How did you choose your main's race, and why do you stick with it?

Hi everybody, I'm brand new to this forum and only a week into the game. I'm not new to MMOs, but I am new to more "standard" MMOs since I have exclusively played f2p or "buy-once-play-forever"s. My main experience is in Mabinogi and my former mainstay: Guild Wars 2.

Long story short, I am a serial character creator due to GW2's one-char-one-class system. I love Miqo'te but feel too hipstery (embarrassing) to want to stick with one when I see 300 others all the time. My other 2 top choices are Elezen and Au Ra. I already have one of each but can't decide which to stick with.

I need to stick to one char. There is no functional reason for me to make more than one when I'm just starting out.

What race is your main? How do you stick with it when you see chars of other races looking super awesome? Am I wrong that everyone ever is playing Miqo'te?

I know the aesthetician is a thing but I don't think he can change your race...

Thanks in advance! :cool:

EDIT: After saying I was gonna stop making new characters, I'm finally really done making characters. My Miqo is unique enough that I don't feel like a catclone. <3

Au Ra has no apostrophe!
As for me, I like catgirls in general so it was an easy choice. I mean seeing a badass looking pose on another race is cool and all but I have my own appeal too!

Just go with what you synergize with more, my friend!

I actually loosely based my character design on Zidane from FFXI initially, it was less about the cat features and more about the tail and the trickster-esque animations that I wanted. I stick with it because at this point it is my character identity, and changing it would feel weird (and that is a personal immersion breaking thing).

Well, it turns out what helped me most was previewing armors on each race. Au Ra looks best in them to me! So Au Ra it is. :3 Thanks guys!

EDIT: ...I made a Miqo'te too. Aaaaaah I'm a sucker for cats. Maybe I'll just alternate between them until one sticks.

Even I miss my favorite hairstyle, but Au Ra was too sexy. I couldnt resist ^^.

Male Miqo'te from day 1 [my day 1, not ARR's]. The body shape is great (wish I looked that good when I was younger), animations are cool, and that 'chuckle' emote is perfect.

I've tried others, but didn't get a look and feel I like, except for the Lala monk I made as an alt.

For a race change, you get two free bottles of Fantasia while leveling up. They can help you change to another race in Eorzea.

I was a Taru BLM main on FFXI, so it just made sense to me to go as a BLM Lalafell. Somewhere along the line though I started maining PLD to help out with FC stuff.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Male Miqo'te from day 1 [my day 1, not ARR's]. The body shape is great (wish I looked that good when I was younger), animations are cool, and that 'chuckle' emote is perfect.

I've tried others, but didn't get a look and feel I like, except for the Lala monk I made as an alt.

For a race change, you get two free bottles of Fantasia while leveling up. They can help you change to another race in Eorzea.

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The /grovel sold catmen for me, on my alt. Even now I consider using their VR fantasias to switch them, but no included name change. But, just fell too in love with the female miqo'te running animation from all that traveling about the 1.x world, most of that with only Quickstride, Fists of Wind, or later Swiftsong to accelerate travel. This character in her original form just had too much history behind her to give up. That and the claw hands and the pelvis-forward stance kind of bug me on the males, as much as I really do like the physique. Reminds me of when I actually kept up with martial arts practice... >.>

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Originally Posted by DefectiveMuse

How do you stick with it when you see chars of other races looking super awesome?

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That's easy - I don't ;)
There is this wonderful thing called Fantasia, and..yes..it easily gets you addicted, but that's okay °-°
It's okay, you hear?! Take it! Drink it! Again! You will like it and you will understand me!!

