Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[zeylos]

To me, adding the opposing genders isn't worth the cost of losing content. Optional content, such as Hildi, BLU, and others shouldn't necessarily be cut because there's a group that want these missing genders. It's just not right to remove something that was already present in the game and then just drop it because people want the opposing genders. If they can gather more funding, get past whatever issues they mentioned that stand in their way, and still maintain good content like they have now, then I'm good with them adding the genders. But, to me, it's not fair to sacrifice things that others enjoy to get something that wasn't originally promised in the first place. That's my stance on it and personally, I feel if you try to deem that the opposing genders are more important, you're going to enrage much more of the community and potentially lose all chance at getting them. That's my two cents, take it how you will.

I think that ppl wouldn't even know it, because we would most likely just not get something added (things that were never promised)but it would be mostly glamour, and there's a -999% chance that they actually remove something from the game to add something else. I personally think that is worth adding the missing genders

[Lauront]

To me, adding the opposing genders isn't worth the cost of losing content. Optional content, such as Hildi, BLU, and others shouldn't necessarily be cut because there's a group that want these missing genders. It's just not right to remove something that was already present in the game and then just drop it because people want the opposing genders. If they can gather more funding, get past whatever issues they mentioned that stand in their way, and still maintain good content like they have now, then I'm good with them adding the genders. But, to me, it's not fair to sacrifice things that others enjoy to get something that wasn't originally promised in the first place. That's my stance on it and personally, I feel if you try to deem that the opposing genders are more important, you're going to enrage much more of the community and potentially lose all chance at getting them. That's my two cents, take it how you will.

That's simply the sunk cost fallacy writ large, i.e. continuing to pour resources into something simply because you've already done so, and is not a principle any business ought to aspire towards. Furthermore, it would not entail the removal of any existing features, but since resources are limited, prioritising where to put them based on what would provide the requisite projected returns. Whilst I understand that some people have an emotional attachments to certain types of content simply being present, you can't have money going to types of content which see so little use as to barely break-even and then keep trotting out the "resources are limited" argument. It begins to wear thin and suggests the business is not optimising its resource usage. I'm at a loss as to why people think they should just commit resources to any and all existing content... even where there isn't enough demand for it to warrant the feature. To me this is the more unreasonable attitude to take.

Bear in mind, it's my position that the missing genders should only be added if the cost can be justified on this same basis. However, resource-based reasons for not adding them don't exactly resonate with me when they're spreading their already tight resources so thinly. So it's not me trying to deem them that way but more so saying they ought to undertake that assessment.

[Theodric]

From what I've seen, though, most of the people who would be fine seeing content removed are also not too invested in the game to begin with. Their priority tends to be glamour and potentially the MSQ stuff as well but beyond a few exceptions they don't tend to invest in side content such as BLU, high end raiding, PvP, Beast Tribe daily quests and so on.

So they'd be perfectly fine with such content being delayed/removed because they have no investment in it. I'm not saying it's wrong to invest only in one or two aspects of the game. I'm just pointing out that the concerns of removing content are downplayed at times by those who don't have any ties to it in the first place.

[Lauront]

Indeed, which is why it's a question for SE to handle, using their own internal data, and not us, since they need to determine how much use any given feature is seeing and what it costs to maintain it.

[zeylos]

From what I've seen, though, most of the people who would be fine seeing content removed are also not too invested in the game to begin with. Their priority tends to be glamour and potentially the MSQ stuff as well but beyond a few exceptions they don't tend to invest in side content such as BLU, high end raiding, PvP, Beast Tribe daily quests and so on.

So they'd be perfectly fine with such content being delayed/removed because they have no investment in it. I'm not saying it's wrong to invest only in one or two aspects of the game. I'm just pointing out that the concerns of removing content are downplayed at times by those who don't have any ties to it in the first place.

