a promise, more of an acknowledgement of the fandom's wishes surrounding male Viera, female Roegadyns, and female Highlanders; sort of a "commitment" although the more accurate word would be "desire" to "do better" in the future. Nothing so binding as a promise (And I say that as a HUGE M!Viera/F!Hrothgar supporter, damn I'd play a Ronso Warrior-Lady in a heartbeat).

It'll probably circle back into "But Lore!" in 10 to 20 pages.

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That's what I remember happening and could find. It was more of desire to satisfy players' demand, not a stance or a promise against genderlocking. And of course after determining the cost of adding them. Because it doesn't make sense that he'd promise no more genderlocking and in 2013 say he'd make female Viera only and another race for the male counterpart. They weren't thinking of designing Hrothgar or any beastly race at that point. So it shows that he never saw genderlocking as an issue and the reason that the missing genders in 1.0 were a "must add", according to Yoshida, was the high demand for them. If they added Au Ra instead, players would be upset that their demands were not listened to again. And now with the case of female Viera and male Horthgar, there were demands for both, according to him. But they can only afford the cost of two playable characters. If they were to overcome the cost issue in the future and can add another race, male Viera and female Hrothgar would be a "must add" just like back in 1.0.

The main reason I see for driving up their cost is how they model each gear piece and how it interacts with each other. From Yoshida's butt slider response recently, it shows that they do not have an automated way of adjusting clothes that clip with large butts and would have to do that manually. Which is why a simple slider request is hard to satisfy. But if they were to automate these processes so that it requires little to no work when adjusting a gear piece for all races, then we'd not only see male Viera and female Hrothgar, but also other races in the future can be possible if the game still continues.

As an aside, I admittedly don't know a whole lot about the game itself but...apparently PSO2 is getting something along the lines of the 1.0 ---> 2.0 treatment:

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/phantasy-sta...in-the-series/

Why am I bringing it up here? Well, I thought it'd be interesting to note given that FFXIV is held back in many regards, especially in regards to the dated character models, excessive menus and various 'limitations' that make certain parts of the game difficult to update.

Recent interviews suggest that the intention is for FFXIV to continue to go on for quite a while, though I do wonder if that means another major revamp of the game as a whole somewhere down the line. If nothing else? Maybe the healthy competition from upcoming and existing MMO's will encourage the missing genders, character model upgrades and character customisation updates to be seen as a higher priority.

Quality and time are the issues, not the cost; as he said "you can't simply just throw money." What they'd need to do is find a few more 3D artists that are on the level of their current 3D artists, that would only happen if they can steal a few of them from other japanese game development companies. Since I don't see that happening I don't see male Viera happening. I just don't know how they'll be able to sell the next expansion at the same time that they tell us they can't add male Viera and to understand without something else to soften the blow; character creator upgrade, glamour system upgrade, job system upgrade, Fates system upgrade. They have to upgrade or introduce new systems to really make us feel like they're doing more than the bare minimum, specially with the hard stab that comes from an outright rejection of the missing genders. While he might say "we might add them in future expansions," that will ring really hollow, the game will be severely aged in terms of its popularity. Theme parks are something we outgrow when it's the same playground with different colors.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As an aside, I admittedly don't know a whole lot about the game itself but...apparently PSO2 is getting something along the lines of the 1.0 ---> 2.0 treatment:

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/phantasy-sta...in-the-series/

Why am I bringing it up here? Well, I thought it'd be interesting to note given that FFXIV is held back in many regards, especially in regards to the dated character models, excessive menus and various 'limitations' that make certain parts of the game difficult to update.

Recent interviews suggest that the intention is for FFXIV to continue to go on for quite a while, though I do wonder if that means another major revamp of the game as a whole somewhere down the line. If nothing else? Maybe the healthy competition from upcoming and existing MMO's will encourage the missing genders, character model upgrades and character customisation updates to be seen as a higher priority.

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That's great news. This is the kind of stuff that can hack away at Square enix and their complacency to do the bare minimum with a new a coat of paint. I always had my eye on PSO, hell I played the hell out of PSO back in 2001-2002 on the Dreamcast and then later on Gamecube. If it gets a great 1.0-2.0 treatment I'll definitely try it out.