Okay, on a more serious note x)
I was Miqo'te for the longest time. Emotes are usually the biggest deal for me, because something that feels super natural to you might be incredibly awkward on a different race.
Miqo'te emotes just felt right for me. Also, they were nice and girly but still had something that made them more "exciting" than boring normal humans (cat eyes, fangs, ears and tail).
I had decided I'd switch to Au Ra once HW would be released months in advance. But it still took me nearly a full year and lots of Fantasias (going back and forth between Miqo'te and Au Ra..and Lala because why the hell not) until I made the final decision and also changed my name to fit the new race. That helped settle down in one race, because having a race-specific name would be weird as the wrong race :)

Au Ra are fairly common as well, but honestly, I wouldn't mind that if I were you. You pick it because you like it. What's the point in playing a race that is rare if the reason that it is rare is because most people think they look ugly?
For example, there are usually only a handful of female Roegadyns on each server. If you just care about rare, that's the way to go. But there IS a reason they are so rare. It's very hard to make them look good (and even then, it's really a matter of taste).
Miqo'te and Au Ra are popular because they fit the common ideal of attractiveness, and I don't see anything wrong with following that if that also fits your own ideals best :)

@choosing:
I originally chose Miqo'te because I love cats in RL and I had only played MMOs with normal humans before, so it was pretty cool to be able to play as a race that looked and moved so much like my favorite animal.
The distant, otherworldly beauty of the Au Ra ladies captivated me through the trailers and benchmarks though, and once I had a taste of it, going back to Miqo'te felt..boring, too familiar, too in-your-face.
So I ended up going back to and sticking with Au Ra, even though I sometimes miss the direct, earnest emotes and natural way of moving that the Miqo'te had :eek:

But I'll be honest: I WILL get the cravings to be a super adorable lala again, or a fluffy kitty, so I'll end up throwing money at SE again for more Fantasias. It's just that Au Ra is my MAIN race now, the one I go back to after all the raceswitching craziness ^^°

I chose male Miqo'te because catboys are fairly uncommon in general and I just couldn't resist being one when I discovered I could be one in a game. However, my only complaint is I wish some of their animations and stance were slightly better. I have been a female Miqo and a male Lala, but I'll always go back to my first choice, no matter how cute my chara was as a Lala. xD I love my male Miqo too much. :)

I stuck with the female highlander because they put their heart and soul into everything they do.

I guess I'm super basic so I went with the basic Hyur/Ordinary human race. : D ...Like I usually tend to do. But I guess I have reasons that narrowed my choice down.

Not too big on Elezens.
I love the Mi'qote race but...not sure if I want to be a cat girl. x.x
I refuse to be a cabbage patch child. (No offense to you awesome Lalas out there)
Roes are well....not sure I'd pull it off well but they're cool.
Au Ra would've been my second choice if I didn't go Hyur, but in the end Hyur felt right.

Because I love cats! (Yes, I'm a crazy catlady :3).

That and also in FFXI I chose mithra as Enki's race for the same reason so when I first started FFXIV in the original version (1.0) Eorzean Enki was originally inspired by Vana'dielian Enki, and thus they shared a similar race and even hair colour and style accordingly. :)

This was only 1 of 2 races that could be bald, and as Roegadyns look like various shades of Beast, Hulk, or Hellboy mixed in with Mark McGuire I went with Highlander.

i chose female Miqo'te becuse of y'shtola :D

As a player of FFXI, I picked Galka to be a strong monk that could punch everyone's face in. The near universal dislike for the race only made me more stubborn to express how much I liked the race. When FFXIV came out, I knew I had to recreate him in a way, and went with the new version, the Roegadyn.

I made several characters. At first it was because there's three different storylines for the first 15 levels, depending on which city you started in, so I wanted one from each. I'd originally planned on continuing all three of them more-or-less equally through the whole game (even after that 15 level story separation). But I ended up just liking my Miqo'te best and playing him a bit more than the others until I eventually decided he'd be my "main" and the others got relegated to "alt" status. I'll still switch between each of them for most seasonal events and such, but apart from that, I mostly just play as Y'kayah.

I know why my Elezen didn't become a favorite. Even though I like how she looks when she's standing still, I've never liked her running animation. She seems really awkward in motion. That's something I wouldn't have known until I started playing her. Between my Hyur and my Miqo'te, though, I don't really know why I gravitated more towards the Miqo'te. My Hyur was actually the first character I made, and I do still like him, but I play the Miqo'te more.

I also tried a Lala alt for a while. She's cute and I like her animations, but lala-sized gear doesn't look as cool as on the larger races. And I've been meaning to start on a Roegadyn alt, but don't know when I'll get around to it. (Been meaning to play her for quite a while now and haven't yet.) I like the idea of having several alts, but each is such a time commitment that it's not very practical without a lot more play-time than I have.

