Gender locked race?

[Shougun]

The bara cat was from the discord wasn't it? I feel that one might just be a lucky guess... or that they're really going to make Blue Mage an advanced job lol (??!). Just on the arguments going on right now though, imo, if they had something Ronso-like (say Ronso without the horn or something) I'd argue that's far more unique to the game in options than Viera.. /shrug (I'd personally love to take a 1:1 ronso port though ). Also admittedly even though I say that I have to believe Viera would/will be far more popular lol.

Not a huge fan of the argument about what's going to be most popular is what should be designed though, since I think having weird races (like WoW or GW2, etc, etc) adds a visual palate variety to the pretty and cute. Right now it's like Roe for the visual disruption but even the males can get pretty fabulous, imo SE is using too much of the same color if we talked about races as a painting. It's all saturated variations of cute, sexy, and masculine sexy (imo). So not a huge fan of "it wont be popular so it shouldn't be made (or should be)". Partly why when people asked for Viera I was like "please something weird first" because I am and was worried that SE is going to be done with races. Now that we're here though the best outcome would be, imo, either lion-like Viera males as an option (even if it's just one subrace), or two complete races where we get ronso-lion-like (not Rev lol) males and females too.

Also we have a cat in game called Baras btw, just wanted to show that:


Because we have a cat race is why I'm hoping it's more "ronso" than just hairy tall miqote lol. Although perhaps my imagination isn't playing out very well and it'll be awesome (or it's fake news hahaha and there is no lion-viera and no lion-race).

[Shippuu]

I thought you were done here.

Lucky bancho server readings breaks down every servers population by race and clan using the lodestone. Xaela are consistently more popular than Raen. Midlanders are consistently more popular than Highlanders...and most male races.

Thank you, I had never seen the other bits of lucky bancho on each servers breakdown, was only aware of the most commonly released breakdowns of current overall populations etc.

Still, upon looking at this info, male highlander are certainly far from being underplayed, with many servers having them at a healthy population or competitive population with other populated males.

There's also a lot of complaints about highlanders regarding their faces that would likely see an uptick in population if they were given some customization attention (eyebrows being a big complaint).

I could easily see them taking miqote males and mashing them with highlander/au ra to make a new race that would undoubtedly be successful. Of course they could do the same with Viera male as well.

[redcurrant18]

Give them all to us:

[Shippuu]

Miquote are explicitly stated to be descended from Mithra in FFXIV. Bunny ears on them contradicts this lore. There's no need to merge them with Viera when they have such drastically different background stories surrounding them.

Flavor text on the Mithra minion saying it's a "supposed" ancestor of miqote is not a confirmation they actually are, especially with how many times the lore heads have stated that not all the information and lore you are given is accurate and that's intentional. Even then, there's no stopping new lore from being created such as "this group of miqote became in tuned with the woods, the hearing the green word over centuries has caused a magical change in them and altered their physical appearance."

New lore can always be created to hand wave away a ton of shit. It happens all the time.

So would a bara cat race or Ronso.

Factually untrue. Lupin have almost entirely canine faces, incapale of easily being emotive and expressive with the same system used for the other player races without a ton of new work. I've literally posted an example of a cat like race from another game that has a most human face that would absolutely be able to emote like the other player races. Even rhonso could as their faces are again, mostly human. They also have mostly human shaped heads, unlike Lupin.

[redcurrant18]

Factually untrue. Lupin have almost entirely canine faces, incapale of easily being emotive and expressive with the same system used for the other player races without a ton of new work. I've literally posted an example of a cat like race from another game that has a most human face that would absolutely be able to emote like the other player races. Even rhonso could as their faces are again, mostly human. They also have mostly human shaped heads, unlike Lupin.

That still didn't stop the Ronso in FFX from having little to no facial expressions at all. The only way they got around that was by constantly rotating the camera around them, like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzweI3qCzwU and even then his attempt at a "smile" is nothing more than the peak of his mouth opening animation. Just because their general shape might be humanoid doesn't mean that it'll be easy or even possible to create all of the facial expressions in FFXIV without some of them being repeated. Human looking faces can be played with extensively, but that isn't the case with animal faces unless their muzzle is removed and replaced with more human characteristics.

