Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Iscah]

I never understood that argument tbh.
We ain't aking for new races, we asking for the races we got to become fully-fleshed actual races

It's because from a functional, game-programming perspective, the male Hrothgar and female Viera have been implemented as "one race". They take up the same amount of programming space as one single race, and require the same amount of modelling work to adapt gear and emotes.

We know that "in reality" within the story, they are unrelated and have their own corresponding other-genders, but for programming purposes they are connected.

Adding the other genders in future would, again, be the programming equivalent of adding one new entirely original race (not counting recycling some aspects like ear shapes or fur patterns). There would be one more male and one more female model added. That's all that counts for their time, resources and the amount of gear that has to be adjusted and tested on yet another race, regardless of whether they're "new" or "completing a set".

[zeylos]

It's because from a functional, game-programming perspective, the male Hrothgar and female Viera have been implemented as "one race". They take up the same amount of programming space as one single race, and require the same amount of modelling work to adapt gear and emotes.

We know that "in reality" within the story, they are unrelated and have their own corresponding other-genders, but for programming purposes they are connected.

Adding the other genders in future would, again, be the programming equivalent of adding one new entirely original race. There will be one more male and one more female model added. That's all that counts for their time, resources and the amount of gear that has to be adjusted and tested on yet another race, regardless of whether they're "new" or "completing a set".

Still, Yoshida is known for liking to troll, and he repeated a lot that his would be likely the last races.
A dataminer shows they have left space on the code (prepared intentioanlly) for not only the missing genders, but another full race, so this could mean they'll likely make the missing genders, and then they'd considermakign another race. Also, ShB might be great or bad, but it's gonna sell a lot, meaning SE could have likely given a bigger budget to XIV, meaning they could do both of those things by hiring more ppl to their team.

Your are right that it's a lot of effort, but they can also likely reuse viera heads by altering them a lot, which is easier than to make a new one, and female viera are literally female miqot'e with elezen height, so the problem is likely animations and not the gear thing they've been saying. Male hrotgars do have a unique body so I believe it for them tho