Male Viera (BunBros) - We Want Them - With Heels!

[Iscah]

Well mainly digitigrade is mostly due to how the figure is balanced birds have hip joints to help with their walking in locomotion and for the most part, it's limited to walking birds, rarely bipedal animals. The gravity would hurt, and animals like ostriches have splayed feet to help with weight distribution.

For something human, you have to understand form and balance -

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jiDfpmoKX...wingNotes1.jpg (Michael Hampton)

The heel does help balance it out but I definitely wouldn't say it's a comfortable solution as a stiletto.

I've seen this - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/29/a6...f1bab082db.jpg

For a properly digitigrade humanoid, the body can still be balanced, it just changes where that balance lies.

For the example figures viewed side-on, the central "line of balance" sits over the middle of the foot.

Again experimenting with going into the pose myself, digitigrade stance shifts that line forwards - I think so it's over the front part of the foot that's still touching the ground. You don't stay standing straight - it's a slight crouch with knees bent to shift the rest of your body weight into a balanced position.

And I don't think the in-game Viera are doing that. They're shaped like a human wearing high heels and still standing upright, not in the actual stance that should be necessary for it to be practical. "Form over function" - it really looks like the worst thing to be wearing as a jungle warrior.

The concept-art males seem better - they've got more of the forward-shifted stance to balance properly on the front part of their feet.

But i kinda hope we don't get another Au Ra situation with the Vieras. I still feel like Au Ri women came out looking too much "waifu" when compared to the men y'know? Men are these really tall and fierce looking beefcakes. And then the females have what half their height and look really delicate. Like sexual dimorphism is absolutely fine but i feel like they could've done it better (like they did with FemRoe).

I agree. It seems strange to me that Au Ra in general, and most of the few prominent female characters (Yugiri, Sadu, job quest characters) are strong, capable warrior types - and yet, even moreso than their physical design, their animations are very "cutesy" and seem designed to suit players being social with their cute dragon girl, rather than the race's actual lore. I can understand why they want it that way, but it still seems disappointing from a storytelling approach. I suspect it might also be frustrating for the script writers who need to set character emotes, because it would make it more difficult to find ones that suit the NPC's personality.


The more I think on it, the more it seems like Au Ra 'absorbed' parts of the Viera concept from when they were both being brainstormed together (and Au Ra won), and now Viera are being introduced.... still with that same lore concept. Fierce tribal warriors, dainty-looking women, powerful men - whether we get to see them or not.

And from a design standpoint, my hypothetical male Viera would probably end up in a similar space to the Au Ra I made... except I was trying to make him look un-fierce, and I'd probably be trying to go the opposite direction with the Viera. I wonder where they'd overlap...?

but... crazy thought here... what if jp fanfest we get dancer as the job reveal... and its a male viera showing it off. and if you know your FF it wouldnt be the first time a dancer has turned out to be male so itd be a sort of fun easter egg to see

I could see that looking really impressive!

Not to say that you shouldn't be able to make masculine male viera but having a more feminine one as an option either by clan or face would be nice.

I think there's definitely good potential to have one face design that is a bit 'softer' if not specifically feminine, especially once you play around with customisation. Au Ra are similar.

The relevance is the Mithra race, on which the Miqote were based, is a female only race (as far as playable). And I was asking if it would be so awful to have a female only race like that, because he brought them up.

The OP didn't mention Mithra at all. I searched the topic to check. They were only brought up in Enkidoh's post explaining why FFXI got gender-locked races in the first place. (Technical limitations, basically - to fit "two races in the space of one" so they could have more races overall. I do suspect FFXIV is heading towards similar limitations - I think the actual programming limit would be eight races - which might be an actual reason for getting a split race if they're doing that. Leaving one slot for a final extra race sometime in the future.)

And even so, it's still a very long jump from "I want this male counterpart to the female Viera" to interpreting that as saying "females really aren't worth having in game if there are no males", as you put it.

You can appreciate a character/race and their place in the game without wanting to play as them. I have no interest in playing as several of the existing races, but that doesn't mean they don't have value. They're just not for me. But they're still characters in the story and lore, I have no problem with them existing, and that's entirely disconnected from whether I'd want to play as the race or not.

The other thing with Viera is that even if we did have playable male and female characters, the established lore for NPCs would make it clear that we can't expect to see males as NPCs even if we can play as them. Female Viera would still stand alone as strong warriors who don't associate with males beyond the occasional mating.

Can't jus everyone block the troll and patiently wait for male viera reveal on JP fan fest?

I feel like it's better to not block people unless they're posting something really horrendous - and for that matter not assume "troll" unless someone is long-term disruptive. I feel like it's better to be aware of everything that's being said in a conversation.