Yeah nah. I actually have 9 alts (6 of them have at least 2 jobs at lvl 70) and I have participated in most of the content the game has to offer (I have BLU with all spells, finished Eureka in 3 characters, Im currently leveling another 2 alts, I have played PVP a lot) and I actually would be fine with content that's just not fun at all for almost anyone to simply not be added in exchange for more customization, and in the end, I can tell you myself that there's only 2 types of endgame: raiding and glamour, and the second is more popular by far. They can simply not add more limited jobs, don't focus so much on Eureka (we lost a dungeon because of it) and prioritize the missing genders before more customization options, plus maybe like 1/3 less of glamour, which at this point is very unlikely to upset anyone (there's like, so much glamour already in the game, the devs are even obviously running out of ideas for things like the AF gear, so I think that from now on they should take the philosoph of quality>quantity, and ungenderlocking the races adds a lot to the quality) but I myself would be mad if we were to loose things such as raids or MSQ for more races

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

I'm simply stating that if you all are asking for the content to be cut so that the genders can be added, I can no longer support this thread.

[WhiteArchmage]

There wouldn't be a "removal" of content that wasn't promised in the first place :P If anything, it would be a scrapped plan, and we know the XIV team isn't big on throwing away assets so whatever the content would be, we'd still get it in one form or another.

Again, this is in the hypothetical that the missing genders would force the dev team to cut other PLANNED content, such as recycling gear assets for a raid or dungeon tier (the latter of which has already happened and the Thavnairian Bolero being turned into DoH gear (DoL? all of mine are capped, can't remember). IF, and that is IF, the creation of mViera/fHroth were to delay or outright remove the implementation of Eureka 5.0 (which is so unlikely as to be impossible), I would expect an equivalent blowback from players actually invested in it. BLU wouldn't be deleted if we got more gender options, nor would Eden or Eureka 5.0, since those assets are already being worked on, no one is going to tell them: stop working on this which is at 60-70%, we need bunnies/lions.

So, once again to be clear: No currently planned and announced content would be cut because of mViera/fHroth. The only way we'd even find out that content was passed over for it would be if Yoshi-P said in an interview: "Oh, yes, we had a new Limited job planned, Gambler, but we decided to switch the team into developing Male Viera and Female Hrothgar."

Also, I resent the implication that some people are "less invested" in the game for doing different content (since by a playtime basis, it may or may not be the same), as if their subs cost less (And, Theodric, for the record, YOU personally know I raid, have all my jobs at cap, that is DoW, DoM, DoH, DoL and BLU, have crafted at least half of the furniture in my house, PvP, and pretty much the one content I didn't finish was Eureka).

[zeylos]

I'm simply stating that if you all are asking for the content to be cut so that the genders can be added, I can no longer support this thread.

I higly doubt anyone is specifically asking for content to be cut, but someone simply said they'd be fine with it and have no problem with it. I personally wouldn't mind less glamour, but I doubt many ppl are asking for that, so you can continue to support the tread I guess

[Lauront]

I'm simply stating that if you all are asking for the content to be cut so that the genders can be added, I can no longer support this thread.

All fine and dandy, but you need to realise that your stance on content amounts to the business not re-calibrating how it allocates its limited resources on the basis of how much value they're adding to the product and simply continuing existing expenditures for no reason other than they have been incurred already. Again, we're not talking about removing anything already in but in terms of where they put future resources. We know that they probably consider some things non-negotiable, and others, not so much.

Meanwhile, when deciding to add Hrothgar males and Viera females, BLU, the NPC Trust system, 9 new dungeons etc., they of course prioritised where to put resources, and so cut or limited funds for certain other ventures. Not saying those were the wrong decisions to make, especially since some are risks they're taking which may pay off nicely, but let's be clear about the fact that they 1) had a cost and 2) that cost came at the expense of alternatives they could have spent it on.

Another example would be slowing the pace of gear output in order to implement high res textures/graphics enhancements. If they believe that will stretch out the game's longevity and provide significant enhancements to the end user experience, it'd be a pretty logical move, would you not say?

Personally, I'd of course like for SE to reinvest more into the game, but they're even less likely to do that if they see money is not being used efficiently.

[Theodric]

I wasn't aiming the statement at anyone in particular. It was just a trend I happened to notice at times throughout the thread. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious but I am very wary of content being delayed or cut in favour of something else. Even in terms of hypothetical talk. If left to the forum community, for instance, we'd see BLU and Eureka removed.

As for Square Enix, I'm not thrilled by some of their decisions lately and I do agree that they need to invest more into FFXIV since it must be making them a fortune at this point. I do recall the development team stating that some problems cannot simply be solved by throwing money at them, though. Which either means that they need additional employees and/or there's executive meddling at play.