Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[SturmChurro]

It makes lots of sense to play Au Ra and enter Ishgard and walk arround and have full trust of ppl there when they think you are a dragon and part of the enemy faction or for Yugiri to hide her face because she thinks you arent ready to see an au ra yet /shrug

The Dark Knight quest giver says he was discriminated against when he first entered Ishgard, that he can relate with the girl. It's similar to the written lore behind hrothgar when they first came to Eorzea. WoL is a special case, because they were a ward of one of the major houses of Ishgard. Plus by that point in the story they had already gotten used to au ra by then.

Not like any of this is written in the lore (other than hrothgar), but it can be inferred.

[Alleo]

The Dark Knight quest giver says he was discriminated against when he first entered Ishgard, that he can relate with the girl. It's similar to the written lore behind hrothgar when they first came to Eorzea. WoL is a special case, because they were a ward of one of the major houses of Ishgard. Plus by that point in the story they had already gotten used to au ra by then.

Not like any of this is written in the lore (other than hrothgar), but it can be inferred.

I think he said that his parents were killed? Which then probably means that he was still quite young at that time thus until we come to Ishgard they could have had a change and realized that they are not related to dragons.

[zeylos]

Ok, where? You would expect if theyre fighting that youd either encounter atleast one in Rak Tikka or at major hubs for supplies. Let alone we should see or encounter one at Fanow whos returning from defense with either intel, supplies, updates, whatever. You know, any good old reason outside of the lore given to us on the source. We gotta keep in mind there isnt very much land left on the 1st. We more or less visited the entirety of whats left of it. (Also is it Farrow and not Fannow? I dunno for sure. Derps)



I dont contest this point, but in virtually every society, it is the able bodied that go to fight. This would mean we should see: Old male vieras, Very young male Vieras, Crippled or Disabled Male Vieras, Injured Male Vieras. Then this again goes back to the first point. If theyre not in Fanow, then theyre in the wilds or Chrystarium or other regions. Yet again we do not even encounter a single one. I get you can have a special society where males and females live separate. Ill bite. But there's a point where it becomes ludicrous and implausible. The first is a ruined world still on the verge of annihilation. If were successful with Eden and that course, things might get better. But it's still in real bad shape. Despite cultural norms, if the survival of your species is at stake, things change right quick. Even if they are all off fighting, we should encounter one or two in our travels across whats left of the 1st. Thats not happening and the reason is "Well, theyre off fighting someplace, or that Vis males live out in the woods as tradition dictates."



I agree. But if the point is theyre off fighting, theyre quite literally leaving the place theyre fighting for unprotected while at the same time sacrificing a very necessary part of the whole 'survival of our species' aspect. More or less it takes two to tango. You can have more Vis if every last male is dead. With the Vis losing ground in the Rak Tikka, youd still expect a small contingent of males to remain in Fanow for defense. It's just kind of a mess that's made because of the genderlock thing, and complicated by an MSQ that doesnt give us real credible reasons why we wouldnt see them on the first considering the situation.




6.0 is optimistic, but if a bit part of their reasoning is updating armors and items, theyre under greater pressure to present them sooner than later. Considering how things supposedly went down, they should have more time this time around to create the off sexes with a more complete look than ShB. Admittedly, Im not holding my breath either. It makes more sense to do it sooner than later, but who knows.

I think its most likely theyll do ti fo 6.0, with rather low quality (Im not expecting helmets or hairstyles, and lackluster customization is also prob) so ppl will be pleased once and for all

[zeylos]

I have a feeling that male viera would be pretty much the same as any other race, just a taller counterpart.

But I think the idea of the males being waaaay smaller like the au'ra height difference would be really cute!

it would be cute imo too, but it wouldnt sell nearly as much as hyper sexualized male character and I bet SE's just gonna do this and expect to get as much money from it as possible

[Melichoir]

I agree that...snip.... if my understanding is correct.

Well I get the practical meta reasons why we dont have certain things. You pretty much are hitting the nail on the head. Youre not gonna see them if they dont have the assets. But I think the irksome part is that they (the devs) tried saying 'lore' was a big part of the reason initially, and the aspects of the MSQ somewhat double down on this take. I still think making Hrothgar and Viera was a bad decision. They shouldve picked or the other and simply said "This might be it, but if we can do it, we will." It wouldve solved much of the lore discrepencies and made the game more cohesive overall. But this path they went with to me is probably one of their biggest mistakes. People can love their viera or hrothgar characters. That's fine but this will probably have some knock on effects for the lore/MSQ down the line unless they introduce male vieras and female hrothgars eventually.

What is left of Norvrandt is still the size of an entire continent. We haven’t been everywhere in Rak’Tika let alone the continent.

