Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Arcari]

Both Viera and Hroth are the results of player wishes, for Hroths, the wish for a more beastly race (let's not get into how at least one poll on the matter lumped Viera along with such beastly races, likely garnering much bigger support for the option than if they had been placed as separate options). I think if one race truly was the wishes of the devs while the other was playerbase, they'd have gone either or and not tried to squeeze in as much as they did. This road to hell is paved very much with good intentions that ended up in a pile of poor results and implications.

Good point, people have always asked for a more beastlike race as well. But can you truly say the demand for such a race was as high or even higher than Viera?

I wish I could see that poll you referenced. Who in the world would lump Viera in the same vein as a beast race? They're essentially humans/elves with bunny ears.

Definitely agree this is a "trying to please too many people at once/road to hell paved with good intentions" situation.

[Cerat]

Good point, people have always asked for a more beastlike race as well. But can you truly say the demand for such a race was as high or even higher than Viera?

I wish I could see that poll you referenced. Who in the world would lump Viera in the same vein as a beast race? They're essentially humans/elves with bunny ears.

Definitely agree this is a "trying to please too many people at once/road to hell paved with good intentions" situation.

Here you go:

Q2. What type of race or clan would you most like to see added in the future?

JP NA GB FR DE
Reptilian beastmen (ex. lizardmen, draconians, etc.)
12.4% 8.3% 6.9% 18.1% 10.4%

Mammalian beastmen (ex.) wolfmen, gnolls, etc.)
3.3% 7.3% 7.1% 6.2% 9.9%

Reptilian demi-beastmen (ex. a race with demonic features such as horns, etc.) 11.2% 12.5% 16.1% 9.1% 11.7%

Mammalian demi-beastmen (ex. a rabbit-eared race such as the Viera from FFXII, etc.)
24.9% 27.7% 26.1% 26.6% 31.0%

More clans for existing races (ex. greater variation in physical build and appearance)
21.4% 21.1% 21.8% 17.5% 16.2%

Races of mixed heritage (ex. Elezen-Hyur, Mi’qote-Lalafell, etc.)
26.8% 23.1% 22.0% 22.5% 20.8%

Mammalian demi-beastmen proved to be the most desired new race, though I wonder if they received an unfair advantage because I dropped the name “Viera.” For some reason, reptilians are relatively popular among French players, at 18%. On the whole, races of mixed heritage are equally sought after across all regions.

I will play devils advocate and say beast races like wolfmen, or possibly Ronso in this case, are not exactly high percentage. As Yoshi-P says Viera were the most requested race GLOBALLY when looked at together though and Ronso can be classified as mammalian demi-beastmen

[Arcari]

Here you go:

Thanks a bunch! This is real interesting to look at!

Yeah, I'm gonna agree with Yoshi there; there was an unfair advantage for "mammalian demi-beastmen" since Viera got named drop. Yoshi, you silly man...

Billy: Oh man, I totally remember the OG concept art for Au Ra; they looked so much more menacing (both genders) before they got anime husbando'd/waifu'd in the final product. Ah, what could have been...

[reivaxe]

I will play devils advocate and say beast races like wolfmen, or possibly Ronso in this case, are not exactly high percentage.

Gonna chime in and say that the poll you posted was from a long long time ago. Yoshi was referring to the fanbase that came after the lupin.

Yoshi: We think that an MMO is a game that people with different perspectives can play it worldwide. Final Fantasy games are games that have beautiful characters, but in the same fashion as in FFX, there are races that look rather stronger. I always use “Guin Saga” as an example. Since we are making a fantasy game, we wanted to give spotlight to that aspect, as well. We thought: “Why add more handsome races… even if we do, the biggest difference will be the ears…”. This time, our motive was the voices of players talking about wanting Lupins which were based on the sketch of a “basic wolfman” and released in 4.0. Also, with the current frequency of patches, we release a lot of data that’s equipment, so for creating one piece of equipment, we would have to use a lot of our resources. With the current resources we have, we could only add only one race. After a lot of deliberating, we decided to add both (beautiful female and Beastman). I think that was our main motive.

As someone who came here often to support Viera in the support thread I did notice that many times people did ask for Lupin or Ronso in their own support threads and often had fights in the Viera support thread with it often digging up the same feeling of "They're just humans with animal ears, give us something Unique like [Insert beastly race]". To which people said no ... the devs would never make a beast headed race playable because of the head gear.

So yeah, AFTER Lupin and the Lupin sketch Lupin and beastly race because popular and second only to Viera. Plus the devs wanted to make a race like the Hrothgar instead of something cute or conventional attractive.

