Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[seraphmage]

/signed And quoting my thoughts from the original gender lock thread from a few weeks back ... Just silliness, this whole mess, and completely avoidable.

On the topic of gender locking races, I believe it is an all-around bad idea. In cases where a video game is centered around a protagonist who has been iconically cast as a particular gender, I can understand a developer not providing both gender options but FFXIV is not that game. Since 2.0 all playable races have offered both gender options despite any lore-related tidbits that would suggest a given race/gender combination being rare. Moreover, the nature of FFXIV is that while there is an underlying story and lore to create a tasteful level of immersion, the producer and his team regularly color outside of the lines, examples of which have been offered in large volume throughout this thread.

I don't wish to point fingers or attack the developers at the moment because, until JP fanfest, everything boils down to speculation. This being said, -if- they have chosen to introduce one or more gender locked races I believe this is a huge step backward for a development team that has, in my mind, shown itself to be forward thinking when it comes to dated views on gender roles. To suddenly do an about-face and implement pin-up ultra feminine bunny girls and (hypothetical) super masculine lion dudes with no options in between simply feeds into all kinds of video game tropes that this team has proven themselves to be better than.

For clarity, this is not to suggest that I believe pin-up bunny girls and beefy lion boys should be excluded from the game. I find toxic anti-femininity and anti-masculinity to be just as distasteful but the point is not to alienate people when there is simply no solid justification for doing so. The lore argument, as previously noted, is weak at best. As someone who comes from a development background, the workload-related arguments also bewilder me. All the work that had to go into implementing the ears and feet for Viera females (an amount of work that should not be understated/underestimated) can most certainly be used in part if not directly for the males. Moreover, implementing the male counterpart of a race for which you've already implemented females is certainly no more work than creating an entirely separate male gender locked race.

....

If some insurmountable obstacle exists that prevents them from doing this then I believe it would have been far better to simply hold their cards and wait on implementing Viera until they could do so fully.

[Lauront]

My main problem is that Yoshi made the most half-assed excuse he possibly he could. He could have said something mildly plausible; budget, time-restraints, or even just they wanted to reach a new market. But out of any option he could have chosen he just went with a mumbled "it might ruin the lore" That's the worst possible excuse you could have made. The devs write the lore. The players break the lore on a daily basis. If they're going with that then they should only allow one player ever to be a WHM or a DRK and retroactively remove all male Miqo'te, female Roes and Duskwight Elezen. And while they're at it remove all Viera from The First because that breaks their lore too.

It's not so much that it's broken, as it is that rarity is not invoked as an excuse to not allow something in other contexts. Canonically, there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of WoLs (soon, WoDs) anyway, so it's not an issue. The fact that Matsuno had no issues with it also means the lore isn't the real issue here. It's likelier to be business constraints.

Yet after their rather weak excuses about BLU's design, I'm not hugely surprised. I just hope that this doesn't rule out the future addition of male Viera and female Hrothgar. I don't believe it will.

[Bongaboi]

This may be a subliminal message to the US gamers: vote blue next year and you might get your Male Viera and Female Hrothgar. Good luck!

[Corehealer]

Twitter friends of mine linked me to this thread, among others. And I felt that this issue of Male Viera and genderlocking generally was enough to prompt me to come and post, despite my rarely using the forums.

For Shadowbringers, if not at launch then in it's future patch series, I 110% want to see the following:
- Male Viera.
- Female Hrothgar.
- no more genderlocked armor and clothes.
- no more genderlocked hair.
- Dancer stays ranged dps.
- Machinist, Bard and Dancer all do various levels of support and AoE debuffing.
- New healer.
- Gunbreaker actually shoots.

My feelings on the race matter are basically summed up as, I am looking forward to the content of the expansion but have, for a long time, been disappointed in continuing and persistent genderlocking. I've been waiting ages to see things like Aymeric's armor in the mogstation store made gender neutral and available to female characters. I know a lot of friends who were devastated by not having male Viera and who were intrigued by female Hrothgar as an idea, myself included, but with no sign of them being a thing. Armor, clothes and races should not be genderlocked and everyone should be able to play what they want. I don't know why and don't want to speculate on why they didn't do Male Viera despite it being clearly and eminently doable, but now that they've added male Hrothgar/Ronso, they've basically only made people want male Viera more and on top of that, female Hrothgar. Hrothgar especially could become quite popular as the Highlanders to the Miqo'te Midlanders for cat people.

As for the job situation, I do think Dancer is fine as it is and look forward to seeing how it interacts with Machinist and Bard, especially if they can actually do Machinist a good turn with a rebalance. Gunbreaker I am very excited to see how it plays compared to other tanks, especially my Paladin main, and I only ask that the gun part actually be functional and not just a buff system or flashy attachment. We absolutely though need another healer job. We need to balance all the DPS jobs and now four tanks with four healers and an emphasis on supporting the healer role more. I really don't want to see worse DPS queues.

The content of the expansion seems legit solid so far, I only have problems with these issues. Resolving them or at least addressing them will absolutely be impacting my desire to preorder or not, and whether I give the expansion a pass at launch to go play ESO's Elsweyr expansion in June. Give the devs time to fix these issues and rethink their relationship with the NA/EU communities and communication.

