Can we please have more flexibility in height for our characters?

[Abriael]

One thing that has always bothered me quite a bit in FFXIV since day 1 of 1.0, is the slightly weird limitation in the height of characters.

I'm not a towering giant in real life, but I can't make my Midlander even close to my height, and I promise you, I don't look like a highlander.

I believe all races could benefit from a bit more flexibility in height to let people get closer to the ideal representation of themselves and what they want to portray.

And I don't mean anything extreme. I'm certainly not here to advocate that we should be able to play kid-like characters or giants.

I'd say an additional variation of 10 cm / 4 inches for all races both upward and downward from the current maximums and minimums would be a realistic ask for the development team. It would allow us a lot more freedom in representing the diversity that you can see every day in the real world, without being an extreme change.

In order to avoid gameplay issues, the shortest/tallest races like lalafell and Au Ra could only get more flexibility in one direction. I could see allowing Lalafell only to be made 10 cm taller (but not shorter), and Au Ra male only 10 cm shorter (but not taller).

Considering that literally, everything scales automatically with height (equipment, mounts, etcetera) this kind of change should, unless I'm missing something in how it works, not be a massive undertaking for the developers, and IMHO would make a lot of people happy.

PS: If you need encouragement, dear devs, I would most definitely buy some fantasias if you did this, and I'm fairly confident I wouldn't be the only one.

[ItMe]

In order to avoid gameplay issues, the shortest/tallest races like lalafell and Au Ra could only get more flexibility in one direction. I could see allowing Lalafell only to be made 10 cm taller (but not shorter), and Au Ra male only 10 cm shorter (but not taller).

There is some sound logic there and I agree it would probably be best this way... but I personally wanna be smaller ♡

[Krotoan]

Considering that literally, everything scales automatically with height (equipment, mounts, etcetera) this kind of change should, unless I'm missing something massive, not be a massive undertaking for the developers, and IMHO would make a lot of people happy.

While I'm a proponent of more options in general, I have a feeling there's more do this than shrinky dinky stretchy wetchy. Generally gear is QA'd to make sure it looks ok with most customization, as there are a LOT of pieces of gear to check, that's probably a couple weeks at least of making sure nothing looks super weird.

One is reminded of the Falcon fiasco where feet and hands were in wildly weird positions and limbs were jutting out of the mount entirely.


So .. neat and sure.. but I don't think the process is as easy as it looks at face value.

[_Pigzig]

the creation screen makes it hard to tell how big you actually are since you can't see other toons
height is a waste of my fantasias
I had to adjust my characters height and use a bunch up.
square should let me see my character next to other toons on the creation screen, but then they wouldnt get my money

[HollowedDoll]

At a certain point the animations won't scale well.

[Kolsykol]

I think that you end up compromising the racial differences pretty quickly.
The Highlanders should be taller than the Midlanders for example, it's part of what sets them apart from each other and makes them visually different.
Even if I set my Highlander to the shortest I shouldn't be shorter than the tallest Midlander ( they're basically equal ).

One thing too is that this ain't real life and these are fictional races.
Even the '' human '' races are not actually humans like us, they're Hyur and have their own distinct features and quirks.

Like uh.
The non-existent butts of Final Fantasy.
Real life people have butts, people in Final Fantasy don't unless they wear a leg piece from a different game lol.

Okay jokes aside I get the customization argument, but I still think that keeping the general difference between the races is fairly important.

[Abriael]

I think that you end up compromising the racial differences pretty quickly.
The Highlanders should be taller than the Midlanders for example, it's part of what sets them apart from each other and makes them visually different.
Even if I set my Highlander to the shortest I shouldn't be shorter than the tallest Midlander ( they're basically equal ).

One thing too is that this ain't real life and these are fictional races.
Even the '' human '' races are not actually humans like us, they're Hyur and have their own distinct features and quirks.

Like uh.
The non-existent butts of Final Fantasy.
Real life people have butts, people in Final Fantasy don't unless they wear a leg piece from a different game lol.

Okay jokes aside I get the customization argument, but I still think that keeping the general difference between the races is fairly important.

I'm very positive that highlanders and Midlanders have plenty of distinctive features to make them look different even with a bit more height variation. You could make their height absolutely identical, and it'd still be impossible to confuse them. Let's not get into the fact that they're the only race in which different clans can't be even close in height, which is a bit weird in its own right.

The same goes for the other races.

At a certain point the animations won't scale well.

And that's why you don't make massive variations. I don't think it's farfetched to say that animations would scale fine 4 inches up or down, since most are in common with races much taller/shorter already.

While I'm a proponent of more options in general, I have a feeling there's more do this than shrinky dinky stretchy wetchy. Generally gear is QA'd to make sure it looks ok with most customization, as there are a LOT of pieces of gear to check, that's probably a couple weeks at least of making sure nothing looks super weird.

One is reminded of the Falcon fiasco where feet and hands were in wildly weird positions and limbs were jutting out of the mount entirely.


So .. neat and sure.. but I don't think the process is as easy as it looks at face value.

Normally I'm not prone to underestimating the workload required for changes. But FFXIV's characters don't have crazy complex skeletons or rigs. I can almost certainly guarantee that, unless we're looking at very big scaling changes (and we arent), this would be entirely fine.

[Krotoan]

Normally I'm not prone to underestimating the workload required for changes. But FFXIV's characters don't have crazy complex skeletons or rigs. I can almost certainly guarantee that, unless we're looking at very big scaling changes (and we arent), this would be entirely fine.

I still don't think they would just adjust values and call it a day though. It'd have to run through some QC at least to make sure textures don't get warped weirdly or have gaps on at the very least the base models for different gear.

Again, not opposed to the idea, but it's probably more than a bit of work.

[Abriael]

I still don't think they would just adjust values and call it a day though. It'd have to run through some QC at least to make sure textures don't get warped weirdly or have gaps on at the very least the base models for different gear.

Again, not opposed to the idea, but it's probably more than a bit of work.

Well yeah. Obviously, it wouldn't be just "change a number, done." QA is required for every change, even the simplest. But honestly, I doubt this is the kind of change that would require a very extensive process.

[IckeDerTyp]

Yes, more options! Have my bump ^^