Au Ra physiology and other lore.

[Kedrah]

Only the Raen, and that's because they're part of Doman (the Japan analogue) society. We know literally nothing about Xaela societies, other than that they're nomadic, warring tribes that inhabit Othard's western steppe. Popular belief is that this means they're the Mongolian analogue, but we don't know that.

I was talking about Doma, not the Au Ra, because Kaiser-Ace was theorizing that Doma is China and not Japan :P
Yoshi-P said that Doma = Japan, and the Raen have lived among the Domans for a long time so they adopted their culture.

[Kaiser-Ace]

I was talking about Doma, not the Au Ra, because Kaiser-Ace was theorizing that Doma is China and not Japan :P
Yoshi-P said that Doma = Japan, and the Raen have lived among the Domans for a long time so they adopted their culture.

Yea, I found where he said that. I just thought when the ninja quest mentioned ninjas it said they came from a small island east of OTHEARD not Doma. So Doma was probably that small island and based off of Japan while the Western main land is probably based on Europe and Asia.

[zuzu-bq]

I went off for 3 days and suddenly, tons of posts.

I would say the opposite while there might be more on this thread look at the "show your Au'ra" thread in General Raen and caucasianish skin seem to be most common.

Yeah, seems to. I love how the race doesn't have many "normal" skin tone options. I mean, It's a fantasy game, lets escape reality!

Personally, I prefer the black scales and horns over the white. Makes me feel more like I'm playing a fantasy race, while the white horns/scales makes them look like Midlanders with a skin condition.

But that's just my opinion.

Same Here.

[Niwashi]

If your society is going to need warriors, there's no good reason to cut off ... half of the population when it would build weakness.

And yet, through nearly all of human history, that's been the case with our own race. Gender equality is a pretty new concept, only reaching as far as combat roles within the last few decades. Before that, some cultures allowed women to learn self-defense, but that's more of a precaution for times when their warriors failed to protect them. The warriors, of pretty much every culture, were invariably men.

The second an Xaela tribe goes "Hm.. why not make it so our men are a bit faster in builds so they can outspeed the other men" or "Why not focus our women on more strength builds so that they can overpower other tribes' women?" they might have a pretty solid advantage.

That's only true if they had some magical way of completely changing their entire species' genotype in a second. Whether they want their women strong or their men more slightly built doesn't change what they're born with.

I'd wager it only takes a few hundred years to grow traits that look distinct enough, look at what we've done to dogs for example in terms of breeding traits we want, heck I've got a dog with vastly longer legs whenever his breed is normally much shorter.

Dogs are quite unusual (unique?) among mammals in just how readily they'll evolve. In roughly the same timespan that wolves have been changed into everything from Great Danes to Chihuahuas, cats have gotten some variations in the length and color of their fur. Evolution (including the deliberate evolution by breeding) is based on naturally occurring slight variations that are then selected for. Dogs have far more such individual variations than most animals, and as a result can be more readily bred.

Humans took tens of thousands of years to develop even minor variations like skin tone and hair colors. Most of our traits date back to our Cro-Magnon ancestors, and none of the cultural changes since then have had a really noticeable affect on them. (Even those coloration differences are believed to have come from changes in climate, not culture, depending on how much protection we needed from the sun.)

Of course, SE gets to decide how Auri evolved. If they wanted to produce drastically wide variations, they could simply give us more options in the character creator and those of us interested in pondering such things would decide that Auri must have a high rate of genetic variation, (making them more like dogs than humans in that regard). But since, on the contrary, the most obvious difference between the different tribes of Auri are the color of their scales and horns, I'm guessing their rate of mutations is more similar to our own.

[Cilia]

References!

The point is, if they're equally trained a Roegadyn marauder and Lalafellian rogue are about evenly matched. While the Roegadyn has the advantage in size and power, they're also going to suffer greater recoil from attacks (making ripostes much easier) and tire themselves out much quicker moving their greater body mass (doubly so encased in armor). The Lalafell won't deal as much damage per hit but it'll add up, they won't tire as quickly, and with lighter weapons there's much less recoil; the trade off is they're much more fragile.

In regards to Souls games... the (in)famous Giantdad is broken because it combines excessive force with great speed. While the combat in those games isn't photorealistic (even excluding the giant monsters), it's a fair bit more realistic than most games; you can't just pick up the biggest stick and keep swinging it and expect victory. (I'm not a PvPer though, so take that for what you will.)

