MrHappy interview with yoshida from tokyo

[Shura]

I guess that thing that really worries me with said beast race is from what I can gather from the statements given they were already in development before Viera were on the table.

where they not confident enough in their work to say "let's finish this race (male and female) and give them bunnys (male and female) next expansion?

It's because they don't want to make new races period. It's time consuming and taxing on the rest of the development, everything from adjusting past gear, facial movements, cut scenes, movement and so on. if they release one race now M/F and did another next expansion, not only will they have to make adjustments for every past expansion gear but for all the new gear between those two expansions. Considering how in FFXIV every race can play any class, just between expansions, tens of thousands of gear would need adjustment which is all time consuming. Which is why they said point blank they don't want to add new races after this. They wanted to make a beast type race that is vastly different from anything we currently have and at the same time give people Viera since it was a popular choice among fans. Just like bringing gunblade back since it's a popular weapon among fans. They didn't have time to do both M/F for each so they decided to gender lock. That way they can make a new race, something they wanted while also giving fans Viera something fans wanted. Creating new races and adjusting them to gear isn't easy, old players probably remember when we had ears sticking out of helmets and necks that would shrink because of gear.

And the statement about wanting a third ranged attacker still sounds incredibly stupid to me considering how many people do things using the duty finder.

I don't understand why it would be stupid, people like certain play styles, some like healing, some like casting, some like tanking and some like ranged melees. Been playing Archer/Bard since 1.0 and I like the play style of doing physical dmg from a distance. While I don't know if I would like dancer, always felt that we didn't get much in terms of gear/design and classes. So I'm rather happy they realize that ranged melees are a bit lacking.