New Races

[Divinemights]

This was before ShB. Viera and Hrothgar were never supposed to happen. However since SE dug themselves into this hole, they have to get out of it. So they will add the other genders.

This is why it is always bad for Devs trying to be nice to playerbase.
Players will twist Dev's act or kindness into their own self-entitlement

[Shougun]

This was before ShB. Viera and Hrothgar were never supposed to happen. However since SE dug themselves into this hole, they have to get out of it. So they will add the other genders.

I still wonder if they planned this from the beginning. I love Hrothgar but as people are wont to point out beast races are not as popular as super model races. This isn't a confirmation that they've no value, again I still strongly believe that there is value in having diversity of options (even if the more popular ones are repeated more often because, eeeey they're more popular).

So.. picture an expansion where they announce just a beast race. People will still have some interest of course because new FFXIV content, and for some the beast race is hype, but just general statistics would show not a majority amount of players will switch over. I do think more will switch over to hrothgar in the larger scope of things if two elements are added, a. females and b. lack of barber hair issues (so I think in the end hrothgar has high potential to be more popular than Roe).

Picture just Viera. Of course popular, it's the super model race. Just like Blood Elf for WoW. Hugely popular option for WoW. Sexy may get some hate, but sex still sales anyways lol.

Now.... picture you split it. But no seriously picture it, don't think 'yah but hate'.

FFXIV is a good MMO but it needs people to talk about it, this got the game into people's radar more so than if it was just expansion news (as people plastered forums and articles about the gender split, although most articles I saw weren't that aggressive which is nice for SE and plays well back into that 'no such thing as bad publicity'). Maybe some might be like 'oh no I won't play it because of X' but many will hear about it more and so now it's on their radar which is a lot more to say than before when it wasn't. Furthermore if they implement the other races for those who were like 'oh no' are now 'oh yes' and put on their radar from the previous issue, so when they see the article that it was added they would be more likely to engage than previously.

Ontop of this it allowed them to create a race that adds high diversity (hroth), while also adding a race with high desire (super model Viera), at the same time of milking this twice. They get to release super models twice, get twice the notice publicity, they get to solve a problem they created (and people love seeing companies solve problems, it feels good), it's actually not half bad of a deal.

Those who quit before, which I doubt was that many having seen many who threatened to leave didn't lol, will have a decent chance to return, those who stayed away have less of a reason so, and they get articles about adding the other gender as extra free publicity, they get the articles about expansion features because that'll happen of course, they get diversity and value.

I'd argue they get more value splitting like this than if they hadn't. Now I'm not defending the character creation limitations about having to fantasia to change your hair.. you might argue value in fatansia sales because if that as intentional that just feels like short sided gains.. but if they intentionally split the races like this for what I said above... I could see it being the long game, and actually intentional.


Of course alternatively they really do just have massive memory/character creation problems and the head gear situation really is just a near insurmountable task, and it is what it is because it is lol. Yet because of some key wordings and timings that are coming up recently I'm very interested to see how they advertise 6.0 and how 5.0 closes. I am lightly gambling (metaphorically) that either a big change is coming to FFXIV or the next MMO is in production, which I would also feel would lend to them not tackling the memory issues as direly (changes to be done in the future). So I'm not entirely sold that it's being purely waived off even then, even if it was just memory problems.

Kind of conspiracy but I feel it exciting, and plausible enough, to share lol. Also not saying people have to like the split just because there might be a marketing reason for it haha, just suggesting it may be intentional. Controlled chaos can be a good thing, and we've seen it used before (by other companies, and governments really).

More publicity and balanced desire this way, in some ways also makes them more sympathetic, and a problem solving oriented company, than if they had just done it from the beginning.

[EtherRose]

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It's because Viera was very sought after because Fran swooned everyone. People wanted Viera, it was popular. So SE of course decided to give it out. Hrothgar was due to Lupin being well received in Stormblood. So the Dev team made Hrothgar as a decision on their own. I support it but i'm not happy about it. I would have preferred if they actually added Lupin as a Wolf/Fox race. We have a Dragon/Cat/Bunny race. We don't need another cat race. I really would love a fox race. White fox <3.

[Aluja89]

Hopefully they'll add more customization to the existing races and won't cave and waste resources on useless things such as male Viera.

[tdb]

Hopefully they'll add more customization to the existing races and won't cave and waste resources on useless things such as male Viera.

AFAIK the customization options are pretty limited because of spaghetti reasons. Like, the game code can only support a certain amount of customizations per character. So for example the Hrothgar gain fur pattern and color compared to Miqo'te, but lose hair options. As much as I'd like to spend even more time in the character creator, I think we're unlikely to get any additions on that front.

[Bright-Flower]

I'm not expecting male viera/female hrothgar. I could be wrong but it feels like the dev team can barely handle the races they have now, adding two more player character models with the same issues viera/hrothgar have just doesn't seem like it's in the cards for their current budget.

I'd like to see them added on principle. I would have much rather had both options for Viera OR Hrothgar instead of one gender for reach race. I wouldn't even care which of the two it was. I don't like gender locked races or classes as a concept, I was surprised they repeated this mistake after they went through the trouble to add male Miqo'te and female highlanders/roegadyn when 1.0 didn't have them.

I get why they did it, they wanted to add a beast race while also appeasing fan demands for viera, but instead of making both sides happy I feel they made another mess that they SHOULD have learned from already.

