Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[SturmChurro]

I agree on that partially. A majority of men tends to be stronger than the majority of women, but like you said, there's many women who are stronger than most men. I think that has to do with hormones and muscle mass

It does have a lot to do with testosterone. Still, a woman stronger than a man is an exception not the norm.

Not like it matters much in this game in the end. I am running around as like a 5'1, or maybe 5'2 petite au ra with a battleaxe bigger than her body! However, the female viera don't really have much going for them other than height, the males should be muscular, in my opinion.

Your character is also the WoL, who bears a deity's blessing.

This definitely plays a big part in the fantasy of this game.

[Alleo]

I just saw this and this is an example of how an OmegaM body would be. I actually think its quite decent too

Oh hello mister beautiful, can I have you as my retainer please! (As in 100% approved to have them that way)

The problem is you can't reach that jungle warrior description going skinnier than male Elezen.

Could we maybe stop using their life as a jungle warrior to say that they have to be huge muscled man? Even in real life most people are not muscled like Roes and a lot of the tribes living in the jungle are slim with muscles and lots of pretadors in the jungle are that way too. So them being silent killers would go against big and muscled. Of course its a fantasy game thus anything can happen but lets not try to say that it has to be a certain way just because they are called fierce protectors. If people want big and muscled than its fine, if people want other versions (like the picture in my post) than that is fine too and completely logical in a game like that.

[Lauront]

It does have a lot to do with testosterone. Still, a woman stronger than a man is an exception not the norm.

It's exceptional to the point of being extremely rare. I think he might have in mind an unfit guy vs some gym lady, but that's apples to oranges; if we're talking about latent natural potential, even the strongest women will rarely reach the muscle mass of an average male, and the same goes with height bell curve distributions. Sure, there's outliers where this won't occur, but they're called exceptions for that reason.

This doesn't have to manifest in the same way in fantasy races, but I think it's just good writing/world-building to make sure the story behind it is explained in the setting, since it's not like we just arbitrarily evolved this way for no reason... and quite frankly, SE do factor in attractiveness (both in terms of the opposite sex, but also in terms of how the typical guy or girl ideally imagines themselves; in both cases, evolutionary impulses play a role), so it's not like they're going to toss that to the wind when factoring what they put in, so it's not by accident even some of the more "bestial" races exhibit traits that capitalise on this, like muscularity for male orcs. It does limit the range of what is likely to be played most.

True, Square is known for Bishounen characters. I still think they're just going to look like 'Caius Ballard' but with bunny ears.

I like him a lot. Makes me think of this:



Regarding Bishonen, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing that stipulates their physique has to be particularly slender? Hence why you have Sephiroth, with his rather delicate facial features but powerful body, or Zenos, again with a very powerful body but a "pretty" face.

[zeylos]

It does have a lot to do with testosterone. Still, a woman stronger than a man is an exception not the norm.

Not like it matters much in this game in the end. I am running around as like a 5'1, or maybe 5'2 petite au ra with a battleaxe bigger than her body! However, the female viera don't really have much going for them other than height, the males should be muscular, in my opinion.

This definitely plays a big part in the fantasy of this game.

I completely agree with your desire for muscled male Viera, and I'd like the same. Then, I agree that that's the exception and not the norm. Then, female au race are a veeeeeery weird race for warriors and dragoons lol

[Rokke]

Your character is also the WoL, who bears a deity's blessing.

We are the magical Mcguffin but Y’shtola and Hien took down Maggy (strongest of the strongest tribe) + Daidukul (don’t know how he became khan but Buduga believe strength > everything else so I feel like its safe to assume he’s a capable fighter) relatively quickly because the story needed them to. Shtola is a powerful mage who studied under an even more worldly mage so she has some reasoning for being strong, but Hien is just a handsome lil hyur trained with a sword. He basically solo'd Daidukul and then helped Shtola finish off Magnai. Hien small and yet Hien stronk.

Regarding Bishonen, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing that stipulates their physique has to be particularly slender? Hence why you have Sephiroth, with his rather delicate facial features but powerful body, or Zenos, again with a very powerful body but a "pretty" face.

