Female Hrothgar as a playable race. Show your support!

[Yencat]

Lol I think its that thing going around: Computer Generated Art.
And, I agree, it looks more rodent then Feline, definitely not a good contender for a Female Hrothgar Render.

I had a feeling it might be but thought I'd ask just in case!

It's certainly a lot nicer than some of the abstract nightmare fuel AI art I've seen and the rounded ears make sense for a lion, but everything else is giving ratatouille lol

[SturmChurro]

I don't know what exactly Midjourney AI is but that looks like a mouse or some other rodent, not a cat. But maybe that was the point?

Lol I think its that thing going around: Computer Generated Art.
And, I agree, it looks more rodent then Feline, definitely not a good contender for a Female Hrothgar Render.

That AI art is unsettling to look at, to be honest. I think it's the small mouth and round ears that make it look like a rat.

[reivaxe]

Yes, if you pick a hairstyle that doesn't have a fivehead it won't have a fivehead... The same is true for female Viera though?

There are styles that don't look 5head on others that do look 5head on Female Viera, with is the point.

The fivehead ones just looks worse on Viera, both male and female

I mean, I'm showing you that the 5head hairstyle you pulled up looks no worse than it does on a male Middie. They literally have the same base head/ face shape.

it's a very common complaint so the idea that they were made with that in mind doesn't ring true.

YP legit said that they didn't have to change male Viera's heads to make shared hair work on them, as they were made with "using shared hair" in mind. Like, that's a thing he stated in Nov ... "Yoshida-san explained the challenges of designing hairstyles for both races, pointing to their unique designs making it tougher. He also mentioned that the male Viera design had fewer limitations when implementing hairstyles"

Like ... people been crying for Viera to have shared hair for 2 years, of course they're gonna make life easier on themselves for Male Viera by approaching them as a race that's expected to use shared hair. Not sure where the disconnect is here.

I don't know what exactly Midjourney AI is but that looks like a mouse or some other rodent, not a cat. But maybe that was the point?

That's a lion. Lions have rounded, fluffy ears.

[Yencat]

YP legit said that they didn't have to change male Viera's heads to make shared hair work on them, as they were made with "using shared hair" in mind. Like, that's a thing he stated in Nov ... "Yoshida-san explained the challenges of designing hairstyles for both races, pointing to their unique designs making it tougher. He also mentioned that the male Viera design had fewer limitations when implementing hairstyles"

Like ... people been crying for Viera to have shared hair for 2 years, of course they're gonna make life easier on themselves for Male Viera by approaching them as a race that's expected to use shared hair. Not sure where the disconnect is here.

Of course they made it easier for themselves, no one is arguing that. But it's an Olympic level leap to go from "had fewer limitations when implementing hairstyles" to "were made from the start to look better with shared hairstyles", especially since they don't actually look that much better with the shared hairstyles and the fivehead is a very common complaint with several shared hairstyles from male Viera players.

That's a lion. Lions have rounded, fluffy ears.

It's certainly a lot nicer than some of the abstract nightmare fuel AI art I've seen and the rounded ears make sense for a lion, but everything else is giving ratatouille lol

I'm aware, but that still looks like a mouse or a hamster and not a lioness.

[reivaxe]

Lol I think its that thing going around: Computer Generated Art.
And, I agree, it looks more rodent then Feline, definitely not a good contender for a Female Hrothgar Render.

I clearly disagree, art styles are subjective for everyone but the point of that was really "If you apply the same mix of human and cat features to females using any logic seen in this game, you're not gonna get a slightly softer version of a hypermasculine male's head/ face".

Hrothgar males themselves are all over the place on how much "beast" and with type of cat they get in each face ... you could tell me face 3 was some kinda demon, face 2 was some kinda tiger dog and that face 4 was some kinda Pug Mike Tyson and ... I'd believe it.

But it's an Olympic level leap to go from "had fewer limitations when implementing hairstyles" to "were made from the start to look better with shared hairstyles"

No, that's literally cause and effect. And I didn't say they were made to look better just cause, the natural result of making something from the ground up with the knowledge that they're gonna use shared hair would be fewer limitations and better results over trying to retroactively fix something.

You can see it with your own 2 eyeballs, they literally have the same face shape and head shape as midlander males. Therefore, "hair that looks good on Middie males will look good on them" whereas female Viera still struggle in some ways from having a head and face shape that's different from other females. Like, that's what male Viera are ... they're an updated combo of Male Miqote and Male Middie.

