Information on why the devs didn't include Viera Male/Hrothgar Female

[Remedi]

"We want a beastly race" has actually been a topic of conversation over the past two years. I have participated in those threads. I am pleasantly surprised our voices were heard considering the amount of opposition in the past and now.

Shouldn't be surprised of it.
They were experimenting with beastial race for a while as far HW goes If I remember well. Lupins were a rejected proposal of them, so they were toying with the idea

[Emmanellain]

Exactly, genderlocks were never an issue for most people. It's just a convenient cause to advocate for when angling to get male Vieras. If people were seriously against the principle of genderlocking then they would prefer a full Hrothgar race over what we got..

But they are against locks, honestly, back in 1.0 they had the same issue and a lot of players today played the popular Mithra that was fem only back then and cried for males.
and for every locked gear set you always have threads with people getting frustrated about them being locked.
Also you can't fault people for being salty for not getting their elegant bishounen buns, I'm shocked that Yoshi went through with this despite his own dislike towards the locks.
When people advocate for no gender locks, they are literally saying they want two full races, it's a literal win/win for everyone.
Also Viera males have been a subject of mystery since 2006, people grew up with these games that featured Viera, so I think the coy marketing of the races honestly give people cause to be a little dissapointed.
The Hrothgar is strong and masculine, the Viera slender and elegant, they've both been designed with polar opposite design principles, so most players will - regardless of preference be without a female/male counterpart, which wont satisfy either group.
It's like they wanted to please everyone with the last race and wound up pleasing the half that wanted to main that sex of that specific race lol.
They can still turn it around though if they announce they will implement the other half of the sexes down the line.

[UsagiAndCrepes]

I hope all the excessive color and emphasis added might help someone that didn't find the answer clear enough about their production process. If not, that's fine too I suppose.

It was during Return to Ivalice, around 3 months after 4.0. Viera was confirmed then, and Hrothgar came about at the same time when we were discussing plans with Matsuno-san. We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female, and after selecting Viera, work began right away, because otherwise we wouldn't make it in time. As mentioned before, the face parts are special and Hrothgar has big differences between its faces, like a lion face, wolf face, leopard face. It became a fixed model relatively recently. Viera was done right before Paris Fan Fest, and Hrothgar was done recently.

[NessaWyvern]

I hope all the excessive color and emphasis added might help someone that didn't find the answer clear enough about their production process. If not, that's fine too I suppose.

If that someone was me, I was criticizing their production process, and suggesting one that may have worked better.
If it's true that they had a hard NO from the higher-ups until now, then my criticism would be directed towards the higher ups, their short-sightedness cost them much of their good reputation with fans.

Besides, they have a special patch update site right? And there's still several months before release, IF they had male Viera and Female Hrothgar planned, they could have added future Viera/Hrothgar details in there, and postponed showing them, with a note during fanfest that they might come in the future, instead of cutting it out entirely.
They would have a bit more time to work on them then.
They didn't have to squeeze unfinished races into the fanfest, is what I am getting at (the current Viera and Hrothgar have issues relating to gear). They could have showed us their concept work so far in the fanfest, fans would have still been hyped, and more accepting of the situation, rather than the current "NO MALE VIERA, NO FEMALE HROTHGAR, GENDERLOCKS, HELMETS NOT SHOWING AHHH!" Reaction that we are getting at the moment.

It's a fecal storm that could have been handled a loooot better.

[UsagiAndCrepes]

If that someone was me, I was criticizing their production process, and suggesting one that may have worked better.
If it's true that they had a hard NO from the higher-ups until now, then my criticism would be directed towards the higher ups, their short-sightedness cost them much of their good reputation with fans.

Besides, they have a special patch update site right? And there's still several months before release, IF they had male Viera and Female Hrothgar planned, they could have added future Viera/Hrothgar details in there, and postponed showing them, with a note during fanfest that they might come in the future, instead of cutting it out entirely.
They would have a bit more time to work on them then.
They didn't have to squeeze unfinished races into the fanfest, is what I am getting at (the current Viera and Hrothgar have issues relating to gear). They could have showed us their concept work so far in the fanfest, fans would have still been hyped, and more accepting of the situation, rather than the current "NO MALE VIERA, NO FEMALE HROTHGAR, GENDERLOCKS, HELMETS NOT SHOWING AHHH!" Reaction that we are getting at the moment.

It's a fecal storm that could have been handled a loooot better.

It's not directed to anyone in particular. I could explain in more detail but these topics are so volatile that I rather not put myself in a position to receive forum harassment if someone reads something they don't like. I'm sure others have felt the same way about this forum the past few months. I could explain this two months ago as well, but, for the same reason: I'm not looking for any trouble.

[WhiteArchmage]

So male Hrothgar never replaced male Viera, but instead female Viera replaced female Hrothgar? For some reason there are not many anti-genderlock activists saying they would have preferred to give up female Viera to get a full Hrothgar race.

Honestly, I would have preferred they released male and female Hrothgar (Yes, even if it meant not seeing ONE Viera in RtI, I would've complained and grumbled, but silently and eventually accepted that it meant they would work on making them playable later) and held off Viera for later. Gender-locks in general tick me off (since PWI when Male Untamed have a choice between Panda, Lion or Tiger head and Females are cute ladies with fox ears, tails, and OH LOOK!).

Second page.

[BillyKaplan]

So male Hrothgar never replaced male Viera, but instead female Viera replaced female Hrothgar? For some reason there are not many anti-genderlock activists saying they would have preferred to give up female Viera to get a full Hrothgar race.

[..] the irony of it all is that making a Hrothgar female would've spared us this genderlocked nonsense. Knowing we could've had a full race only makes it more bitter, in a way.

On the first page of this very thread You won't find us if you won't look for us.

[Chained_Icarus]

If they decided this so long ago... why give the vague misleading answer when directly asked in Paris if we'd have male veira? The "hey, we have another fanfest," while not a confirmation, heavily implied there would be a reveal of them in Tokyo.

[NessaWyvern]

If they decided this so long ago... why give the vague misleading answer when directly asked in Paris if we'd have male veira? The "hey, we have another fanfest," while not a confirmation, heavily implied there would be a reveal of them in Tokyo.

Exactly, they've dug themselves so many unnecessary holes. If Viera was done right before Paris fanfest (with them having no males), they should have said so, instead of getting people's hopes up.

[reivaxe]

why didn't they just say "due to time constraints male viera and female hrothgar will be released at a later date"? why?

Cause they prob don't intend to do it.

What people are over looking is the whole resources thing. Basically think of it like this ...

As things stand, with the current way they do things, they can only do 1 more race. They really wanted the beastly race and even tried tapping into that last time but fell short. So they chose to make the lions.

But instead of making female lions they decided that that time and resources would be better spent on Viera.

When making a race their way currently not only do they have to design them but also do all the animations and what not on top of remodeling all current and future gear to fit them. This wouldn't be much of a problem if they had a normal pipeline for this kinda stuff but they're working in some messy spaghetti code.

So yeah, as it stands these 2 races require the effort of 1 and that's all they can handle with their current work flow. Maybe that will change in the future, maybe not.