Child-like characters?

[Vidu]

Not sure what to think of their stance on this. If its a decision made due to the ethical reasons stated? Yeah, sure, possibly I can get behind their decision (even if I disagree with it on principle).

However, I have a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, that its just a corporate decision to avoid the western vocal feedback, and they themselves have no real personal qualms about it. Which again... I would understand, but corporate dishonesty is something I deal with (and exercise in) daily in work and annoys the living hell out of me when I cross it in my personal time.

Eh... maybe I'm just too jaded at this point.

While I cant say for sure if its really a purely ethical choice, or maybe even something along the lines of the designers themselves not wanting to design/model sexy gear onto children (while it is in a sense their job to deliver whatever outfits Yoshi-P sees fit for the game, I could understand someone going "Yeah, I'm not comfortable with designing a playboy-bunny outfit for a child").

The reason I mention this is because the solution you're proposing is something they already did or are even still doing: Clothes are getting altered for lalafell.
I have my ARR artbook lying next to me and would like to quote from page 88, a comment made on the Taffeta Shawl by Namae: "I try not to make Lalafells too sexy when designing their gear, and the look here is that of a child's swimsuit."

While we went over the whole "lalafells are adults"-thing before, I'd like to point out that they still have certain features that makes one think more of a child, which are taken into consideration by the design-team, it seems. There are some more comments in the artbook all basically saying "the lalafell gear here was insipired by what a child might wear" and as you can already see in game, most "bikini-type"-pieces get a bit more fabric for lalafell.
Maybe I'm naive, but to me this already shows that at least one person in the design-team wasnt overly comfortable with designing sexy gear for characters that can look like they're a bit young.
Since lalafells are adults in the end and dont actually represent (human) children, its still not much of an issue - opposed to having actual children.

...and even if they alter the gear: mods are still a thing, that they're probably aware of.
But even besides that, there are things in the game itself that would seem just a little bit weird were the character a child (or at least clearly looked like one, aka used one of the child-models): Haurchefaunt, any other character that might flirt with you, the whole Eternal Bonding ceremony (even if they dont call it a wedding, it damn well hits all the marks of one - and you dont need a sucuubus-glamour to end up with a childs-bride...)... its simply a whole can of worms that I understand them not going anywhere near - wether its a buisness-choice, an ethical one by the team or maybe even just one on a personal level of "yeah, I'd rather not design this" is obviously difficult to say.
But going through that artbook at least gives me the sense of them being aware what they're putting out there and whats appropriate - and what isnt.

[Nestama]

...and even if they alter the gear: mods are still a thing, that they're probably aware of.

Oh they're definitely aware of them. I think it was even mentioned in this thread that someone was banned for making/using a certain mod on Ryne (a disgusting mod).

[SturmChurro]

..

Well, the biggest thing is they wouldn't adapt clothing to be unique to a new* race, and they wouldn't come out with a new race in the first place. God forbid they ever bring the other genders - the only hope some of the "child-like" crowd have, and are trying to shoehorn, in my opinion, are to make male viera that "child-like" race.

We don't get headgear for viera, we don't get hairs, we are missing genders on viera/hrothgar BECAUSE adapting just the base outfits to their bodies would slow their patch cycle. There is literally no way in HECK that SE is gonna not only create a new race, adapt certain pieces specifically for this new race, AND deal with potential ethics issues. Just not gonna happen, it won't stop people calling for it though.

[Vidu]

Well, the biggest thing is they wouldn't adapt clothing to be unique to a race, and they wouldn't come out with a new race in the first place. God forbid they ever bring the other genders - the only hope the "child-like" crowd are trying to shoehorn, in my opinion, are to make male viera that.

We don't get headgear for viera, we don't get hairs, we are missing genders on viera/hrothgar BECAUSE adapting just the base outfits to their bodies would slow their patch cycle. There is literally no way in HECK that SE is gonna not only create a new race, adapt certain pieces specifically for this new race, AND deal with potential ethics issues. Just not gonna happen, it won't stop people calling for it though.

On the grounds of them not having the ressources to even add more races - or lets say "different character-models", to avoid people claiming that adding children of a playable race wouldnt be adding a new race - this whole discussion is pretty pointless already, yeah.
I mainly wanted to point out that even if they could add more races, a child-race (or children of existing races) wouldnt happen for a whole lot of reasons that go beyond the added workload of modeling gear specifically for them.

