We need a second smol race

[Renathras]

Indeed, there are no other options. D: The most I could do is play an au ra female, but I don't feel like that goes with my gender identity. I really appreciate you having empathy for what it is like to be infantalized. I have no issue with Lalafells existing, I just don't think they allow any progress on advancing past stereotypes of short people, and so it would be nice if something else did help with that.

Agreed with you, OP. Male and irl short here (not dwarfism, but shorter than average) and there's literally no option for me. Female characters/players get Au Ra females, but males do not - the male Au Ra are yet another tall option. Right now, the options are:

Female: Child/baby (Lala), short and petite (Au Ra), young adult/athletic (Miq), average (Hyur), tall and skinny/stately (Elezen), tall and athletic (Viera), tall and bodybuilder (Roe)
Male: Child/baby (lala), young adult/athletic with angry hands (Miq), average (Hyur), tall and skinny (Elezen), tall and athletic/muscular (Au Ra), tall and athletic/skinny (Viera), tall and bodybuilder (Roe), tall and extra muscular and furry (Hroth)

Males don't even get a short and petite/slim option. They COULD have made Viera males that (which would have fit their lore), but they...didn't. Instead they made some combination of Hyur/Miq with bunny ears instead of cat ears and angry hands.

I go Lala and just deal with it, but I'm with you it'd be nice for males, in particular, to have an option that mirrors the Au Ra females. Sad that we'll probably never get another race. And even if we DO, the Devs seem to think all males that aren't Lalas need to be 7 foot tall and either underwear models or able to bench press a bus. <_<

EDIT:

I've thought a little bit about how I might go about doing a new Final Fantasy MMO with more distinct differences from XI and XIV, and what I've come up with so far is having a setting where there are four different worlds, each with one of the four elemental crystals as its "core" essentially, harkening back to the traditional Final Fantasy story, but each world also reaches different technological thresholds based on the different types of settings we see in Final Fantasy. Like the world of the Earth Crystal is more medieval with airships like with FFIX or FFI-FFV, the world of the Water Crystal is a more original fantasy setting with mixed technology levels like with FFX, the world of the Fire Crystal is very Magitek a la FFVI and FFVII, and the world of the Wind Crystal is more Modern Chic like with FFXIII. And in the world of the Wind Crystal, I imagine we'd see a much higher population of one of the playable races that is 'the short race' but goes in a very different direction than Tarutaru and Lalafell.

I've been calling them the Pixx, and they are inspired by a more obscure Tri-Ace game that Square Enix produced on the PS2 called Radiata Stories, where they're inspired by the light elves and dark elves which look like this:



They'd be maybe around 3-4 feet tall, so more of a mid-short height than really small, and they'd have a more modern style of design to compliment the very FFXIII like environment.

Not necessarily "new MMO to replace/compete with/be better than FFXIV", but...I honestly love the idea of that as a setting for a game. Basically four Shards where each is based on a Crystal and has different development to make the worlds/realms (if on the same world) feel really distinct just seems like an interesting setting.

Though, imo, if a race in a game has wings, they need to be able to FLY, not just hover inches off the ground but otherwise move identical to wingless races.

[LioJen]

Male: Child/baby (lala), young adult/athletic with angry hands (Miq), average (Hyur), tall and skinny (Elezen), tall and athletic/muscular (Au Ra), tall and athletic/skinny (Viera), tall and bodybuilder (Roe), tall and extra muscular and furry (Hroth)

Males don't even get a short and petite/slim option. They COULD have made Viera males that (which would have fit their lore), but they...didn't. Instead they made some combination of Hyur/Miq with bunny ears instead of cat ears and angry hands.

Miqote are short and slim. Not sure how you gloss that over as "young adult". They start at 5'2", the height of your average 10-year-old, and have no muscle mass. Considering how many players in this game go max height, a minimum height Miqo male comes up to most other males' waist.

[Renathras]

Miqote are short and slim. Not sure how you gloss that over as "young adult". They start at 5'2", the height of your average 10-year-old, and have no muscle mass. Considering how many players in this game go max height, a minimum height Miqo male comes up to most other males' waist.

Just so you know, there are non-dwarf males that are shorter than 5'2".

And no, they aren't slim with no muscle mass. Male miq are like high school athletes. The dudes are pretty shredded. Not to go into great anatomical detail, but their chests are built enough the dividing line goes up to their collarbone, and this is already more muscle mass than your average irl male has these days, they also have pretty sharply defined delts, bicepts, and tris, that are clearly visible AND larger than the average irl male, as well as having very clearly visible striations. They have low body fat to contribute to that, but also pretty visible muscle that makes them slightly more muscular than your average male adult in modern society at their level of body fat (bigger dudes often have more muscle, but also more fat; somewhat more like Hroths, maybe?)

No, males do not have the option. Contrast the female Miq with the female Au Ra. What do males have that corresponds to the female Au Ra?

Oh, right: Nothing.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Just so you know, there are non-dwarf males that are shorter than 5'2".

And no, they aren't slim with no muscle mass. Male miq are like high school athletes. The dudes are pretty shredded. Not to go into great anatomical detail, but their chests are built enough the dividing line goes up to their collarbone, and this is already more muscle mass than your average irl male has these days, they also have pretty sharply defined delts, bicepts, and tris, that are clearly visible AND larger than the average irl male, as well as having very clearly visible striations. They have low body fat to contribute to that, but also pretty visible muscle that makes them slightly more muscular than your average male adult in modern society at their level of body fat (bigger dudes often have more muscle, but also more fat; somewhat more like Hroths, maybe?)

No, males do not have the option. Contrast the female Miq with the female Au Ra. What do males have that corresponds to the female Au Ra?

Oh, right: Nothing.

There are very few games that allow me to make a male character with a physical build like I have IRL.

167cm
52kg
Not skin and bones. Just an extremely lean and toned muscle mass.

Also often mistaken for a middle school or highschool kid despite being 42 years old... -.-

[Boblawblah]

There are very few games that allow me to make a male character with a physical build like I have IRL.

167cm
52kg
Not skin and bones. Just an extremely lean and toned muscle mass.

Also often mistaken for a middle school or highschool kid despite being 42 years old... -.-

Why do people always gotta get super weird..?

[RitsukoSonoda]

Why do people always gotta get super weird..?

If the majority is weird then what does that make the normal people?

[ForsakenRoe]

No, males do not have the option. Contrast the female Miq with the female Au Ra. What do males have that corresponds to the female Au Ra?

Oh, right: Nothing.

Which is why SE should have not done the weird dimorphism for the Au Ra. White scales Au Ra, both male and female, could have been how the females currently are, cutesy 5'3ish tall and demure in their animations. Then the black scales Au Ra could be how the males currently are, tall, fierce, imposing looking. Like the 'warrior nomad tribes' they're meant to be in the lore, with animations that are more befitting their backstory. Like that one infamous concept art picture. It infuriates me that you can make a 1:1 copy of Sadu, for example, but you cannot copy her mannerisms, because the game forces you as a female Au Ra to have such cutesy animations like you're a character from a highschool slice of life anime. That's fine for the Raen, but it doesn't really mesh in my mind very well with the backstory for the Xaela.

It'd be like the split between Mid and Highlander, where there's actual differences between the two, instead of it mostly being 'what colour palette do you want to have for the skin tones'