Other than the lore reasons, we don’t see male viera because they’re not modeled. I don’t think you’re supposed to put that much thought into it all, it’s a video game. Just like how we never see roegadyn kids but expect they exist. Or that there’s more to the cities and locations that we visit than what we see on the screen.

We never see male viera in FFTA, FFTA2, FFXII, and FFXII-RW either and the two tactics advance games had flimsier excuses than FFXIV did.

About your points though, the women can fight and can defend their own town without the men. And changing cultural norms is difficult when your species lives for ~300 years. I’d imagine it would take a generation or two to flip how you’re doing things and the situation has only been like this for 100 years.

You should check the norvrandt map. The zones (while not true to scale) do represent almost the entirety of the land mass more or less. Furthermore, when it comes to settlements - Fannow IIRC is the last Vis one. So were assuming that the last settlement of Vis has absolutely zero males in it , and that there are only an extreme small handful of them left so the smart idea is to stick them in combat with deadly beings that can turn them into monsters, or that not even 1 of them would have the idea of seeking aid in such a desperate period, or saying screw it and going to the chrystarium where it's safer? It's illogical lore writing.

Even if were not supposed to think about it, the problem is the MSQ and lore makes a point of it. It's not going to be a problem that is gonna go away. The problem with Kids and Cities, though, is that the city is overtly implied to be larger (we see doors, passages, etc that go to places we dont have access too.). Maps illustrate that there is more to it than we see. Kids are similar, with there being actual in game models of other races. The game shows us aspects that help cover the gap. We dont get that for male or female Viera, instead were just told illogical lore reasonings as to why things are happening. And to be frank, yes, I would actually want the devs to put Roe, Lala, Viera, and Hroth children in game as it is a weird gap not to have them. And it's not a huge workload in comparison because all you would do is modify existing models a bit and give them a few outfits. It's not like our current situation of modifying hundreds if not thousands of armor assets.

Any other game with Viera is irrelevant lore wise, unless you are strictly arguing that Viera in FFXIV are nothing more than fan bait and not their own separate and distinct entity. Much like its been discussed a million times before, FFXIV is its own game and can have it's own lore regarding the races or characters they put in it. There is absolutely no rule that FFXIV has to follow previous iterations, particularly when those iterations only work best in single player environments.

Finally, the cultural thing...again. Cultural norms are a thing, but those same norms are gonna be the first thing that gets thrown out the window in a devastating crisis. The Vi are rational actors, more or less. Theyre not gonna say "Well, we're about to go extinct, so the best bet is to set the few males we have left off to fight in the wilds and fend for themselves against monstrosities who can turn you into a eldrtich horror with a single blow...cause culture! We gotta keep males and females separate after all!" It is also the assumption that every single Viera follows those norms to a T without question. Unless youre being disingenuous, you know very well that people vary, and there will inherently be some who do not agree with this view. We see female Viera in other places of norvrandt because theyre not with the whole cultural norm thing. But apparently males of the same species are incapable of this thought process and thinking for themselves?

At the end of the day, its extremely weak lore writing based on trying to stick with lore from single player games that doesnt fit within the context of FFXIV and used as a cover for the real simple answer that the devs split their development to include Viera rather than just dedicating to one race or the other.

[PondHollow]

Yoshi already explained what the development constraints and goals were, and the lore is just compatible with it; they've left themselves, as always, a lot of leeway. There wouldn't need to be any lore change should they introduce playable males.

[Anvaire]

I think there are two things to bear in mind.

1- Some of those constraints are limited to Shadowbringers development cycle and the planned content and development resource required to do them. Therefore, while part of the issue may still be prevalent (QA and patch schedule). Some of them will either increase or decrease depending on changes in workflow, expansion and within the dev teams themselves. It isn't too inconceivable that they will look at adding the missing parts at some point.

2- Lore is not a static thing, it constantly changes and evolves. Therefore while the lore is quite clear that on the source, Male Viera is extremely rare, that lore is given to us through the lens of a specific NPC and then it is written to infer that the knowledge he has is very outdated. Norvrandt lore, i think, cannot be considered because for the most part, it is separate and therefore can't infer anything for an MV WOL as they would have to come to the source.

I personally think the Devs know there is an appetite for MV and FH and will do their utmost to have them added, one way or another.

[Melichoir]

Yoshi already explained what the development constraints and goals were, and the lore is just compatible with it; they've left themselves, as always, a lot of leeway. There wouldn't need to be any lore change should they introduce playable males.

This was not how it was first framed. It was first framed as an issue of Lore and then in later Q&As and etc revealed the true reasoning (Redoing thousands of armor assets is extremely time consuming and couldnt decide on viera or hrothgar and decided to give a mix of both hoping that would be the best path forward).