[Alacran]

On the grounds of them not having the ressources to even add more races - or lets say "different character-models", to avoid people claiming that adding children of a playable race wouldnt be adding a new race - this whole discussion is pretty pointless already, yeah.
I mainly wanted to point out that even if they could add more races, a child-race (or children of existing races) wouldnt happen for a whole lot of reasons that go beyond the added workload of modeling gear specifically for them.

Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.


Make no mistake, I do not condone the use of child like characters by the player base, for many of the reasons others have noted and due to my own personal feelings on the matter. The Hyur Midlanders as a race fit the bill of being young as needs to be. Anything else is just issues waiting to happen, options literally waiting to be exploited.

All publicity may be good publicity, but infamy can kill a franchise.

I still want Male Viera, as much as i dislike the Furry magnets that are Hrothgar, we still need the Females so as to complete the races. The argument that resources are to taxed is laughable at best. You know what your player base wants, and we keep getting another game system as yet to be abandoned due to failure.

[Lersayil]

Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.

To be fair those content bits were all pretty much fire and forget types. Adding a race is a resource sink for the rest of the lifetime of the game. I always assume they mean those long term resources when they mention this, not the initial implementation cost (which might also cost a pretty penny considering our ever expanding wardrobe).

At this point I'd be satisfied if they'd manage to expand on the current customization system. I'd really like to be about 10-20cm's higher than its currently allowed for Au Ra...

[Vidu]

Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.

You're making a common mistake here, by assuming that their ressources basically work like money - in the sense that you can spend them on whatever you like.

In reality dev-team doesnt work like that - a battle-designer who now might spend time on dungeons, raids, Eureka etc. cant just be called over and be told "here, design new gear!"
And one of the artists cant be called over to programm the new launcher and so on and so on.

While I personally disliked Eureka and Diadem, I know that infact a lot of people wanted some open-world-feel-like content instead of just another dungeon. I also admire them for at least trying new types of content, even if those might not work out straight away or arent liked by everyone. People are already upset by them repeating the same pattern over and over again and while I think certain parts should just stay as a basis (tomestonegear, 8-man-Savage, some alternative ways to get decent gear), I'd be pretty bored and unhappy if all they ever did was give us 3 new dungeons per patch and call it a day.
I much rather have them come up with new ideas and concepts, even if not all of them work out or are to everyones taste.

...all of that in addition to what Lersayil said: Adding a new race not only means adjusting over 10.000 pieces of gear but also all of the future gear they're going to add. And again: Thats not a job everyone in their team could do. I doubt that the people developing Ultimate could adjust headpieces to fit Viera just as well.

[Alacran]

You're making a common mistake here, by assuming that their ressources basically work like money - in the sense that you can spend them on whatever you like.

In reality dev-team doesnt work like that - a battle-designer who now might spend time on dungeons, raids, Eureka etc. cant just be called over and be told "here, design new gear!"
And one of the artists cant be called over to programm the new launcher and so on and so on.

While I personally disliked Eureka and Diadem, I know that infact a lot of people wanted some open-world-feel-like content instead of just another dungeon. I also admire them for at least trying new types of content, even if those might not work out straight away or arent liked by everyone. People are already upset by them repeating the same pattern over and over again and while I think certain parts should just stay as a basis (tomestonegear, 8-man-Savage, some alternative ways to get decent gear), I'd be pretty bored and unhappy if all they ever did was give us 3 new dungeons per patch and call it a day.
I much rather have them come up with new ideas and concepts, even if not all of them work out or are to everyones taste.

...all of that in addition to what Lersayil said: Adding a new race not only means adjusting over 10.000 pieces of gear but also all of the future gear they're going to add. And again: Thats not a job everyone in their team could do. I doubt that the people developing Ultimate could adjust headpieces to fit Viera just as well.

I do understand a battle programmer is not the same as an asset creator, however at the end of the day each team is comprised of an individual with specific skills, knowledge, and paycheck... If the battle content programming team is making forgettable, substandard content ( more likely a content think tank ) then that's a financial draw that isn't panning out. It would make more sense then to place more individuals in the art asset/ development teams that acquiesce to player base demand, or come up with better equipment/ character design that removes the issue over complicated gear adaptation to more unique races/ body styles.

Or port the whole new engine to finally break free of the patch work fix that was 2.0 for 1.0. The art teams said as much at the last fan fest. They are actively having to work around the constraints of an engine hodgepodged together to form 2.0.

To stay relevant to topic... No child like characters for the player base. Ever.