[Ayuhra]

I'm not expecting male viera/female hrothgar. I could be wrong but it feels like the dev team can barely handle the races they have now, adding two more player character models with the same issues viera/hrothgar have just doesn't seem like it's in the cards for their current budget.

I'd like to see them added on principle. I would have much rather had both options for Viera OR Hrothgar instead of one gender for reach race. I wouldn't even care which of the two it was. I don't like gender locked races or classes as a concept, I was surprised they repeated this mistake after they went through the trouble to add male Miqo'te and female highlanders/roegadyn when 1.0 didn't have them.

I get why they did it, they wanted to add a beast race while also appeasing fan demands for viera, but instead of making both sides happy I feel they made another mess that they SHOULD have learned from already.

It seems like there's a bigger fan outcry for Viera.

They should have finished the Viera, let them use different hairstyles and hats and given them male and female options and not bothered with Hrothgar.

Then next expansion give us Hrothgar with optimized customization, separated hair and face options and a female.

I love Hrothgar, I want them in the game but I would have accepted waiting longer for something more complete. My biggest worry with the Hrothgar is SE seeing their lack of popularity and putting it down to "beast races aren't liked" instead of "people don't like needing fantasias to change hairstyles and want to be able to use the things they bought or earned in game"

[Shougun]

It seems like there's a bigger fan outcry for Viera.

They should have finished the Viera, let them use different hairstyles and hats and given them male and female options and not bothered with Hrothgar.

Then next expansion give us Hrothgar with optimized customization, separated hair and face options and a female.

I love Hrothgar, I want them in the game but I would have accepted waiting longer for something more complete. My biggest worry with the Hrothgar is SE seeing their lack of popularity and putting it down to "beast races aren't liked" instead of "people don't like needing fantasias to change hairstyles and want to be able to use the things they bought or earned in game"

I don't think Hrothgar was made to be parity of popularity to the other races. It was made to offer something the game didn't really offer.

If you've got 8 flavors of chocolate because it's popular that's nice but there is a unique value in offering NOT chocolate even if it'll be inherently less popular. As one option just spreads around the choices, and sure might add some nice phantasia money, but the other, new flavor, can actually fill a void not even utilized before.

If they sincerely can only add one race, I'm glad they did it this way.

Of course having it all would be nice, not going to say no to that lol, but if their system or budget desire is "we're only going to do this once" then I feel this was the best.

I get you were saying do each one properly and fully in order, but the fact they didn't makes me think they wont or can't without some extreme rebuilding of the core. Like issue with the character creator and Hrothgar's hair or Au Ra horns or some races getting ear sliders while others get muscle sliders, etc.

Alternatively, if it's not a core coding issue which I believe it is more likely, it could also be pretty ingenious if not a bit diabolical, lol, plan to secure a hook with the next expansion. Don't really need to require a purchase either but it'll garner attention assuredly. Since like I said I don't think hrothgar are here for the reason to be most popular they're here to be a new flavor, so separating out the races as a pure viera release and hrothgar would probably not be as financially assured / noise generating as splitting them and making something hot be part of both releases and also makes them look good (due to feedback we hear you *whispers under breath, this was our plan all along muahahahahaha*).

Of course a character creator update would be nice but it seems they're hyper hesitant on that, perhaps at the next dalamud or something xD. And again of course having it all, and all of it smoothly, would be nice lol, just saying if they were going to add two genders to the game via one race and 'that was that' then I prefer this route as it offers a fan demand but also an element that wasn't really present in game.

[MariaArvana]

It seems like there's a bigger fan outcry for Viera.

They should have finished the Viera, let them use different hairstyles and hats and given them male and female options and not bothered with Hrothgar.

Funnily enough, the intention was the opposite, based on what Yoshi-P has said. Hrothgar was initially what they were planning to do, until the decision was made to create the split since they knew about Viera popularity and knew it was likely the last time they'll be adding new races:

"After seeing the positive reception of the Lupin characters we introduced in Stormblood, we concluded that, for the long-term health of FFXIV, it was important to implement a greater variety of character types beyond the traditionally beautiful in a future expansion" ~ siliconera's interview with Naoki Yoshida on Viera & hrothgar gender lock. So if they hadn't gone the split, it would have been Male/Female Hrothgar, no Viera ever.

As far as the topic question, between all the other things he dev have to push out during their patch cycles, the realistic date you'll see any Viera/Hrothgar additions is 6.0. They could surprise us earlier than that, but 6.0 is the realistic time.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

It seems like there's a bigger fan outcry for Viera.

They should have finished the Viera, let them use different hairstyles and hats and given them male and female options and not bothered with Hrothgar.

Then next expansion give us Hrothgar with optimized customization, separated hair and face options and a female.

I love Hrothgar, I want them in the game but I would have accepted waiting longer for something more complete. My biggest worry with the Hrothgar is SE seeing their lack of popularity and putting it down to "beast races aren't liked" instead of "people don't like needing fantasias to change hairstyles and want to be able to use the things they bought or earned in game"

Remember, they were pretty clear that "This might be the Last chance we get to make a new race, because it takes Alot of resources to make them"
So if they just did Viera as a whole, then they likely wouldn't have the chance to make a Beast Race like they planned to. So they really couldn't Just make Viera now and do Hrothgar next expansion, because its very likely they wouldn't be able to.