The cat's (or femhroth in this case) outta the bag

[Qurho]

As far as the art goes: it's concept (for a raid boss), so it doesn't really mean anything. We've seen plenty of actual racial concepts that didn't pan out 100% like the races do in-game; au ra being a notable one between the outright dragon-faced men at one point and the somewhat more demonic-looking women.

What matters is the approved final art for the race itself.

So: this is an idea of them, but it's just an idea.


Also I've been seeing the notion around... and I get it! But at least in this case, I'd be surprised if the women didn't end up all furry? The notable character creation features of the hrothgar are their unique faces, and their coat patterns. It'd be breaking precedent to have one half of a race not share the same distinct aspects as the other half.

[MagiusNecros]

Male Ronso in this game aren't even full fur in the common sense. It's mostly around upper chest and neck up. And a bit on the forearms. Not much difference to Male Roegadyn other then being hunched over and having a cat head with a tail.

Of which I'm rather disappointed the Hrothgar faces are so derpy looking. I was so hoping for the regal lion faces Ronso were known for.

[Qurho]

Male Ronso in this game aren't even full fur in the common sense. It's mostly around upper chest and neck up. And a bit on the forearms. Not much difference to Male Roegadyn other then being hunched over and having a cat head with a tail.

Of which I'm rather disappointed the Hrothgar faces are so derpy looking. I was so hoping for the regal lion faces Ronso were known for.

Yeah. The FF14 devs mentioned that, though they wanted proper fur, it wasn't feasible with their limitations. So the hrothgar just have a texture outside of the patches to compensate.

Your second comment is a bit subjective though, lol. The hrothgar have more animal-proportioned faces compared to the ronso, which I think makes them cuter. And while I appreciate and respect the ronso, I think their faces run a little rougher compared to the overall art direction in FF14.





(Click for full.)

[Nestama]

Technically Hrothgar are full-fur, especially if you compare their "skin" to the other playable races.

HrothChest for example.


No other race (Roegadyn especially) has this kind of "skin" texture, so I think it's safe to say that this is fur.

[reivaxe]

They're not Femhroths, they're Hrothgals

Hrothgal really does rolls off the tongue so much better.

Why do you have to talk like this?
You're making it sound so negative when you say things like '' generic super sexy model '' I've never understood why people can't talk about this without sounding like they're being so negative about it.
Or that at least seems to be the intent especially in the context of the rest of what you're saying.
Like I dunno why you think that designing '' conventionally attractive '' women is '' easy-mode '' either while what you like is supposedly higher effort, I dunno where you get that from and it seems like it's meant to make what you want sound '' superior ''.
It's a really weird stereotype people have of character design where making '' conventionally attractive women '' is just done out of '' laziness '' and that it's supposedly easy and low effort.
It's not.
In many cases especially for male artists it can actually be harder because you're actually designing things that you don't know.
Things like makeup alone is actually pretty hard to do well in art especially if you don't use it yourself same with hairstyles and softer faces and less sharp lines etc.

The same thing goes for the refrigerator thing, I just don't understand why people can't talk about this without framing things like this.
It always feels like people just have the one thing they want and then they treat everything else like '' lesser ''.
Like as much as you want to talk about pressuring it sounds like you want to do some pressuring here yourself.

Pretty much all this.
I've been saying for over a year that the topics of Hrothgal's and Bun Boi's appearance just came across as gross because of this hyper-fixation on wanting them to look the way someone personally likes. I've seen people ridicule "generic sexy waifu" images only to go full-on "step on me mommy!" cringe over the buffed out versions they want ... the lack of self awareness amazed me.

That's why I've been going the prognostication path. "What WILL they most likely look like based on what the devs are showing us/ have done in the game before" vs "What I think they SHOULD look like/ what I WANT them to look like". Easy for me to go that path as I think the devs are competent enough and respect their lore/ playerbase enough to not make things like the mural look different from what they want people to expect.

So basically, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time". I've had no reason to doubt the Mural Art and no reason to doubt this Art regardless of my personal wants. I also am not interested in trying to tell the devs what to do.

I think the art looks good. I am willing to pay SE for a conventionally attractive female Hrothgar that doesn't look like a she-hulk but I will not spend money on the fantasia and potential boost(s) for such an alt if it looks bad. Combine that with hairstyles locked to their faces and you have the perfect recipe for venture that won't make back its development costs. The FFXIV playerbase largely does not gravitate towards huge hulking races. For all the "love" femroe get they are still extraordinarily rare to see in game.