I don't think (or at least, when I think of the term and examples) theres a set "size". Pretty anime boys come in various shapes, sizes, and unnatural hair colors xD

[Allegor]

Regarding Bishonen, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing that stipulates their physique has to be particularly slender? Hence why you have Sephiroth, with his rather delicate facial features but powerful body, or Zenos, again with a very powerful body but a "pretty" face.

It's stated by the dramaturge male and female Viera are indistinguishable from each other until puberty, that's pretty much the only hint people are going for. Ironically, puberty is also when the body starts developing and the differences between the sexes becomes much more apparent.

Basically, they can very well be bishonen, muscular, lanky, etc, but sorry for those who want an Astolfo, that ain't it.

[SturmChurro]

We are the magical Mcguffin but Y’shtola and Hien took down Maggy (strongest of the strongest tribe) + Daidukul (don’t know how he became khan but Buduga believe strength > everything else so I feel like its safe to assume he’s a capable fighter) relatively quickly because the story needed them to. Shtola is a powerful mage who studied under an even more worldly mage so she has some reasoning for being strong, but Hien is just a handsome lil hyur trained with a sword. He basically solo'd Daidukul and then helped Shtola finish off Magnai. Hien small and yet Hien stronk.

Fake zenos took them down relatively easily when he wanted to. That's where the warrior of light/blessing of light comes in.

[Lauront]

We are the magical Mcguffin but Y’shtola and Hien took down Maggy (strongest of the strongest tribe) + Daidukul (don’t know how he became khan but Buduga believe strength > everything else so I feel like its safe to assume he’s a capable fighter) relatively quickly because the story needed them to. Shtola is a powerful mage who studied under an even more worldly mage so she has some reasoning for being strong, but Hien is just a handsome lil hyur trained with a sword. He basically solo'd Daidukul and then helped Shtola finish off Magnai. Hien small and yet Hien stronk.

We're now throwing in further complications, though; i.e. jobs/classes. SAM being one that leans heavily on aether and speed, over strength, and WHM brings potent magic to the front. Not to mention that the NPC system strips away a lot of abilities likely to be used in the story for mechanical simplicity, so although you just see them bashing each other, in reality you would see a much wider set of skills expressed, like dodging, other SAM powers etc. I think this goes for a lot of the in-game combat - it's an abstracted, simplified version of how the job would fight, e.g. a BLM would probably dodge and weave a lot when channeling aether rather than just standing there as we see them do. Likewise, a SAM would not just stand there for an axe to hit them.

At the same time, Elizenos completely overwhelmed Hien when he stopped holding back - granted, Hien had limited room to manoeuvre there (and we also know Ascians can augment their hosts a lot, although I doubt he even felt the need to in this case), but it goes to show how raw strength does enter the picture in the correct circumstances. My point here is that, stripping away these kind of factors, a female Au Ra is unlikely to match a male in raw physicality. But when you throw in jobs/classes, magical equipment (which again, comes at a cost and certain level of rarity) and, in the WoL's case, their Echo and their blessing, you have many confounding variables at play. That's sort of how they get around this with the WoL and some stuff you see in quests etc.

It's stated by the dramaturge male and female Viera are indistinguishable from each other until puberty, that's pretty much the only hint people are going for. Ironically, puberty is also when the body starts developing and the differences between the sexes becomes much more apparent.

Basically, they can very well be bishonen, muscular, lanky, etc, but sorry for those who want an Astolfo, that ain't it.

Exactly - emphasis on the bolded.

[Roda]

I just saw this and this is an example of how an OmegaM body would be. I actually think its quite decent too

Also, guys, would you be okay with something that's kinda like this, but with different face?:

Credit to Riessene on Twitter

That m omega one is exactly the Male viera body type and face that I want. *o*
Perfect elegance to match the females and doesn't just look like a highlander with bunny ears. >_>

[zeylos]

That m omega one is exactly the Male viera body type and face that I want. *o*
Perfect elegance to match the females and doesn't just look like a highlander with bunny ears. >_>

I'd prefer an OmegaM body that has just a little bit more muscle, but like that it's perfectly fine