Can we get normal manly males ?

[Vyrerus]

The Highlander options are all really manly. None of them look like any iteration of Tarzan, really. I find it kind of funny that you play male Au Ra, as other than height/nose shape, they're quite a bit more effeminate in my opinion.

Moustache and beard options are pretty disappointing, granted. But I mean, it's a Japanese game, and most Japanese guys aren't really that acquainted with facial hair. It's not very common over there. I think it's mostly for social reasons and business practices. Something about it being aligned with criminality or something silly.

[Vahlnir]

The Highlander options are all really manly. None of them look like any iteration of Tarzan, really. I find it kind of funny that you play male Au Ra, as other than height/nose shape, they're quite a bit more effeminate in my opinion.

Moustache and beard options are pretty disappointing, granted. But I mean, it's a Japanese game, and most Japanese guys aren't really that acquainted with facial hair. It's not very common over there. I think it's mostly for social reasons and business practices. Something about it being align with criminality or something silly.

With Highlanders, it's all about the creativity. Personally, I'm happy with mine, but it took awhile for me to get there. lol But yeah, they are more "manly men" than Au Ra are depending on the design. I like Au Ra, so that wasn't a dig at the race. But I think the OP is a bit misinformed in saying that they are the only masculine race that can look good. Like a lot of things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[JTF-Taru]

The Highlander options are all really manly.

100% manly...

[Swimcito]

Yes, but NO BEARD !

And a little bit too much like Tarzan/Gladiator.

You can still be manly with some high statute/style, look at my Au-Ra example (I can't link, i am kind of stupid uploading, and new in this forum)

[Swimcito]

I Think this looks quite "manly"

https://ibb.co/NSGNzmG

And as i said, the beard for me is the problem (There is a perfect beard in that Instagram post), also, how did you get a "clean" face with midlander ? without the green tatoos ?, i could not remove them.

And the japo stuff... man i know they dont have beards but this is for international audiences as well....

[Lauront]

The Highlander options are all really manly. None of them look like any iteration of Tarzan, really. I find it kind of funny that you play male Au Ra, as other than height/nose shape, they're quite a bit more effeminate in my opinion.

I would not consider the facial option I use or the "older" face they have effeminate in the slightest. The former in particular conforms with classic standards of masculine attractiveness, and you'd have to design it to look effeminate, and the latter doesn't even really offer any options in that direction. Granted, they're both less common than the Magnai face, but that one comes down to customisation options as to whether it looks effeminate or not. It very much conforms to the typical manga/anime "badass" facial aesthetic.

My problem with Highlanders is I dislike the shark face effect the more rugged younger facial option has and I likewise find the one Arenvald uses is too broad and soft at once. I don't like any of the other options. Both are too broad for my tastes. As far as Hyur go, I prefer the more boyish flourishes of the derplander face, which would be perfect if it could be coupled with stubble and a bit more muscle.

I just want my lady Au Ra to be tall like the men. There's no reason for her to be so tiny.

I think they ought to have used the height slider range to allow for them to be between female miqo'te and viera height, maybe. They just look too shrimpy for me to like them, even though their faces can be quite pretty.

But also, I say as someone who originally came from WoW, it took me a while to "get" the aesthetic of FFXIV. In WoW (and really a lot of western games), you always want your character to be "the biggest, baddest dude in the room".

I like bulk and musculature but not if the character is ugly, too large or too bestial. Never could get into the design of humans in WoW, but luckily it had other options I much preferred.

When it comes to "monstrous" looks the ones I tend to enjoy are in the more vampiric or demonic direction, where the character can still be attractive. I guess that's why I like Au Ra.

[Vyrerus]

I would not consider the facial option I use or the "older" face they have effeminate in the slightest. .

I consider every Au Ra male face, except for the old man one, to be more or less classically Biseinen(Bishōnen but fully adult). When I was Au Ra male for a couple of years on my main, I used the young looking one, as I liked those horns best (also on my Raen alt on Sargatanas). Though I generally like the one Theodric use's face a bit better. I don't think their more slender, smooth faces are a bad thing, nor the fact that they are slightly less manly than the other manly options in game . I just find the complaint funny, cause in my eyes, OP has more manly options available already. (If I had to do a hierarchy of masculinity it'd go something like Roe Male = Highlander > Hrothgar > Au Ra M > Midlander >= Catboi > Bunny Boi from what we've seen > Lalafell) - (Of these I've played Roe, Highlander, and Au Ra for years at a time. I tried Midlander and Miqote and could only stand them for about a week).

