Viera Race "Confirmed" for 5.0! Are you gonna change races?

[Duskane]

Its a fictional rabbit species dont need logic of real life species
But id like them to equal in a sense

[Iscah]

Like I said before I'm happy they're being added regardless, but I really want a Viera male option to be cute like the concept art. I'll be kind of disappointed if we get Male Highlander with bunny ears x2 since we already have enough tall and masculine options. Whether it's reverse Au Ra dimorphism or just a small clan, I don't care much. But I'd love to be shorter and leaner (around female Au Ra sized).

If we were also getting cute female Viera similar to that concept art, the cute males would be fine. But I think they would look very out of place next to someone like Fran.

Au Ra have really different proportions but they are still broadly in the "semi-realistic human face" design that all the races follow (including Fran), except Lalafell which are more cartoony. The small Viera concept art seems like it would be implemented somewhere in the middle of those two styles - and I would definitely like to see something fill that gap. But not just male Viera being cute while the females are in the more realistic style.

And as has already been discussed, I feel like the currently described "Wood-Warder" lore for male Viera sounds like it would suit a taller, stronger character design. It might not be biologically required, but it's the sort of image that description calls up.

[stormygabe]

I wanted to add this last thing. (Who am I kidding Imma be all over these threads until 5.0 comes out. Ugh...) To me, I never thought of the Viera as these Amazonian warrior women. They always felt more like mystical elves of the forest. Yeah, they had their warriors, but they used bows iirc. (I KNOW bows actually require strength, but like the comment before this one suggested, it's a design thing. Bows "feel" like lighter weapons.) Yeah, they're tall, but I'm not sure where the impression came from that they were Wonder Woman but with more height. So with the duder bunners, I think they could be tough elf duders. (This is my wishful thinking anyway.) But I guess we'll just have to see. Hopefully we'll get something that's a decent compromise.

[xbahax92]

Yes, sorry to burst your bubble but evolution does work this way.

And here is already the problem. We got lore wise, information about Male and Female Viera.
Until the age of 13, you cant know if a Viera is male or female.
And we also dont know if female Viera get a huge growth boost and if male stay small. Yet we can only assume that all kid-Viera's have to reach a certain height and look neutral so that you cannot know which gender is which.

[Poisonous]

It's important to me that they don't *just* make them cutesy anime girls like they did with the Au Ra, however I'm absolutely fine with one of the clan options being small and cute.

[TheHeavenAbyss]

There's a very interesting conversation about evolution going on here. I'm not a fan of the argument of "it's fantasy, it doesn't have to make sense". Of course, there's a degree of suspension of disbelief, but if stuff can make as much sense as possible the better to me.

That being said, evolution is a relatively unpredictable thing. There are certain "trends", but "sexual selection" is a huuuge component. As a paleontologist, I can tell that everytime my colleagues find a species with a very weird structure in the body, whose function we can't determine and that only seems to cause problems to the animal, we assume at first that it most likely is the result of sexual selection.

That's how peacocks develop their huge "tails". Sure, it probably has some secondary applications like appearing bigger to intimidate other animals, but the cons definitely outweight the pros. How did such a troublesome structure evolve then? Well, because peahens really like their peacocks with big tails and will choose to mate with those, passing those genes lol

And it kinda makes sense if you look at it in human terms. The male is basically like "see this huge tail? It gets stuck in branches of the forests we live in, it makes it easier for a tiger to catch me, and if it gets wet with the rain, it weights me down so I most likely can't fly that well... yet I'm still alive. That's how good I am at surviving... and those are genes I can give to your offspring *wink* "

In this case, it can make sense for the male Vieras to be smaller ESPECIALLY if that's a handicap. A handicap can evolve if the females of that species find it attractive enough.

I would be fine with a smaller male, as it would give something unique to this race that a lot of people are already complaining is too similar to other races. That being said, I'm not particularly fan of the child-like male if the female is not child-like as well. But if it's the size of an average male Miqo'te (who are relatively short males, in comparison to the males of other races) or slightly shorter, it would work for me, since Fran is already Elezen sized.

But I still like the apparently tall males presented in the concept art. All this lore associated with that art makes the male Viera look really badass (which is something that I never thought would be the case with a race of bunny people) and I think it could be cool too if they were the tallest males of all the races (even if not the bulkiest), even with relatively soft or "elf-like" faces.

[Dirwen]

I'm very disappointed we are getting the fran type and not the small cutesy kind from the concept art. I suppose it's easier to fit gear on the fran type if they are using the elezen model so less work. At least I can save money on fantasia now.

[Alacran]

Some time ago there was an video of two characters having a sparing match atop the palm of Rhalgar. The debate then was a group of people thought that the female fighter was a tease of a possible new job, even though her animation, use of skills, and character had already clearly been established within the games lore and continuity.

(FFXIV SB teaser)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAobb8_SzHY

Point being, people saw what they wanted see and let their imaginations run wild.

We have had within the same concept art many designs, some even more bestial than others.











I don't get the reason for debate. We are seeing male Viera in the concept art right here. Why the discussion?

Lets look at Fran.
(FFXIV)






(FFXII)






I say these are very nearly one for one copies of each other, why then should so much work be done to realize her race in the game, would they not use the already proposed adult art that best fits the established build of that same race?

[SannaR]

Maybe because they could pull a hyur with them and have them be both. We won't know until EU fan fest at the earliest as normally that's when tshirt hint from NA fanfest gets elaborated on. Along with the fact that outside of concept art we don't have anything visual info on how a male will look like.

[Corue]

I don't get the reason for debate. We are seeing male Viera in the concept art right here. Why the discussion?

Because we have a month of nothing until the next Fanfest. It's fun to debate.