Letter from the Producer LXII

[Clover_Blake]

Did they expect that people would be satisfied and not ask for the missing half? They really ought to have just picked one or the other and saved themselves the headache. They definitely wouldn't be suffering the same criticism they are now if they had. I don't buy the reasoning of "there was a lot of demand for a beast race" either when past polls have shown that a mammalian beast race was by far the -least- popular choice for a new player race option.

Did you expect that people would be satisfied and not ask for the other race if just one was released? "WE DIDN'T NEED MORE CUTE RACES, WE NEEDED BEASTS! SE WASTED THE CHANCE TO MAKE THIS GAME DIFFERENT!11!", or "I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY AREN'T GIVING US VIERA BECAUSE OF A BEAST RACE THAT NO ONE WILL PLAY!!111one!!"

I know the story because there was a huge and annoying drama back when Au Ra was released. Please do not think that this wouldn't be the same. People are going to complain no matter what the outcome is, so SE's choice wasn't bad or good. It just wasn't your personal favourite.

My personal favourite would be Viera only and no beasts races, but I have enough of a brain to understand that my tastes aren't the very core of what makes the world go round. Many people wanted Viera, many people wanted beasts -or at least did create a HUGE drama back in the day because of it-, SE had resources to make just a single race -male and female-, and made the choice that would include both races. As much as I wanted male Vieras, this sounds reasonable to me.

[MomomiMomi]

Did you expect that people would be satisfied and not ask for the other race if just one was released? "WE DIDN'T NEED MORE CUTE RACES, WE NEEDED BEASTS! SE WASTED THE CHANCE TO MAKE THIS GAME DIFFERENT!11!", or "I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY AREN'T GIVING US VIERA BECAUSE OF A BEAST RACE THAT NO ONE WILL PLAY!!111one!!"

I know the story because there was a huge and annoying drama back when Au Ra was released. Please do not think that this wouldn't be the same. People are going to complain no matter what the outcome is, so SE's choice wasn't bad or good. It just wasn't your personal favourite.

My personal favourite would be Viera only and no beasts races, but I have enough of a brain to understand that my tastes aren't the very core of what makes the world go round. Many people wanted Viera, many people wanted beasts -or at least did create a HUGE drama back in the day because of it-, SE had resources to make just a single race -male and female-, and made the choice that would include both races. As much as I wanted male Vieras, this sounds reasonable to me.

Only problem with that is that before, we knew about Viera for quite a long time. We didn't know about Hrothgar. The expectation, then, was that there weren't going to be any beasts, and I'd say reasonably, people expected to be able to make a male Viera.

Now we're in a situation where people want male Viera, and on top of that, people want something they didn't know they wanted: female Hrothgar. So the amount of people left wanting is more than if they had just given us Viera.

[Kaedan]

Only problem with that is that before, we knew about Viera for quite a long time. We didn't know about Hrothgar. The expectation, then, was that there weren't going to be any beasts, and I'd say reasonably, people expected to be able to make a male Viera.

Now we're in a situation where people want male Viera, and on top of that, people want something they didn't know they wanted: female Hrothgar. So the amount of people left wanting is more than if they had just given us Viera.

No, this really isn't the case. I can pretty much guarantee that the number of people who wanted to play bunnybois is smaller than the number of people that wanted a beast race at all.

Yoshida did the best thing he could by satisfying as many people as possible. There were ALWAYS going to be disappointed people. But if they had only made one of the races, there would be far more people disappointed.

This can be observed after they datamined Hrothgar coming out. There were almost as many people hoping to play Hrothgar as there were wanting Viera, even before the announcement.

If they had released just Viera, then the beast race playerbase would be pissed because Yoshida has said they aren't going to add anymore races. If they had just added Hrothgar, the Viera playerbase would likely be pissed that they'd never get Viera. At least this way, even if they don't add the missing genders, they still satisfy the majority of the respective bases. If they had just picked one race and not ever done the other, there would be far more people upset.

[MomomiMomi]

This can be observed after they datamined Hrothgar coming out. There were almost as many people hoping to play Hrothgar as there were wanting Viera, even before the announcement.

If you are saying that it can't be observed before they datamined Hrothgar, then you are only reinforcing my point. The amount of people who want a beast race has increased after there was information about them. By creating Hrothgar, they have created demand. It was nowhere near what it's at now before they existed.

[Kaedan]

If you are saying that it can't be observed before they datamined Hrothgar, then you are only reinforcing my point. The amount of people who want a beast race has increased after there was information about them. By creating Hrothgar, they have created demand. It was nowhere near what it's at now before they existed.

It's a good thing I didn't say it couldn't be observed before the Hrothgar data mining/leak. But thank you for disingenuously putting words in my mouth to falsely support your ridiculousness.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there were just as many people clamoring for a beast race as there were for Viera (which can be observed in past FF14 related social media). In fact, before they teased Viera at the Fan Festival, there were far MORE people wanting a beast race than Viera.

[PangTong]

Did you expect that people would be satisfied and not ask for the other race if just one was released? "WE DIDN'T NEED MORE CUTE RACES, WE NEEDED BEASTS! SE WASTED THE CHANCE TO MAKE THIS GAME DIFFERENT!11!", or "I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY AREN'T GIVING US VIERA BECAUSE OF A BEAST RACE THAT NO ONE WILL PLAY!!111one!!"

No doubt that would have happened, but I still think it would have been easier to swallow than this compromise decision where neither side is really satisfied. For the record I believe that if it was coming down to Viera and Hrothgar, Viera was the obvious choice without a doubt. You only need to take a cursory look at player feedback and general character statistics to see that it's what most people would have preferred. Indeed, the thought of genderlocked races didn't even seem to cross anyone's mind until Paris fanfest where male Viera were conspicuously absent and the topic was so bluntly avoided. I understand their reasoning of wanting to offer a wider variety, but from the perspective of what the most players wanted, the choice should have been a foregone conclusion which is why I can't accept their decision.

But that aside, whether they had gone with only-Hrothgar or only-Viera, either of those decisions would have resulted in less backlash than this genderlocked solution simply because you're not presenting people with this situation where they only get half of what they want; it's all-or-nothing. Now that people have been made aware of the obvious "missing halves", the demand for those halves will intensify more than if they just had gotten one whole. It is essentially creating a problem where there would otherwise have been none.

To present it in another context, let's say they decided to add some other feature, like increasing customization options for existing races. But because of workflow constraints and creative reasons, they decide to split it up. Male characters get more face options, female characters get more hairstyles. Do you see the issue this causes? Even though there is currently no real expectation that customization options will be increased at all, now people will simply wonder why both genders didn't get both sets of options, and openly ask to get the other options for their preferred gender. If they had simply chosen one or the other, more hairstyles for all, or more face options for all, few people would be thinking "why didn't they add [the other choice] instead", because the expectation didn't exist. They would simply be pleased by the new options. The way they chose to implement the feature created the sense of the feature being incomplete, which is naturally going to ruffle people's feathers.

Likewise, people couldn't have expected Hrothgar, male or female, because they literally didn't exist to us until the moment they were revealed as a new playable race. But now that they do exist, the demand for their missing gender also exists, and it's never going away until the incomplete feature is completed.