Au Ra physiology and other lore.

[Cilia]

I would love to discuss this all, after they actually release more lore.
I understand the hype, but this is too much for me to speculate.
I'm dying to know how Raen and Xaela interact with each other, how the nomads will see the opportunity of exploring a whole new continent that is Eorzea, starting with the vast fields of La Noscea! And how this whole new race will interact with all things that Eorzea have that they may not have seen before in Othard.

Plus, my english is not that good to write long text walls. I feel left out.

Sorry, I never meant to be offensive or mean. I was just joshing you.

And yeah, it's complicated and long. Unfortunately, that happens when you want in-depth, realistic explanations for how and why certain things are the way they are.

Proof against this idea would be the Odin Minion, where it states "A popular theory is that Odin acquired the blade upon slaying an Auri warrior..." which goes to show that we did know of the race, but not necessarily the specifics of them.

Debatable. Nothing else points to knowledge of the Au Ra besides the Odin Minion's flavor text, and I'd rather not take that as proof that Au Ra were common knowledge prior to Heavensward. People might vaguely know of them, but excepting Yugiri there aren't any Au Ra currently in the region.

Anchorman References! Also =! doesn't work, only !=. It's programming stuff, yo!

Choosing a mate based on ethnicity isn't entirely eugenics. Yes the Nazis practiced eugenics, but so did pre-WWII US. However without going further into that can of worms or looking up Nazi Germany's eugenics programs...

The Seekers Miqo'te are a model of eugenics. Only the strongest, fittest male gets to breed. Various things such as mandatory tests before you can have children is eugenics. Saying "you can't marry or have children with people of [X ethnic group] because genetic (racial) purity" isn't exactly eugenics, it's just good old-fashioned racism.

Love and affection can overcome societal pressure. That's what I'm trying to say. So while a lot of the population might cave to it, some people still won't, and even if the person they love is an inferior specimen they'll still love them, marry them, and have children with them. The beauty of humanity isn't how everyone logically follows the predetermined formula of perfection, but how people are willing to deviate from perfect sense and endure great hardship to carve out their own identity.

"Choose the strongest, fittest mate" is the most logical option to take. However, there are reasons to deviate from this (custom, social castes, that person already being married and there are no harems in the society, etc). Even if it makes the most logical sense, that doesn't mean it's what happens because people aren't always logical.

(Plus that'd just make them Seekers with reptilian features instead of feline, which would be god-damn boring.)

1. While aether has been discussed at length, it's never exactly gone into great detail. New things that create new laws or otherwise work in new and unexplained ways (White Auracite, Tupsimati) have also been introduced. How does the White Auracite trap aether? How does Tupsimati call up so much aether so easily? It doesn't matter, it's magic! The properties and laws of aether can be changed or updated to reflect the story's needs; that's all I'm saying.

Raubahn does fall to his knees after his arm is cut off, but he never visibly blacks out. On the contrary; after Ilberd taunts him, he picks up his sword and keeps fighting, and the last shot we see of him prior to the prison cell is him about to cross swords with Ilberd. Damn if that's not badass, but it doesn't make a lick of sense. Sure, you can say Lolorito had healers on standby for afterward and that's very possible, but Raubahn still should have gone into shock after his arm was cut off, nobody did anything for him on-screen (what the hell Shtola?!), and the last shot we see is him fighting (which would only exacerbate his problem). Raubahn not being dead is reasonable; continuing to fight in the condition he was in is not.

Sure you can use the daggers as a makeshift pick, but you're still more likely to ruin the weapon than deal any lasting damage, and that requires exploitable cracks in the hypothetical rock monster's... rocks. Depending on what kind of rock it is. Plus it'd be insanely tough to fight like that while the thing is trying to... y'know, kill you.

5. Admittedly, there's no reason they should not include models unique to each tribe / sex. However, there are probably things making it so they can not or will not - time constraints, focusing on other things, not wanting to, etc. It's not as simple as "every tribe / sex should have a unique model, so let's put one in!" It'd be wonderful if it were, but it's (probably) not.

Most changes to Steps of Faith and other dungeons / trials are not made because players are discontent with them, but to make them easier so less hardcore players can catch up to the current content (cuz they can't git gud). The designers might be a little miffed about that, but it's really just tweaking some numbers; making a model people ignore is another matter entirely.

(And yes, I have not cleared T5 even, but that's because I'm not in an FC and don't really care about doing so. I did clear Steps of Faith, pre-nerf, with a Duty Finder party.)

Balance in regards to elfeminate men aside, my fictional doughy walrus midget men are not effeminate! They're just cute! Trying to make them what you want is no different from trying to force real-world logic onto the Xaela so they can fit your ideal of what they should be, y'know!