I've heard it said they tend to target experienced hires, rather than training up new staff - with the exception of the battle design team where MMO-specialised talent is so scarce in Japan that they're forced to do that as it is the only option. If they can't find enough experienced hires at a wage they're happy to pay, maybe they can focus on training up staff to meet their requirements as a longer term investment. The game does need a new coat of paint and quite a bit more besides.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As an aside, I admittedly don't know a whole lot about the game itself but...apparently PSO2 is getting something along the lines of the 1.0 ---> 2.0 treatment:

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/phantasy-sta...in-the-series/

Why am I bringing it up here? Well, I thought it'd be interesting to note given that FFXIV is held back in many regards, especially in regards to the dated character models, excessive menus and various 'limitations' that make certain parts of the game difficult to update.

Recent interviews suggest that the intention is for FFXIV to continue to go on for quite a while, though I do wonder if that means another major revamp of the game as a whole somewhere down the line. If nothing else? Maybe the healthy competition from upcoming and existing MMO's will encourage the missing genders, character model upgrades and character customisation updates to be seen as a higher priority.

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It's an encouraging example, at the least. There's quite a few promising MMOs on the horizon, but I'll reserve judgement on that until we see how they actually perform. Maybe it'll push SE to be more ambitious, particularly if they really do want the game to continue for as long as Yoshi says they do. Apparently something "huge" is in the works but what that might be is anyone's guess.

"you can't simply just throw money." I think some are not native English speakers and think that if it doesn't include money, then it's not a cost. So I'll just leave one of the definitions of cost from Merriam-Webster here.

Definition of cost: 2- loss or penalty incurred especially in gaining something (the cost of lives during war).

Degraded quality and lost development time are the cost of gaining more playable races. You can even still tie this back to money if it causes you to lose players.

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Originally Posted by BadLala

So it shows that he never saw genderlocking as an issue and the reason that the missing genders in 1.0 were a "must add", according to Yoshida, was the high demand for them.

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Wouldnt this imply that there was an issue with genderlocking - a demand for something people wanted and genderlocking runs counter to that demand?

Im not contesting your claim that YoshiP never promised anything, and the reason to add the off sexes was one of demand and pragmatism, but this being said it was quickly apparent that splitting up the races (making only female Viera nad Male Hrothgar, annnnd to switch design gears to include Female Viera halfway through ShB production sched) was probably the wrong choice to make. They ended up including Female Viera at the cost of Female Hrothgar (it was stated by YoshiP that Hrothgar were in Development IIRC well before female viera to give a more 'monster race' niche to help compete against games like WoW - or rather to give WoW players more beastly options) because they said that this would likely be the last chance to add a new race and Viera was still in high demand. What it boiled down to is they tried to do the best of both worlds, and ended up mismanaging it.

Yes, you would get some disappointment with no Viera if you went Hrothgar M/F, but it could be explained that "This is FFXIV and were doing something else." Which is fine. Or you couldve went full Viera, and introduced M Viera but wouldnt satisfy the players who wanted more beastly races.

What they did is reveal female viera, let fan speculation run wild with the use previously established examples of M Miqote and F Roe, and people got super hyped for Male Viera - something that wouldve been a first and in some demand. Only to pull the rug out by saying "Nah check out Hrothgars". It was kind of a wtf moment. they shouldve just stuck with one or the other cause this middle ground leaves a lot of people disappointed and wanting. Particularly considering the issues with customization on both viera and Hrothgar. It was a misstep.

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Originally Posted by BadLala

From Yoshida's butt slider response recently, it shows that they do not have an automated way of adjusting clothes that clip with large butts and would have to do that manually. Which is why a simple slider request is hard to satisfy. But if they were to automate these processes so that it requires little to no work when adjusting a gear piece for all races, then we'd not only see male Viera and female Hrothgar, but also other races in the future can be possible if the game still continues.

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The unfortunate truth is they need to rebuild the character engine. It was probably in vogue at the time to have the engine operate the way it does, along with saving costs by salvaging it from 1.0, but it is obviously showing the inflexible nature of it now. It might be in their better interests to bite the bullet and just rebuild the character creation engine. It is hyper expensive, but will prolong the lifespan of the game. Cause with each xpac, thats more armor models and gear they need to adjust for, whcih is cost inefficient long term. So it will actually end up limiting how many xpacs they can create or how much they can put into it.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

They ended up including Female Viera at the cost of Female Hrothgar (it was stated by YoshiP that Hrothgar were in Development IIRC well before female viera to give a more 'monster race' niche to help compete against games like WoW - or rather to give WoW players more beastly options) because they said that this would likely be the last chance to add a new race and Viera was still in high demand. What it boiled down to is they tried to do the best of both worlds, and ended up mismanaging it.

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I actually DO have a source for that! MrHappy's interview with Yoshi-P (transcription in the description). It's the very first question but it's quite long; relevant parts are:

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When I took over for ARR, I wanted to fill the missing genders to make those races seem complete. What is different now compared to then, after multiple expansions, the situation isn’t the same as when we released the base game.

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We wanted to give players options and freedom to choose more races. We envisioned adding a new race, but people really wanted the Viera to play in-game. So if we add another new race that isn’t Viera, people might wonder why we didn’t do Viera, so we had to add them for sure.

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Especially for FF14, we have many symbols of power or strength such as Highlander and Roegadyns. We wanted something more animal like. Its not that we wanted to create a wild west of characters, but we do need a good variety. So the simple answer is: Viera was sought after so we had to add those. To expand the game and its options, we also wanted to add Hrothgar.

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MrHappy's interview is the closest we've had to a definite answer from Yoshi-P on the matter of the missing genders:

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We did consider Male Viera instead of adding an extra race, but we tried to take player feedback on adding a more beast like race as well as the strong desire to receive Viera. We did expect strong feedback on the gender lock. It was a tough decision, but we decided to do our best to meet both the player feedback and our development team’s vision. It will be very costly to add a new race or genders. So I won’t say no, but I would not like to set expectations high.

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

snips

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Ill have to take your word at this, but I do distinctly remember YoshiP stating that Hrothgar development started Before Viera, and that viera came later in the dev cycle and not the other way around. The reason why this sticks to my mind so much si that the initial narrative on reddit and the forums was that they developed Viera First but it was later corrected that Viera came second in the dev cycle, while Hrothgar was on the table since the start of ShB development.

I could very well be misremembering. But this all being said, it doesnt change the end result. They tried to do both things and ended up not really handling it well.

In fact, it actually mightve been much better, PR wise, to intro Hrothgar First, then Female Viera.

While Im nto crossing fingers, I am hoping that (Covid Aside) the reason why some development things slowed down as well as what we can consider an uptick in Mogstation items is cause tehyre devoting more resources and time to either correct the customization issues of Viera Hrothgar annnnnd give us the off sexes.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Ill have to take your word at this, but I do distinctly remember YoshiP stating that Hrothgar development started Before Viera, and that viera came later in the dev cycle and not the other way around. The reason why this sticks to my mind so much si that the initial narrative on reddit and the forums was that they developed Viera First but it was later corrected that Viera came second in the dev cycle, while Hrothgar was on the table since the start of ShB development.

I could very well be misremembering. But this all being said, it doesnt change the end result. They tried to do both things and ended up not really handling it well.

In fact, it actually mightve been much better, PR wise, to intro Hrothgar First, then Female Viera.

While Im nto crossing fingers, I am hoping that (Covid Aside) the reason why some development things slowed down as well as what we can consider an uptick in Mogstation items is cause tehyre devoting more resources and time to either correct the customization issues of Viera Hrothgar annnnnd give us the off sexes.

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Agree, if the reason we're getting so few hairstyles, or none at all is because they're working on adding the missing genders in 6.0. Too bad they can't let us know that until fanfests. I would personally spend extra money on mogstation dyes just to support the development of male Viera.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

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Oh, I wasn't trying to contradict you, actually... I distinctly remember Yoshi-P stating that Hroth were considered before Viera but I thought it was in MrHappy's interview, which has it backwards. However, it DID make me look for the other source in this thread

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Q: When did you decide to implement the female-only Viera and male-only Hrothgar?

A: It was during Return to Ivalice, around 3 months after 4.0. Viera was confirmed then, and Hrothgar came about at the same time when we were discussing plans with Matsuno-san. We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female, and after selecting Viera, work began right away, because otherwise we wouldn't make it in time. As mentioned before, the face parts are special and Hrothgar has big differences between its faces, like a lion face, wolf face, leopard face. It became a fixed model relatively recently. Viera was done right before Paris Fan Fest, and Hrothgar was done recently.

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Which means either Yoshi-P gave conflicting info or the timeline is kinda muddied there... That said, I agree with your points: by trying to make both sides happy, they ended up creating a larger problem (BESIDES the limited headgear and hairstyles), and if Hroth were revealed before Viera the initial pushback may not have been as dramatic.