Furthermore, the 'lore' isnt compatible with it. This is why I said that prior lore doesnt work for FFXIV. The previous lore in other ff titles work in a single player environment to some extent. There is enough world building and plot contrivances that work specifically in those scenarios to allow it to work. This isnt the case for 14, and relying on the lore of other games which are not canon to 14 or have contradictions within the lore of the world 14 is built upon is a sorry excuse. It wouldve been better for the devs to not even mention lore as a reason and just be straight from the very get go (which they werent). And before someone brings up Ivalice and what not, even that raid wasnt a 100% recreation of Ivalice from previous games, but an interpretation of it and altered (albeit slightly) to fit within the scope of FFXIV.

Lastly, unless were arguing that the sole reason Viera exist at all is fan bait, there's no reason why FFXIV cant have their own approach to Viera and come with new lore and new directions. Viera, as a concept, is gonna get super stale if they ALWAYS must be a certain way, have a certain culture aspect, and never venture beyond that. If theyre not willing to expand or do their own variation of Viera for FFXIV, then its a waste of resources and time IMO. Why incorporate a carbon copy of something that isnt to be expanded or improved on? If I want the full Viera Ivalice experience, I can play the other FF titles which do it better. Point is, Lore shouldnt have been even a real concern regarding on whether or not to develop male Viera. I can guarentee if it was both male and female Viera, it would only be an extreme extreme extreme subset who would have any problems with male viera for the lore standpoint. Id hazard the hype wouldve been bigger because this was something new and different from previous iterations.

They would need some lore to introduce them at this point. It wouldnt need to be a whole lot though. Simply a matter of "the old ways arent/wont work for some big bad threat currently. The world changed and so we are also forced to change with it or suffer destruction." Bam, small bit of dialogue instantly ditches the lore from non FFXIV games and creates a different direction. Considering the threats from the Garlean Empire, or from the ascians being, well, ascians, or any new bad guy SE wants to throw in there, it really isnt hard to find a place to put this lore forward.

[Anvaire]

They would need some lore to introduce them at this point. It wouldn't need to be a whole lot though. Simply a matter of "the old ways aren't/won't work for some big bad threat currently..

Given some of the 5.1 MSQ revelations and the position of the Source Viera and Hrothgar populous, it is an easy thing for them to tackle. It could simply be displacement due to the Garlean civil war / Experimentation that going on / kicking off. There is also that line of dialogue in the Ivalice raid series that suggested Garlemald were rounding up the "hares" which could easily be the Viera (either male or female or both) I think there is a lot of potential leeway for them to tackle it.

[zeylos]

This was not how it was first framed. It was first framed as an issue of Lore and then in later Q&As and etc revealed the true reasoning (Redoing thousands of armor assets is extremely time consuming and couldnt decide on viera or hrothgar and decided to give a mix of both hoping that would be the best path forward).

Furthermore, the 'lore' isnt compatible with it. This is why I said that prior lore doesnt work for FFXIV. The previous lore in other ff titles work in a single player environment to some extent. There is enough world building and plot contrivances that work specifically in those scenarios to allow it to work. This isnt the case for 14, and relying on the lore of other games which are not canon to 14 or have contradictions within the lore of the world 14 is built upon is a sorry excuse. It wouldve been better for the devs to not even mention lore as a reason and just be straight from the very get go (which they werent). And before someone brings up Ivalice and what not, even that raid wasnt a 100% recreation of Ivalice from previous games, but an interpretation of it and altered (albeit slightly) to fit within the scope of FFXIV.

Lastly, unless were arguing that the sole reason Viera exist at all is fan bait, there's no reason why FFXIV cant have their own approach to Viera and come with new lore and new directions. Viera, as a concept, is gonna get super stale if they ALWAYS must be a certain way, have a certain culture aspect, and never venture beyond that. If theyre not willing to expand or do their own variation of Viera for FFXIV, then its a waste of resources and time IMO. Why incorporate a carbon copy of something that isnt to be expanded or improved on? If I want the full Viera Ivalice experience, I can play the other FF titles which do it better. Point is, Lore shouldnt have been even a real concern regarding on whether or not to develop male Viera. I can guarentee if it was both male and female Viera, it would only be an extreme extreme extreme subset who would have any problems with male viera for the lore standpoint. Id hazard the hype wouldve been bigger because this was something new and different from previous iterations.

They would need some lore to introduce them at this point. It wouldnt need to be a whole lot though. Simply a matter of "the old ways arent/wont work for some big bad threat currently. The world changed and so we are also forced to change with it or suffer destruction." Bam, small bit of dialogue instantly ditches the lore from non FFXIV games and creates a different direction. Considering the threats from the Garlean Empire, or from the ascians being, well, ascians, or any new bad guy SE wants to throw in there, it really isnt hard to find a place to put this lore forward.

female viera are leaving the woods for reasons. Why cant males do the same????