Gender locked race?

[Lacan]

He isn't setting people up for misplaced expectations, he's deliberately not dropped any hints that they're actually coming. He's either avoided answering all together, or pointed to lore that if anything, points to them not coming more so then them actually coming. If people are expecting male viera after everything then that's really not his fault, and I have a hard time finding the choice to be risky at all, it's no more risky than how they implemented Blue Mage or any other kind of questionable design decisions for other content.

Just because some people will be upset by the decision doesn't mean it's actually a risky business move.

Nobody asked for Au Ra either yet they're one of the most played races, so saying something like "here's a race you didn't ask for" doesn't really hold any weight. We didn't know anything of substance about the Au Ra either until april right before Heavensward launched either, all we knew was their name and what they looked like, a pretty low bar if you ask me.

I don't think you understand what risky means. :v If it is something that will upset a portion of the fanbase, that makes it risky. Whether Yoshi intentionally worded his answer in a specific way, you'd think he'd be aware of the fact people would expect male Viera as a result. Taking those expectations and giving them something else entirely is very risky.

The problem isn't that the race wasn't asked for. The problem is that people were expecting something else and they get Hrothgar as a substitute. Back when Au Ra were announced, people weren't expecting anything specific. The new race was entirely up in the air. We just had Yugiri to speculate about. Right now though, we know female Viera are coming, which begs the question: "where are the male Viera?" How Yoshi answers that question at the next fanfest is going to have a big effect on the community.

[JamiaHaab]

He just deflected the question with a cutesy vague answer so he wouldn't upset the audience since gender is a super hot button topic in the west right now. He also said BLU would be unbalanced since they could use LVL 5 Death on bosses even though everyone of them is immune to status effects and that Eureka was made for a small group of hardcore nostalgic players only when it was sold as a defining feature shown at the 2017 fanfests so yeah, he says silly things in interviews.

Love the optimism tho but maybe you should act like you hate male viera since he's a "contrarian".

[Lacan]

He just deflected the question with a cutesy vague answer so he wouldn't upset the audience since gender is a super hot button topic in the west right now. He also said BLU would be unbalanced since they could use LVL 5 Death on bosses even though everyone of them is immune to status effects and that Eureka was made for a small group of hardcore nostalgic players only when it was sold as a defining feature shown at the 2017 fanfests so yeah, he says silly things in interviews.

Love the optimism tho but maybe you should act like you hate male viera since he's a "contrarian".

I really don't think gender being a hot topic in the west has anything at all to do with his answer. If they cared about hot topics in the west they wouldn't have introduced the female Viera with a video of them giggling in armor lingerie. :v

[cicatriz313]

I really don't think gender being a hot topic in the west has anything at all to do with his answer. If they cared about hot topics in the west they wouldn't have introduced the female Viera with a video of them giggling in armor lingerie. :v

Lol, come on man. It's literally Fran's outfit. Like Fran is the reason Viera are popular, and they gave Viera her outfit as their starter outfit because it's a homage FF game.

[Theodric]

The only misplaced expectations are from those who picture Viera men as being completely different to how they're described. Furthermore, although this thread is very active it isn't at all a reflection of the overall community. From what I've seen elsewhere, most people don't feel strongly about the subject. Viera were always presented as a female only race and whilst it would be nice to see the men in FFXIV, there's no guarantee that it'll happen.

Furthermore, if Hrothgar are added then they'll serve as a counterpart to Viera. They may not be to everybody's tastes, though they'll have their fans. They may even end up being better than Viera men - which isn't a hard feat given how some players are picturing them...

Ultimately, so long as they're not child-like I'll be content.

[Lacan]

The only misplaced expectations are from those who picture Viera men as being completely different to how they're described. Furthermore, although this thread is very active it isn't at all a reflection of the overall community. From what I've seen elsewhere, most people don't feel strongly about the subject. Viera were always presented as a female only race and whilst it would be nice to see the men in FFXIV, there's no guarantee that it'll happen.

