Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Alleo]

That seems to be going into controversial territory. There's content in this game I dislike, though I would not wish for it to be sacrificed or delayed for the sake of Viera men and/or Hrothgar women. I want them to be added at some point though not in such a heavy handed manner.

I see no problem with discussing this. As long as people remain civil about an discussion then there is no harm. I for example dont like PVP or raids much thus I would have no problem if they would focus less on new PVP maps but would be fine with the current raids because they are mostly just harder versions of existing ones and the Ultimates are reused content.

These probably take the least amount of time. Then we have stuff like Eureka...four huge new maps with new systems and it kinda was only played by a niche. That is the content imo that could be cut down to at least a lower size (half the maps for example) and would free some ressources for other things. Also I have barely any hope for the new Eureka...after seeing how they took the feedback from two Diadems and created THAT out of it..(I find Eureka to be worse than Diadem..)Who is to say that they will take our feedback and not just make another big niche content? And will it also again be the only big content for the expansion?

In the end everyone sees content different. For me the characters and their looks are one of the more important parts of the game. Thus I would be fine with a delay of patches for some time if it means that we do get the missing genders and I would also be fine with a delay if we finally got something like a true glamour dresser with endless place. Others might disagree and that is fine! Just be civil and no such discussion directly about the game should be bad.

I'm in agreement. Expanding the customisation options for the existing playable races would have been a much better idea. Fantasia sells like hotcakes, though...and although a free fantasia was offered alongside Heavensward to accompany the Au Ra, we're not getting a fantasia to accompany Viera women and Hrothgar men. Which is a little worrying for a number of reasons since I recall the early days of ARR and how often completely free perks were thrown at players who proved themselves loyal to the game through consistent subscriptions.

Wait we dont get a free fantasia even though we get two new options? Wow...well SE with all the fantasy money you will earn you can buy more people for the QA thus faster release of the rest right? x)

Honestly I would have taken a better character customization over these two new half races...

[Krotoan]

Its my place to tell you to butt out of my rising expectations. I'm a grown man, I can manage them perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much. I'm just going to go ahead and ignore you to avoid any further irritation.

Your perogative. However it's apparent people CANNOT manage expectations and need to have people spell things out. We have people who take a seed of hope and make plans to use wood from a forest that doesn't exist and may never exist.

[reivaxe]

Your perogative. However it's apparent people CANNOT manage expectations and need to have people spell things out. We have people who take a seed of hope and make plans to use wood from a forest that doesn't exist and may never exist.

Yeah, reading comprehension is the first thing to go when some people crazy want something. If it's NOT a clear "NO" foot-meets-ground moment (like they did for Shota) it will be spun to give them hope.

I think it's important to remind people to properly read what's been said. Cause if not then they get to spinning in their echo chamber and new folks come in months later without reading the Live Letter and come out thinking it's a given.

[Halivel]

/sigh
These useless hassles will never end... humanity.

[zeylos]

This is the biggest red flag in Yoshi's statement because it's simply not true.

QA and bug testing are tasks handled by the QA department of any games company....they are a team of people hired for the sole purpose of carrying out Quality Assurance and bug testing tasks. It is a totally separate department and field of work that artists will seldom take part in, other than fix any bugs/anomalies found by the QA team.

So it is an irrefutable fact that money and man power is exactly how that problem is solved!...

I know I will get booed for saying this, but I feel that from the start Yoshida has been lying to us or at least not totally honest. I already started to be suspicious when he teased male viera and then released genderlocked hrotgar. I don't really know if the letter he made was to talk about something in hopes it would die down, or if he really actually cared about the subject

[Lauront]

This game is already far too slow in terms of updates, slowing it down would end it especially for something which is essentially glam.

Too slow in comparison to what? However, I think the point brought up by polyphonica regarding the overall effect on timescales is valid, assuming the number of patches remained a constant.

They have previously stated that to implement the high res textures, you would probably see a dip in 1/3 of the gear output. So, it would not necessarily entail longer patch cycles, but cutting output a bit may be the price that comes with it. Nonetheless, if the patch cycles are causing them to rush content and compromise on its quality, I don't see how waiting an extra 2 weeks (to make it 4 months) is going to upset the balance.