I'd say they actually look better than the females over all. Better and more expressive animations/ emotes and cycles (Maybe because they didn't have to rush out 2 genders at once this time), better proportions, better hair, better faces and face features and so on. Hell, they gave them colored eyelash extensions for 3 faces ... that's some cool ish and zero females have for any race.
But that's how it goes, every new thing they make "looks better" than the old. Female Viera race hair looks better than almost any hair in this game that came out before Form-n-Function, for example.

I'm aware, but that still looks like a mouse or a hamster and not a lioness.

Most of the Hrothgar don't look like Lions, so ehh. Looks very much like what a female human with lion like features on the level of Hrothgar would look like to me. Thing is, human females aren't exactly as imposing as beastly lions. It's kinda like making an attractive elephant woman, unless done in the right art style it's not gonna translate as well as it could by virtue of how contrasting the elements are in reality.
The fun part I've learned about the AI is that you can't use any cat with a pattern, or else it just hyper focuses on the pattern above all else. So it's either "Lions" or "Cats". I have no problem with the "cats" results, but I already know some people here would wanna flip their lid at furry house cats and I don't care to flood this thread with more drama art.

[Yencat]

No, that's literally cause and effect. And I didn't say they were made to look better just cause, the natural result of making something from the ground up with the knowledge that they're gonna use shared hair would be fewer limitations and better results over trying to retroactively fix something.

You can see it with your own 2 eyeballs, they literally have the same face shape and head shape as midlander males. Therefore, "hair that looks good on Middie males will look good on them" whereas female Viera still struggle in some ways from having a head and face shape that's different from other females. Like, that's what male Viera are ... they're an updated combo of Male Miqote and Male Middie.

I'd say they actually look better than the females over all. Better and more expressive animations/ emotes and cycles (Maybe because they didn't have to rush out 2 genders at once this time), better proportions, better hair, better faces and face features and so on. Hell, they gave them colored eyelash extensions for 3 faces ... that's some cool ish and zero females have for any race.
But that's how it goes, every new thing they make "looks better" than the old. Female Viera race hair looks better than almost any hair in this game that came out before Form-n-Function, for example.

All I'm saying is hairstyles with a higher hairline tend to look worse on both male and female Viera, possibly as a result of their facial features appearing to be set slightly lower on the face than (some?) other races. You clearly disagree though and that's fine, but like I said it's still a complaint several male Viera players also have expressed with shared hairstyles. On both male and female Viera it can be somewhat mitigated with darker hair and the fuller brows Rava have.

The only things I prefer on male Viera over female are how their ears are angled (the lop ears are a sin on both), and male Veena not having the duller eye colour female Veena get from the larger pupil, but that's down to taste and personal preference.

Most of the Hrothgar don't look like Lions, so ehh. Looks very much like what a female human with lion like features on the level of Hrothgar would look like to me. Thing is, human females aren't exactly as imposing as beastly lions. It's kinda like making an attractive elephant woman, unless done in the right art style it's not gonna translate as well as it could by virtue of how contrasting the elements are in reality.
The fun part I've learned about the AI is that you can't use any cat with a pattern, or else it just hyper focuses on the pattern above all else. So it's either "Lions" or "Cats". I have no problem with the "cats" results, but I already know some people here would wanna flip their lid at furry house cats and I don't care to flood this thread with more drama art.

I don't think Hrothgar particularly look like lions either, but out of the three AI pictures you posted a few pages ago only the first image with the closed eyes gives off a somewhat feline vibe, I can't see anything but a rodent-woman in the others.

[reivaxe]

All I'm saying is hairstyles with a higher hairline tend to look worse on both male and female Viera, possibly as a result of their facial features appearing to be set slightly lower on the face than (some?) other races. You clearly disagree though and that's fine, but like I said it's still a complaint several male Viera players also have expressed with shared hairstyles. On both male and female Viera it can be somewhat mitigated with darker hair and the fuller brows Rava have.

I wouldn't disagree that bad hairstyles look bad. But it seems we disagree on both genders for Viera suffering to the same degree on this. Like I said, Males got the same head as Male Mids so if it looks good/ bad on a Middie boi it's gonna look good/ bad on them.

Now, IDK what anecdotal reports you're going off of, as I follow a lot of FF14 social circles and the only whines I hear about Viera are "meh Hats!" and females talking about their 5heads sometimes with a sprinkle of "I wish we had a SMOLL CLAN! About Midlander tall!" in there. I personally file every whiny thing on this forum as meaningless, seeing how this is the one place people seem to whine about every aspect of this game that's not 100% to their liking.
I'm sure I can find someone here who whines that the game doesn't pay them to play it ...

I don't think Hrothgar particularly look like lions either, but out of the three AI pictures you posted a few pages ago only the first image with the closed eyes gives off a somewhat feline vibe, I can't see anything but a rodent-woman in the others.

Ehh, I think you're reading "feminine human" features (like smaller mouth/ softer and narrower chin/jaw) as "small animal/ rodent". When I think rodent, I think something like this. HUGE beady pupils-less eyes, huge ears, long whiskers, small-n-fleshy nose. Basically Loporrit.

To each their own, though. Like I said, regardless of liking it or not, it's just a solid example of applying the level of cat traits found on Hrothgar to a female human's face features. (From the snout to the eyes to the pigmentation markings and ear placement, it's a good 1:1 of the levels of animal features the dudes got)
I hold firm in my belief that anyone playing this game long enough to see all the races would have to be fooling themselves to think that they would just make slightly softer versions of hypermasculine faces and make women outta them. IMO, they're gonna make something like that pic and 3 others that are versions of it, with one being more aggro looking and 1 looking like that Ronso gender swap art.

[Yencat]

I wouldn't disagree that bad hairstyles look bad. But it seems we disagree on both genders for Viera suffering to the same degree on this. Like I said, Males got the same head as Male Mids so if it looks good/ bad on a Middie boi it's gonna look good/ bad on them.

Now, IDK what anecdotal reports you're going off of, as I follow a lot of FF14 social circles and the only whines I hear about Viera are "meh Hats!" and females talking about their 5heads sometimes with a sprinkle of "I wish we had a SMOLL CLAN! About Midlander tall!" in there. I personally file every whiny thing on this forum as meaningless, seeing how this is the one place people seem to whine about every aspect of this game that's not 100% to their liking.
I'm sure I can find someone here who whines that the game doesn't pay them to play it ...

I've never seen anything to suggest that most models share anything other than modified Midlander bodies, so if you have anything to back that up I'd very much like to see it. A quick glance at the MGP ponytail on a male Midlander vs. a male Viera makes me think that's unlikely though.

Even Great Lengths which isn't really a notorious fivehead hairstyle on anyone (not even on female Viera) doesn't sit quite low enough on male Viera, while it looks fine on male Midlander.

I'm not in any FF14 social circles but it has been discussed in the Viera/Hrothgar hair threads both on here and it pops up on Reddit every now and then. There isn't a huge outrage about it or anything, just people expressing disappointment they "can't" use certain hairstyles and making fivehead jokes.

Ehh, I think you're reading "feminine human" features (like smaller mouth/ softer and narrower chin/jaw) as "small animal/ rodent". When I think rodent, I think something like this. HUGE beady pupils-less eyes, huge ears, long whiskers, small-n-fleshy nose. Basically Loporrit.

To each their own, though. Like I said, regardless of liking it or not, it's just a solid example of applying the level of cat traits found on Hrothgar to a female human's face features. (From the snout to the eyes to the pigmentation markings and ear placement, it's a good 1:1 of the levels of animal features the dudes got)
I hold firm in my belief that anyone playing this game long enough to see all the races would have to be fooling themselves to think that they would just make slightly softer versions of hypermasculine faces and make women outta them. IMO, they're gonna make something like that pic and 3 others that are versions of it, with one being more aggro looking and 1 looking like that Ronso gender swap art.

It's not about whether or not I like it (I don't, but that's beside the point) but I'm not the only one in this thread that read them as rodent, so it's clearly not just me. Individually I can see what are meant to look like feline features (the human mouths definitely not though.) but putting them all together it just doesn't look right. Barring maybe the first of the three images there's just something off about them to the point where if it wasn't posted in this thread but I saw it on Google images without context I don't know if I would have guessed they were meant to look feline.

[Pip_Chick]

I'd say they actually look better than the females over all. Better and more expressive animations/ emotes and cycles (Maybe because they didn't have to rush out 2 genders at once this time), better proportions, better hair, better faces and face features and so on. Hell, they gave them colored eyelash extensions for 3 faces ... that's some cool ish and zero females have for any race.
But that's how it goes, every new thing they make "looks better" than the old. Female Viera race hair looks better than almost any hair in this game that came out before Form-n-Function, for example.