Furthermore, if Hrothgar are added then they'll serve as a counterpart to Viera. They may not be to everybody's tastes, though they'll have their fans. They may even end up being better than Viera men - which isn't a hard feat given how some players are picturing them...

Ultimately, so long as they're not child-like I'll be content.

I disagree with the notion that this isn't something the community cares about. People cared enough about genderlocks to get male miqote and female roegadyn added to the game with ARR. I see the same thing happening again if SE decides to launch ShB with two genderlocked races of all things. I get that you aren't very invested but plenty of other people are. You gotta keep in mind that a lot of people in the community aren't even aware of the leaks and that whether we'll get male Viera or not is up in the air. Once we know for sure we aren't getting them, you can expect to hear a lot more voices upset about it.

[Theodric]

I disagree with the notion that this isn't something the community cares about. People cared enough about genderlocks to get male miqote and female roegadyn added to the game with ARR. I see the same thing happening again if SE decides to launch ShB with two genderlocked races of all things. I get that you aren't very invested but plenty of other people are. You gotta keep in mind that a lot of people in the community aren't even aware of the leaks and that whether we'll get male Viera or not is up in the air. Once we know for sure we aren't getting them, you can expect to hear a lot more voices upset about it.

A fair few people said the exact same thing about Eureka, BLU and the server split. It didn't take long for those controversies to die down. Not getting Viera men may be a deal breaker for some, though I'm not convinced that it's going to blow up as badly as some here are suggesting.

[Lacan]

A fair few people said the exact same thing about Eureka, BLU and the server split. It didn't take long for those controversies to die down. Not getting Viera men may be a deal breaker for some, though I'm not convinced that it's going to blow up as badly as some here are suggesting.

Eureka, blue mage, and the server split aren't as big a deal as this. You obviously want to downplay it and I won't try to convince you otherwise, I'll just say wait for Japan fanfest.

No matter how good the Hrothgar is people will still demand the male Viera, and it won't stop until SE caves in. Especially if there is male Viera NPC in game. And I honestly can't think of any reason we won't be meeting one if we will go to the woods in 5.0 without it being sound forced or ridiculous, like there's fire that's somehow eradicated the entire male even though they survived a Garlean attack before, which surely involved some fire.

You get it at least. XD Trying to explain why this is a big deal to people who just don't care to begin with is a wasted effort. If they can't see the kind of shit storm this will result in by now they'll just have to see it for themselves I guess.

[Theodric]

Eureka, blue mage, and the server split aren't as big a deal as this.

I strongly disagree with that assessment. This thread, for instance, has over two hundred pages and yet most of it is just back and forth debate between the same handful of posters. This forum isn't a great representation of the overall community since only a small portion of players actually post here in the first place. Many more players post on the FFXIV Reddit page, yet there's no active threads there regarding the issue. All the discussion there surrounding Viera men died down pretty quickly. It's not the make or break scenario for as many players as is being implied here.

As I've said earlier, I think gender locked races/jobs are a silly design approach. Yet I also think people are setting themselves up for disappointment given how Viera men are described within the game itself. If they aren't added, Hrothgar will mitigate the backlash significantly. With any luck, they'll be designed nicely - and may even be much more interesting than Viera men altogether.

[Fland]

Furthermore, if Hrothgar are added then they'll serve as a counterpart to Viera. They may not be to everybody's tastes, though they'll have their fans. They may even end up being better than Viera men - which isn't a hard feat given how some players are picturing them...

No matter how good the Hrothgar is people will still demand the male Viera, and it won't stop until SE caves in. Especially if there is male Viera NPC in game. And I honestly can't think of any reason we won't be meeting one if we will go to the woods in 5.0 without it being sound forced or ridiculous, like there's fire that's somehow eradicated the entire male even though they survived a Garlean attack before, which surely involved some fire.