Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[RyuDragnier]

In regards to Male Viera, theres a big difference. Male Viera have never been shown in the series before, it would be a big feature for the series as a whole. As for Hrothgar not costing anything, i’d argue that’s a flat out lie. The time put towards them could’ve been time put towards customization options for all races. Or put towards viera having new hairstyles or being able to wear headgear. I have nothing against Hrothgar but i don’t support overlooking facts for bias.

One could make the counterargument that Viera did not need to exist because they're tall people with animal ears that live in the forest. Meaning they're essentially Bunny brand Miqote Elezen. Nothing we didn't already have, compared to Hrothgar which is our first actual full beast race. So please, do not start this nonsense.

[Yencat]

The time put towards them could’ve been time put towards customization options for all races. Or put towards viera having new hairstyles or being able to wear headgear. I have nothing against Hrothgar but i don’t support overlooking facts for bias.

That is assuming they would have even done any of those things if they hadn't done Hrothgar though, that is not a fact.

As far back as 2013 Yoshida said that if they ever did Viera they'd probably do a different male only race as a counterpart and that's exactly what they ended up doing, for all we know Female Hrothgar and male Viera may have never been seriously considered beyond a concept art stage.

I get that people are disappointed but I really dislike this discourse around Hrothgar that if only they hadn't chosen to include them they could've/would've done <XYZ>. We don't know that at all, Stormblood added no new playable races and still did precisely nothing to further the customization of the other races.

[KizuyaKatogami]

One could make the counterargument that Viera did not need to exist because they're tall people with animal ears that live in the forest. Meaning they're essentially Bunny brand Miqote Elezen. Nothing we didn't already have, compared to Hrothgar which is our first actual full beast race. So please, do not start this nonsense.

And hrothgar are just roes with fur, what do you mean?

[Theodric]

I don't think a playable race is inherently more interesting just because they're 'ugly' or 'bestial'. Very few of the playable races in this game have deep lore behind them. It's a shame, but this isn't WoW or ESO where the various playable races have their own regions in-game that build up their background, culture and quirks.

The Azim Steppe is the closest thing to that to date and that's only applicable to Xaela. You can choose to role-play a Hingan or Ishgardian and get a deep amount of background and lore specific to your chosen 'race', but pretty much every other option is severely lacking in relevance or focus in favour of just being part of a melting pot society such as Limsa...and even the unique elements of that were recently snuffed out. Bye, bye piracy, eh?

So, yeah...I'm not surprised that - much like in every other MMO - the most popular picks are the conventionally attractive options. I don't think Hrothgar bring anything truly unique to the table that is worth the drawbacks. The development team themselves are clearly struggling now that they've added them, they don't have access to many hairstyles or helmets...and they launched in an incomplete state.

If the development team had to pick one race between them to add? I'm pretty confident that Viera would be many times more popular, across both genders, then Hrothgar. Others are free to pretend differently, but I'm just not going to act as though hrothgar women would mysteriously defy all odds and be super popular. They'll likely appeal to a similar amount of people as female roegadyn do, which is a very tiny if vocal portion of the community.

I also think some people are forgetting that the entire reason popularity is being discussed is due to a sudden push for more new beast races at a time when the development team haven't even managed to add one in full.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Because, as stated many times before, they literally weren't sure if they could add another race in the future. Look at it this way: by making 2 gender locked races, they made it possible (not necessarily probable) to eventually add the other genders by a sense of moral obligation, but if they had added both Hroth genders, no amount of requests would've guaranteed they'd add Viera later.

They could have also just gone full Viera, but that was the devs choice for wanting something different than another "literally just a human but with-" race.



And Viera are just Elezen with bunny ears ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Okay but at least with the other method we would have a full race. That could most likely use headgear and not have to worry about the false promises of hairstyles from SE like what’s going on now. The pros would outweigh the cons that way and we wouldn’t have the absolute mess we have now.

[Allegor]

Okay but at least with the other method we would have a full race. That could most likely use headgear and not have to worry about the false promises of hairstyles from SE like what’s going on now. The pros would outweigh the cons that way and we wouldn’t have the absolute mess we have now.

Even if that were true, what's even the point of complaining of what could've been. It's not like we have a time machine to go back in time and revert what's already been done.

I like both races, even with their limitations, and would like to see their counterparts added, but it just hits a nerve when people bash Hrothgar as if they were a mistake that shouldn't have happened, specially considering even with their limitation, they're still more popular than other races/genders. Once again, it's done, there's nothing anyone can do about it, we can only wait and see what the devs can pull off.




Semi related: I don't know about others but if I was given the choice for Viera ears, I would've sacrificed the option to choose ear type if it meant I can wear hats normally, or at least give them physics like Miqo ears - Kind of ironic their 'different customizations' end up being their handicap.

[KizuyaKatogami]

That is assuming they would have even done any of those things if they hadn't done Hrothgar though, that is not a fact.

As far back as 2013 Yoshida said that if they ever did Viera they'd probably do a different male only race as a counterpart and that's exactly what they ended up doing, for all we know Female Hrothgar and male Viera may have never been seriously considered beyond a concept art stage.

I get that people are disappointed but I really dislike this discourse around Hrothgar that if only they hadn't chosen to include them they could've/would've done <XYZ>. We don't know that at all, Stormblood added no new playable races and still did precisely nothing to further the customization of the other races.

Tbh i really don’t trust Yoshi’s word anymore because it’s constantly switching and he’s always going back on it. As far as stormblood. the expansion at least offered way more overall content in exchange for no new races whereas shb has had major content problems and problematic races.

[Yencat]

Tbh i really don’t trust Yoshi’s word anymore because it’s constantly switching and he’s always going back on it.

You don't have to trust what he says, you can look in the game and see he did exactly what he said he'd do. If you don't trust what he says you shouldn't believe him when he says they'll include the other genders when they ever find the resources, anyway.

As far as stormblood. the expansion at least offered way more overall content in exchange for no new races whereas shb has had major content problems and problematic races.

You can wrap up your thinly veiled contempt for Hrothgar in however many pretty bows you want, but the fact is we honestly don't know if they would have done anything differently with Viera had they not included Hrothgar. It's conjecture at best.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Even if that were true, what's even the point of complaining of what could've been. It's not like we have a time machine to go back in time and revert what's already been done.

Because our conversation is talking about back then. And it’s okay to criticize their bad decisions every once in awhile. I know people aren’t used to criticism in this community but it should be called out.

[Allegor]

Because our conversation is talking about back then. And it’s okay to criticize their bad decisions every once in awhile. I know people aren’t used to criticism in this community but it should be called out.

There's quite a difference between "you made a bad choice and I'll be spiteful about it" and "you did a bad choice, here's how you can fix it" - resenting the creation of Hrothgars, even the potential addition of females, does nothing.