Gender locked race?

[Jaywalker]

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I am slowly returning from a nap and totally hyped to look through the points you raised because even a quick skim this looks awesome! I do want to letcha know real fast though, with playable beast races in FFXIV basically I think that equipping gear over the humanoid frame where the gear looks 100% like a beast tribe character (possibly baby/mini if over a lalafell) might be the most effective solution given there's not a lot of variation in beast tribe body types. That said, I'd love if they added dye options and at least a few variations of hypothetical beast gear! Ex. like if it's filling a helmet slot, you have a standard beast head or you could use an alternate beast head option where it is wearing a funny hat. I know people wear vanu heads for example so part of me is wondering if SE could push this option further?

I also did a ridic spiel before but short version is that beast characters tend to use the same face and body models as each other in-game. I figure that maintaining consistency is good for immersion on the one hand, but on the other I also worry excess customization might end up as a wasted resource. For the amount of detail in FFXIV, people might not notice subtle differences in animal features the way they would humanoid features.

Position I'm coming from is like say you have a cat owner. That owner (who has had years of getting used to their pet's specific facial/body features) would be able to pick out their own cat even if you threw it into a sea of identically colored cats. However, if you asked other people they'd probably give you a very frightened look because in their eyes all of these animals look the same. That's the kind of phenomenon I worry might happen for beast folk, if that makes sense?

Anyhow I will be catching up reading your reply in more detail but basically I think we should have a way people who want to run around as beast races can for all intents and purposes, possibly with multiple dye and armor options since those are immediately noticeable. I'm just not sure if putting the option in character creator specifically would be effective for this game.