[Lauront]

Gonna chime in and say that the poll you posted was from a long long time ago. Yoshi was referring to the fanbase that came after the lupin.

Yoshi: We think that an MMO is a game that people with different perspectives can play it worldwide. Final Fantasy games are games that have beautiful characters, but in the same fashion as in FFX, there are races that look rather stronger. I always use “Guin Saga” as an example. Since we are making a fantasy game, we wanted to give spotlight to that aspect, as well. We thought: “Why add more handsome races… even if we do, the biggest difference will be the ears…”. This time, our motive was the voices of players talking about wanting Lupins which were based on the sketch of a “basic wolfman” and released in 4.0. Also, with the current frequency of patches, we release a lot of data that’s equipment, so for creating one piece of equipment, we would have to use a lot of our resources. With the current resources we have, we could only add only one race. After a lot of deliberating, we decided to add both (beautiful female and Beastman). I think that was our main motive.

As someone who came here often to support Viera in the support thread I did notice that many times people did ask for Lupin or Ronso in their own support threads and often had fights in the Viera support thread with it often digging up the same feeling of "They're just humans with animal ears, give us something Unique like [Insert beastly race]". To which people said no ... the devs would never make a beast headed race playable because of the head gear.

So yeah, AFTER Lupin and the Lupin sketch Lupin and beastly race because popular and second only to Viera. Plus the devs wanted to make a race like the Hrothgar instead of something cute or conventional attractive.

I've seen little to indicate such an option is popular to the point that it comes second after Viera. Ultimately, the % of active, played characters Hrothgar end up comprising will speak volumes more about this. The devs are taking a slight gamble with it and it may or may not pay off. I still predict, if they add male Viera, they'll prove to be a popular pick like catmen.

[reivaxe]

I've seen little to indicate such an option is popular to the point that it comes second after Viera. Ultimately, the % of active, played characters Hrothgar end up comprising will speak volumes more about this. The devs are taking a slight gamble with it and it may or may not pay off. I still predict, if they add male Viera, they'll prove to be a popular pick like catmen.

You can believe the devs (who would know this type of thing) or not, I'm not gonna go find the tons of threads I've seen asking for Ronso or Lupin for you. I truely can't think of any race I've seen more requested than Viera and beast like races like the Lupin or Ronso.

As for anything "paying off" ... a race addition isn't going to be profitable. A new JOB pays off because it's content that can be played and keep people coming back to this pay to play game for more, it gives people something new to do. A few new dances or a fat cat mount on the mogstation are VERY profitable because they're not hard to make and sell to most of the fanbase regardless. In game events are profitable because they're content that get people coming back to the game and afterwards go to the Mog station. Adding a new race to the game likely will not result in the investment paying off in any meaningful financial way when you factor in the time and money and resources to not only design the race but also support it through all future gear and emotes and such. It's mainly to allow the player base to express themselves with a more rounded out visual line up. It's why they say this is likely all we're getting.

That being said I really don't think people who play males already would be as interested in "an other tall pretty male but with bunny ears" as you think. But that's beside the point really.

[BillyKaplan]

You can believe the devs (who would know this type of thing) or not, I'm not gonna go find the tons of threads I've seen asking for Ronso or Lupin for you. I truely can't think of any race I've seen more requested than Viera and beast like races like the Lupin or Ronso.

Here's a question, though. Did the people who asked for it thought it would be based on Roe? Because Lupin do not have that body type. I haven't seen images where Ronso are so bulky, either. So while the devs went along with the request for a more beastly race, they might've still missed the mark. Time will tell.

As for anything "paying off" ... a race addition isn't going to be profitable.

A race is Fantasia sales and glamour purchases and alt characters who means more game time, and possibly jump potions. Not to mention we've seen people who got into the game when they heard Viera were playable (whether or not they'll continue with the exclusion of male Viera is besides the point right now).
Jobs are lucrative in keeping player interest for sure but you can't say races aren't profitable.

That being said I really don't think people who play males already would be as interested in "an other tall pretty male but with bunny ears" as you think.

Most people in this thread have male character profiles, though?

[reivaxe]

I'm aware of such threads, but again we should be cautious to distinguish what comes up on the forum frequently with what the general playerbase would want to see.

I actually go to a ton of forums and platforms that talk about this game so I'm not just talking about this one hugbox that's still hung up about this.

I mean, if you're going off forum requests

See above. Before Fran was in game I was a mad supporter of Viera and looked all around for places to read people's thoughts on it, not just this forum.

Even if you look at the %s of beastmen played in other MMOs, they tend to be a minority and this is even in such games where they're better designed and have a stronger lore presence.