[Shougun]

That still didn't stop the Ronso in FFX from having little to no facial expressions at all. The only way they got around that was by constantly rotating the camera around them, like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzweI3qCzwU and even then his attempt at a "smile" is nothing more than the peak of his mouth opening animation. Just because their general shape might be humanoid doesn't mean that it'll be easy or even possible to create all of the facial expressions in FFXIV without some of them being repeated. Human looking faces can be played with extensively, but that isn't the case with animal faces unless their muzzle is removed and replaced with more human characteristics.

To be fair Ronso in FFX are probably meant to be very limited in facial animations - stuck on I'm upset and hungry haha (lore wise it makes sense, especially for Kimahri). I doubt SE can't make an emotive lion, they just chose not to. Not that the other characters in that game have ground breaking emotes either lol (it's an old game, it's okay hehe - their cutscenes are pretty emotive though).

Or in other words we've seen incredibly emotive animals animated in movies, showing the full range of expression, and sometimes they're literally animals not even anthropomorphized. I believe SE could emote a Ronso .

Although they might try to further humanize the face like BLESS Lupus..:


Personally I think that the above would be an awesome third subrace for Miqote, and they should go further wild for another full on race (ronso-like). Although I'd probably change my race if it was more like the above, I greatly prefer the animal noses and fuzz of FFXI over the pretty human miqote.

[Shippuu]

That still didn't stop the Ronso in FFX from having little to no facial expressions at all.

Are you seriously trying to argue that an npc race in an 18 year old ps2 game didn't have complex facial rigging as an argument to support that they could never have one now? Are you really that insane?

Human looking faces can be played with extensively, but that isn't the case with animal faces unless their muzzle is removed and replaced with more human characteristics.

Thats the entire point. They wouldn't have animal faces, they would still have mostly human faces but potentially more animal like characteristics. Again, I posted a literal perfect example with Bless Online's Pantera race.



This is far different than miqote, yet still absolutely human enough to still do the full range of emotes and facial expressions our player characters can do and can still fit into all the helmets without completely needing to reshape them or remodel them.

[Lauront]

Because historically female beast like characters are criminally underplayed in MMOs. We don't even have one in ffxiv but anyone can see the severe lack of female roegadyn and highlander characters.

Underplayed from the developer's perspective, perhaps, but players aren't really obliged to like what they offer.

As for highlander females, I'd consider them to be athletic but still cutesy. Where they suffer, IMO, is their animations are not as smooth as some of the other races' females.

That still doesn't stop a large amount of gay bara enthusiasts from playing as roegadyn. Beauty and what makes people attractive varies from person to person, and from the looks of it roegadyn fulfill a lot of the criteria that group is looking for. There's lots of roegadyn fanart all over the internet, and their Hellsguard variant has an animal nose that when coupled with different ears can pretty much look like any animal. This group likely doesn't want to see more "twink" males, but bears/stocky guys tend to throw anyone who is smaller than them into that category, so there's no set limit for what makes a twink. Ideally we need a race with a medium/strong build that doesn't go into either extreme.

Yeah, I sometimes get surprised by what people choose to label a "twink".

Give them all to us:

*gallery of hot bunny men*

Yes, especially 1 and 4.

On the topic of muscle sliders adding mass, I'd kill for that, since I'd love to be able to add some bulk to my midlander toons, to better approximate the WoL in the cinematics/art, however it is a lot of work and probably won't happen until a graphics overhaul, and even then it may not happen.

[Theodric]

I'd love to play something along the lines of a beefier Miqo'te!

Another beefy race in general would be appreciated. Roegadyn don't interest me since they're too big. Highlander men also have the unfortunate situation with their eyebrows in dire need of addressing, which doesn't appear to be a plan anytime soon.

[Lauront]

Although perhaps not the most original approach they could take, they could opt for a face similar to Byakko's: