So umm...let's talk about being a Lalafell for a second

[Duskane]

Thanks, that looks like a more likely distribution. I’m guessing the four colour stripes are the genders/clans?

I’m surprised to see male Raen are quite so rare... I guess everyone wants to play the dark and edgy version.

Calling Xaela dark and edgy version like calling lalafell kids

[Melichoir]

My lala was kinda Dark McEdgeLord in design. But it was also a DRK. So theres always that...

[Iscah]

Calling Xaela dark and edgy version like calling lalafell kids

I’m generalising, of course. But they’re undeniably the darker of the two clan designs, and if someone is trying to make a “scary-looking” character they’re almost certainly going to go for Xaela with the dark scales and unusual eyes.

It seems the likely reason for the huge difference between the number of Raen and Xaela males, if I’m reading the graph right.

People can be playing their own characters against that impression, of course.

[Kazrah]

I dont know if its the art OCD in me or something, but Ive never viewed Lalas as being super 'childlike' in appearance.

That's probably because Lalafell aren't modeled after children. They're modeled after babies. A bigger head with big eyes and a button nose alongside a relatively doughy body physique devoid of any prominent torso features such as a noticeable waistline or shoulders and limbs without discernible hinge joints and....okay, that may be less a description of a baby than of, say, a teddy bear, but it's the majority of those physical characteristics found on a baby that were used to turn the original teddy bears from something creepy (they were modeled after actual bears) into one of the most popular children's toys in human history.

The same concepts inspired by babies to make the more popular standard of teddy bears are the same ones I've used in creating any of my Lalafell characters. Biggest eyes, button nose, anything that makes my character look more like a baby from the chin up and puts more focus on more natural eyes (sorry Dunesfolk, y'all don't count there) are characteristics that make for a more disarming appearance, which can lead to a more positive gameplay experience with others. It's not really a factor I think a lot of people dwell on (otherwise, we'd have more Plainsfolk), but it's definitely something that's helped me a good deal in my nearly five years of playing the game as always a Lala.

[NessaWyvern]

snip

I went with plainsfolk for mine too, and found that if you do anything other than making the Lalafell as cute as possible, and put more adult features on them, (like lipstick), they become uncannyvalley-folk instead

[alimdia]

They follow a chibi design.

PS: Plainsfolk eyes look too creepy to be natural, big enlarged ovals are like... demon-like.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

I dont know if its the art OCD in me or something, but Ive never viewed Lalas as being super 'childlike' in appearance.

Rather, what gives them a childlike feel is the demeanor and emotes they have and how glamour is applied. I say this because of a few reasons. First, the game itself actually gives you examples of children in game. Children of virtually all the races (save Lalas. Maybe Lalas just pop out of the ground). When you look at the features and designs of children in game, they feel more in line with actual child proportions, particularly in relation to the art style of the game as a whole. But when viewing Lalas, they arent. If anything, Lalafells design wise fall outside of the games 'look and feel' from an art standpoint. They still have many features that make them inclusive broadly, but they are drastically different stylistically from every other race.

You can see this because lalas really do come off as exceptionally 'cartoonish' compared to any of the other races. This is also exacerbated by the fact htat Lala's proportions and ratios are childlike only at a very broad sense, but when given actual thought, it becomes pretty apparent. You can tell this by any cutscene where a Lala interacts with children NPCs. Headsize, body ratios, so forth make them stand out drastically in comparison to actual in game children. Again, as I stated above, some of the design aesthetics used Im not exactly fond of. For a point, the Triangle shaped body with no distinction between hips and ribcage. Other aspects are the overly rounded faces, overly miniturized facial features (nose, mouth particularly), and "tall" eyes- Eye shapes that are more vertical than horizontal. These aspects are more of a caricature of child features from the most basic standpoint, but if you saw an actual child with those features, theyd look heavily distorted to you.


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Do you think that the Lalas design is a reason why there aren't too many used in msq cutscenes or just cutscenes in general?Cuz the only Lalafells that has any involvement in the story beside the player's are Papalymo,Tataru,Pipin,Nanamo,Lolorito and Teledji.And you only see Papalymo and Pipin fighting and even then it's only for small scale fights or stuff that involves magic ala the end of Heavensward.But you never see a Lalafell being involved in choreographed fight scenes that involves clashing as those would either involve a Hyur,a miqote or the other similarly proportioned race.

And while I agree with you on waist propotions,those never bothered me much compared to the lack of Lalafell usage in cutscenes

[Melichoir]

Do you think that the Lalas design is a reason why there aren't too many used in msq cutscenes or just cutscenes in general?Cuz the only Lalafells that has any involvement in the story beside the player's are Papalymo,Tataru,Pipin,Nanamo,Lolorito and Teledji.And you only see Papalymo and Pipin fighting and even then it's only for small scale fights or stuff that involves magic ala the end of Heavensward.But you never see a Lalafell being involved in choreographed fight scenes that involves clashing as those would either involve a Hyur,a miqote or the other similarly proportioned race.