I think y'all basically want Biseinens with muscle sliders heh. Not a bad thing to want. I'd very much like to not have to hide jawline weirdness with facial hair, but that is the option I've got for my favorite race/clan/face combo.

I also think that Highlander faces all play out better outside of the character creator and in motion. A large reason why I stopped being Au Ra, other than being purely sentimental/attached, was that I liked the emotes that Highlander male faces convey, as I feel they convey situations within the story responses more accurately to my own face/how I feel etc. That and... Male Au Ra run like lanky catboi and have very slender hips.

[Lauront]

I consider every Au Ra male face, except for the old man one, to be more or less classically Biseinen(Bishōnen but fully adult). When I was Au Ra male for a couple of years on my main, I used the young looking one, as I liked those horns best (also on my Raen alt on Sargatanas). Though I generally like the one Theodric use's face a bit better. I don't think their more slender, smooth faces are a bad thing, nor the fact that they are slightly less manly than the other manly options in game . I just find the complaint funny, cause in my eyes, OP has more manly options available already. (If I had to do a hierarchy of masculinity it'd go something like Roe Male = Highlander > Hrothgar > Au Ra M > Midlander >= Catboi > Bunny Boi from what we've seen > Lalafell) - (Of these I've played Roe, Highlander, and Au Ra for years at a time. I tried Midlander and Miqote and could only stand them for about a week).

I think y'all basically want Biseinens with muscle sliders heh. Not a bad thing to want. I'd very much like to not have to hide jawline weirdness with facial hair, but that is the option I've got for my favorite race/clan/face combo.

I also think that Highlander faces all play out better outside of the character creator and in motion. A large reason why I stopped being Au Ra, other than being purely sentimental/attached, was that I liked the emotes that Highlander male faces convey, as I feel they convey situations within the story responses more accurately to my own face/how I feel etc. That and... Male Au Ra run like lanky catboi and have very slender hips.

I tend to look at femininity as consisting in rounder, softer and sometimes fuller facial features, verging more towards neoteny; obviously there is variability, much as there is with men, but that's what I regard as its main thrust. It's why I see the faces I mentioned for Au Ra as so at odds with it. You can arguably push the Magnai face in that direction, and certainly the "youthful" one is inherently that way. However, I usually opt for squarer jaws, more angular chins and a fairly long, mildly convex nose - basically the aesthetic of the blood elves from their concept art (and better implemented now in-game as well.) I consider it better to think of masculine facial features as resulting in a number of possible archetypes that are distinctly masculine, rather than resulting in one specific one, i.e. broader/squarer, although that does correlate with it. Biseinen might be the right term for it, provided it isn't taken as being "pretty" as opposed to handsome, but it seems like a pretty broad term.

I don't even tend to rate Hrothgar in that regard. Yes, they're very muscular, but their faces are so far from human they don't register in my mind along the usual masculine/feminine dichotomy. I'd say in terms of my preferences, Au Ra are at the ideal point, followed by Elezen, specific Midlander and specific catboy picks, highlander and then the rest. Male Viera I am reserving judgement on to see the full spectrum of their options.

In practice, Elezen are let down badly by their anatomy and stiff animations, so I find myself jumping between Au Ra and Midlanders (usually derplander, for the strong jaw/nose/stubble options, or the Oboro face for more delicate features) depending on what I feel like playing at any given point, but I prefer Midlanders slightly for their more fluid animations for casters. Just wish they could be customised with more muscle. I even wish the same could be done with Au Ra and hope that they one day get a muscle tone slider.

With Au Ra I do think the emotes can verge on being a bit goofy at times, but I do think the assertiveness fits their unga bunga lore, so I can overlook foibles in SE's design, like the weird hip design in armour.

[Vyrerus]

unga bunga lore

I laughed pretty hard at this, and I still am. It's true though lmao.

Also realize I left Elezen out of my hierarchy... whoops! I guess I'd put them at even, maybe slightly lower than Midlander. They're so skinny.

Understandable about Hrothgar, really. For me... one of the faces they have kind of reminds me of my dad, especially if it's wearing glasses. My brain since then views most Hrothgars as, "Cat Dads." or "Panther Fathers."

Maybe I place too much importance on musculature, but a lot of old games did too for sex differentiation. Like Mystic Ark where you could play as a guy or a gal, and their main differences were that the guy had a tunic and the woman has a long dress. The guy has insanely broad shoulders with Schwarzeneggeresque arms. But if you look at their art, they're so similar that if it weren't for the dress and the girl's side braid... they're basically both women in appearance lol.