Gender locked race?

[Theodric]

I think my biggest gripe with a potential male exclusive Hrothgar race would be that it's their very own original creation, and Square would be very actively choosing to genderlock it.

...and yet that's exactly what they did with the Viera. Across multiple games, no less.

[Tabbs]

...and yet that's exactly what they did with the Viera. Across multiple games, no less.

Gender-locks in single player games or games with preset characters are a non-issue. Virtually no one complains about them. At least, not relative to what you see in games like 14 where we create our own characters. Gender-locking Viera or "Hrothgar" in 14 is not equivalent to not getting a male Fran in 12.

[Theodric]

Gender-locks in single player games or games with preset characters are a non-issue. Virtually no one complains about them. At least, not relative to what you see in games like 14 where we create our own characters. Gender-locking Viera or "Hrothgar" in 14 is not equivalent to not getting a male Fran in 12.

I think gender locks are silly. I've said as much throughout this thread. Yet as long as there's an equivalent it's not nearly as damning as some are making it out to be.

[BillyKaplan]

I think gender locks are silly. I've said as much throughout this thread. Yet as long as there's an equivalent it's not nearly as damning as some are making it out to be.

It depends on how you look at it. As far as the gender equalness goes (not really a word but 'equality' felt a bit over the top here), you're right, we get one option for male characters and one option for female characters. And looking at Au Ra, it's not like all races even have comparable options. Male Au Ras look like an Elezen's cousin while fem Au Ras take more after Miqo'te or female Midlanders.
But I feel like that's just going into the same trap as they did with Au Ra - what if people wanted a particular gender but with the 'opposite' aesthetic? We already have this with Au Ra where people wish we'd have gotten the bestial, amazonian female designs, and maybe an option for smaller males. So in this scenario they pretend to have avoided it because they're two different races! ...but at the same time they actually doubled-down on it because now people can ask for both male Vieras and female Hroths.
And this happened before, and SE caved, and Miqo'te, Highlanders and Roegadyns are all playable in either gender. It just seems like that's the inevitable conclusion we'll reach, only SE is postponing the inevitable and incurring player ire in the process

EDIT: if a gender lock is truly going to happen

[Roda]

I think gender locks are silly. I've said as much throughout this thread. Yet as long as there's an equivalent it's not nearly as damning as some are making it out to be.

See the thing is, at least for me, the only male equivalent to the female viera is a male viera. Creating an entirely new race to exclude one gender as a response to another race excluding another gender doesn't fill the gap, it just creates another gap that will need to be filled.

We shall call him Francis.

Frank

[Tabbs]

...

Yeah, I am not trying pick a fight with you, haha. I just don't think single player games from the past can be used as evidence that it would happen here.

That being said, I do have to disagree that it's not nearly as damning. Like Roda has said, I want male Viera. A male only equivalent race wouldn't really satisfy what I'm looking for, especially if it ended up being the huge beefcake lion that everyone thinks it is.

[Alleo]

I think gender locks are silly. I've said as much throughout this thread. Yet as long as there's an equivalent it's not nearly as damning as some are making it out to be.

I am just curious but would you say the same if one gender locked race would be a beastly awesome female without the male part and the male being a small cute race? Because I do get the feeling that you might be more fine with this because the other mentioned race could be something you like more than a male viera, but maybe I see that wrong.

Anyway, I really hope that they dont decide to gender lock Viera, especially since that could mean that the first more beastly race is again just male..which sadly would go hand in hand with the game where most female enemies are good looking, while a lot of male ones are more beastly..

I really hope we will get both races, that would finally create some hype for me..

[Lauront]

Anyway, I really hope that they dont decide to gender lock Viera, especially since that could mean that the first more beastly race is again just male..which sadly would go hand in hand with the game where most female enemies are good looking, while a lot of male ones are more beastly...

Male miqo'te, midlanders, elezen and au ra are all good looking. Although the latter do verge on being a bit more beastly, their faces are still very well proportioned and their bodies not overly bulky. Then there's cutesy lalafell. Really, the only race with bestial proportions is roegadyn.

Personally, I hope they stick with facial features like Byakko's for these Hrothgar.