Here's hoping they're working on both the lack of customization and genders.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Wouldnt this imply that there was an issue with genderlocking - a demand for something people wanted and genderlocking runs counter to that demand?

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Yeah, I can see that now. From the interview WhiteArchmage shared, it shows he did see an issue with missing genders back then. But it doesn’t seem like he considered it to be a massive issue that he wouldn’t ever do or promised not to do as some make it to be. It’s more like other undesirable decisions they have to make based on the constraints they have (like delaying the release of some content).

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

What they did is reveal female viera, let fan speculation run wild with the use previously established examples of M Miqote and F Roe, and people got super hyped for Male Viera - something that wouldve been a first and in some demand. Only to pull the rug out by saying "Nah check out Hrothgars". It was kind of a wtf moment. they shouldve just stuck with one or the other cause this middle ground leaves a lot of people disappointed and wanting. Particularly considering the issues with customization on both viera and Hrothgar. It was a misstep.

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That’s what they did wrong and deserve the backlash (not the homophobic stuff) they got. I even remember reading a Mr. Happy interview where he asked Yoshida about male Viera and he said “the lore explains it and oh, we have Tokyo Fanfest coming soon” (something along those lines IIRC lol). It would have been much less impactful if they said everything upfront and not let our hopes build up to be suddenly crushed at Fanfest. But I'm guessing they didn't wanna ruin the Hrothgar revel. At least they acknowledged that it was a mistake on how they handled it.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

In fact, it actually mightve been much better, PR wise, to intro Hrothgar First, then Female Viera.

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That would have been much better imo than how they’ve done it. But as WhiteArchmage linked, there are conflicting stories on which race was done first. They probably decided to work on Hrothgar, then decided to add Viera. But the actual modeling started on Viera first in 4.2 rather than Hrothgar. So it might not have been possible to show Hrothgar first. But that’s my assumption.

But I’m curious on how everyone here would react if Hrothgar was shown first and announced to be male only and another female race would be announced later.

As I see it, they took a gamble and underestimated the amount of people who were interested in playing as a male Viera and overestimated the amount of people who were interested in playing a beast race.

At the moment, male Hrothgar are among the least played race/gender combination in the game. I've always felt as though the push for a beast race in this game was more about people wanting to see one added to the game rather than because they wanted to play one themselves. In other words, a lot of the people pushing for Viera to be added fully intended to play one, whereas many of those pushing for a beast race weren't nearly as committed.

What's done is done, though. I only hope we see the missing genders added to the game and get a meaningful revamp of the character customisation for every race/gender combination in the game.

It's a lot of work, though it's the best way to ensure that the majority of players are happy. It'll also encourage people to try out different playable races if some of the glaring issues/limitations are fixed.

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Originally Posted by BadLala

But I’m curious on how everyone here would react if Hrothgar was shown first and announced to be male only and another female race would be announced later.

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I would still hate the decision, period, I don't like it but at least it is aesthetics and not gameplay that is genderlocked(in), and It most likely would've been the female Hrothgar thread that be as long as this one.

The conflicting reports over what came in development 1st has not been dispelled so both are right and wrong at same time so it is best to discount that argument until such a time they clarify(they won't or would've done by now), however the consistency is that they made the decision around 4.1. So we have a timeframe for it.

So have to look at 5.1 details to determine if they are thinking on it or not. The only thing that may be an indication they are looking at it is their stance on Hrothgar and Viera hairstyles changed from trying to give them existing hairstyles to giving new racial ones. But I think this is more a case of when the devs gave these the headgears they got, they caused more work for the hairstyles and decided against giving old ones, than any indication missing genders are being looked at.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

I would still hate the decision, period, I don't like it but at least it is aesthetics and not gameplay that is genderlocked(in), and It most likely would've been the female Hrothgar thread that be as long as this one.

The conflicting reports over what came in development 1st has not been dispelled so both are right and wrong at same time so it is best to discount that argument until such a time they clarify(they won't or would've done by now), however the consistency is that they made the decision around 4.1. So we have a timeframe for it.

So have to look at 5.1 details to determine if they are thinking on it or not. The only thing that may be an indication they are looking at it is their stance on Hrothgar and Viera hairstyles changed from trying to give them existing hairstyles to giving new racial ones. But I think this is more a case of when the devs gave these the headgears they got, they caused more work for the hairstyles and decided against giving old ones, than any indication missing genders are being looked at.

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I think arguing over "who was planned first" is a fool's game. We wont know the exacts of their dev cycle and planning ever and things like new races take a ton of time regardless. The only thing I think is important is the reason "why" they were added.

From everything YP has said about the topic it appears that Hrothgar were a thing they really wanted to do and were excited about adding to the game in part as a response for desires for some kinda beast raced PCs (both among the team and fanbase) and also for the general reason a MMO would bother adding a stupidly pricey cosmetic known as a new race ... to add visual diversity and fill in unfilled wholes in their line up (I will point out that outside of WoW new races are damn rare in MMOs and double so in Eastern ones. Last non-WoW/ FF14 MMO I remember adding a race was Wild Star with their murder Hamsters and Space Zombie Cyborgs .. which mirror that reasoning behind the first Reptile looking race and the first Beast race of FF14 in that both are visually very different to what's in game and something the devs were excited to add). Viera was something they seemed to feel like they were just browbeaten into doing cause people have been whining about it since the reveal of their original FF14 race in HW.

So if they did what they and a sizable number of fans wanted we would have both genders for Hrothgar, if they only did what the fanbase was most asking for we would have both Viera genders.

As for hair, they did change their tune on Viera getting "some" of the old styles to now only getting unique ones though Hroth were never gonna get traditional hair. Looking at Viera hair and knowing that even when they were going to get old shared styles it would only be "the ones that could work" gives me a picture on why they changed it to be only unique. Design-wise Viera hair respects their ears and the team wants hair to look natural on the body of who ever wears it. They have never had the constraints of Viera ear placement til now so looking at shared hairs I only see a handful that pass the "Viera Ear Test" where it could look natural on them without any major redesigns. But most people aren't going to understand this and think that "if X works then why not all of them or the new ones?!?" (much like with head gear where it's clear what kinda head gear can work but people still expect more than that) and plus Hair styles didn't really start looking HQ until fairly recently anyway. So they just decided that Viera should only have their own unique hair as to prob not give the expectation to every new hair for other races would or should work for them.

Likely a better choice in the long run TBH. NO OTHER race gets new racial hair and giving them the handful of old ones that would work would prob keep them from having some really cool ones later on that could really be on par with their release ones. Plus they said something in the recent art stream that makes me think some Viera hair will be like the "fran Style" where it comes with an undyable helmet made for Viera heads.

No one knows the reason why they changed their mind on female Viera hair, it hasn't been stated. I could speculate that it was because they want to treat female Viera/male Hrothgar as one race so everything needs to be a 1 to 1 ration. Modders who mod other races' hair on Viera an attest to how Viera ears are not a problem for any female hair that exists on other races except unique ones for Miqo'te. Viera ears are similar to Au ra horns, they're unique, they're not one piece like male Hrothgar face + hair is.

As for the chances of male Viera getting added? I see them as near 0. Yoshida himself never talks about Viera in a positive light, that tends to influence his decisions, which is fine it's his game. The only issue I have is with them not saying they won't be able to add the missing genders in the next few expansions, that I would respect more than saying "if we find a way to add them we'll add them." That's more honorable than leaving people hanging for 2 years.

Well mates, let's hope that they are included. It would be very nice....
I've faith that no excuses can be a mountain of trouble, it's just a question of time and a card at their sleeves.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

No one knows the reason why they changed their mind on female Viera hair, it hasn't been stated. I could speculate that it was because they want to treat female Viera/male Hrothgar as one race so everything needs to be a 1 to 1 ration. Modders who mod other races' hair on Viera an attest to how Viera ears are not a problem for any female hair that exists on other races except unique ones for Miqo'te. Viera ears are similar to Au ra horns, they're unique, they're not one piece like male Hrothgar face + hair is.

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That would be poor speculation seeing as nothing had changed in relation to how the 2 are treated between when they said "Hrothgar will get new manes and faces! Viera will get the hair styles that can work on them!" and "Viera will only get new, unique hair". The 2 races have never been treated as equal, just cause Viera can't wear helms doesn't stop Hrothgar from getting full head covering buckets and just cause Hrothgar don't have hair doesn't stop Viera from being able to change theirs. They're prob hinting at the new Hroth heads in the relic zone yet we haven't seen a new Viera hair for a NPC yet iirc and so on.

