A New Race Thread: In response to the Viera thread

[Raqrie_Tohka]

I happened upon the Viera thread today, and it was quite interesting.

However, I do not see it being ever possibly implemented in this game, for many reasons I will not individually list. The simplest way I can sum it all up is that, in the end, the "Viera Race" as a "logical construct", is not very valuable, has too many flaws and logical weakpoints, which outweigh any benefits it may claim for this game.

So I took a shower and, building upon another feature I was envisioning, think I may have an alternative, and a solution, for this. Also, the Viera thread did say "make your own race thread".

So basically, this new race would be ... "Garlean". (Save the gasps ... I know how this sounds.)

1. Unable to use aether-based magic, and thus have no mana.

2. Different from Hyur, facial features are more gritty and realistic to real-life, than Hyur. Their temperament, I imagine, will be the "coodere" kind. (Think Ghost-In-The-Shell universe in both looks and personality.)

3. Does not wear armor, but instead will have 2 slots for each body-part, one is normal clothes, basically just plainclothes and without stats. The other is some kind of "magitek exo-armor", made with both technologies of aether and magitek. Can "deploy" in combat so it will almost be like piloting an armored mech. Offers high flexibility in stats, as well as abilities, which are tied to types of exo-armor used. This means you can combo your own abilities, to fill either tank or dps role. Can also choose to have a mechanical "companion" similar to summoner.

4. However, you can make the structure of the exo-armor look like, or be "inspired by", Eorzean beauty. E.g. animals, flowing design, all the good FF stuff. So in other words, you can achieve the "viera" look, tall, graceful, both animal-like yet humanoid, without having to bring along all its logical flaws. For instance, can even add antennas which look like rabbit ears. Flowing fiber-optics which look like hair. Strong mech limbs which look like muscled and athletic viera limbs. Or, can make it look like a fat, pudgy, tank ... or, a small, mechanical Klhoe-character, etc. If you add in possibilities such as stunted growth from things akin to the concept of "government experiments" which make them look young ... basically the Padjal concept, but dark and gritty. (I was thinking of Tio Plato, of Zero no Kiseki series when I wrote this). Also, why they can fit in the mech to begin with XD. But these are all just imaginative possibilities, for which there are infinite.

5. Tied in to be released with Botanical vault techs. (The Botanical Vaults design will be released by me in the latter half of September, or October, when I have time.) This is a separate personal project primarily to add more to the lore side of FFXIV. It's personal. ^_^ Depending on the heights I am able to work it to, it may even be worthy of being an expansion-level feature. (E.g. if I can truly make it representative of a core theme. Yes, that is why I can't just type that one out after a shower.)

[Paladinleeds]

1. Unable to use aether-based magic, and thus have no mana.

So let's say I fantasia to Garlean. What would then become of my black mage, red mage, summonner, scholar, astrologian, white mage, paladin, and dark knight? All of which are pretty high level, and use MP at the core of their design (except maybe PLD)? I'd have to be locked out of those jobs, and that goes against the very core USP of FFXIV which is to allow you to play everything on one character.

[Dark-Saviour]

When moving from 1.0, they got away from races having meaningful gameplay differences, so I could never see them adding one that is more different, especially to the extent of essentially class-locking them.

Then there's the story considerations; they'd have to have a unique path like Dark Knights do in WoW for it to make sense, and that would get cumbersome as a race, I'd imagine.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

So let's say I fantasia to Garlean. What would then become of my black mage, red mage, summonner, scholar, astrologian, white mage, paladin, and dark knight? All of which are pretty high level, and use MP at the core of their design (except maybe PLD)? I'd have to be locked out of those jobs, and that goes against the very core USP of FFXIV which is to allow you to play everything on one character.

Very very good question, which is why some things take more than a shower I suppose XD. I like these kinds of replies. Yes, that will be a very valid core concern, which I currently cannot comfortably provide an answer to atm. However, it is not un-imaginable that it could exist within the current FFXIV universe. For instance, the core questline in the Botanical Vaults feature (Yes I will spoil this valuable intel to you right now, because I like you already), is basically Kan-E-Senna's childhood friend who was inserted as a deep agent into the retreating Garleans after their defeat just before the calamity. This means, a Padjal candidate, but stripped of aetherial affinity, and made to look like in all aspects, Garlean. Quite the sacrifice. However, a small incident set in motion the chains of many, many deep things, to the levels of politics. Ahem, so it is not unimaginable we'd suddenly have actual, lore-respective honest-to-Hydaelyn Garleans joining us. And I did all this without even having to resort to time, space, parallel universes, the easy-solution-Deus-Ex-Machinas which even SE uses liberally. So do not doubt the creative potential of the human mind, that we will find a solution to this in the end, and that we can have good things .