In regards to DBZ, things are often twisted around to meet plot reasons. Presumably though Goku was able to trounce the Ginyu Force because he outclassed all of them in their respective specialties. The Super Trunks 2 vs. Perfect Cell fight was one of the few times Toriyama bothered to bring realism into the fighting, if only to prevent a secondary character from offing the arc villain, but the point is the larger and more muscular you are, the slower you tend to be and the faster you tend to tire. This gets turned around against Cell when he loses his patience fighting SSJ2 Gohan, bulks up like Trunks did, and loses faster than he would have staying at his normal, slimmer physique.

Anyway, I digress.

Rawr!

1. We don't know what the western Othard steppe is like; what flora and fauna inhabit it, what kind of rainfall it gets, what kind of metals occur there... nothing. Assuming it's like Mongolia and that Xaela society is like ancient Mongolians is jumping to a conclusion. Until we know that kind of information it's impossible to determine what Xaela society is like, and I'd rather not jump to the conclusion that Xaela = Mongols. Even for the sake of argument.

That said I'm sure there's a reason (or at least some flimsy justification) for the sexual dimorphism, but I'm just going under the assumption that the men are warriors and the women compensate by having proportionally stronger muscular systems, fill only magical combat roles, or just don't fight at all.

"But that doesn't make sense for nomadic, warring hunter tribes!"

... it's a fantasy game, things don't have to make 100% sense. The Garleans have access to airships and high explosives, but they don't just carpet bomb their enemies' urban centers or military fortifications. Why?

2. The point is, size != power. With so little of their biology and social structure known, it's entirely possible Auri women are actually stronger than Auri males despite their smaller stature.

As for why they're not super-cut... probably just have a thin layer of fat to hide it.

3. The only instance of racial interbreeding is possibly between Hyur and Miqo'te as confirmed by G'raha Tia during the Crystal Tower storyline. No other mention of racial interbreeding has been confirmed; ever considered adoption, like Raubahn and Pipin Tarupin?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but until there's confirmation I have to assume it isn't.

4. Yeah, well, y'know, that's just, like, uh, your opinion, man. Personally though, I'd rather not wake up one day with +15 ponzes of muscle and +1 fulm of height as a Xaela woman and then have to pay to change it.

5. I realize there are reasons for playing a Miqo'te besides "because they're cute," but SE doesn't have the time to ask players why they chose that race / sex. They look at the numbers and the numbers show people are going with the moé / bishoujo designs, so people must want more of those.

Ergo, anyone not playing a female Highlander or Roegadyn is not helping with the case for sturdier female designs, no matter their reason. Changing to a female Highlander or Roegadyn will help, in a small way. You might never get the exact sort of design you want, but well... sig.

The world makes plenty of sense; we just don't know the justification for Auri sexual dimorphism yet, however flimsy or concrete it might be. 'till then, chill out a little.

Future races are a possibility, but until I see artwork and images of them I have to assume they won't have the excessive sexual dimorphism Au Ra exhibit. Just because SE went with the popular moeblob image this time doesn't mean they'll continue to do so. I make no excuses on their behalf for this, but I accept it for what it is.

---

Brute force is effective, but it's pointless if you can't catch or hit your target. Melee combat generally favors speedier attacks; tanks are not a good analogue here because they can hit a wide area.

[Niwashi]

Personally though, I'd rather not wake up one day with +15 ponzes of muscle and +1 fulm of height as a Xaela woman and then have to pay to change it.

Nobody's character would change just because SE decided to add some more customization options. I don't think anyone has proposed making it mandatory for all female Auri to be tall, buff, and fierce looking, just that it would be nice if that were eventually possible. Those who at that point want to change to the new looks would need a fantasia. Those who like the moe look would simply keep what they already have.

[Cilia]

Nobody's character would change just because SE decided to add some more customization options. I don't think anyone has proposed making it mandatory for all female Auri to be tall, buff, and fierce looking, just that it would be nice if that were eventually possible. Those who at that point want to change to the new looks would need a fantasia. Those who like the moe look would simply keep what they already have.

Sam's suggestion is that they made the Raen / Xaela clans split like the Midlander / Highlander split, so... if they decided to do that, it's very possible yes you'd just wake up one day with more body mass and have to pay for a Fantasia to change to something else if you don't like the new look.

Of course I don't think they'd do that, but I don't think they'd further split Au Ra into Raen, Xaela, and Xaela (Highlander) either.

