Are dwarves the new race for 5.0?

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

During a Halloween event, there was a Miqo'te girl who's father was a Hyur, and mother was a Miqo'te. For some reason she had the fangs of a moonkitty, and the eyes of a sunkitty. So that is also possible. Also the insult "Your mother was a roegadyn" might hint that Hyurs and roes can also breed.

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Two important things, father doesn't always mean biological father, and all Miqo'te kids models have fangs, chances are they all are born with them and only sun cats lose them as they grow up.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Let me guess you didn't like that part of XII where you find out that there are male Viera but they're shorter and were like male mithra in XI where they played the role most women do? Or do you just not like short men? As someone else pointed out all but two races already have what you're looking for unless you're that into rabbits. Just trying to understand why you want Amazonian rabbit dudes.

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I don't like them from an aesthetic standpoint. There isn't much more to it than that - much like people playing tiny catgirls or lizard girls are just playing what they prefer. I do not want small bunny men. If they are small, I won't play them. Simple as. There's already catboys in a matriarchal society who can be made quite small, so it's not filling a new niche, anyway.

Of course, they can circumvent that by making a taller and shorter variant of the race. The concept art shows they were not planning on making the males particularly small, anyway, and any inspiration drawn from XII will be limited, as the race will require adjustments to fit into FFXIV, so for example they won't get high heel feet as it will cause havoc with footwear.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Female Viera being taller than males wouldnt necessarily mean that they're short though?
I suppose a few people have been asking for an extra gender dimorphism when it comes to height, like we see in the Au Ra.

But we have height-differences in almost all races (except lalafell, I guess). And female elezen and Roegadyn are still pretty tall, yet still not as tall as males.

So, out of curiosity... are you only opposed to something as extreme as the Au Ra or the general concept of females being taller? If you could play as a male Viera with a max-height of 1,9m (ears not included) and the females max height would be 2,1m - would that still bother you? Your Viera wouldnt be a midget, just not as tall as the Viera girls around.

I apologise if I've missed the answer to that - I'm to tired to read through the whole thread right now, but I got curious about whats your actual issue here: The idea of not-so-tall males or of not-as-tall-as-the-girls males.

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My issue would be making the dimorphism as pronounced as it is with Au ra. I am not even that fond of it within Au ra, but in their case it could have been resolved by just making the slider much broader for females, e.g. 150-185. I also would have liked more differentiation between Xaela and Raen, e.g. maybe more strongly Voidsent influenced features for Xaela, like some of the concept art, but that boat has sailed. The entire rationale behind the two racial variants used to be that one had slight magic stat bonuses and the other melee, but they rid of that, and I think it's a waste to just reduce the differences to be nothing but colouration. A very minor embellishment. If they're adding two races, though, I'd overlook it.

If they had a good reason as to why female Viera are taller, and still allowed for reasonably tall Viera males, it would not bother me.

I think there might only be one model for Miqo’te children, and it has the fangs, perhaps because it was made for Khloe first? (But maybe they can change the eye type more easily, or consider it more important to get right for each character.) The Sunseeker girl from the Moonfire Faire story had them as well. I’m not sure about Khloe’s friend though.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

If they had a good reason as to why female Viera are taller, and still allowed for reasonably tall Viera males, it would not bother me.

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...okay, sorry, this is still troubling me - why would they need "a good reason" to make females taller? Why would they need any reason except an artits going "You know what? That could be intresting for a change!"
I cant remember them ever presenting any reason why there is such an extrem dimorphism in Au Ra - or a reason why male Roes are more buff than females. Or why Hyur-girls arent as tall as the guys.
Sure, its what we're used to from the real world, but seeing how this isnt the real world... I dont see why there would be a need to explain why the females of a certain race are taller than the males.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

If they had a good reason as to why female Viera are taller, and still allowed for reasonably tall Viera males, it would not bother me.

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Females are larger because back when the race first evolved they had to fight off unknown males to keep them from eating their offspring.