But if the combined efforts of SE designers, me, and the community all fail, which is quite unlikely, guess we'll just have to get a new faction, limited to their city, think Kugane. SO basically they will still be linked to every other working aspect of FFXIV (e.g. markets) minus the class-change. But, honestly, it will not be difficult to make up a story in which these people can still take on our classes, with some kind of handicap or potions/medicine treatment based scenario which allows them to mimic our class abilities to a certain extent, and us to be able to pilot their mechs with certain limitations as well ... and to come up with some actual cure via surgery or whatnot, which they can achieve through a high-level quest, similar to job quest, but "faction quest", which "cures" them of this handicap and allows full integration of all classes and systems. As I said, not even a mental challenge. There is even leeway to postpone that till the next expansion after the "Garlena" (not a typo) race, so they will have race-exclusivity for at least one expansion. To entice newcomers to take up an "exclusive" race. Veterans, if you want to create a brand new character just for that, sure, but I cannot promise you that you will be able to port over everything lossless, after the "next-next-expansion" re-integration. The story is easy to make up too ... think "pen-pals" between the equivalent of cold-war Soviets and Americans ... anything is possible. But, better the veterans just wait out this expansion till the next one where they can also attain that class lossless, and let newcomers to Eorzea, in both lore and reality, shine, for once. And honestly, anything to "entice" newcomers, will probably be very welcomed for consideration by SE. So this "purposely flawed" design may actually be "perfect". XD

[Keridwyn]

Keep in mine one of the major points the team has raised for why the Viera would be difficult to add to the game is the shape of their feet and their need for modifications to every shoe in the game and the basic skeleton model. This goes beyond that.

This race doesn't seem designed for FFXIV beyond using it's lore elements. It seems designed for WoW where racial abilities like the exo-suit ability comboing are in every race from the ground up. Where certain races being unable to play certain classes is designed in from the ground up. It isn't for FFXIV where your race is 99.9% aesthetic. Designing in a race that Veteran players cannot use is a poor business choice for a game that increases it's monthly fee if you start using alternate characters. Because then Veterans either do not get to play with the new race that has all new gameplay mechanics that might arguably be superior for certain classes than any other, or they have to give up a character that they have likely maxed every other battle/crafting/gathering class on which would need serious incentives.

Worse, from the sounds of it, you're talking about players who would be gated off from the rest of the game for an entire expansion. So that expansion has to have enough content to satisfy those people only playing Garleans for years as well as having enough content to satisfy the people who are NOT playing Garleans for years. You're talking about, in essence, the Monk or Dark Knight starting zones from WoW writ large. The isn't just an undertaking, that's a burden. You have entire segments of this community that already get extremely upset with missing any amount of Story and Lore and you have segments of this community that hate when things are awkwardly handled because of Story or Lore. This sounds like a recipe for disaster on both those fronts.

You know what this idea would work as though? A class. Everything you've outlined would make for great class mechanics, even the background of how we have to connect with a deep cover agent who smuggled this tech out to be tweaked for our use or a surgical process one would need to undergo to wield power (control Garlean tech). The soulstone could, instead of being the souls of those who've gone before us, be genetically created as the neuro-contact point between us and our exo. The main hand weapon would be a little tricky, after all what does a pilot need beyond a key? This thing could be the next big tank class, a giant walking aether powered battle suit (explains the healing it's just self repair fueled by the aether the healer funnels into it). They could be as elegant and whimsically themed as they could be terrifying walls of Garlean steel. There's plenty of precedent for locking classes behind story too, while unpopular, it would be far less unpopular than forcing people to pay extra monthly and abandon characters they may already have thousands of hours on.

TLDR- I am all for seeing Garleans become a playable race at some point. I don't think they need a lot of unique gameplay mechanics tacked on to do that.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

Great ideas, I think I can just hand over the thread to you people now, XD. Honestly though I'll actually be unable to reply much, since I probably won't be around, but please keep it going, and thank you for showing interest in the idea.

[Rokke]

I came from TERA, where all classes were originally open to all races and genders and then every new class after launch was locked. I love that minmaxing is so minuscule in this game because racials are nearly nonexistent and do not want a race thats wildly different from others.