Oh, I remembered another reason :)
Classes I mainly play changed over time, and not all races fit all classes 100% aestethically.
I started as a sun-tanned tomboyish Seeker cat because I planned on playing Marauder, and ended up maining BRD. Both natural outdoor classes.
But come 2.0 and 3.0, I gravitated towards BLM, DRK and the like. Which just goes so much better with horns, scales and a distant look.

I know some bulky Roegadyn men are absolutely in love with their sparkly AST dress and set of tarot cards, but at least I personally could never play a race that clashes so much with my main class.

I actually started as a Midlander way back in 1.0. When 2.0 dropped, I thought I'd try something more exotic. My first character was an Elezen, but then I settled on Highlander. I really enjoyed that choice for a while, but then my lady-friend convinced me to be a Miquote for a while. Tried Au Ra when 3.0 dropped. I never really thought to try Rogaedyn, as it was never really my scene.

Then I made the ultimate switch.

As a joke to most people in my FC who hate Lalas, I Fantasia'd to a Lalafell. And boy, have I been having a blast ever since. The emotes are absolutely priceless. It's a shame I don't really get to marvel in my glamour as much as I'd like, especially since I try to put a lot of effort into how my roles look. But I also love how there will be cutscenes where the WoL walks up, looking badass... except I'm a Lala, and I'm sort of just waddling up to face some demi-god or something. Fantastic.

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Originally Posted by LordNickage

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The emotes are absolutely priceless. It's a shame I don't really get to marvel in my glamour as much as I'd like, especially since I try to put a lot of effort into how my roles look. But I also love how there will be cutscenes where the WoL walks up, looking badass... except I'm a Lala, and I'm sort of just waddling up to face some demi-god or something. Fantastic.

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I've been considering a Lala. I realize now that what I 100% need is not a lore-accurate name but a name that I can work with with any race I decide to Fantasia to. So when I get home tonight I'm gonna make one more character. And for the same reasons you listed I'm really leaning Lala. Though I'm not a huge fan of their animations, I cannot resist the cute tiny races. (In Guild Wars 2 I played their tiny race a lot, too).

I chose Hyur before I even downloaded the game. I still gave all the other races/tribes a shot 'just to be sure', but it was no contest. So it really came down to Midlander or Highlander. I also knew I wanted to be a healer as my main and while progressing the MSQ, and the frames of the Highlanders are just too large and athletic to fit my own image of a healer, whom I think should be petite, graceful, feminine, and very delicate looking. I also typically favor cloth armor which works really well with Midlanders, so it helps with my choice in glams.

Another reason is I knew that since the Midlanders are very basic, their population would likely be pretty small as most people like unique looking characters. If I knew the Elezen where in such small numbers, I might have went in that direction, and still kind of think about it now and then for the exact opposite reason. They're very exotic.

Also, female characters in single-player FF games are usually what Hyur Midlanders are in this game. That helped the decision as well.

I chose a male Roe (first Sea Wolves, now Hellsguard) as i always liked "big" races. I was close to change to Au ra as i liked the demonic look with scales and stuff but i sticked with roe. I really enjoy when mounts scale with size like griffin or sleipnir and i wish the same happened with midgardormr or twintania ;)

Miqo'te because we are by far the cutest :)

Easy choice. Im not into scales, so Au Ra was out. I couldnt handle being ugly, so Roe was out. Midgets... *shudder*, so no Lalas(never lalas). Humans are boring, so no Hyur. Catgirls are cliche so no on Miqo'te. Sexy-elves are slightly less cliche, so Elezen wins! Finding out later that we're less common just made me feel better about the choice.

I think Lalafells are absolutely adorable, and the way they roll out of bed and strike a little pose when I log in never fails to make me smile.

I chose Miqo'te because for one, I love cats. I always have. Male Miqo'te because you hardly see themin games. I couldn't resist being one in FFXIV. :) I've been a female Miqo once, only lasted a week. xD I'm just really attached to my chara. Though I would love to change his last name, love his first name.

I went with Elezen before even starting the game. I really like how graceful they are, they're not huge or anything, and how height matches well with them...being tall irl sorta helped influence my decision. Also in Tera, I mained Elf so I was already pretty fond of them.

