Gender locked race?

[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.

[Alleo]

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.


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.

No highlanders are still quite just humans and are still quite pretty.

Well maybe instead of beastly you could use monsterous. (Sry the part about Roe being more beastly was a bit wrong from me) You know similiar to beast tribes. None of the current races even come near that because in the end most of them are nearly just human with animal parts on them. The only ones that might be more beastly are maybe the male Au Ra but even those just have some scales that kinda looks like a skin decease and horns/tail.

Zurvan may have a bit of a human like face (that one could barely see) but the rest of his body is monsterous. The same with bosses like Diabolos, Sephirot and even Byakko has a tiger arm. Yet the only thing beastial on sophia is the head beneath her, while the rest of her body is perfectly human, Lakshmi has a complete human upper body and is quite beautiful and the snake part of her is not even visible. Then like Billy pointed out, the male boss in Eureka is a monster, while the female one could count as girlfriend material. Its just quite often that females are much more human looking than the males ones. Thus it would not be surprising if the Hrothgar would be male only and more beastly/monsterous and have no female counterpart (or if the female counterpart would be small, cute and more human looking)

In the end I just want a male Viera for all those that play them and if Hrothgar are coming and they are more beastly, then I want it to be the same for both genders.

... it really says a lot when you think a company is basing their decisions solely on the opinions of you that more than likely does not exist to begin with. That's what I mean though, some good things are not good enough, you need all the good things to be satisfied. It's manic.

And sad to say I am not invested enough in this MMO to white knight it. I like it. But I am not going to get zealous about it. Pointing out asinine behavior and white knighting are two very different pieces of pie.

First Yoshida and his team has stated more than once that criticism is worth more then compliments because they do understand that they need people that pay for the game to have a game. So if people dont like certain things and these things are a huge deal for them, they have the right to complain/post about it. Does this force SE to do something? No but not saying anything at all and then silenty leaving is the worst for a company because then they have no clue why people leave.

Race might not be a big enough reason for you and others to unsub, but for some it might be. For others they might already have enough other smaller negative points and a missing gender for a race could be the tipping point for them to unsub too. Others might not like it either but dont care enough to do something. And some dont care at all. Each one of them have the right to write about it. But all of that without personal insults.

[Shippuu]

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.

Some prime Waifu Material Here:
Tomamo no Gozen, Suzaku, Ultima the High Seraph, Tioman, Twintania.

And these are just off the top of my head. Easy to make your point when you just ignore all the examples that blow it out of the water.

[Gwenorai]

Some prime Waifu Material Here:
Tomamo no Gozen, Suzaku, Ultima the High Seraph, Tioman, Twintania.

And these are just off the top of my head. Easy to make your point when you just ignore all the examples that blow it out of the water.

Suzaku has a wifu form, Tomamo No Gozen has a wifu form, and Ultima the High Seraph also has a wifu form - check ff12.
Dragons don't count they're fully 'beast like'...unless you're into that thing.

Note; the fate 'Foxy Lady' she spawns as a female au'ra with fox ears before she turns into the ninetails; when she's defeated she reverts back into that form.

[Shippuu]

Suzaku has a wifu form, Tomamo No Gozen has a wifu form, and Ultima the High Seraph also has a wifu form - check ff12.
Dragons don't count they're fully 'beast like'...unless you're into that thing.

Arbitrary. It doesn't matter if they have waifu forms, they still have forms we fight them in where they're full on bestial. SE still had to develop the assets for them in their monstrous forms when they could have just gone straight to the waifu forms. And the dragons are still female enemies that look like beasts. They don't get to not count because then in order to make something visually look female it has to have feminine traits, of which you would just call it waifu pandering again.

And bringing in examples of waifu forms from other games? Really? Like, the entire prospect of people using Sophia, Garuda, Shiva, etc. as examples of some design bent when they're all throwback enemies from a history of Final Fantasy games and so their design is less intended to be attractive for attractive sake, and more to call back to the long history of how these enemies have looked in Final Fantasy games. There's little point in including these enemies that have that history if you're going to completely change their design to the point they aren't recognizable.

I mean, we were talking about primals (at least I was) since primals are going to be the most commonly seen enemies for most and very iconic, but go off.

Suzaku is a human for 85% of her fight. She's definitely the least feminine out of all of the female primals, but she's still beautiful.
Ultima's top half is a beautiful waifu. Not that I have a problem with this design, it fits her.
Tamamo no Gozen walks around as a beautiful Au Ra before transforming in her fate.

Tioman and Twintania are cool bosses. No problems here.