And no, I'm not saying there's a tech reason the old hair can't work. I'm saying that, from a design PoV, a number of shared hairs on Viera would just look bad because they were never made to look good with things on the top of the skull that suck up like 50% of the room up there. I've seen the mods for a number of old hairs, some turn out looking ok ... but often times the in-game styles for other races people like and try to put on them look unnatural on Viera heads cause they have bangs or braids that clip right through the ears in a very noticeable manner or are too far back for their ears and/ or fall off to the side of the head in ways that wouldn't make sense for a race without things on the side of their head.

Like I said, just like with head gear people are gonna play dumb to the clear pattern of what the devs give them and expect all new and old hair to come if they do give em some that "can work on them" from a design stand point. And if they start giving them some they either have to make all new hair be designed to look right on them ontop of reg races or exclude them from the ones that look good on others but not Viera. It would be confusing to most people. This way they get nothing but NEW HQ hair that looks good for their head shape and no one should expect them to get rando new hair number 5 for other races. Makes sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As I see it, they took a gamble and underestimated the amount of people who were interested in playing as a male Viera and overestimated the amount of people who were interested in playing a beast race.

At the moment, male Hrothgar are among the least played race/gender combination in the game. I've always felt as though the push for a beast race in this game was more about people wanting to see one added to the game rather than because they wanted to play one themselves. In other words, a lot of the people pushing for Viera to be added fully intended to play one, whereas many of those pushing for a beast race weren't nearly as committed.

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I mean even on the forum it was pretty clear that the old Viera threads always gotten more posts and discussion than any thread about wanting a beast race. So if SE really believed that a big amount of players would play a beast race then its on them, because its quite clear imo that it would always just be a minority. Which is why I who wanted to play a beastlike female was quite fine if we got just a complete Viera race.

Another problem is of course that on one side you have a race that already existed in other FF games (the viera) which means that at least for the females there were clear indicators on what to expect. This is not the case for a beast race. I for example would have loved to get a lupin race. Others wanted the Ronso from another FF. And many more might have liked other forms. So even if one wanted a beast race it could simply be that the Hrothgar are not of their taste, so its understandable why they are not played. (They are using the body proportions of the other least played race after all) Heck I want them to include the female versions of the Hrothgar but I am not sure if I would play one. I still need to like the look of a race to play it after all.

In the end I remember that quite a few people posted that it would be better to have a beast race for more diversity instead of the viera that would fall into the human+animal parts of it...

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

That would be poor speculation seeing as nothing had changed in relation to how the 2 are treated between when they said "Hrothgar will get new manes and faces! Viera will get the hair styles that can work on them!" and "Viera will only get new, unique hair". The 2 races have never been treated as equal, just cause Viera can't wear helms doesn't stop Hrothgar from getting full head covering buckets and just cause Hrothgar don't have hair doesn't stop Viera from being able to change theirs. They're prob hinting at the new Hroth heads in the relic zone yet we haven't seen a new Viera hair for a NPC yet iirc and so on.

And no, I'm not saying there's a tech reason the old hair can't work. I'm saying that, from a design PoV, a number of shared hairs on Viera would just look bad because they were never made to look good with things on the top of the skull that suck up like 50% of the room up there. I've seen the mods for a number of old hairs, some turn out looking ok ... but often times the in-game styles for other races people like and try to put on them look unnatural on Viera heads cause they have bangs or braids that clip right through the ears in a very noticeable manner or are too far back for their ears and/ or fall off to the side of the head in ways that wouldn't make sense for a race without things on the side of their head.

Like I said, just like with head gear people are gonna play dumb to the clear pattern of what the devs give them and expect all new and old hair to come if they do give em some that "can work on them" from a design stand point. And if they start giving them some they either have to make all new hair be designed to look right on them ontop of reg races or exclude them from the ones that look good on others but not Viera. It would be confusing to most people. This way they get nothing but NEW HQ hair that looks good for their head shape and no one should expect them to get rando new hair number 5 for other races. Makes sense to me.

