Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Iscah]

I think the question of whether Hyurs should have a full range of real-world-equivalent racial features gets muddled by the presence of other races. Hyurs are "the" human race by our view, but from an Eorzean view all the others are equally human. If that's the case, should Midlander Hyurs even be able to 'claim' all the different races? Is that a good or a bad thing? Eg. there are no 'Mongolian' Hyurans because the equivalent people are all Xaela instead. "Lack of representation" by real world standards versus "lack of fantasy diversity" if you stick to 'realistic' Hyurans everywhere instead of making other races more 'interesting'.

And then you get weird examples like the Vanu Vanus drawing from a 'Pacific Islander' vibe (forgive me not being more specific) - is it good that there's some representation of those cultures, or bad that it got packaged as belonging to hulking birdmen instead of "humans"? Is it then a problem if you can't replicate a real-world person from those cultures within the Hyuran character options, or do you just say "that makes sense, that culture doesn't exist as a human tribe in this world anyway"?

It's a can of worms, and I'm sure different people would have different opinions on it. I don't have an answer, just tricky questions.

[MrMagnificent]

I never had this problem with highlanders.
Male or female.


The hair options is lacking though.

[Sirius-Khan]

Bless you for this thread.

[cougarel]

Got to love when someone brings real life into a fantasy game. It never was or it should be depiction of real life, but remain fantasy. Yes to more options for hairstyles and overall , but to start a non issue and force your 'idea' on others and then wonder why people react and still putting more wood to the fire.

But i see this trend is trying to enforce ideology and ruin even this media , 'truly thank you' .

[Reinha]

I understand where the OP is coming from, especially when it comes to hairstyles. We have been asking for curly hair for who knows how long but all we have are loose waves, a mushroom looking afro and corkscrew curls while the smooth straight hair type is used in a style every patch. The natural curl selection is severely lacking.

When it comes to skin tone and facial features, it's a bit more complicated because they are a part of what makes the in-game races. Midlander Hyur is not supposed to represent every Earth ethnicity. Highlander Huyr has better options for those looking for yellow undertones and some of their hairstyles are braided too.

Sadly there are no in game races which have African features by default and I think it's because we have not yet visited the in-game area that corresponds to Africa (or it doesn't exist in Eorzea at all). The same could be said about the appearances of some Asian peoples and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Even if we did visit those places in-game, the real world is too diverse to crammed into the handful of face options we have and someone will undoubtedly be left out.

Got to love when someone brings real life into a fantasy game. It never was or it should be depiction of real life, but remain fantasy.

Having black people in a fantasy world that has humans doesn't make it any less of a fantasy.

[Sirius-Khan]

Id just like to start with getting the locs for male avatars, the boosie fades can wait.

[cougarel]

And where exactly are these people not found in the game or the option? Again, this is not Earth, it's Eorzea and no one said anything about not having certain palette of color . These are not races so stop with the race bait.
People in the thread and in game demonstrated that if you want you can have a character with all sorts of traits . But yes, try and try to disregard and keep going on the crusade .
Also in neither of my replies did i imply there is an issue with a certain group, it was for overall and regarding the fact that it's a game and it should be regarded as such. .

I'm not the one that keeps bringing it back as a last resort to make the fire greater and calling people out when no one said anything about x and y.
But if this makes you think it provides a point when there is none, go ahead. Not my problem that someone is keen to see a problem where there isn't.
All of us which did reply agreed on the lack of customization and that it would be great to have more options and on that there is nothing to comment against.



I'll take my leave since there is no way we can have a constructive discussion when you keep enforcing a false view and idea .
Pity that this has started to appear like mushrooms everywhere in a media where there shouldn't be . It's a fantasy setting in a fantasy game.

[Nandina]

I don't think people are disagreeing with idea of having those features, just the OP's way of expressing her desire for such.