[BillyKaplan]

Male miqo'te, midlanders, elezen and au ra are all good looking. Although the latter do verge on being a bit more beastly, their faces are still very well proportioned and their bodies not overly bulky. Then there's cutesy lalafell. Really, the only race with bestial proportions is roegadyn.

Note that Alleo talked about enemies.
Ifrit, Titan, Levi. They're all either animals or ... whatever Titan's supposed to be.
Then you have Shiva and Garuda and Lakshmi. You can call lore elements all you want but the fact remains you're not going to find a completely deformed female enemy because they want them to still be waifu material.
Speaking of Waifu, there's Pazuzu, and Waifuzuzu - Penny. Pazuzu's a flying piece of armor while Penny is a lovely, elegant, attractive humanoid lady with wings.
And you can say what you want about male Au Ra, but they came along with some grade A+ Waifu material with fem Au Ra. That's the issue here. And it's so prevalent that the "fierce, amazonian" Viera were shown in the reveal trailer to be all cutesy and giggly.

[Lauront]

Note that Alleo talked about enemies.
Ifrit, Titan, Levi. They're all either animals or ... whatever Titan's supposed to be.
Then you have Shiva and Garuda and Lakshmi. You can call lore elements all you want but the fact remains you're not going to find a completely deformed female enemy because they want them to still be waifu material.
Speaking of Waifu, there's Pazuzu, and Waifuzuzu - Penny. Pazuzu's a flying piece of armor while Penny is a lovely, elegant, attractive humanoid lady with wings.
And you can say what you want about male Au Ra, but they came along with some grade A+ Waifu material with fem Au Ra. That's the issue here. And it's so prevalent that the "fierce, amazonian" Viera were shown in the reveal trailer to be all cutesy and giggly.

I'm much less bothered about what the enemies look like. Technically, we know from some cases you can't even tell the gender, e.g. Ixal, Goblins, Amaljaa etc. It's more that the foes with ostensibly female features tend to be pretty. Still, there's plenty of things that could be female, but you wouldn't even know. And then things that look female, but aren't, like some Voidsent. Primals tend to be worshiped as gods, so I'm not surprised by the way their followers choose to represent them, in terms of their cultural ideals. Garuda is arguably beautiful but she is still considered to be the most ferocious of the earlier primals.

Regarding playable races, I was sorely disappointed with female au ra. One need not even have made them amazonian, just taller. However, I'd have also tried to link them to the dragonflights in some way and based their traits off that, with xaela being capable of sporting slightly more monstrous features and raen as they are (minus taller women), so my thoughts on them are already a bit divergent to where most people's are. I still dislike the females. I'm not all too surprised about the Viera, considering what I think they're being used to do, but yes they are very, very effeminate. At least they didn't make them tiny.

I meant it more in the way that we have more beastly looking males (be it as enemies or as races) than female ones and having only female Vieras and a more beastly male race would just go into that very direction which would be sad for me because I wish I could play a more beastly women without having to go Roe. (I mean that is the only female race right now that can compete with the not-so-cute races and yet they are still nothing against their male version)

I certainly understand that, but what of highlander females? Yes, they're not super bulky or butch but they're less cutesy than any other female pick and they're still pretty. I get the impression that some people just want reverse dimorphism, because I struggle to see how roe or highlander females can't be played as amazonian. Or is there some other issue with them? Maybe I'm missing what is meant by "beastly" here.

Just look at Sophia and Lakshimi and compare them to Byakko, Zurvan and most other male bosses. Heck our snake boy is the only one that is more pretty than beastly. (As far as I can remember)

I mean Zurvan and Byakko both have handsome faces, but they're muscular. Muscularity is a trait that is perceived to be attractive on males, mostly for evolutionary reasons. Not necessarily to extremes, and yes Zurvan has a scorpion body (much like Lamias have snake bodies), and I'll agree that the balance is definitely more in favour of the women being beautiful, but I can't say it bothers me that much. As I said, there's plenty of females out there that we simply can't tell are females. I'm sure Sorceress Adel will make a cameo at some point, though.

I must be alone in not finding Seiryu particularly attractive.