I'm with you on all these points!

These days it feels like instead of providing content that offers real depth and enjoyment, they just throw the relic or some other desirable item behind a grind wall to make us play the content...I mean fair play to them, it works....I was stupid enough go complete all of Eureka for my SMN relic....however this was because I think it's one of the best SMN weapon designs to date.

Same! At the same time, I felt really shafted over the BLM and DRK one. The majority of them were subpar. The amount of resources that went into Eureka are considerable and a lot of the relic weapons were just mediocre. However, I don't think they will drop it. Eureka is assisting them in maintaining elevated sub retention levels. They will design new Eureka with feedback in mind on the pitfalls of its predecessors. Its uptake in JP is pretty high. There is a lot of content which they should ditch, but I don't think Eureka will form part of that, and a lot of it is built off recycled assets.

Demanding unrealistic release windows is extremely common in the games industry right now and it's become a real plague

My question is what do they believe sticking to it is adding to the game? If they think it's required to maintain engagement, would they not be better off separating the dungeon and raid release cycles from all the other content in the patch? They are already sort of doing this in how they deliver Eureka updates.

However, there's a lot of content, like PVP, Blue mage, Gold Saucer mini-games and such which see extremely little use, which continue to have resources poured into them. Sure, some people like them, but are they enough to say these expenditures are providing good value for money? Alternatively, if the cost is a bit less gear, is this the end of the world? There have been nothing but complaints over the gear design in SB, and a lot of it is frankly unimpressive. Putting aside the AF sets and some raid sets, I don't think this game is suffering from a dearth of gear anyway.

So, they are damned it they do and damned if they don't? FFS people, make up your minds. He gave valid reasons, and left the door open for a possibility. Get over it. 400+ pages of this entitled whine fest is enough, don't ya think?

Not sure what your point is. People are also allowed to be sceptical of and question his reasons. There is nothing "entitled" about paying customers pressing for a feature they want to see to be added. I suggest you get over it.

how time consumptive would it really be if viera and hrothgar are just tweaked and modified elezen and roegadyn models? sure there are some very very slight differences in their proportions but most of the difference lies in their head model which is separate. viera are a quick fix since you could just cut holes in the helmets but for the hrothgar they would just have to modify the fronts of the helmets.

Yeah, I think he's exaggerating it a little. There's been many good posts in the thread questioning the strength of that particular statement.

So basically, they will want to find a way to make this happen on an on-going basis without disrupting the overall pacing of development. I don't think Yoshida was suggesting that there *isn't* a way, but at the moment they don't know, so don't want to make any promises. I do think people should keep the pressure up... in a respectful way.

It's more that it would probably involve some slow down or cuts elsewhere, assuming SE didn't up their budget.

[Veis_Alveare]

Too slow in comparison to what? However, I think the point brought up by polyphonica regarding the overall effect on timescales is valid, assuming the number of patches remained a constant.

They have previously stated that to implement the high res textures, you would probably see a dip in 1/3 of the gear output. So, it would not necessarily entail longer patch cycles, but cutting output a bit may be the price that comes with it. Nonetheless, if the patch cycles are causing them to rush content and compromise on its quality, I don't see how waiting an extra 2 weeks (to make it 4 months) is going to upset the balance.

It's not in comparison to anything but XIV itself.

As it stands now we have consistent lulls during which many people unsubscribe because there just isn't anything new coming out. Many people I know aren't even around for odd patches, they get their BiS from one tier for whatever they'd like to play then come back a bit before the next raid comes out to complete the msq/24man/misc. other content that has come out during that time. Ultimate managed to extend this a bit but even with it being mostly reused assets we still found ourselves without one during the home stretch of the expansion and that's on this current schedule.

At some point you reach a threshold where you've stretched the content too thin and I think in SB we are already approaching that point. Even watching cutscenes on everything doesn't drag it out enough that I don't find myself sitting around before a patch queing for random Trial Roulettes so that I feel like I'm still "playing the game" and that shouldn't have to be an extra 2 weeks long.