... aaand I'mma miss this debate. Vexing as it is at times, as someone who seeks the truth it's still enjoyable.

[Mahri]

Koji please post the naming conventions already, put an end to this madness

please

please

[Kaiser-Ace]

I GOT IT!! The reason that the Auri males are so much bigger is because they huff Cerulium fumes and it mutates them!!!

I got nothing.

Hey Anyone know what the original topic and points of this thread was about?

[Samcaesar]

Never seen it! And thanks for the tip, though I can't assure you I'll remember that!

Actually nah, no posting here. You guys have fun! Decided to keep with what I said. I will be getting artbook, so maybe there will be some neat information in that about the Au Ra if I find any.

[Icecylee]

For what it's worth, they did kinda sorta take a survey about this, waaaaay back during 1.x, before ARR. Well it was about a lot of stuff, but there was specifically a few questions on races and clans. One of the options had, in fact, been to further fluff them out and expand clan options, but sadly "add a new race" was the thing that one. And "some big hulking, less human-y reptilian race" (which while not as popular, was also what yoshida was leaning towards iirc) and "another cute mammel-y" race were the two options from that that people were most vocal about. Fast forward a couple of years and ti looks like they split the difference between the two things down the middle, by putting one option on the guys and the other on girls. (which was almost certainly less resource intensive, since they only had to bother with two models this way instead of four. And the race as a whole is a lot more unique vs the others for bonus points!) It's also worth noting that the race was at least in the concepting stages while they were working on male mi'qote and female roegadyne/highlanders, so.

[WyrahFhurrst]

We may very well get the "cute mammal-y" race sooner or later. They did make the concept art of the Vierra, and they did win the "which race would you like to see in a future expansion" competition.

[Icecylee]

They've made Viangaa april fools concept art, which is a completely different thing. >_> Also they were pretty dismissive and non-committal about that particular result iirc because they didn't really want to put viera in and felt the result was a little tainted/skewed from using its name in the example. Though uh that's a completely different topic from this one.

More relevant to the discussion at hand: stop leaving out the existance of insanely potent and available offensive, defensive, support and recovery magics when discussing war tactics.

[Cilia]

Koji please post the naming conventions already, put an end to this madness

please

please

As if! Posting the naming conventions will not end this; there'll just be a whole new slew of questions!

You think this is bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet, kid.

Anyone know what the original topic and points of this thread was about?

Up there in the topic. Apologies if some of my arguments went off-track, but they're all meant to support specific points. 1 up there is "Au Ra physiology doesn't have to make perfect sense, because [X thing in the game] doesn't either," the counterargument to which was "The best fantasy is one based on reality." So we got into some heavy real-world shit.

Sorry for makin' it so lengthy and confusin', folks!

More relevant to the discussion at hand: stop leaving out the existance of insanely potent and available offensive, defensive, support and recovery magics when discussing war tactics.

I didn't forget about them; however when I brought up magicks Sam's counterargument was "But if the melee fighters break through to the mages, they'll be defenseless, so they should train in melee combat too!" This is a difficult argument to contest, but someone else (apologies for forgetting the name!) pointed out there's only so much time to train. The counter to that was "They should be as well-rounded as possible!" This is also difficult to contest.

However, when it comes to military tactics it's best to train for one specific combat role and rely on your squadmates to compensate for your shortcomings instead of having a group of rounded but otherwise ineffective troops. If you pit a squad of rounded troops against a squad of specialists, chances are the specialists are going to come out on top because they're able to more easily create and press advantages. It does makes losing a squadmate have more impact, but the more average squad will have a much harder time creating and pressing advantages, and be less effective when doing so.

That's not taking into account terrain, logistics, morale, etc. As far as simulated combat goes, though... yeah.

[Mahri]

As if! Posting the naming conventions will not end this; there'll just be a whole new slew of questions!

*prays Xaela names are all based on like Greenlandic Inuit or something*

[Viridiana]

Raubahn does fall to his knees after his arm is cut off, but he never visibly blacks out. On the contrary; after Ilberd taunts him, he picks up his sword and keeps fighting, and the last shot we see of him prior to the prison cell is him about to cross swords with Ilberd. Damn if that's not badass, but it doesn't make a lick of sense. Sure, you can say Lolorito had healers on standby for afterward and that's very possible, but Raubahn still should have gone into shock after his arm was cut off, nobody did anything for him on-screen (what the hell Shtola?!), and the last shot we see is him fighting (which would only exacerbate his problem). Raubahn not being dead is reasonable; continuing to fight in the condition he was in is not.

And yet, almost this exact thing has happened in real life. Except the guy did eventually die from his wounds, because this was WWII and not Eorzea.