Future Character Creation Idea, Animation Swapping

[Tsiron]

They've already said male Viera and (eventually) female Hrothgar will mark the end of their adding any more races to the game, so it got me thinking how they could expand upon existing ones without a massive overhaul of their whole character creation system, welcome as that would be. So... how about being able to pick animations?

I've seen countless people mention they prefer the aesthetic but not the idles/emotes (or the other way around) of one race or the other, and they're clearly set up to be able to share animations, unless the devs have to manually tweak every combat animation or unlockable emote, which I doubt?

Naturally, there's issues they'd need to address, for cases such as switching to a tailless race's animation set as a Miqo'te or Au Ra, or male Roegadyn and Hrothgar probably not being compatible with anyone else's due to their bulk, but all in all I think something like accounting for tail movement where there's none or etc. would be far less work than creating new animations (or an entire race...) from scratch, right?

What do you all think?

[Kes13a]

not sure why there would be a desire to homogenize the races myself.

things are the way they are so that the races are mildly unique aside from appearance.this I have no problem with.

why make everything the same?

rather they do updates in terms of refining looks etc as opposed to making it so everyone is playing the same model, with the same animations, but only marginally different appearances.

[Tsiron]

I'm not suggesting it in lieu of them updating textures, adding more features etc., it's just that those have already been discussed at length, while this is more of a niche thing.

[SherlottaEryut]

how about being able to pick animations?

I've seen countless people mention they prefer the aesthetic but not the idles/emotes (or the other way around) of one race or the other, and they're clearly set up to be able to share animations, unless the devs have to manually tweak every combat animation or unlockable emote, which I doubt?

What do you all think?

I’m sorry, but I am not a fan of this idea. I don’t like the thought of races just having the same animations as each other, typically I’m for the idea of having more race lock options.
I don’t think it’s necessary because it would make each race less distinctive.

[Tsiron]

Huh, didn't think the idea would be this unpopular..?

[Theodric]

Elder Scrolls Online sort of does this. You can set 'personalities' which adjust the animations of certain emotes as well as running and walking animations.

I think it'd be a great addition to FFXIV.

[WhiteArchmage]

Elder Scrolls Online sort of does this. You can set 'personalities' which adjust the animations of certain emotes as well as running and walking animations.

I think it'd be a great addition to FFXIV.

I'd be down for a "personality" update for animations. Not having all members of a race be goofy, hyper, aloof, or whatever. Would be a nice form of customization.

[StriderShinryu]

While I'm not really a fan of homogenizing the races, I do think it would be nice to have more customizability within the races we currently have. I'd also like to see an expansion of the emotions and pose options we already have to not only remove the weird gender disparity but also to just allow for more character expression. Rather than having the happy mood, for example, just put a grin on our characters face it would be cool if it added a new idle pose too, or even added a "happiness" element to our other animations.

I'd also love to see combat animation modifications, particularly in the instance of graduating skills. It would be great if you could choose the Stone animation over the Glare animation for White Mage or, in a popular request, be able to choose a normal run over the Ninja run on Rogue/Ninja. Not really adding any new animations to the game but just giving us more control over which ones we actually see (and it could be kept client side if everyone using their own individual set of combat animations was too much for the server coding to handle).

[NegativeS]

I would be all for adding new, unique animations for all the races, maybe as a Personality choice as mentioned above, but homogenization of the races will just lead to more people playing cat boys.

I play Rogaedyn because I like the animations (and I must really like the animations because male Rog suffer from oversized-robe syndrome), but if I could have the animations on any race, I would probably just become another Fantasia addict.

I don't want that.

[Tsiron]

I mean, sure, but considering the devs seem to constantly be swamped with work, expecting them to make entirely new animations, unique to each race and sex, to bolster existing ones seems a tad unrealistic, which I even highlighted in the OP:

would be far less work than creating new animations from scratch

You've made your points, though, each race's idles and emotes are sacred. For some reason. I personally disagree and, besides maybe some Miqo'te emotes (the most.. cat-like ones), don't see a reason they couldn't work just as well in combination with other races. Heaven forbid female Au Ra get to behave like dignified adults