Viera and Hrothgar Megathread

[Yencat]

I'm quite disappointed with the height range they went with as well as the face options showcased. Definitely little interest for me in the race. I'll play around with the benchmark tomorrow but none of it really fit my tastes.

I think it confirms that the comparison I was linking to did indeed have a max height Viera male - they're about 2 inches shorter, which isn't a massive difference, hence seeming more or less the same if you extrapolate the percentile differences in the models to deduce the difference from a max height female. It also seemed to be the more accurate of these comparisons, as some had them at more drastic differentials.

A pity they didn't go with the same height or the idea of a wider slider. So much for Elezen perfected when it comes to the males.

Roll on CC updates for the existing races, I guess. For the duration I continue to play, I'll be sticking with Au Ra and Midlanders... maybe Elezen if they one day get rid of all the awkwardness. Highlanders if they get better faces/eyebrows.

I don't really care one way or another about the height of male viera, but people like you and others should be allowed to be disappointed without being called insecure or whatever else people come up with to try and be smug about it.

Clearly this was a popular enough request for them to implement it though, so I wonder what this means for female Hrothgar? I don't really keep up with twitter or other social media so I really don't know which way it's trending right now, but I assume the sexed up more humanized fan art is more popular?

[Evergrey]

Clearly this was a popular enough request for them to implement it though, so I wonder what this means for female Hrothgar? I don't really keep up with twitter or other social media so I really don't know which way it's trending right now, but I assume the sexed up more humanized fan art is more popular?

[Yencat]

I just woke up so you'll have to walk me through this slowly, the playboy bunny?

[Lauront]

I don't really care one way or another about the height of male viera, but people like you and others should be allowed to be disappointed without being called insecure or whatever else people come up with to try and be smug about it.

Clearly this was a popular enough request for them to implement it though, so I wonder what this means for female Hrothgar? I don't really keep up with twitter or other social media so I really don't know which way it's trending right now, but I assume the sexed up more humanized fan art is more popular?

Cheers, I appreciate that.

Frankly, the claims about "insecurity" are the usual playbook of a sizeable number frequenting sites like Twitter etc., so I am not surprised by it, but equally, it's also par the course for certain elements on this forum. But I agree, it has little to do with "insecurities".

For events gone awry? Oh yeah.
For numbers related things? Sometimes.
For male viera? Not anywhere near as much as you seem to be implying. Viera were contenders for being implemented back in 3.0 (if you have the HW art book theres a page or 2 with the concepts), the art team has had ideas of what male viera should look like for a long, long time. From there they just needed to come up with something Yoshi approved. He said in the past they they'd be a cross between male miqote and male elezen. Look at the benchmark preview- male viera very much fall between male miqote and male elezen.

Their height was never implied in that art work. To dismiss the possibility that they are drawing feedback from sources they themselves have acknowledged drawing on because there was art from 2015 is rather myopic. Although they had a broad outline ready for the race, the details about the facial picks and height were likely not set in stone.

Niche aesthetics tend to get more embraced because they are niche, they rarely happen thus when they do happen people gravitate towards them as more interesting, you could probably count on your hands how many MMOs have a single race of theirs have the max height male be shorter than the max height female, it is very uncommon to have such a thing.

6ft 1in is not considered short in the majority of the world flat out a max height Male Viera would be considered tall worldwide just in the fantasy world of FFXIV they are shorter than than half the other male options but still taller than Midlander which you seem fine with so this whole height thing really does seem petty when it is the actual aesthetics of the race as whole that bother you and not the height itself.

And you know what, that is a fine preference to have.

But you dismissed male Viera on their height and that is what people find petty about it.

Also I too hope they add more beard and facial options because I find FFXIV is laughably lacking in that department compared to everyone else and it feels worse when they advertise the game with a character who has stubble we can't even use >_>

(I'm 6ft 1in and would be considered tall as well and yes I too prefer men taller but I have always been open to shorter men as well because variety)

In essence, what you are saying is that it's "petty" if one has a preference for the typical sexual dimorphism in height (but I am guessing that doesn't run in the opposite direction, i.e. those who strongly wanted them to be shorter.) I'll be rather surprised if you say it's petty in both cases, as the latter didn't really seem to go challenged except by a minority of posters in this thread (which, to be abundantly clear, is not necessarily reflective of the proportions within the broader playerbase, where I'd expect which view is majority and which the minority to flip.) I'll agree with those saying it's not exactly a huge difference.