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I don't know which 'universal' hair styles that modders have modded on Viera you are referring to, but the ones I've seen do not have those issues you describe; or so minimal that the same issues are seen on female Au ra. Clipping is like water in FFXIV, you will never eradicate it; live with it.

https://i.imgur.com/7U3GPIJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/bE4i2wx.jpg
(this one clips on female Au ra)

Au ra
https://i.imgur.com/VUzwwyS.png
https://i.imgur.com/2EPaWep.jpg

Female Au ra horns seem to get a lot of passes that female Viera horns don't seem to get. Really really strange.
So I don't know, the devs should stop worrying about perfection as far as Viera hairstyles go when letting them use the "universal" hairstyles the other female races have access to.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I mean even on the forum it was pretty clear that the old Viera threads always gotten more posts and discussion than any thread about wanting a beast race. So if SE really believed that a big amount of players would play a beast race then its on them, because its quite clear imo that it would always just be a minority. Which is why I who wanted to play a beastlike female was quite fine if we got just a complete Viera race.

Another problem is of course that on one side you have a race that already existed in other FF games (the viera) which means that at least for the females there were clear indicators on what to expect. This is not the case for a beast race. I for example would have loved to get a lupin race. Others wanted the Ronso from another FF. And many more might have liked other forms. So even if one wanted a beast race it could simply be that the Hrothgar are not of their taste, so its understandable why they are not played. (They are using the body proportions of the other least played race after all) Heck I want them to include the female versions of the Hrothgar but I am not sure if I would play one. I still need to like the look of a race to play it after all.

In the end I remember that quite a few people posted that it would be better to have a beast race for more diversity instead of the viera that would fall into the human+animal parts of it...

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The common misconception here is that they make new races to be "popular". That's not why you do it, you do new races to fill in gaps in the line up to give people more options to express themselves and make the game more inviting/ appealing to people who haven't jumped on board yet.

YP out right stated they didn't know how popular Hrothgar would be but wanted to make them for the health of the game. Like I've said ... new playable races post release don't seem to be a common thing in MMOs by large. After getting into the MMO scene with GW2 I've played and fallowed many and outside of WoW (Blizzard can add new races willy nilly because their game looks like trash that plays on toasters. Armor is often times just straight up textures on the base model) most MMOs don't bother with adding new races after release. GW2 at some point said they would never do it as it's too much work, I've yet to see ESO or PSO2 add new races, Tera and B&S don't and Tera panders to the Elin players by giving them every class plus unique ones. Wild Star was made to be a game that tried to be "Hardcore WoW" and they were the only non-WoW/ FF14 MMO I've seen do post release Races it in the past decade ... that game is a dead game now cause it was too hardcore focused so rip. (Also a game like BDO doesn't count, races are just skins for race and gender locked classes there. Wanna be a boy Elf in that game then ... hope you like Bows cause archer is the only class for them.)

If all they wanted was to push potions that could profit far more off just adding a 3rd Cat Girl Clan with new HQ faces and the same animations/ body or by making hybrid races that just slap on features from other races that would easily translate without much effort (cause how hard could it be to put Elezen ears on a meddie and call it a day? People would jump all over that ... or cat ears on a lala. I mean, it would likely be a lazy money grab if done that way that would destroy the racial identity to each race in the minds of the dev team but it would be "hella popular" no doubt).

As for Hrothgar they are nothing short of a success. They are more popular than the only other comparable buff race in the game and they're a male only race of furry people that can't change their hair, that's some strong limits on the already selective interest of "furry/ beast people".
People often times forget that FF14 had to add in a number of character models withe unique animations and faces and gear proportion post release. Boi cats turned out to be very popular ... Female Roe and Female highlanders also had to be added to the game and are the lease played pc choices (That's right, there's more active Hrothgar than thighlanders who were not in the base game. Hrothgar aren't really that far behind Male Highlanders).

All these choices have value and build a world of interesting characters and options so I'll never understand this concern about something not being ultra popular. Would this game be better off having no Roe or female Elezen/ Highlanders cause they're not as popular as Meddies/ Dragos / lalas and cats?

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

I don't know which 'universal' hair styles that modders have modded on Viera you are referring to, but the ones I've seen do not have those issues you describe; or so minimal that the same issues are seen on female Au ra. Clipping is like water in FFXIV, you will never eradicate it; live with it.