Only BIG game with a beast race that I can personally say I have exp with is GW2 ... where the Charr are basically played on par with every non human race. And THATS a game that will never add a new race as races actually mean something in their world ... and the Charr are the most beast race I know of seeing as they can run on all 4s. Looking at Wow where it seems they have a crap ton of races because of how they design things ... sure, the top 3 are human and 2 pretty human races that add up to like 40%. But all those other unattractive races make up more than half of players. Orcs are the 4th most played race, right behind the pretty people.

Given how many "Wow refugees" they are getting I'd say the devs were right to want more visual diversity in their last race addition. Not everyone is inlove with this weeb culture that's developed around this game.

I don't know why you think race additions can't be profitable, though.

I pointed it out to you already. Again .. the amount of time and money, man power, resources that they have to put into designing and supporting a new race will not be made up with some people buying a race change potion. There is a reason why they say this is IT for new races and why they wanted to make the Viera fans happy now as they can't say they are gonna do this again. A race is not content that keeps people coming back, it's a painfully expensive cosmetic option to the team.

I'm a Femroe, started this game as a Cat but it didn't take long to convert. If they had never added Femroe would that have stopped me from coming back to this game? Would it have effected my buying habits? Do I play this game for Femroe? No. If they had not added any new race to ShB I'm sure the people who pay to play every month would still come back to play Gunbreaker and Dancer and the new trails and raids and dngs. The only thing new races add is visual diversity which helps people express themselves but it doesn't actually relate to cash gains like a Mog station Mount or an over priced emote does.

Here's a question, though. Did the people who asked for it thought it would be based on Roe? Because Lupin do not have that body type. I haven't seen images where Ronso are so bulky, either. So while the devs went along with the request for a more beastly race, they might've still missed the mark. Time will tell.

They're not based on Roe in the way you seem to think. They're large men but that's were it stops. As Yoshi said, gear will look much better on them because of their proportions.

Also, I find it funny how people bring up based models. Just look at how different a base model body can look in kurtzpel or B&S or BDO. The reason they don't think they can make any more than this is because of the outdated way they make gear and handle customization in this game.

A race is Fantasia sales

A potion cost $10
The newest dances? $7 each.
The massively popular Fat cat mount? Like $28

Which is gonna be profitable when you think about the work that goes into these at face value?

and glamour purchases

Who buys glam FOR a race? I have never paid for glam just cause of how I think it would look on a femreo that I wouldn't use if I was a different female race ...

and alt characters who means more game time

You do realize that they don't care if you play ALL month, only that you keep paying for month after month right? By the very nature of alt characters you as a player can't really tell how people play them. Someone could just play their alt in their left over Sub time after completing what they wanted on their main and just leave it be til they come back to the game again and never spend money on said alt. I actually think that's the most common use of alts but only SE would know.

If it was actually profitable to make new races I am SURE that a company that wants profits would do more new races instead of going "Uhhh, we can only do 1 more so lets split them in half to make more people happy".

[Cerat]

Snip!

I’m just going to clarify that I never once had implied that the poll was current or showed that there wasn’t a demand for Hrothgar/Ronso-like races and even said that imo they would count under the Mammalian Demi-Human section even if they are more beastlike. I simply posted the poll that someone asked for because they hadn’t seen it. the fact of the matter is tho, no matter what race is second highest demand, they knew that people wanted Viera most. Personally I have an alt that is going to become a female Hrothgar the minute they’re available, if they’re available (please SE) so I understand personally that people would like a bestial race!

[BillyKaplan]

Good point, people have always asked for a more beastlike race as well. But can you truly say the demand for such a race was as high or even higher than Viera?

It most likely wasn't, but they also explained why they went with Hroth - because it added the most to the table as far as varying looks went. Roes were alone in being that big, and no other race, not even Au Ra and Miqo'te, were quite as beastly as Hroths were going to be. Meanwhile Viera are Elezen with bunny ears visually speaking. Regardless of how much I disagree with that (a race is so much more than what they look like), I can understand it.
The problem with that is that likely many people who requested such a thing also wanted the females, especially after what happened with Au Ra, which left many feeling like they were robbed of their fierce demonesses and had to settle for lizard waifus instead. So what happened in this year's Tokyo FanFest is that they not only shattered hopes for male Viera, but also introduced the possibility for female Hroths and then crushed them in the same breath.

Who in the world would lump Viera in the same vein as a beast race? They're essentially humans/elves with bunny ears.

Poll was linked for our scrutinizing pleasure, and even Yoshida acknowledged that putting Viera in as an example likely skewed results.
And how many of those voters wanted male Viera as well... sigh.