[jomoru]

Yeah, seems to. I love how the race doesn't have many "normal" skin tone options. I mean, It's a fantasy game, lets escape reality!
.

The Race has PLENTY of Skin tones found on Earth, I would say the majority are IRL human skin tones there just are some options for really crazy stuff like Green.

[Samcaesar]

Hiya!

If you're strictly looking within Western culture I suppose, and that's excluding the fact that plenty of women soldiers have been unwritten out of history for reasons. A variety cultures such as the Native Americans, Mongolians, and Africans cultures had plenty of women participating is both hunting activities and war parties (And they certainly weren't sneaky rogues!). And as a minor tangent, the push for gender equality is about as old as the values the United states supports in its Constitution (ie freedom, liberty, the pursuit of happiness or property if you asked the french!) within the West, there were other, much less reasonable factors keeping women from combat.
Except the Xaela have been engaging in war with each other for a long time, it's as their ancestors did after all. They'd want their women to be as strong because strength means basically everything in combat, so chances are they'd reproduce with women that were strong so that their children would continue to be strong. If they liked their women petite and waifish.. Well, it's a wonder why their kids (boy and girl) aren't also small. Genetics and evolution aren't magic, it's just what happens. Once a species expresses a will for a certain trait (Or has that will for a certain trait forced upon them, ie Dogs), that trait begins to show up more and more.

Yes, and evolution whenever a species is sentient enough to want their kids to be a certain way (Or dogs) things tend to go that way. Example; "I'm strong and I want strong babies, I'm going to have babies with the strongest woman possible so that our babies will be also strong" or "I want a dog that has thicker fur and short legs so I'm going to breed a dog with short legs with one with thick fur til I get what I'm looking for, then keep breeding that."

Yet it only takes a few generations for something like height or eye color to become dominant in some people. The Au Ra would want the strongest children possible so naturally they'd look out for traits that show strength and power, aka intimidating sizes, larger muscles. It's not too alien for an Au Ra to want a strong woman to protect their kids and probably participate in war as well. Unless literally /every/ Auri girl was petite and waifish and /every/ male was the way they are (Which wouldn't happen for so many reasons), a warring nomadic race would naturally look to make the strongest children possible.

Also humans have a massive amount of variation, not to the degree that dogs do, but considering all the various phenotypes within people (Heck even people within Europe look massively different dependent on where they're from, ie Swedish body types as opposed to English as opposed to Southern Slavic) we're pretty darn diverse visually.

References and screeing!

They're still moving their entire body though, it means they're much more likely to slip up, which is something even a glass cannon can't afford! While lithe builds work better endurance (Looking at long distance runners as opposed to sprinters is a great example here) to claim a more muscular build won't last long doesn't ad up. Repeated muscular exercises, such as what's required in melee combat, build endurance and muscular, swing a sword a thousand times it ceases to become burst strength and is just what the body is capable of doing. Otherwise Rauhbahn wouldn't be as muscular as he is, and I'm pretty sure Rauhabhn would decimate most people with one arm tied behind his back (heh) despite his muscularity for even the longest of fights.

Giantdad was great because the large combo'd swings meant folks only had limited options to do til their stamina was depleted either through shielding or dodging, and then the sword combos kept coming til your health was the next thing depleted. The various Souls games have pretty realistic combat, note how large weapons such as the halberd and claymore are more popular than dagger for example, the only build two builds I can think of that fall under "dex" builds that are also fairly effective involve the Chaos blade or the broken shortsword.

And yet Broly is a thing in DBZ and very threatening. It's only "realism" because it suits your argument :P Power levels in DBZ never made much sense, they can't "suddenly make sense" for one fight, whenever in the canon of the universe, Broly kicks the idea that buff = slow out the door. Trunks failed because Toriyama wanted him to fail.

1. But there will be a basis, and from that basis we can assume other things. It has to be plentiful enough to support life, otherwise the Xaela couldn't live there, and unless if a the Xaela fight just to fight (Which.. Isn't the smartest idea for a species and probably wouldn't last long!), chances are they're fighting for more resources. I've put up other examples of nomadic cultures, namely the various plains natives.