And while I agree with you on waist propotions,those never bothered me much compared to the lack of Lalafell usage in cutscenes

Its probably a factor in how often tehy are used in a variety of stuff. People have to consider a few things. When setting up a 'cutscene', the devs need to detemine where the camera is, how its going to move, and so forth. Now they either do one of two things: 1) they make the camera placement and movements broad and general within a wider environment, or 2) They tailor the camera movement to the character race specifically.

I mention that aspect because since LaLas are drastically shorter than all other races, it can create issues in cutscenes where the camera might clip through a wall where it may not with a taller character. As an example, in a cutscene I watched in Doman Enclave, the camera clipped through the bench and I was staring at wood texture for a good 20 seconds. A probably oversight but it does happen. This brings up the wider issue with character models. How characters are designed can have an impact on how things are shown/played out in cutscenes, animations, and the like. In this case, Lalafells' height may affect how the camera can be used, particularly in smaller or cramped environments. Of course, that also works in reverse for super tall characters, but since the differences between the 'average' character model is more extreme between lalas and (lets say) elezen, youre probably going to get more issues with the shorter characters.

As I said earlier with modeling, yeah, how the model is made can also affect which animations are used. Its not 100% the case, but if you want to prevent weird distortions and clipping, models like the lalafells might be animated in a less nuanced way than Hyur or other races. Its a build in limitation of the player character model being used. You can actually see this play itself out in things like walk/run cycles. Because all characters need to be able to cover the exact same amount of ground in a duration (lets say 10 Meters a second for argument), to achieve that distance, youre going to have to do a lot more for a shorter characters. In this case, if you actually watch Lalafell character walk cycles carefully, they 'slide' a bit (You can see this most easily on any floor with a grid like pattern and from a profile view of your character walking). This is likely due to the model proportions, where with a run cycle, they can push the limbs to more extreme poses as well as have teh character remain more 'airborne' for slightly longer and it looks alright. None of these things are super ground breaking. A lot of people dont even notice it, because good animators can work around said limitations, but I do hazard that things like this do affect how cutscenes, animations, and the like play out. Heck, it might even be that certain dances and emotes are slightly tweaked and modified based on the race simply because of the aforementioned limitations, but Ive never specifically looked into it.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Its probably a factor in how often tehy are used in a variety of stuff. People have to consider a few things. When setting up a 'cutscene', the devs need to detemine where the camera is, how its going to move, and so forth. Now they either do one of two things: 1) they make the camera placement and movements broad and general within a wider environment, or 2) They tailor the camera movement to the character race specifically.

I mention that aspect because since LaLas are drastically shorter than all other races, it can create issues in cutscenes where the camera might clip through a wall where it may not with a taller character. As an example, in a cutscene I watched in Doman Enclave, the camera clipped through the bench and I was staring at wood texture for a good 20 seconds. A probably oversight but it does happen. This brings up the wider issue with character models. How characters are designed can have an impact on how things are shown/played out in cutscenes, animations, and the like. In this case, Lalafells' height may affect how the camera can be used, particularly in smaller or cramped environments. Of course, that also works in reverse for super tall characters, but since the differences between the 'average' character model is more extreme between lalas and (lets say) elezen, youre probably going to get more issues with the shorter characters.

As I said earlier with modeling, yeah, how the model is made can also affect which animations are used. Its not 100% the case, but if you want to prevent weird distortions and clipping, models like the lalafells might be animated in a less nuanced way than Hyur or other races. Its a build in limitation of the player character model being used. You can actually see this play itself out in things like walk/run cycles. Because all characters need to be able to cover the exact same amount of ground in a duration (lets say 10 Meters a second for argument), to achieve that distance, youre going to have to do a lot more for a shorter characters. In this case, if you actually watch Lalafell character walk cycles carefully, they 'slide' a bit (You can see this most easily on any floor with a grid like pattern and from a profile view of your character walking). This is likely due to the model proportions, where with a run cycle, they can push the limbs to more extreme poses as well as have teh character remain more 'airborne' for slightly longer and it looks alright.

While I didn't have the clipping issue in the doman enclave I can see some players having it even if I didn't run into it(or maybe I didn't notice xD).

It's amazing how much details you noticed tho ^_^

Despite the issues tho,I love being a Lalafell so I probably won't change ....but I'll try Elezen or Miqote if I made an alt account in the future

[Melichoir]

While I didn't have the clipping issue in the doman enclave I can see some players having it even if I didn't run into it(or maybe I didn't notice xD).

It's amazing how much details you noticed tho ^_^

Despite the issues tho,I love being a Lalafell so I probably won't change ....but I'll try Elezen or Miqote if I made an alt account in the future

Haha dont get me wrong. I only notice half of what I talked about because animation was my major in school. So some of these things were talking points (though not specifically FFXIV). And SE is still a professional company, so you typically wont see glaring issues in regards to animations and the like. What I typically have noticed is that people can innately 'feel' when animations are weird or off, but may not know why or how to explain it. A background in it may help you notice the finer details. But regardless of that, you can broadly tell if the animation is good when you dont even notice it. It just 'feels' right. SE does a pretty good job, IMO, at making it work - regardless of the limitations.

Even with the oddities, I personally like lalafell the most. So Ill eventually phantasia back to it. But being taller for a bit of time is kinda nice.