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Sir, how dare you post a mod of a fat braid going through the 4th dimension to wrap around the viera's head through their ears and say that doesn't look like a hot mess? No part of the form-n-function hair style works on Viera, even the bangs don't make sense for their heads.
I could actually go into far more detail about that but I can tell it's not worth it if that's your first picture and your "gotcha" is come very small over-lapping hair horn stuff on dragos. :/

Like I said, YP claimed they would only get some of the the shared style, those that could work on them, at first before scrapping that and saying only unique ones. Yes, I think there are SOME hair styles that can easily work on them that other races have (the legend hair for example as I said, It's basically like the really short Viera hair. Make it rain might be another one iirc. Great lengths is a hard no though, that looks like trash). There's no tech reason why "all" can't work, it's a design issue ... as in it would look bad. Much like how cats don't have all the same hair that Lalas/ humans/ elezen and roe can have. It's cause some would just look flat out bad for a race with cat ears on that part of their head so they didn't give them those when they made shared hair a thing.

But now that shared hair is a thing? They make sure every new hair at least is something all can wear ... so there will never be hair drop that's something like the Skrillex hair that Cats can't have. If they made the few that could work on Viera work they would cause confusion and expectations that everything new should work and they likely don't want more constraints on what other races can have based on it looking like trash on a Viera, nor would they want more of this head gear whining where people act like they can't follow the pattern of what does and doesn't work.

I mean, what even IS the debate here? "We can't know why they decided to not give Viera old hair"? I already pointed at the fact that the devs only thought SOME of the old hair would be viable options for them and I can point to examples like the Skrillex hair to show that the devs are willing to exclude hair options for races that they think would not work ... and I can point to how every single new hair style after the sharing of hair are hairstyles that the devs feel can work on all races. If you don't agree and think the devs should be fine with the mess you posted because of some small horn clipping (and that the only reason they don't is cause of Hrothgar cause they're tots equals even though they're never tried that way) then IDK what to tell ya, that's a you problem.

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

If all they wanted was to push potions that could profit far more off just adding a 3rd Cat Girl Clan with new HQ faces and the same animations/ body or by making hybrid races that just slap on features from other races that would easily translate without much effort (cause how hard could it be to put Elezen ears on a meddie and call it a day? People would jump all over that ... or cat ears on a lala. I mean, it would likely be a lazy money grab if done that way that would destroy the racial identity to each race in the minds of the dev team but it would be "hella popular" no doubt).

As for Hrothgar they are nothing short of a success. They are more popular than the only other comparable buff race in the game and they're a male only race of furry people that can't change their hair, that's some strong limits on the already selective interest of "furry/ beast people".
People often times forget that FF14 had to add in a number of character models withe unique animations and faces and gear proportion post release. Boi cats turned out to be very popular ... Female Roe and Female highlanders also had to be added to the game and are the lease played pc choices (That's right, there's more active Hrothgar than thighlanders who were not in the base game. Hrothgar aren't really that far behind Male Highlanders).

All these choices have value and build a world of interesting characters and options so I'll never understand this concern about something not being ultra popular. Would this game be better off having no Roe or female Elezen/ Highlanders cause they're not as popular as Meddies/ Dragos / lalas and cats?

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Roegadyn added that aesthetic they wanted to add with Hrothgar
https://i.imgur.com/vEv6YPA.png
https://i.imgur.com/GWDeHoP.jpg

If I don't see the Hrothgar tail it's always hard to tell if I'm looking at a male Roegadyn or at a Hrothgar while running around the cities or in duties. An animal face wasn't a necessity to achieve that goal, male Roegadyn already achieved that semi-beastial aesthetic, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

If I don't see the Hrothgar tail it's always hard to tell if I'm looking at a male Roegadyn or at a Hrothgar while running around the cities or in duties. An animal face wasn't a necessity to achieve that goal, male Roegadyn already achieved that semi-beastial aesthetic, in my opinion.

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It wasn't necessary but I do like seeing them around the world, they look really good. But I agree with the difficulty telling Roe and Hrothgar apart until you have a closer look, maybe they should have gone with a different posture for Hrothgar. But then again, I never confuse an Elezen for a Viera even at a glance despite having a similar silhouette, so who knows.

I think it's pretty hard to mistake a Roe for an Hrothgar but that's me. I see lots of them on Balmung for sure but on other servers as well. I love this pic i saw on twitter of the two new races.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdyhY4uV...jpg&name=large

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

I think it's pretty hard to mistake a Roe for an Hrothgar but that's me. I see lots of them on Balmung for sure but on other servers as well. I love this pic i saw on twitter of the two new races.

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To be honest it's mostly at a glance and if they're wearing heavy armor I can't tell the difference right away, it's also not massively important to be able to tell at a glance.

Great picture though, can Hrothgar be that colour? I seem to only ever see white or blueish/black ones :)