On the point of niche aesthetics being embraced because they are niche - perhaps it is the case for those who actually embrace them, but again, something being "niche" in and of itself usually won't suffice to draw much positive attention to it. Roegadyn females and Elezen (due to their proportions when compared to your typical elf) are both fairly "niche", and yet number between 1 to 3% of the playerbase, respectively. I don't imagine Viera males will settle at such figures, as they are designed to be aesthetically pleasing in other respects, but I sincerely doubt any high quality sort of polling/surveying will find that any substantial portion of their future players is drawn to them solely on account of being a "niche". It's not even prominent enough in their case to matter. It does annoy me a bit, but the bigger issue for me is that I don't really like their facial design.

it's really not a big deal Theo will fanta to one anyway dont mind him.

A rather bold assumption.

[Evergrey]

I just woke up so you'll have to walk me through this slowly, the playboy bunny?

The one and the same.

And I'm also predicting that there will be MViera players later who will go on the forums about how they're getting offended by people calling them Playboy Bunnies.
Still too early to know. just something I'm expecting to happen sooner or later.

[Halivel]

Okay, it's some very experimental math and we will know for sure tomorrow, but I was curious so I went ahead and tried to estimate male Viera minimal height.
In benchmark the feault value is 58/100 and is 180.5. 100/100 is 186.5 (as shown somewhere in this very thread).




What I did is I basically counted what would be the height value at 58/100 for other races, checked how it scales in character creator to know if it matches (it does), and from there started picking value for minimal height that would give 180.5 at 58% in result. The closest value ended up being 172.2cm. 172.3 works as well with 180.54 as 58% value. (the basic formula was minHeight + range*0.58). There were some other values peakable in creator, like 173cm for 6/100, which I also experimented with in formula, and it seems to scale fairly accurately.

Again, this is highly experimental and we will find out how accurate it is tomorrow. x)

[Yencat]

The one and the same.

And I'm also predicting that there will be MViera players later who will go on the forums about how they're getting offended by people calling them Playboy Bunnies.

So are you saying female Hrothgar art as sexed up humanized playboy bunnies is more popular or is this about Viera?

[Evergrey]

So are you saying female Hrothgar art as sexed up humanized playboy bunnies is more popular or is this about Viera?

ah, my bad.
It's about Viera.
I might've misread your comment a little seeing how it got a little confusing. ^^'

I guess I thought you were talking about how the sexed up more humanoid were a more favourit (M Viera) seeing how we haven't heard anything about Female Hroths yet.

So I might've been responding to something completely unrelated to what I sent. ^^'

[Yencat]

ah, my bad.
It's about Viera.
I might've misread your comment a little seeing how it got a little confusing. ^^'

I guess I thought you were talking about how the sexed up more humanoid were a more favourit (M Viera) seeing how we haven't heard anything about Female Hroths yet.

So I might've been responding to something completely unrelated to what I sent. ^^'

Ah seems so! But no, I'm not surprised or shocked Viera (male or female) look the way they do and why they're popular.

But they said before that they took inspiration for male Viera from fan art and fan discussion and going by comments here over time it seems that on certain platforms it trended towards the shorter males, and that's what they ended up going with in the end.

I was curious what this could mean for female Hrothgar as I don't know what type of fanart is popular for them, ie. the stronger muscular looking ones or the "prettier" humanized variant.

[Evergrey]

Ah seems so! But no, I'm not surprised or shocked Viera (male or female) look the way they do and why they're popular.

But they said before that they took inspiration for male Viera from fan art and fan discussion and going by comments here over time it seems that on certain platforms it trended towards the shorter males, and that's what they ended up going with in the end.

I was curious what this could mean for female Hrothgar as I don't know what type of fanart is popular for them, ie. the stronger muscular looking ones or the "prettier" humanized variant.

I've only seen the art posted in the Female Hrothgar thread.
Most there seem to be the more stronger looking ones.
But I've seen several asian MMOs with beastial races where the males are big bulky beasts where the female counterparts are slim with more human features, almost how Miqote looks like.
However, I do predict the females won't be as strong looking as the males but still got clearly visible stronger structure compared to the other females. Kind of like how Female Roe are.