Latest Final Fantasy XIV Letter Speaks to Gender-Locked Races, Lack of a New Healer & More - MMORPG.

SBFord · May 2019

Latest Final Fantasy XIV Letter Speaks to Gender-Locked Races, Lack of a New Healer & More - MMORPG.com

The latest Final Fantasy XIV letter from the producer is live on the game's official forums, this time covering a pair of topics that have been generating a lot of discussion in the community: Why a healer is not being added in Shadowbringers and about the gender of Viera and Hrothgar.

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[Deleted User] · May 2019

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RedVelvette · May 2019

Yeah, I am super happy that they didn't bother giving into that child request. Thats just sick, I can't even fathom why would someone ask for that and still be considered in the right state of mind.

Aeander · May 2019

RedVelvette said:

Yeah, I am super happy that they didn't bother giving into that child request. Thats just sick, I can't even fathom why would someone ask for that and still be considered in the right state of mind.

I find it interesting that Square, a Japanese company, are the party to address ethical reasons explicitly, while a vocal minority of the community wants them. Meanwhile, other eastern MMOs just add pedo-bait intentionally while the community doesn't want them to.

Hashbrick · May 2019

I would be interested in knowing what percentage of the community asked for little boys and girls. It's gotta be small minority you'd think but big enough to be commented on by the team that's the real disturbing part.

Xasapis · May 2019

How many letters like this have we seen from mmorpg developers addressing player base concerns and requests?

marcmy · May 2019

They say they're adding the 3rd ranged dps to match 3 healers 3 casters and 3 tanks but they're adding a 4th tank so that's hardly matching. I think this is an excuse tbh. The gender locked races too. Did anyone even ask for a Roegaqo'te? Should have just made Viera male/female and that's it.

Aeander · May 2019

Arterius said:

What people wanted to play as a little kid in order to sexualize them? What the heck is wrong with people? That enough people asked for this for them to even have to talk about it is sickening to think about

Ask TERA players. Or Blade and Soul. Or every other trash Korean MMO with pedobait.

Albatroes · May 2019

Aeander said:

Arterius said:

What people wanted to play as a little kid in order to sexualize them? What the heck is wrong with people? That enough people asked for this for them to even have to talk about it is sickening to think about

Ask TERA players. Or Blade and Soul. Or every other trash Korean MMO with pedobait.

With BnS probably being the more sick one with having a no-bust/bust version of outfits for female lyns. The eastern market needs to learn a sense of morality instead of trying to make money off of literally any and everything including trying to make games into a pedophile paradise, with the logic "its okay because the race is really xx hundreds of years old" in 'lore.' As for the topic itself, lazy. Its simply just lazy and shallow for each excuse. Passion without forethought is just wasted energy.

Xasapis · May 2019

marcmy said:

They say they're adding the 3rd ranged dps to match 3 healers 3 casters and 3 tanks but they're adding a 4th tank so that's hardly matching. I think this is an excuse tbh. The gender locked races too. Did anyone even ask for a Roegaqo'te? Should have just made Viera male/female and that's it.

They are adding a 4th tank so they can split the tanks in 2 primary and 2 offtank/dps hybrids.

As for Lalafels, in FFXIV and with few exceptions, they are depicted as an evil manipulative race. The one exception is the queen of the desert based region people. Generally speaking, the Lalafel look like gnomes but act like goblins.

As for the people who are triggered by the presence of a race that looks childlike, what is wrong with you?

Kajidourden · May 2019

They can come up with a million excuses, none of them are valid. There is zero logical consistency for gender-locking other than being cheap or being lazy.

Kajidourden · May 2019

Xasapis said:

marcmy said:

They say they're adding the 3rd ranged dps to match 3 healers 3 casters and 3 tanks but they're adding a 4th tank so that's hardly matching. I think this is an excuse tbh. The gender locked races too. Did anyone even ask for a Roegaqo'te? Should have just made Viera male/female and that's it.

They are adding a 4th tank so they can split the tanks in 2 primary and 2 offtank/dps hybrids.

As for Lalafels, in FFXIV and with few exceptions, they are depicted as an evil manipulative race. The one exception is the queen of the desert based region people. Generally speaking, the Lalafel look like gnomes but act like goblins.

As for the people who are triggered by the presence of a race that looks childlike, what is wrong with you?

Yes officer.....this one right here....

Xasapis · May 2019

Kajidourden said:

Xasapis said:

marcmy said:

They say they're adding the 3rd ranged dps to match 3 healers 3 casters and 3 tanks but they're adding a 4th tank so that's hardly matching. I think this is an excuse tbh. The gender locked races too. Did anyone even ask for a Roegaqo'te? Should have just made Viera male/female and that's it.