There might be a reason, but if that reason doesn't make sense, then people not only are justified in complaining, SE ought to fix it. They can't just do things on a whim unless it involved Hildebrand (Because Hildebrand isn't suppose to make sense in the least, it's absurd comedic relief!). There's a reason why reputable story makers make a canon and keep that canon to logical sense. So far, FFXIV has been fairly reasonable, why kill the streak with a flimsy justification for something as dumb as massive sexual dimorphism

Lack of resources, their biggest airship was destroyed by Midgardsormr, their most intelligent man in the field (Cid) is with the Eorzeans, Darnus wanted to decimate Eorzea (Project Meteor) but that failed and Darnus is dead (kinda), and Gaius didn't want to conquer ruins so he doesn't want to carpet bomb Eorzea and is now dead (Maybe). So Garlean is out resources, their best man is gone, and the Eorzean invasion force failed twice, it makes a lot of sense for why they don't want to carpet bomb their enemies' urban centers or military fortifications.

2. The biology within a single species doesn't work like that, if the girls have that super efficient skin muscular body, odds are the guys would too, this is not the case.

You're grasping at straws there Cilia :P

3. While adoption is a possibility, http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post490835 confirms that interbreeding between races of man is possible, normally not occurring due to culturally differences, but seeing as how the Raen are heavily associated with Doman culture then there isn't much of a reason.

4. "Yeah, well, y'know, that's just, like, uh, your opinion, man." SE is responsible for its mistakes, its their duty to fix them, if that requires giving every Xaela that wants to change a fantasia for free, then that's apart of their responsibility.

5 If SE isn't willing to go through a survey like that, then they shouldn't make assumptions. For all SE knows is people go with Miqo'te because they're settling and want Ronso, but they don't know the actual reason, they're just assuming.

Changing to Highlander or Roegadyn won't help though, heck if anything it's just putting a massive amount of money into SE's pockets from fantasia, and whenever we don't get what we want and change back to the original races, SE again won't care because more fantasia money. It's drops of water in an ocean for one person to change. While you choose to be a highlander to "voice your opinion" (For all SE knows, people like Highlander because they like "meanfase"), I choose to voice my opinions other ways that don't result in giving SE even more of my money (ie outside my subscription via fantasia).

I'm quite "chill", I don't get how I'm not, it's proper debate what we're doing. I've been trying to reason through why the Xaela girls being so short, but it doesn't make any sense for a nomadic warring culture to not focus on their women becoming as strong and as big as the males are (or assuming lack resources are why the girls are so moe then why aren't the men as well?), outside of "~Loljustcause~" which isn't something a company ought to be doing if they want to actually make a good game.

"If you're not helping, you are part of the problem", if you aren't participating in telling SE "The Au Ra are bunk" you're saying you're quite fine with the next race being the same. SE stated their reason was "We made the new race like this because the fanbase seems to like the cuter races", there isn't a reason for them to make a race that actually makes sense. There is also statements along the lines of "If we add another new race, we'll design it depending on reactions on the Au Ra", seeing as how the most people seem to either be complacent or supportive of the Au Ra, they again, have no reason to change.

I ask you along with everyone, what will you do if the next race is moeblob with the girls and excessively sexually dimorphic? If it's "Continue to be a highlander/Roegadyn" then you're certainly not helping.
---
Melee combat favors accuracy with strength, to which speed doesn't equal accuracy. Who cares how fast you are whenever your attacks don't hurt? All it takes is one hit, and you're far more likely to make a mistake or get caught off guard. Plus, all this talk is forgetting that "Burst" strength. A sudden "burst" of speed to match the opponent and the fight it over because all it takes is one hit.

Snip

While I wouldn't be opposed (Seriously SE >_> ), to that, Cilia ain't lying, I wish the Xaela would be more highlander-esque with their model (Though the Raen are fine!). The game ought to make sense to the lore and logic, when the company in charge of lore makes such a mistake, they've got to fix it, it's their responsibility. They did it with the addition of girl Roegadyn and guy Miqo'te, they ought to do the same here assuming they change.

[Isklexi]

Dogs are quite unusual (unique?) among mammals in just how readily they'll evolve.

A recent study has actually provided evidence that dogs have been co-evolving with humans for approximately 27,000 years.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32691843

From an evolutionary standpoint there are all sorts of reasons for unusually high degrees of sexual dimorphism. Although, the more extreme examples tend to make the females bigger than the males (producing eggs takes more energy). On the grand scale of things, the degree of dimorphism displayed by the Au Ra is actually not that huge. It could certainly point to culturally driven selective pressure based on societal gender roles though.

PS: I'm new here. I hope to make more meaningful contributions to discussions around here as I actually get to experience FFXIV's story. Also, my goodness that character limit is small.