I'd they're going to implement these other genders that's cool but forcing the rest of this already slow game to slow down even more for the sake of that isn't the answer. That's literally punishing everyone for the satisfaction of a comparatively small group.

[REPROBEAN_CHILD]

how time consumptive would it really be if viera and hrothgar are just tweaked and modified elezen and roegadyn models? sure there are some very very slight differences in their proportions but most of the difference lies in their head model which is separate. viera are a quick fix since you could just cut holes in the helmets but for the hrothgar they would just have to modify the fronts of the helmets.

Well, I'm more inclined to believe the people who actually developed the game, than people who are angry, because they don't like the answer they've given, or people who just play around with the game assets. Even if the models are modified, how do you know if it's going to give the same results as the original models? No one knows here how much time it takes to develop a character model and then make sure everything else in the game is compatible with it. A lot of people seem to still be in the "the developers are lying and they're just lazy" camp. How do you know if cutting off the holes for the Viera are a "quick fix?" Are you a game developer? I just find it ridiculous that even if told why certain choices can't be made, people won't believe it.

And to clearify, I'm only taking about the FFXIV team, here. Not EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft or any other developer

[Lauront]

No one here is calling them lazy and there are people in the thread who work in the industry questioning their statements, which you can go back a few pages to see.

It's not in comparison to anything but XIV itself.

As it stands now we have consistent lulls during which many people unsubscribe because there just isn't anything new coming out. Many people I know aren't even around for odd patches, they get their BiS from one tier for whatever they'd like to play then come back a bit before the next raid comes out to complete the msq/24man/misc. other content that has come out during that time. Ultimate managed to extend this a bit but even with it being mostly reused assets we still found ourselves without one during the home stretch of the expansion and that's on this current schedule.

At some point you reach a threshold where you've stretched the content too thin and I think in SB we are already approaching that point. Even watching cutscenes on everything doesn't drag it out enough that I don't find myself sitting around before a patch queing for random Trial Roulettes so that I feel like I'm still "playing the game" and that shouldn't have to be an extra 2 weeks long.

I'd they're going to implement these other genders that's cool but forcing the rest of this already slow game to slow down even more for the sake of that isn't the answer. That's literally punishing everyone for the satisfaction of a comparatively small group.

I don't think they will budge on the release cycles, anyway. It's more a case of what would need to be cut from development, perhaps to lighten the load while they work on that. It does appear to be the cause of the rush to get content out, hence how badly rushed 4.56 was, however if it's serving maintenance of a fiscal timetable by virtue of how fast they can get expansions out, it's unlikely they will significantly change it without changing the patch number total. We don't really know how much SE reinvests in the game from the profits it generates, but there does come the point where you have to ask where the money is going and what it's being used on. The way they've premised the high res texture update suggests cutting the gear output down is one way. Now I am certainly willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of overall graphics improvements. I'm not in a rush to see male Viera, so I don't mind if they take a backseat to that and only come out later in 6.x. If, however, they don't plan any of this, I am going to re-evaluate how much I am getting out of the game come mid 5.0.

[zeylos]

Well, I'm more inclined to believe the people who actually developed the game, than people who are angry, because they don't like the answer they've given, or people who just play around with the game assets. Even if the models are modified, how do you know if it's going to give the same results as the original models? No one knows here how much time it takes to develop a character model and then make sure everything else in the game is compatible with it. A lot of people seem to still be in the "the developers are lying and they're just lazy" camp. How do you know if cutting off the holes for the Viera are a "quick fix?" Are you a game developer? I just find it ridiculous that even if told why certain choices can't be made, people won't believe it.

And to clearify, I'm only taking about the FFXIV team, here. Not EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft or any other developer

I didn't call anybody lazy. I just said that many of the things Yoshida has said are contradicting the others, and I feel like he is lying about many things. I know ppl will say it's a lie, but I think the glasses on the new models were ready long time ago, but they saved the announcement to help ppl cope with them basically not giving any concrete answer at all