Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Lauront]

If we are gonna get male vieras, which I hope we will do, I think we are going to get the "bishounen"/"Omega-M" body and style, not the "leftover highlander"/"beefy" style or "smol and cute"/"something in between lala and miqo" style.

Simply because "bishounen" makes hella better marketing material worldwide and appeals to the widest slice of audience.

that and those types of males conform more to the japanese ideal of masculinity

Idk, some of the FF characters popular amongst the JP audience also include more of the "beefy" style. It looks like a healthy mix, rather than just one art style. Bit odd to say bishounen is inherently better marketing material worldwide...

...if the below is considered "bishounen", I wouldn't mind that style.

[Burmecia]

snip

Artwork no.1 is the winner. But, it is also 100x more polished. But it is still the winrar.

Ok, when I was speakin of """bishounen""" I was thinking something like... Touken Ranbu or Hakuouki characters, or Free!, or literally anything by Nitro+chiral. That sort of bull. Beautiful young adult male characters all over anime. And if bishounen has begun to mean male moeblobs recently... I am sorry. I do not have as much time for anime and trash as I used to.

That is not my favourite aesthetic. Gar > Moe, you know. But I pretty seriously do not dare to expect anything else, and... I am surprisingly fine with that. My inner 13 year old weeb still appreciates the aesthetic, though 29 year old me has moved onto Berserk fanning and stuff. And would be glad if guy bunnies followed pretty closely to that artwork's aesthetic.

Just give us "enough", as in that standard 4, face options to work it like miqo'tes, for example. You know how 90% of the miqo boys you see are of those prettier faces, but then once in a blue moon that old guy miqo face runs past you and it makes the whole character look totes different.

[SturmChurro]

Artwork no.1 is the winner. But, it is also 100x more polished. But it is still the winrar.

Ok, when I was speakin of """bishounen""" I was thinking something like... Touken Ranbu or Hakuouki characters, or Free!, or literally anything by Nitro+chiral. That sort of bull. Beautiful young adult male characters all over anime. And if bishounen has begun to mean male moeblobs recently... I am sorry. I do not have as much time for anime and trash as I used to.

That is not my favourite aesthetic. Gar > Moe, you know. But I pretty seriously do not dare to expect anything else, and... I am surprisingly fine with that. My inner 13 year old weeb still appreciates the aesthetic, though 29 year old me has moved onto Berserk fanning and stuff. And would be glad if guy bunnies followed pretty closely to that artwork's aesthetic.

Just give us "enough", as in that standard 4, face options to work it like miqo'tes, for example. You know how 90% of the miqo boys you see are of those prettier faces, but then once in a blue moon that old guy miqo face runs past you and it makes the whole character look totes different.

I actually had no clue at all what you were talking about here. I had to google the examples you gave. Yeah, if they did a more lean muscled handsome male I could see that. Some of the characters I saw in those anime I googled could work. I would never want that Omega or whatever, dude looks dumb as heck.

Yeah pretty much, you will always see more of the good looking faces, male and female. People would prefer to play an attractive character than some dumb looking character. Always good to have a bit of variety in the faces though, this game really lacks that with female characters.

[Awha]

Short, stumpy, and furry bunnies is the only fair option! We need more proportion diversity!

[Senn]

Some of the characters I saw in those anime I googled could work. I would never want that Omega or whatever, dude looks dumb as heck.

Speaking for myself, when I'm talking about Omega M's physique, I mean their slenderness as well as the fact that they have an elegant air about them. They have a very distinctive JRPG face as well. Would definitely love a face option similar to Innocence, too. Of course, they would have to be adjusted to look more rabbit-like (or similar to miqo'te like female viera are). If I were to take a guess, I think that's what others mean when they are referring to Omega M's body type. It's not like we want a carbon copy of Omega M's appearance, like their hair, skin tone, and etc... Rather, we like that slenderness and that bishounen look.

Some of the anime they listed have good examples of bishounen characters, like Touken Ranbu and whatnot.

[Burmecia]

Idk, some of the FF characters popular amongst the JP audience also include more of the "beefy" style. It looks like a healthy mix, rather than just one art style. Bit odd to say bishounen is inherently better marketing material worldwide...

...if the below is considered "bishounen", I wouldn't mind that style.

(img snip, because we all have seen this gorgeous art before)

The catalogue of FF characters loved all over the world is healthy mix, and thank goodness for that.
And you are right in that betterness is a bit relative in here. What I meant by "better" was in same laughably shallow way say leading roles to movies are chosen; those roles go for good looking actors pretty often, because almost everyone's monkey brain likes good looking people. And tricking the audience's monkey brain, that is part of marketing.

I'd say that art could easily be seen representing the same biseinen/ikemen aesthetic I suppose bishounen enthusiasts want. With badass woodland warrior flavour!! Those who already play "bishounen" catboys likely are not bothered by existence of that one "biseinen" catMAN face in the mix. They're likely pretty ok or at least neutral with that, they just did not choose it.

I know people like to moan about ff14's character creation, and yeah I do agree that is could be better, but I never found it so, SO limited that it failed to breed a little creativity in me. That is another thing I suppose we could separate in this aesthetics discussion: what is the canvas, the base, what is the customization. Body's shape obviously something we can do little about, muscletone sliders are for - what? - highlanders and roegadyn only? The face, eyes and noses and ears and chocobo chick tattoos on your cheek is something you can choose or not, then mix and match to surprising variety of looks. Thrown glamour on top of that and you have chance to make character that looks something else than clone army of catgirls at Limsa - like, out of catgirl, for example.

Because creators of those catgirls could not resist their monkey brain demanding to forgo from any "ugly" features.

(Sorry for using miqo so much as an example here, but they are so popular it just works.)

[Lauront]

Midlanders get the muscle tone sliders too. They're one thing I wish they'd extend to races besides those two (Hyur and Roegadyn.)

But yes, I think something modeled off that art in my post would work well for the race, and probably allow for enough customisation in faces etc. to sate both those of us who like more rugged or classically handsome looks, as well as those who want softer features.

[grinkdaboy]

well if you consider miqo'te lore there's a pretty reasonable explanation right there for why all catgirls look the same

[BunniEclair]

I actually quite like the idea of a more bishounen looking male race, and I think it would fit male viera super well! Similar to how female viera are both elegant and fierce.

[Allegor]

I mean, all races have a 'best face' that's naturally going to be more popular, but when 90% of people playing that race/gender chose it, you could say it's more of a design flaw than simply conventional popularity.

I'm looking at you male Highlanders

As for bun boys, all I'm asking is for decent facial hair options that isn't tied to the 60 year old man face, or just don't add an old man face anyways, no one's gonna play a bunny grandpa