Also, Hyurs but “gritty and realistic”.. What does that even mean? They’re extra humany looking humans? If people use the complaint that Viera are just hyurs with animal ears I don't see them ever giving us Garleans cause they're literally just tall, pale hyurs.

[Raqrie_Tohka]

Another aspect behind this new race was possibilities of exploring new and alternate game features besides crafting, combat, gathering, and house-furnishing. Understandably, a "secretary" class won't be very appealing ... but what about something similar to an "engineer"? Which leads to this tech and mech based class. However, as you mention, it needn't be tied to a race, and that is fine. Besides, the whole point of the race existing was to have some kind of "unique theme" to it ... which was operating magitek, but honestly that is not a strong justification for exclusiveness. So we may see Garlean npcs in game, (which we already do), and even playable mechs, but not a new race. At any rate, we can use what workable and worthwhile logical constructs we have here flexibly ... ideas need not be rigidly tied to a "race, job", or etc. as was demonstrated in porting the Viera features into mech design ...

But possibly still, a new feature, or job, or even something akin to a new Disciple-of-something. Or even just based on the current disciples. A way to put my point is, "botany" in this game has about 12.5% similarity to real-life botany at most, and same can be argued about the other "jobs" with real-life counterparts. So not a new job, but simply an unique "take" at them, could be a possibility ... but it will need be polished. A "combo your own abilities via gear" is understandably just a placeholder or catalyst idea, and although has its merits, is not polished enough to actually be seriously considered as is.

On another note, about complaints of Hyur+anything=new race, it is quite a valid argument and thus Garleans will probably not make it as a blockbuster new race ... but that does not mean they cannot bring something unique to the game, even if not playable. Or still playable, just with other things unique to them which I have not imagined yet which will warrant them new-race status. But to call Padjals "Lalafell looking humans", or simply "Hyurs who don't age", although accurate observation, does not do justice to their important place in the game. And we already have "tall, pale hyurs" too. They hail from Limsa Lominsa. In fact, the original classes in the game are not all that distinct from each other either; they are all very humanoid, and could even all be actual "humans", even if not quite "Hyur". Except for Miqo'te and Au'ra, but even they you can argue, share most of their DNA with "humans" ... But they are all unique and interesting races for their own special reasons. So a new race that is either more similar to or less similar to "Hyur" is itself not a main factor to determine whether that race can be justified to be added to the game or not. The most important things are still the artistic value of their "theme", and if that is something we need in this game ... so there is still possibility to tie a race to the "mech-drivers" or vice versa. Or just through a bit of compromise in our ideas ... "no mana till level 75, or whatever is endgame level for that expansion, and this is done so you can learn your class mechanics properly, +other reasons", not even hard to imagine. I mean, you also do need a starting city to base their job-headquarters at, right. And by this logic, there is even possibility to still get something 'close enough' to your bunnyfolk ... if they are humanoid enough to not have to warrant a fashion redesign, or alternatively, still expressed in their spirit and feel but not as a "new race", and rationalized in ways such as being in the same city under a larger core theme, e.g. Gridania vs. Limsa Lominsa, but as different jobs ... e.g. just as a placeholder quote, "bunny-looking mechs" and "gritty-human-looking mechs" plus a third new job "astrologian+machinist+DRK looking mechs" and whatnot, placeholders for 3 jobs under a new city. (Or just two, Samurai + Redmage is what we got for this expansion ... You get the idea.) But leading back to the second paragraph, do these 3 jobs need all be strictly combat-based? Or could a new feature, a new way of play, a whole new theme, be possible? Or just to hybridize, or polish even more, existing themes? Etc. We can let out imaginations go wild ... to draw from even non-existing entities ... FFXIV was inspired by game designs in other MMOS, but could it also be inspired by game design from even non-existing games, such as a (non-existent, because reasons,) cyberpunk-themed (or even actual cyberpunk era, non-existent,) MMO, which doesn't operate on the same principles as anything we know? Or if a Final Fantasy game, if played in a Final Fantasy Universe; a dream within a dream? This is madness, yet also but one post away from genius ...

But that is if we can identify and account for the true factors which determine what is class-worthy, feature-worthy, theme-worthy, or even race-worthy. And I hope to gain insight into those things from reading you kind people's comments in this thread.

[FallenArisen0990]

#Fixourcurrentraces

[Fredco191]

Why not just make it a 3rd Hyur clan? That's kind of what they are when you think about it.