Getting in game, I like their animations. I know many people who don't, but for me personally, I like their fancy exuberance.

The fact Elezen's are scarce gives them more appeal to me. I remember queing up as Dark Knight in Pharos Sirius one day and my whole party was like, "omg an Elezen TANK?" I just really love how I designed my Elezen and I wouldn't give him up for the world.

./ramble

I chose to be a miqo because, without joking, when my friend asked me if I wanted to play FFXIV with him I asked in return "Does this one have cat boys?" (since FFXI did not)

He said yes and so here I am.

I chose a Lala because the second I started up the game and saw the race, I screamed with joy xD

But seriously, I had followed the game for a year or so prior to purchasing it (I bought it when HW came out) so I was aware of the different classes and races. My exposure to the game came from Twitch streams, YouTube videos and Twitter posts, so I had seen quite a few different characters. I tend to go with the smaller races in MMOs probably because IRL I'm a petite lil thing. As for my main class, I decided to challenge myself. I usually go with an offensive mage class in both MMOs and single-player RPGs but I gravitated toward the White Mage class, partly because I enjoyed it so much in the original FF games and partly because healing was something I hadn't previously experienced in an MMO.

Au Ra, because dragons.

Need I say more? I bought Heavensward early, even though I barely just started, because of them. I think that shows just how much I love dragons.

Before I knew the expansion existed and I did my free trial I went with Mikote, because I'm kind of a weeb, slight weeb.

I went with Elezen for once. Usually, I always go middle-of-the-road human when it comes to RPGs, but I became quite fond of pointy-eared fellows thanks to Phantasy Star Zero's Newmans and thought it'd be great to pick something else for once.

Eventually, after toying around with the character creator and debating which class I wanted to main, I wound up with Jet. I thought it'd be funny to have a lanky, tall adventurer obsessed with bright reds try to be a stealthy thief, eschewing subtlety for fabulous posing and bold shouting. And lotsa knives.

You can imagine how delighted I was, when this Moonfaire turned out to be centered entirely around learning fashionable posing.

Haven't even once thought about using a Fantasia. It'd seem a little wrong at this point. It'll take Viera or Moogles to get me to switch from my dimber damber! And even then, maybe not. Apparently, Elezen are super rare, and when I first joined my FC everyone was surprised that they had one now.

When I first picked up this game I wanted to chose a class that would fit an archer I made in a DnD roleplay, but the moment I saw Lalafell, I changed my mind and felt like I had to be one for their cuteness.

Especially as I was in the character editor and watching their poses, I was pretty much sold by the adorable smile and laughs. I think I chose Dunesfolk because I liked their glassy eyes and the narrative of being part of a desert. The lack of distinguishing features between male and female Lalas also meant I could make an androgynous-looking character, which I like in the sense that I find playing as a male to be self-gratuitous/boring and yet I can still hint it a little.

As far as how it affected my playing experience, it was really inspiring for me as most of your enemies stand at eye-level or above you, which makes taking even the weakest among monsters as a small person feel badass.

Well, I didn't have HW at the time so I didn't know what exactly I wanted to be. I knew for sure it wasn't going to be a cat because everyone's a cat, and I was sure as hell not gonna be a lala for obvious reasons. So it was a toss up between Midlander, Highlander, or Hellsguard. Went with female Hellsguard because I could be tall, strong, and tan. Though when I found out Hellsguard naming conventions I had to go and see if it was fine for them to have Seawolf conventions, because I don't like the Hellsguard naming.

Had I had HW though, I would've been an Au Ra without even looking back.

I was a Male Highlander Hyur when I first started FFXIV ARR
I spent hours making him lol he had to look good XD

I changed to Male Midlander Hyur when I started Heavensward, 'my Avatar' spent few hours on him as well

I like Hyurans, their emotes and builds are some of my reasons for that choice, Main reason... They are sexy XP

Well, in semi-relevant news, I've come to the Hyur Highlander side. The emotes are perfect, the hairstyles are cute without being disgustingly cute, and they can look strong without being overly masculine/butch/tanky/etc. <3 Now to just get my lovely little Hyur onto the right server and I'll be good to go.