Sorry to say but this game, or any game for that matter, doesn't need to be diverse or inclusive to anyone. This is a work of fiction and in being such can be whatever the creator intends it to be. Just because SE is marketing the game outside of Japan doesn't mean they need to cater anyone. It's their product to do with as they please just like it's your money to support said product. It's called the free market for a reason. Just because other games may have "more diverse options" doesn't mean this game has to have them.

They’re inclusive to the incompetents who can’t stance dance or dodge circles or straight lines. They sure have no problems nerfing jobs or content for them when they speak up. They sure have no problems listening to the community and complying in a gazillion other instances. If everyone else can complain and get changes, so can I and anyone else who wants to be heard. But overall, I agree with what you’re saying for the most part. But a lot of people on this forum have the tendency to come up with a justification for every little thing SE does (right or wrong) like they’re getting a monthly check, a blunt, and good D on the side. Only a few people gave somewhat decent counter arguments.

I shouldn’t have to baby grown people or even teenagers potentially, this isn’t kindergarten. My tone shouldn’t override the points. Get snippy back. That’s fine. But get snippy with a point,

I haven't addressed valkyrie at all. Matter of fact, the only people I've responded to were you and Magic-Mal. I'm responding to you because you are the OP. The thing is, you say you want to hit at least hit the dart board... But you can. Hyur and Roes can... I've done it before I settled on Au Ra. Hairstyle is another issue that's not necessarily about race... More like, the devs probably just settled on hairstyles inspired by previous FF games, contests, and whatever probably felt popular. We all already know the nightmare in trying to get more hairstyles. You turned this into a racial thing when you initially said that the creation tools we had leans towards Caucasian aesthetics. You set that tone and everybody is reacting to that. I'm not everybody. But I do disagree about the whole underrepresentation thing that you keep claiming.

Because it does lean toward Caucasian aesthetics. So, stating facts are a problem now? I shouldn’t have to sugarcoat and lie to spare feelings. It is what it is. As it pertains to Valkyrie, you responded to my responses to them, but took issue with my responses to them, yet not their comments which made me respond that way in the first place. Therefor it’s safe to assume you didn’t see anything wrong with what they were saying.

But any event, a Roe is not a human. Why do I have to be some beastly creature to get representation? I’m not sure if this is your intent, but saying that I have to be a Roe to be a decent looking black person in the game sounds kinda fucked.

As a black person, I only create black characters unless there’s no option for it. Personally, it just makes me feel more comfortable playing something kinda like myself. While I would appreciate more ‘black’ hairstyles, it’s not a race issue. SE has been rather bad at adding a wide range of hairstyles overall.

Even though a game is fiction, so are other games, and they still manage to have a wide variety of styles - including some ‘black’ ones. Nevertheless I wouldn’t go around chanting that there’s purposely under-representation.

I never said it was purposely. Like I said above in my department store example, I honestly don’t think they’re aware of this desire. The game has been out for a while, so I figured this wouldn’t have been a thing at this point. They did a lot of changes to the battle system

OP, did you just look at Hyur midlander? I'd recommend female highlander, some of their character options have nice dark skintones, and some of the face options have decent sized lips. Sadly until they add more options, we gotta make the best with what we've got I have to agree though, and it's not just ffxiv, some of the dark skin tones look... weird, or off, I noticed that's it's the way the lighting is in some games (having played redguard in Skyrim). Have you tried using reshade within ffxiv? Tweaking that might improve skin tone.

I checked both and the problem was the same. I don’t want to be a Highlander cause I find them far too burly, but the issues I’m talking about apply all the same. Like I can go dark, very dark actually, but I can’t really be in the middle. When I went very dark, there was still only either red tones or blue tones; no yellow or olive, which I’m pretty certain is why the skin looks funny. Like in real life, if I put a foundation on that matches my skin color, but has the wrong undertone, it looks funny. There too many duplicates of the same color and undertone. What is Reshade though, and where do I find it? I play on PS4 and came back to the game like a week or so ago, so I’m not sure if that’s on there or just PC only.

