Dear FFXIV Devs, please consider this "Future Race" feedback :)

[Terin]

Eh, the term "Beastmen" is a pretty loose term, I think. The only real distinction that I can see is that "Beastmen" don't really play nice with other races most of the time. As long as they're reasonably intelligent, though, and are willing to work together with other races for the greater good, I think it would be square. After all, there's a Goblin in the "Company of Heroes", right?

[Sapphic]

I can see it as a beast tribe, but not a playable race. It needs to look more human than anything. Although didnt roegadynes in 11 have behemoth tails? Or was that concept art?

Galkas, a different race than Ro in FFXIV. Just like Miqo'te aren't Mithra and Lolafells aren't Tarutaru. Irregardless that some XI players can't get over that XD

[Dark-Saviour]

Eh. I personally tend towards the desire to see races that are aesthetically-pleasing added. They need to be different enough so as to seem exotic and not end up feeling boring, but monstrous/ugly = bleh...
Being a huge fan of PSO, I'd of course like some sort of 'synthetic' race a la the CASTs

However, that's probably a bit too out there for the current state of Hydaelyn, so a design more based off of Mammets, but made more humanoid could work.
Kind of like a cute, Robo-Taokaka or something.

Or something a bit more eerie in nature. As I've said before, I'd like something sort of etherial, spindly, and alien-looking. Maybe with sullen or 'missing' eyes, partially luminescent skin, etc.
And perhaps with long claws instead of fingers
(a la the succubi we've already seen

[or a less deformed version of Eve's hands from Parasite Eve]) and with incredibly long/lanky arms and legs.

[Terin]

You realise why they are using the same body as pre-existing races?
Gear.

By keeping to a pre-existing shape they can re-use art assets without any redesigning. If they added a totally non humanoid race they would need to redesign every single piece of equipment in game and future ones to fit it. effectively increasing the work needed to produce new content exponentialy.

I'm totally not against new races, whether I like them or not (never liked Tarutaru in XI or Lolafell in XIV), more options are always good. Just got to think within limitations.

Only thing that would have to be customized, really, would be boots, and occasionally helmets. I don't think that's unreasonable, for a new Race that could potentially bring in a whole new market. Hell, they could even go the route of "only leg-armor is displayed, they don't get proper boots", and just focus on the occasional helmet.

[CUTS3R]

Basically OP, you want this ?



^ King Behemoth from FFXIII.

[Shioban]

Only thing that would have to be customized, really, would be boots, and occasionally helmets. I don't think that's unreasonable, for a new Race that could potentially bring in a whole new market. Hell, they could even go the route of "only leg-armor is displayed, they don't get proper boots", and just focus on the occasional helmet.

That's /slightly/ part of the issue. Creating separate 3D mesh variations for to suit would only be a portion of the issues they'd face.

On top of providing separate gear components to compensate for the leg structure, is the games skeleton.


Currently, every race in the game uses the same skeleton, featuring the same number of joints/bones for each animation, this makes it very easy and streamlined to "add in" new animations for pretty much anything.

Certain occasions such as the Lalafell Arcanist animations or Roegadyn Warrior/Dragoon animations are different as a result of their body shape, (but this is simply a specific animation they've decided to use for them, not a separate skeleton).



As someone who's had to rig/weigh and animate these damned things in the past, digi-grade legs sometimes require more joints, this is where problems occur.




As you can clearly see, the human joins simply rely on three main connection points; Hips, Knees, Ankles. (This is all that's needed for basic human leg animation).

As the profile view of the logs leg shows, it relies on four main connection points; Hips, Knees, and Two Ankle joints.


This creates a problem already. The original plantigrade skeleton will have let's say 42 bones in it, the digigrade one now has 44 bones.
The computer is now confused and can no-longer apply the weights or their influences to the correct joints on the skeleton as two new joints have been added.

(There are some ways around this, but as I said before, FFXIV has a huge focus on animation quality, therefore they'd be likely to fuss over such details)



In terms of animating characters, there are ways into tricking a normal planti-grade skeleton into the form of a digi-grade one with a little bit of trickery.

However in terms of the quality of animating FFXIV, and the attention to detail they like to go to, they'd essentially have to provide unique animations for this new race, simply based on the leg structure (hence why the new race screenshots have plantigrade legs instead of digigrade.




"Why does this matter?"

It matters because, they're going to sit down in their various teams involved in the creation of this new race, someone is going to say "How about Ronso".

Both the animators and the modelers are immediately going to go "But here's a list of issues that are going to be caused as a result of using that race"
"Do we have the time to compensate for that?" "Will we be able to find a solution?" "If not, whats the best course of action".

In the end, I couldn't really fault them for sticking with a race that'll suit and fit a human shape/skeleton, to reduce the effort and work-load of the various sub-set teams.

[HeroSamson]

If there is any races I ever wanna see in a MMO would probably be these.

Birdman wouldn't need a flying mount just fly yourself


Centaur Could give people rides on your back with this race like a chocobo.


Wolfman human just like half esper shape shift into wolf different move set.


Half esper I am sure Terra had kids and they made kids and those kids had kids, have a morph ability to change into something stronger with a different move set.

[TheRogueX]

I'd be 100% in support of a Ronso race, actually. And I usually don't like beastial characters.

[Volsung]

Ronso, Burmecian, Bangaa, Viera

(maybe a draconic/demonic gria? one that still has a human face, but with horns)
('.')b

[Muzetta]

Eh. I personally tend towards the desire to see races that are aesthetically-pleasing added. They need to be different enough so as to seem exotic and not end up feeling boring, but monstrous/ugly = bleh...
Being a huge fan of PSO, I'd of course like some sort of 'synthetic' race a la the CASTs

However, that's probably a bit too out there for the current state of Hydaelyn, so a design more based off of Mammets, but made more humanoid could work.
Kind of like a cute, Robo-Taokaka or something.

Well, we do have the Allagans with all their high-tech gizmos, so never say never on that! Sure, even then it's probably a tad far-fetched, but it's not that they wouldn't have any sort of lore-based reason for it whatsoever.