I hope they will do the same with the females. Better faces, better emotes, CUT THE HUNCH! and better walking animations. For me as long as they look like they are part of the same species is all that matters. I said before even a few pages back that the AI-generated art looked good (though the first one with her eyes closed was my personal favourite), but people need to get that it looks uncanny valley, because it is! Ai-generated art is a computer trying to decipher what you meant and recreating it into an art piece. It's not my favourite form of art, simply because of the uncanny valley effect it gives me. But I understood what you meant, trying to point at it and see the feminine features combined with the animal features to result in a more softer feminine look, rather than that of imposing males. Which job it manages to do, throughout the responses people may have called it more of a rat than a lion (which I can see why, but the ears and nose is very much more feline than rodent), but they never confused it for a male, which I think it was your point (you can correct me here), making them look feline, but keeping them feminine through the visual ques. That and for the human eye the emotions and faces of animals are hard to read if not exaggerated, but we can read Hrothgar (due to their human features) and so I hope the females will get the same treatment. Or made to look better and more expressive!

[reivaxe]

I've never seen anything to suggest that most models share anything other than modified Midlander bodies, so if you have anything to back that up I'd very much like to see it. A quick glance at the MGP ponytail on a male Midlander vs. a male Viera makes me think that's unlikely though.

I have no clue what you're getting at, everything other than Lala and Roe bros (and now Hrothgar males) is ultimately traced back to being a modified Middie.
Femroe and Female Viera are both modified female midlander bodies ... are they the same? Does armor fit them the same? Are they both of the same quality and success? Which looks closer to a midlander, bodyshape wise? Also, I legit gave you a picture of their noggins next to each other, Male Viera are updated and altered Male Miqote bods with Male midlander head and a posture that sits somewhere between them. Female Viera and Hrothgar? We have confirmation many times over that they have unique heads that had to be changed going into 6.0 to make them suitable for shared hair.

If you wanna ignore that, then you do you.

It's not about whether or not I like it (I don't, but that's beside the point) but I'm not the only one in this thread that read them as rodent, so it's clearly not just me.

Oh, you mean the Femroe player who hates the idea of Hrothgals looking like anything other than beefed out linebackers, just barely different from the males? Great company to be in, lol! I legit avoided posting my own hand made fan-art here long ago because of how I've seen people passionate about their steroid girls react to art that doesn't affirm that.
Like I said, if you read that as rodent, then I think you have a misunderstanding of what rodents look like or a misconception of what lion features are when not placed on a more animalistic head.

Not that it matters, like I said ... for a race of "lion dudes" only 1 actually clearly looks like a cat.

Face 2 looks like a Werewolf mostly, some feline hints tho.
Face 3 could straight up be placed on a demon with wings and it would look right at home. My favorite of the 4 for how demonic and fantastical it looks.
Face 4? The "Ronso" face for the "FF14 Ronso" race? This is what I see when I look at it because I've never seen a big cat with such a smashed in, downward turned nose.



This is why I've been sure that "if they made Hrothgals, they wouldn't even bother making them matching cats with the males and would go for something like house cats or small wild breeds" from the start. Outside of having 1 "Ronso" face, they can be w/e beastly vaguely "cat" like thing.

Which is kinda the point of that whole post. Hrothgar are not Khajiit, they have a mix of human and beast like features in their face. Once you break down all the human and beast traits and place them on a feminine face that's inline with legit every other female in the game (including Femroe), you're gonna get something that looks something like that picture.

I could show more cat faced examples, but that misses the point entirely ... as they will look far more animal than Hrothgar males do. So regardless of what animal you think it looks like, that's not the point being made.

I hope they will do the same with the females. Better faces, better emotes, CUT THE HUNCH! and better walking animations. For me as long as they look like they are part of the same species is all that matters. I said before even a few pages back that the AI-generated art looked good (though the first one with her eyes closed was my personal favourite), but people need to get that it looks uncanny valley, because it is! Ai-generated art is a computer trying to decipher what you meant and recreating it into an art piece. It's not my favourite form of art, simply because of the uncanny valley effect it gives me. But I understood what you meant, trying to point at it and see the feminine features combined with the animal features to result in a more softer feminine look, rather than that of imposing males. Which job it manages to do, throughout the responses people may have called it more of a rat than a lion (which I can see why, but the ears and nose is very much more feline than rodent), but they never confused it for a male, which I think it was your point (you can correct me here), making them look feline, but keeping them feminine through the visual ques. That and for the human eye the emotions and faces of animals are hard to read if not exaggerated, but we can read Hrothgar (due to their human features) and so I hope the females will get the same treatment. Or made to look better and more expressive!

100% this, spot on.