Ah ah ah, no arbitrary restrictions here. There was nothing in the context of what I quoted from implying this was restricted only to primals. And dungeon bosses would be the most commonly seen enemies considering the majority of the playerbase does not do Extreme trials, meaning they would see those primals once during the story and that's likely it.

Suzaku is still an example of a beastly looking female enemy.
Ultima: So as long as half the body is vaguely waifu it doesn't matter that the entire lower half is a godless abomination. Interesting standards.
Tamamo is another auspice, so her Au Ra form isn't her real form, her true form is the giant wolf monster.

[Gwenorai]

Arbitrary. It doesn't matter if they have waifu forms, they still have forms we fight them in where they're full on bestial. SE still had to develop the assets for them in their monstrous forms when they could have just gone straight to the waifu forms. And the dragons are still female enemies that look like beasts. They don't get to not count because then in order to make something visually look female it has to have feminine traits, of which you would just call it waifu pandering again.

And bringing in examples of waifu forms from other games? Really? Like, the entire prospect of people using Sophia, Garuda, Shiva, etc. as examples of some design bent when they're all throwback enemies from a history of Final Fantasy games and so their design is less intended to be attractive for attractive sake, and more to call back to the long history of how these enemies have looked in Final Fantasy games. There's little point in including these enemies that have that history if you're going to completely change their design to the point they aren't recognizable.

Lmao, why are you even complaining that I brought up FF12 ultima? Come on dude. She's wifu form in BOTH games. Her bottom half has always been like that 'strange, mysterious and in terms of FF14 mysterious', but the top half has always been how it is - beautiful wifu. Imagine complaining about that when the 24 man is a throwback to Tactics and FF12? Though, I'm actually impressed with her new design; especially how in FF12 she was found in a giant crystal maze... cool.

Anyway, you don't have a point dude not in regards to the female's enemies always looking like wife material if they have a humanoid form.
Square Enix doesn't know how to make ugly females - unless, you know, they're old.

[Shippuu]

Lmao, why are you even complaining that I brought up FF12 ultima? Come on dude. She's wifu form in BOTH games. Her bottom half has always been like that 'strange, mysterious and in terms of FF14 mysterious', but the top half has always been how it is - beautiful wifu. Imagine complaining about that when the 24 man is a throwback to Tactics and FF12?

Yes, and? Every other example people have posted as being some slant has also been throwbacks, so it's somehow a sin if FFXIV makes them throwbacks to their past appearances and doesn't completely remake them into unrecognizable monsters?

You don't have a point dude, not in regards to the female's enemies always looking like wife material in humanoid form.

If we're talking about the franchise as a whole, sure. But I assumed we were talking about Final Fantasy XIV regarding it's enemies. I quote someone saying "you're not going to find a completely deformed female enemy because they want them to still be waifu material." which is a broad statement and objectively false.

[Lauront]

Lmao, why are you even complaining that I brought up FF12 ultima? Come on dude. She's wifu form in BOTH games. Her bottom half has always been like that 'strange, mysterious and in terms of FF14 mysterious', but the top half has always been how it is - beautiful wifu. Imagine complaining about that when the 24 man is a throwback to Tactics and FF12? Though, I'm actually impressed with her new design; especially how in FF12 she was found in a giant crystal maze... cool.

Anyway, you don't have a point dude not in regards to the female's enemies always looking like wife material if they have a humanoid form.
Square Enix doesn't know how to make ugly females - unless, you know, they're old.

They do. At the same time, I don't see why they need to have as many of those as they do male beasties.

Also, an interesting point about Ultima's design is that it may tie into Hydaelyn's (lower body aside.)





Also look at the similarities to Zodiark's position (in my sig) and the crown they both share for her statue version. Although Ultima in the dungeon was just a primal-like being which gained sentience - and great power - I have a suspicion that it somehow glimpsed Hydaelyn and emulated her form. Ultima in XII was characterised by her hubris and rebellion against the gods, and that would give it similar undertones in FFXIV.

[Lacan]

They do. At the same time, I don't see why they need to have as many of those as they do male beasties.

Also, an interesting point about Ultima's design is that it may tie into Hydaelyn's (lower body aside.)


Also look at the similarities to Zodiark's position (in my sig) and the crown they both share for her statue version. Although Ultima in the dungeon was just a primal-like being which gained sentience - and great power - I have a suspicion that it somehow glimpsed Hydaelyn and emulated her form. Ultima in XII was characterised by her hubris and rebellion against the gods, and that would give it similar undertones in FFXIV.

That's actually really interesting, good catch! It reminds me of what happened with the final boss of WoTG in FF 11. Don't want to give any spoilers for it, but you get to see what is basically an imitation of the goddess Altana.