Tada- a "good reason."

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Let me guess you didn't like that part of XII where you find out that there are male Viera but they're shorter and were like male mithra in XI where they played the role most women do? Or do you just not like short men? As someone else pointed out all but two races already have what you're looking for unless you're that into rabbits. Just trying to understand why you want Amazonian rabbit dudes.

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The Ultimania only mentions the race being incredibly secretive and that male and female settlements are separate (because of the aforementioned secretiveness and males are very competitive for food even with their own species), not one mention of that sexual dimorphism. The only place where we see small viera is, in fact, the XIV concept art and they're both male and female.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

I cant remember them ever presenting any reason why there is such an extrem dimorphism in Au Ra

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tbf, the extreme dimorphism with no reason in Au Ra is not something they should repeat again because it was blatant pandering for the sake of pandering. Plus, it really made no sense thematically for Xaela, a warring, nomadic people, to have super tiny uwu women imo.

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Regardless, in the real world male rabbits are slightly smaller than female rabbits. Realism go. Tall girls forever.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

...okay, sorry, this is still troubling me - why would they need "a good reason" to make females taller? Why would they need any reason except an artits going "You know what? That could be intresting for a change!"
I cant remember them ever presenting any reason why there is such an extrem dimorphism in Au Ra - or a reason why male Roes are more buff than females. Or why Hyur-girls arent as tall as the guys.
Sure, its what we're used to from the real world, but seeing how this isnt the real world... I dont see why there would be a need to explain why the females of a certain race are taller than the males.

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Again, I don't like the dimorphism with the Au ra. Hyur females are noticeably smaller than the males - same with everything but lalafell. The difference is one of degree and in the Au Ra's case I think it just looks stupid and puts me off playing a female one.

Nor is it unreasonable to ask them to justify something that is against the norm for the vast majority of mammalian species. That is what makes for good fantasy - explaining through the lore why a race exhibits certain traits, rather than just leaving it to pure artistic caprice. They don't have to but it's a damn shame for them not to use the opportunity to do so.

At least with the older iterations of the Drow, in the Forgotten Realms, the writers went to pains to provide a plausible reason as to why the females flipped the size differential.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

tbf, the extreme dimorphism with no reason in Au Ra is not something they should repeat again because it was blatant pandering for the sake of pandering. Plus, it really made no sense thematically for Xaela, a warring, nomadic people, to have super tiny uwu women imo.

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Regardless, in the real world male rabbits are slightly smaller than female rabbits. Realism go. Tall girls forever.

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Agreed, but on the last point, we're not talking about rabbits but humanoids with some rabbit features. So it's a different set of evolutionary pressures. As I said, if the developer team can come up with a good/interesting reason as to why they differ in that direction and incorporate them, fine. If not, I'm likelier than not to gloss over them, anyway. I'm not obliged to like what they include or how they include it.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Nor is it unreasonable to ask them to justify something that is against the norm for the vast majority of mammalian species.

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Eh, larger females in mammal species are more common than most people realize. It's just that the big, flashy animals that most people think of when you say "mammal" (lions, elephants, bears, deer, etc.) don't follow this. It's actually relatively common among rodents and marsupials. But if we are talking about a fantasy species it makes just as much sense to draw on real-world rabbits' genetic trends as it does to draw on real-world humans'.

And to my knowledge, this game doesn't explain in the story any of the cases of sexual dimorphism that we see, the Au Ra only being the most glaring example of it. I don't understand why (if it should turn out that bunnygirls are slightly taller than bunnyboys) it would be necessary in the case of the Viera. In fact I think the only time it mentions the reasons behind any evolutionary differences at all is to explain some of the trait differences between the clans of the different races, like why duskwight have darker skintones or dunesfolk have glossy eyes. And I'm not even sure if that appears in the game beyond the character creation screen.

If we can't have both the tall and short variants of viera, then I would be ok with tall/elegant females, and shorter/cuter males like from the concept art.