Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[MikkoAkure]

What would that 'lowest common denominator' be, exactly?

It seems to me that they were designed around classical beauty standards - with the men being tall, muscular and handsome and the women being short, elegant and slender.

Granted, the height difference did not necessarily need to be quite so drastic but based on what I see in-game it doesn't appear as if either side of the coin is starving for interest.

On the other hand, the race and gender combinations based around niche aesthetics are decidedly, uh, niche. Roegadyn women being a prominent example, to say nothing of the lanky proportions that Elezen are bound to.

Yeah, that's what "lowest common denominator" means. It's deliberately made to appeal to the greatest number of people. Instead of making a uniform race, it feels as though they took the concept art and said "well what's the simplest common value players want in a female character that would give us wide adoption rates for the new race?" and then applied it to the Au Ra, while leaving the men as musclebound hunks since that's the lowest common value players want in a male character.

Doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing though, which is why you have people in another thread fighting over femhroths and whether or not they'll look like the men or be blue miqo'te. And you have Xaela women, who are supposed to be rugged nomads but don't exactly act like it because SE decided that we needed a second miqo'te instead in order to sell more fantasia.

[MellowMink]

"Male Viera are ruining my immersion," someone says while taking off in a flying car.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

"Male Viera are ruining my immersion," someone says while taking off in a flying car.

That Flying Car was explained that it could actually exist. Garlean Tech isn't far off from it.
So this is kind of a Weak Gottcha.

[MellowMink]

That Flying Car was explained that it could actually exist. Garlean Tech isn't far off from it.
So this is kind of a Weak Gottcha.

And the living chocolate mount that comes from trademarked Butterfingers candy? The Lunar Whale bought with cash that just spontaneously appears in the world without any prior mention? The mikoshi that's carried by Namazu who apparently follow me around on all my adventures, which also includes multiple worlds despite the game's narrative making it clear that that's not an easy thing that most people can just easily do?

We could also talk about how story characters won't react differently to my character wearing nothing but a wiggly slime head in serious cutscenes. Nobody seems to care if I fight primals while dressed in provocative bunny clothes either. Me using a Fantasia potion is never questioned or even slightly acknowledged by anyone else in the game, and it seems to retroactively change the history of my character as well. What about the fact that my character just stands completely still while someone gives an overly dramatic monologue and slowly walks into a boss room despite me easily being able to prevent that upcoming encounter? We could also talk about a questline where I'm not able to prevent something from happening in the future because I'm never given a choice to speak up by the developers despite actively wanting to.

There are many things in the game that don't currently make sense in terms of lore, so it's weird that some people are so hung about a few more player character options of all things, especially since I'm again not easily going to believe that every single male Viera across both the Source and First worlds universally would agree to never appear to any other non-Viera characters, although even if your character is a female Viera, they still refuse to ever appear to you for some unexplained reason; that's less immersive to me than some players being able to play as male Viera who don't share the same beliefs as the entire rest of their species across multiple worlds.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

And the living chocolate mount that comes from trademarked Butterfingers candy? The Lunar Whale bought with cash that just spontaneously appears in the world without any prior mention? The mikoshi that's carried by Namazu who apparently follow me around on all my adventures, which also includes multiple worlds despite the game's narrative making it clear that that's not an easy thing that most people can just easily do?

We could also talk about how story characters won't react differently to my character wearing nothing but a wiggly slime head in serious cutscenes. Nobody seems to care if I fight primals while dressed in provocative bunny clothes either. Me using a Fantasia potion is never questioned or even slightly acknowledged by anyone else in the game, and it seems to retroactively change the history of my character as well. What about the fact that my character just stands completely still while someone gives an overly dramatic monologue and slowly walks into a boss room despite me easily being able to prevent that upcoming encounter? We could also talk about a questline where I'm not able to prevent something from happening in the future because I'm never given a choice to speak up by the developers despite actively wanting to.

There are many things in the game that don't currently make sense in terms of lore, so it's weird that some people are so hung about a few more player character options of all things, especially since I'm again not easily going to believe that every single male Viera across both the Source and First worlds universally would agree to never appear to any other non-Viera characters, although even if your character is a female Viera, they still refuse to ever appear to you for some unexplained reason; that's less immersive to me than some players being able to play as male Viera who don't share the same beliefs as the entire rest of their species across multiple worlds.

Lol...all I said was the Flying Car is Explained that is could exist in the FFXIV world.
Did you mean to Quote a Different Post?

[Theodric]

Yeah, that's what "lowest common denominator" means. It's deliberately made to appeal to the greatest number of people. Instead of making a uniform race, it feels as though they took the concept art and said "well what's the simplest common value players want in a female character that would give us wide adoption rates for the new race?" and then applied it to the Au Ra, while leaving the men as musclebound hunks since that's the lowest common value players want in a male character.

Doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing though, which is why you have people in another thread fighting over femhroths and whether or not they'll look like the men or be blue miqo'te. And you have Xaela women, who are supposed to be rugged nomads but don't exactly act like it because SE decided that we needed a second miqo'te instead in order to sell more fantasia.

I don't think mass appeal is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to features that require a lot of resources/long term investment. At the end of the day, most people do want to play conventionally attractive options because that's just what sells. A fairly high portion of players like to praise the existence of non-conventional options, but even many of those individuals do not put their money where their mouths are so to speak.

For example, there's a often lot of comments on Reddit and Twitter about how amazing female roegadyn supposedly are and yet they're the least played race/gender combination in the game. A spot that they've occupied pretty consistently at that.

On my end, as a gay guy who likes classically handsome men it's Midlander and Raen/Xaela men that appeal to me the most out of the current batch of playable options.

I'm a firm advocate of enhanced character customisation at a later date, though - which may be a way to alleviate some of the long standing issues, real and perceived, with the creation system.

[SturmChurro]

I don't think mass appeal is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to features that require a lot of resources/long term investment. At the end of the day, most people do want to play conventionally attractive options because that's just what sells. A fairly high portion of players like to praise the existence of non-conventional options, but even many of those individuals do not put their money where their mouths are so to speak.

Yeah, especially when adding something like a new race may come at the cost of other things in the game, and developer workload in general.

[Lastelli]

Yeah, especially when adding something like a new race may come at the cost of other things in the game, and developer workload in general.

Everything comes at the cost of other things in the game. I hate fishing but I don't go around crying that they shouldn't waste resources on that because I'm not interested in it. I don't play female characters yet I don't constantly whine about how they clearly favor them for glamour and gearing options. Weak argument, really.

[SturmChurro]

Everything comes at the cost of other things in the game. I hate fishing but I don't go around crying that they shouldn't waste resources on that because I'm not interested in it. I don't play female characters yet I don't constantly whine about how they clearly favor them for glamour and gearing options. Weak argument, really.

Those aren't even comparable.

[Lastelli]

Those aren't even comparable.

Of course they are. It's all content that competes for the devs' resources. And if I don't care about that specific content, it has zero value to me. "Resources are better spent elsewhere" is not a solid reasoning. It's just a declaration of preference that you'd better keep to yourself and is particularly foolish in this specific instance, considering the endorsement this very thread received. MViera will probably be much more popular than things that keep draining resources like LoV (every time a new minion is added) or BLU and very few people touch. But there are some players that do enjoy that kind of stuff, who are you to tell them that your preferences are more important than theirs?