Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Alleo]

The point is that the idea is to please as many people as possible. I hate Viera and have no interest, and was so sad when they said no new race after 5.0. now with Hrothgar I'm a lot more happy with the race diversity and choices that players have. Male viera and female Hrothgar would be welcome and there's no problem asking for it, but don't pretend like their absence is problematic.

Someone is always going to be upset. If it was male/female Viera, we would have people complaining about SE pandering and that this is end of XIV. If we got male/female Hrothgar, people would petition for Vieras inclusion more (like what happened after heavenward). Right now we have both races and people complaining about gender exclusivity like it matters.

You get two race models, I'm sorry you didn't get the exact specific one you wanted, but at least you got the race you wanted added to the game. The way the Devs have done it means that as many people as possible get that.

If they wanted to please as many people as possible then dont introduce genderlocks.

Look at the big amount of likes for this topic. There is a need for male Vieras there. This could have been very pleased players right now. And even though I do love beastly characters I also believe that there would have been more pleased male Viera players than what you have with the Ronso like race now. (Especially since you have some players that dislike the low quality look of them too) And lets not forget that beast races are even less important in JP and they have also lost the male side of this for that.

On top of that you are also displeasing the small amount of us players that would have liked a female Ronso too. So you on one hand anger all those that are against such locks on principle, you anger all those that wanted Viera males and you anger all those that dreamed about a playable female beast race...to please the probably quite small amount of people that now can play as the male Ronsos..

I always wanted a beastly race (with both genders..) but not if another portion of the playerbase loses half of their race for it..

[Anzaman]

If they wanted to please as many people as possible then dont introduce genderlocks.

Just gotta understand that modeling takes time and devs are working on tight schedule.

So we'll probably get male Viera/female Ronso with next expansion when they have more resources available.

[BillyKaplan]

So we'll probably get male Viera/female Ronso with next expansion when they have more resources available.

The question remains, why make this joggling act? Why not release one race, NOT say it's the last one, then release the other? Arguably it would make their work now when they're already pressed for time easier because a single race probably would've reused assets a lot more than two separate races, even if they're only one gender each.
And I have a hard time believing they didn't see the negative feedback this would've brought along with it. Even if they say "we didn't want to release either race later because they're both in this expansion", I have to wonder if the backlash is really worth any of that. And it's not like they said "oh we'll bring the other genders later", they used lore as a reason why male Viera aren't around and I have no idea what they said if they said about female Hrothgar. So right now they're not even planning on undoing this.

So the argument for resource management is nice and all, but especially given that two races probably took more than two genders for the single race, a decision was still made to give us this, and right now? I have a hard time justifying it. Especially since as mentioned before, Hrothgar caters to a very specific, very small niche, especially compared to male Viera.

[Lauront]

Here is some polling on this in case this has not been posted already. Might be a good idea to include a link to this in the OP, as statistics give a clearer impression of overall sentiment.

[DynnDiablos]

I am definitely in support of this. I've waited years to play as a Viera and always believed we would finally see the males. This is just such a disappointing turn of events. Please reconsider this Square Enix.

[Alleo]

Just gotta understand that modeling takes time and devs are working on tight schedule.

So we'll probably get male Viera/female Ronso with next expansion when they have more resources available.

And? Then they should have maybe just introduced the whole Viera race and the Ronsos next expansion. Then you would have those happy that wanted the Viera in any gender (which right now is probably the much bigger crowd) and you would have the time and ressources to make a great beast race with both genders for the next expansion. This way you dont need lore for two new races, just one and you have the time to introduce the next race at the end of an expansion and not just suddenly: And here they are!

[Keridwyn]

This has my support. Repeating past mistakes isn't a good look for a company.

[Seraphor]

The question remains, why make this joggling act? Why not release one race, NOT say it's the last one, then release the other? Arguably it would make their work now when they're already pressed for time easier because a single race probably would've reused assets a lot more than two separate races, even if they're only one gender each.
And I have a hard time believing they didn't see the negative feedback this would've brought along with it. Even if they say "we didn't want to release either race later because they're both in this expansion", I have to wonder if the backlash is really worth any of that. And it's not like they said "oh we'll bring the other genders later", they used lore as a reason why male Viera aren't around and I have no idea what they said if they said about female Hrothgar. So right now they're not even planning on undoing this.

So the argument for resource management is nice and all, but especially given that two races probably took more than two genders for the single race, a decision was still made to give us this, and right now? I have a hard time justifying it. Especially since as mentioned before, Hrothgar caters to a very specific, very small niche, especially compared to male Viera.

There is one argument that could be made, and you've hinted at it yourself.
Making two half-races probably took more resources than making one full race.
This also implies that adding the others halves to those races would take less resources that a full new race.

This could make it easier to justify adding them in at a later expansion, as well as not contradicting their 'no more new races' stance.

Lets visualise it with some imaginary numbers:
Say one race, both genders, took 1000 hours of dev time.
While one of each that we're getting, has taken 1200 hours. Implying that filling in the gaps would only take another 800 hours.

When 6.0 is in production, they could think "well, 1000 hours for an entire new race is a bit too much to fit in, but we might be able to stretch to 800 if enough people want male Viera and female Hrothgar."

Of course it's entirely hypothetical, but thats the sort of foresight they would have to employ when planning future content.

[Lauront]

I think few people would have an issue with them if they took that approach, but at the moment, it's all up in the air.

[BillyKaplan]

Missing genders for 6.0

I think that's what everyone's expecting at this point, unless the backlash makes them move it up. Yoshi saying there'll probably be no new races more or less demands that they created a loophole for themselves to get around it (instead of, oh I don't know, just not say that). But I'd like to see how they explain that lore SUDDENLY isn't a problem for male Viera.

And yet my question still remains - was it really worth the backlash they're getting right now? I can only attest to myself but I already cancelled my preorder and will not be extending my sub, which will end before Shb release. Depending on my progress with the hunting achievements, I might just cancel it even earlier than that. No, that's not the only thing I'm unsubbing over. But heck if it wasn't the final straw, and made me realize the only thing I was looking forward to in Shb that wasn't more of the same was male Viera. With that gone, I'm left with Eureka, less other content because of Eureka, limited jobs, content spreading, and a never-changing formula. The one thing that was new and fresh I was looking forward to were bunny boys.
Guess I'll be going over my steam library in the coming months.

EDIT: this reminds me I have a Chronicles of Light preorder to cancel