[Kyuuen]

Liked and signed. While I really have no interest in playing/making one, I find it ridiculous that Yoshi and the team would retread the self same gender lock decisions that the 1.0 team made. Especially considering it was Yoshi that said; and I'm paraphrasing but, what's the point of segmenting something like this off when there's clearly support and desire for it.

[Aelysian]

I really hope the developers read this post and reflect on it too, because I really am pouring my heart out on this one guys. So I hope you all bear with me for the first half.

Let me start off with the expression of how disappointed and mad I was upon hearing the news of there being “No Male Viera”. However I will also humbly admit that I was a bit salty when the words came right out of Yoshi's mouth since after months of anticipating the release of the race, and having pre-ordered it in excitement right after the teaser of the bunny females in France.

Despite that, everything about the Shadowbringers expansion is looking great. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it; the new maps, cosmetics, raids, collaborations, the lore and where it is headed and I get it, it isn't easy work for you guys to have done so much within the span of a year, there was a lot of harsh decision making, great ideas being scrapped and sacrificed for the more practical ones. I really appreciate what you, the team have done to get this far. I, myself, want to have a place as a concept artist/illustrator in the gaming industry and I fully understand that there will always be mixed reviews and how people feel about this game — it isn't entirely perfect — but I believe that's how it's supposed to be, because there is always room and an unlimited time for improvement.


However, please don't just assume we would get over the phases of being in denial, of overcoming our denial and accepting such a change if you think that you are going to get away with it like that, because this is an impression that you, as developers, have left on most of us for the years to come so try to consider how this would affect your sales on future expansions as you reveal them and the overall lifespan of the game. And it's not just the two new races being gender-locked that the player base is upset about, there are other things worth mentioning.

I understand that maybe we all have too high of an expectation. Fair enough that maybe you guys couldn’t see how important it was to us. But now, as you read this, I really hope that you can see how much it would mean to us if you could fulfill our wishes for this game's upcoming expansion.

Anyways, with the release of Shadowbringers just being around the corner and upset fans like me all around, it must be a difficult time right now. And this little dying friend I have called 'hope' is driving me to type this out for your sake, the game, and us.

So before time runs out in these few months before the big update is pushed out, let's get to the main point.

Now why it was mentioned there won't be any male Viera — from what I was told (please correct me if I'm wrong, translations and all that) — was because it was lore-related. That the male Viera as an addition to the game would be awkward(?) for Yoshi, it would make no sense to add them to the game. That, or it was a poor business decision by Square Enix.
And it was here that I questioned that if you guys really tried to do anything about the male Viera's implementation, to put in the extra effort to see how you could inject their existence into the world of Hydaelyn as with all other things that makes FFXIV unique in its own world compared to all the other titles.

Yes, I have a full understanding that the male exist and are inferior to the females because of Viera tradition, that they are extremely rare and that they would be kept for only mating. If they end up being male, they would get kicked out into the forest with the other males to be trained with hunting and surviving. Here is an entire paragraph for the source of information from the Final Fantasy wiki.



What I and you have just read here was a seed that could be a jungle of opportunities for the lore. Heck, this could even be the very first game to reveal the male Viera if you guys tried a little bit harder. If you can write about going to another parallel universe, you can surely pave way for the male Viera to exist, and this counts for the female Hrothgar too. Now that's creative writing.

Additionally, lorewise do note how they were to be described as secretive, vicious, skilled hunters. So there you go people, we aren't just a bunch of soft, sad, willowy bunnies. We're independent badasses. This also means they aren't entirely weak to the females, and that the male Vieras also have a place and purpose in this world.

I mean, the players could make them soft if you wanted to and break the lore for the sake of aesthetics, and that's entirely up to us on how we want to enjoy this game because it's what gives us that unique experience to have a want to keep playing the game. I do also acknowledge that the male and female do not coexist as much as possible, but then again, anything can make sense if you tried hard enough. And don't even get me started on the Male Miqo'te and female Roes.

If it had to do with the coding of the game and the limited capacity for its assets, you could have maybe recycled the bodies of the Au'Ra due to their identical body shapes based on the previous concept designs, you could have released two races with two full genders if you had pushed back the release date for the Hrothgar too, and it would save the time for more optimization. Besides, furthering the development of the Viera instead of two very different races at the same time is clearly not as efficient as developing just one race of both gender, especially when they both have ‘high levels of customization’.

In the end, it would have been better if the male Viera was going to be released. The idea of having one race being gender locked would be awful because it's a bad sign for the future development. It would give you at Square Enix generally a bad reputation in the MMORPG community and it is definitely something that limits the game's enjoyability.

If you inspect my profile, yes, I am a fairly new player, but I am familiar with MMORPGs. And I knew nothing about FFXIV before I had begun to play a few months ago, nor have I heard any previous news about the Viera being gender-locked, but what I do know is that you at Square Enix developed the game we all know and love as FFXIV after its reboot. That you guys had really outdone yourself with 2.0 and how it really catered successfully to the fans. And I’m proud to be a part of the community now, especially with great developers making it happen.