When I think of what a female lioness race should be like, I picture something more along the lines of the artwork which gives could work just as easily for a huntress as well as queen. I do not picture female tauren FFXIV edition or Abby from the last of us part 2. I don't particularly care either for the "diversity" argument because all the "diversity" in the world isn't going to automatically sell fantasias.

I think people overlook the bolded, which is the weak point in this "morality/ principal" based argument. "I'm tired of seeing Miqote everywhere! I want diversity!" well, if you add something that's only appealing to Femroe's tiny player pool or looks like Dulia-Chai, you're not gonna add much actual visual diversity to the game cause next to no one will play it. These are the type of things the devs would have to think about and consider.
I used to hate on Viera, saying that they didn't add anything to the game ... but I've been thinking about that, and I'm flat out wrong. They're more popular than the other 3 tall females combined, they greatly increase the chances of you seeing a "tall female" in the game. Everything adds diversity in some way as long as it's not a straight-up copy, so I don't see the logic in thinking "only what I want" adds diversity.

[Duskane]

As far as the art goes: it's concept (for a raid boss), so it doesn't really mean anything. We've seen plenty of actual racial concepts that didn't pan out 100% like the races do in-game; au ra being a notable one between the outright dragon-faced men at one point and the somewhat more demonic-looking women.

What matters is the approved final art for the race itself.

So: this is an idea of them, but it's just an idea.


Also I've been seeing the notion around... and I get it! But at least in this case, I'd be surprised if the women didn't end up all furry? The notable character creation features of the hrothgar are their unique faces, and their coat patterns. It'd be breaking precedent to have one half of a race not share the same distinct aspects as the other half.

very true
viera went through a lot of changes in concept even with FF12 as a reference

also said they looked at fan art to get inspiration for male viera and if they did the same for Hrothgals since 95% of the fan art is pretty beastly like males i dont see why they would be miqotes with the fur texture.

[HollowedDoll]

very true
viera went through a lot of changes in concept even with FF12 as a reference

also said they looked at fan art to get inspiration for male viera and if they did the same for Hrothgals since 95% of the fan art is pretty beastly like males i dont see why they would be miqotes with the fur texture.

That and consistency between the race, like it's such a meme where one gender is a neutered version that retains the skin color and nothing else, FFXIV avoided this so far.

[reivaxe]

very true
viera went through a lot of changes in concept even with FF12 as a reference
also said they looked at fan art to get inspiration for male viera and if they did the same for Hrothgals since 95% of the fan art is pretty beastly like males i dont see why they would be miqotes with the fur texture.

The problem with this is thinking that all concept art is created equal/ the same. It's not, this is early concept art for building a race that was scrapped in favor of Au Ra back in HW, whereas the op art is finalized art of a trail boss.
If I had to guess, given that the op art has a face that's very much inline with the mural that's in the game, I'd say they already knew what they wanted them to look like as a race before making the OP art.

As for the fan-art comment, I think it's important to acknowledge that Viera male's desire/ discussion and fan-art always dwarfed Hrothgals and was among the most requested and discussed things in this game, so I don't really think they're comparable at all given the handful of Hrothgal art/ hype there is. They've completed 4 races by now and only said that about Bun Bois after all. Plus, even the man who created Viera as a race engaged with fan art discussions online and iirc had input on the final design of them.

It's kind of a special case, me thinks.

[Rokke]

Paraphrasing but Yoshi’s lines were along the lines of “We don’t know if they will be popular but we hope the players enjoy them for what they are” when defending the implementation of male hroths way back when they were revealed. The females needing to look the equivalent of that one picture with the male orc/troll/demon vs the female being a human one with her skin tone altered for the sake of fanta$ia monies kinda flies in the face of that. The race as a whole exists for diversity's sake.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

The race as a whole exists for diversity's sake.

Thank-YOU
That is literally the point of their Creation...for a whole new option NOT currently playable in the game (Or at least at the time before the Males were made)
Beast Races are Never Real Popular to begin with, they have always been niche. So why go back on that to "TRY" and make them popular to Get more Sales...when that isn't even the point of their creation?