XD HAHHA... life lesson Japanese companies only care about Japanese markets, they may advertise to global market but only consider themselves a failure if it fails in Japan. Much like mainly SE only make changes if the JP player-base is largely complaining, rarely do they do things when its the global players complaining.

Also it's a fantasy game & FF series is well known for being European in design of it's various worlds as most games are typically in medieval like times thus all knights & architecture design looking very European & comparing this to other MMOs is awful every MMO is varied in what focus on & what the CAN focus on, the XIV don't have liberties to add tonne of stuff without doing major overhaul to game on side which would take a resources/another team to fix if want keep XIV running at same time so expect 0 changes to character creator anytime soon.
This problem left to us of them just building off of 1.0 instead building from ground up.

It'd be nice have ton more options as big fan of character creators like BDO/Souls etc love more options but.. its just never going happen.

Clearly, lol. But to be fair, there were darker skinned people in Europe around those times like the Moors. Darker skinned people are depicted in paintings and everything. But I would just assume that with such a large player base, the funds are there. But you’re probably right, it probably won’t ever happened, but at least it’s been put out there.

On another note, I noticed a lack ginger people as well! And curly/wavy non-african hairstyles. Those people are also left out.

I agree about that as well. But I’m glad you see where I’m coming from.

Got to love when someone brings real life into a fantasy game. It never was or it should be depiction of real life, but remain fantasy. Yes to more options for hairstyles and overall , but to start a non issue and force your 'idea' on others and then wonder why people react and still putting more wood to the fire.

But i see this trend is trying to enforce ideology and ruin even this media , 'truly thank you' .

And where exactly are these people not found in the game or the option? Again, this is not Earth, it's Eorzea and no one said anything about not having certain palette of color . These are not races so stop with the race bait.

And this right here is the remedial mindset I’m speaking of. Sorry, but you have to get this work. A non-issue to you, isn’t a non-issue to others. If you were to get a leg chopped off, that doesn’t change the fact I still have both of mine. Explain exactly how having the OPTION to customize a character a certain way means that you HAVE to do it? Common sense dictates you could, I dunno. . . stay as you are, perhaps? But explain to me what you interpret this “ideology” to be. Some of you really dig your own hole when all you really have to do is keep quiet on the matter if you have nothing productive to say. How are extra customization options that are more than just hairstyles ruining the game? Seems to me you’re trying to force your idea that fantasy can’t be inspired from reality, and that just because you’re happy with the way things are; others have to be, too.

[kikix12]

(...)also the darker tones live in forest and caves (why??). The lore doesn't really match climate with races or works the opposite logic in eorZea.

The races in game are not humans. If you look at animals, the ones that live in caves are dark in color (if they live in shallow caves or go out of them, usually at night) or close to white (if they spend their entire lives in a complete darkness). Thus civilizations like Au Ra that obviously leave the caves and are active round the clock will be naturally darker skinned. That's for camouflage, which creatures in total darkness don't need.

Humans that live in sunny areas have darker skin for a simple reason. The cells of the body are less likely to be damaged by the exposure to sun. The pigments that are responsible for skin color and tone also protect from ultraviolet ray, and that comes with the sun. Some ultraviolet rays are needed for production of vitamin D, so in areas with less exposure to sun or weaker radiation (for whatever reason), protecting themselves from what little sun they get is a health hazard. If they don't have enough protection in sunnier areas with tons of radiation...the skin cells will start falling apart as a result of their DNA being damaged, possibly developing lethal skin diseases.

In Eorzea and with the other races...that point is moot. We don't know the intensity of ultraviolet radiation, or even whether it's needed. They may be producing vitamid D through the use of a different chemical reaction, they may get more of it from food or they may just not even need it to begin with.

[Joven]

And where exactly are these people not found in the game or the option? Again, this is not Earth, it's Eorzea and no one said anything about not having certain palette of color . These are not races so stop with the race bait.

I thought the planet was called Hydaelyn and the continent was Eorzea?