Personally speaking, I really wanted to enjoy my journey in FFXIV playing as a male Viera, and plenty others would want to do that too. It was really difficult and heartbreaking to hear that male Vieras were not going to be added into the game. And it hurts to see that a decent portion of the playerbase does not support us because of how we reacted violently to it, and I apologize on behalf of the angry community, if not, all. I will choose to continue to stay optimistic up to the release of Shadowbringers and any latest news regarding the release of the Male Viera and the Female Hrothgar too.

So, please hear us out and at least give some form of response in light to this recent calamity.

Thank you,
Aelysian c:

P.S. This is what we could have had, something like this?

Art by Kome,
Tumblr : https://sugoi-kome.tumblr.com/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/frischenq

[manickitty]

Twitter friends of mine linked me to this thread, among others. And I felt that this issue of Male Viera and genderlocking generally was enough to prompt me to come and post, despite my rarely using the forums.

For Shadowbringers, if not at launch then in it's future patch series, I 110% want to see the following:
- Male Viera.
- Female Hrothgar.
- no more genderlocked armor and clothes.
- no more genderlocked hair.
- Dancer stays ranged dps.
- Machinist, Bard and Dancer all do various levels of support and AoE debuffing.
- New healer.
- Gunbreaker actually shoots.

My feelings on the race matter are basically summed up as, I am looking forward to the content of the expansion but have, for a long time, been disappointed in continuing and persistent genderlocking. I've been waiting ages to see things like Aymeric's armor in the mogstation store made gender neutral and available to female characters. I know a lot of friends who were devastated by not having male Viera and who were intrigued by female Hrothgar as an idea, myself included, but with no sign of them being a thing. Armor, clothes and races should not be genderlocked and everyone should be able to play what they want. I don't know why and don't want to speculate on why they didn't do Male Viera despite it being clearly and eminently doable, but now that they've added male Hrothgar/Ronso, they've basically only made people want male Viera more and on top of that, female Hrothgar. Hrothgar especially could become quite popular as the Highlanders to the Miqo'te Midlanders for cat people.

As for the job situation, I do think Dancer is fine as it is and look forward to seeing how it interacts with Machinist and Bard, especially if they can actually do Machinist a good turn with a rebalance. Gunbreaker I am very excited to see how it plays compared to other tanks, especially my Paladin main, and I only ask that the gun part actually be functional and not just a buff system or flashy attachment. We absolutely though need another healer job. We need to balance all the DPS jobs and now four tanks with four healers and an emphasis on supporting the healer role more. I really don't want to see worse DPS queues.

The content of the expansion seems legit solid so far, I only have problems with these issues. Resolving them or at least addressing them will absolutely be impacting my desire to preorder or not, and whether I give the expansion a pass at launch to go play ESO's Elsweyr expansion in June. Give the devs time to fix these issues and rethink their relationship with the NA/EU communities and communication.

Seconded on removing genderlocked everything!! Why the artificial constraints on clothing and accessories? I happen to know some female players who are dying to use some of the male versions of clothes, and vice versa.

[AmyMelody]

The lack of male Viera is the most disappointing thing they have ever done. I'm officially unhappy with this game now.

Congratulations, this is called shock of reality. There isnt a single thing in life that will provide you only happy moments. next...

[Umeikoai]

Seconded on removing genderlocked everything!! Why the artificial constraints on clothing and accessories? I happen to know some female players who are dying to use some of the male versions of clothes, and vice versa.

I'm still waiting on ungenderlocked and unracelocked hempen gear.

[JBee]

I'm not sure why people keep pointing to an interview from SIX YEARS ago as if everyone should have known that be heart. Not everyone consumes the same amount of information outside of game. Not everyone goes to the forums, subreddits, discords, etc.

I think what bothers me more about all of this - more than the white knighting "go delete yourself" crowd, more than the "give me what i want or I will try to incite a riot" crowd, more than the "i don't care you didn't get what you wanted I DIDN'T GET WHAT I WANTED" crowd, more than the fact than the Hrothgar literally look like Roes that escaped from a Furry convention - is not so much the decisions they made, but the willingness to do it at all...

Yoshi and the dev team - all of them - they are smart people. They knew there would be backlash from this, and I don't believe for a second otherwise. To be fair, anything they did would create some level of backlash, but they knew this would be pretty polarizing. And this recent trend of making polarizing decisions is what's more concerning to me than anything else.

- BLU as limited job
- Viera genderlocked to female only
- Hrothgar genderlocked to male only
- Dancer as a Ranged DPS / No new Healer role job
- Using one of the main races as only a beast tribe in the "new land"
- Reusing / Repurposing 1.0 assets into a "new land"
- Going back on previous statement to where now not all headgear will be visible on Viera and Hrothgar

It's been one hit after another lately, and that, more than anything, is concerning to me. They went the route more likely to upset the larger group of people by genderlocking two races instead of making one or the other and not genderlocking. They went the route of putting in a limited job instead of a full job, based on whatever justifications were used on a given day for it, potentially upsetting more people than if they had either put in a full job version or not at all.

I hope something is done soon before this trashfire gets any worse.