They are adding a 4th tank so they can split the tanks in 2 primary and 2 offtank/dps hybrids.

As for Lalafels, in FFXIV and with few exceptions, they are depicted as an evil manipulative race. The one exception is the queen of the desert based region people. Generally speaking, the Lalafel look like gnomes but act like goblins.

As for the people who are triggered by the presence of a race that looks childlike, what is wrong with you?

Yes officer.....this one right here....

Imagine if you could file murder charges against people who killed others in online shooters, huh?

Saiaxis · May 2019

Kajidourden said:

They can come up with a million excuses, none of them are valid. There is zero logical consistency for gender-locking other than being cheap or being lazy.

Completely disagree here. I know of quite a few game which haven't added races for exactly the reasons they have laid out. They kinda cheated with the Au Ra since they are basically Hyur with bits added on the head and could use the Miqo'te wardrobe to compensate for the tail, but the addition of the two new races, especially the Hrothgar which may have a similar size as Roegadyn but with the additional elements pose more of a problem. If the game was based solely around race specific armour, it may be different, but considering this is essentially the fourth expansion, with the armour and weapon sets in the game that have to be adjusted, its a very valid reason.

Annwyn · May 2019

Sad about the lack of a new healer class

Xasapis · May 2019

Annwyn said:

Sad about the lack of a new healer class

I understand the reasoning behind the decision. The current trio is not in a good spot. Why add a fourth healer when in the current game we really have just two?

I'm not as eloquent in explaining the nuance reasoning, but the main thing is that the White Mage is not in a good spot, having no good utility besides his heals. He's not even more powerful than the other two, the other two were adjusted to his level, because people were not adding the Astrologian in raid groups. The bottom line is that we have three healers:

Scholar with the healing pets gimmick and his shields.
Astrologian with his buffs and the versatility of HoTs or shields
White mage with ... no real defining characteristic or reason to pick him up.

X-ranfe · May 2019

I don't like that genderlock things.

Xasapis · May 2019

X-ranfe said:

I don't like that genderlock things.

All available genders can play all available combat and crafting classes.

Kajidourden · May 2019

Saiaxis said:

Kajidourden said:

They can come up with a million excuses, none of them are valid. There is zero logical consistency for gender-locking other than being cheap or being lazy.

Completely disagree here. I know of quite a few game which haven't added races for exactly the reasons they have laid out. They kinda cheated with the Au Ra since they are basically Hyur with bits added on the head and could use the Miqo'te wardrobe to compensate for the tail, but the addition of the two new races, especially the Hrothgar which may have a similar size as Roegadyn but with the additional elements pose more of a problem. If the game was based solely around race specific armour, it may be different, but considering this is essentially the fourth expansion, with the armour and weapon sets in the game that have to be adjusted, its a very valid reason.

So in other words it's the second one....lazy, thanks for proving my point.

Tiamat64 · May 2019

Like I said in that genderlock discussion thread, gender locking tends to be a budget thing first and foremost (with lore excuses coming in after the decision's already been made)

Interesting that they're morally disturbed by and worried about the legal repercussions of children characters when like, so many other Asian companies aren't. Ugh, sexualized child character thing is one of those trends that really lowers my opinion of large chunks of humanity.

Metrobo · May 2019

There is a legit reason for genderlocking Viera as they are a race with a history from another Final Fantasy game of being only female. They would not be Viera if not for that. Now if they wanted they could name it something else and make it have two genders. I'm all for the lore gender locking of that race.

However Hrothgar is their soley created one which seems to be only because the Viera are all female. Again no problem with this from me. If they wanted to make it two genders they could just make the Hrothgar the Ronso race from Final Fantasy X, they share that animalistic look. Either way I don't believe there is a way to make everyone happy.

I'm usually against gender locked classes and races in MMO's unless there is a clear and already established reason, like for the Viera. As for the Hrothgar I still think its cool despite gender locking. Doesn't really bother me, new race, new established history. Give it a chance to see why they are only male or if it will be brought up.

I look forward to seeing the eventual Tony the Tiger name on a Hrothgar when Shadowbringers release.

MrJatobi · May 2019

Metrobo said:

There is a legit reason for genderlocking Viera as they are a race with a history from another Final Fantasy game of being only female. They would not be Viera if not for that. Now if they wanted they could name it something else and make it have two genders. I'm all for the lore gender locking of that race.

However Hrothgar is their soley created one which seems to be only because the Viera are all female. Again no problem with this from me. If they wanted to make it two genders they could just make the Hrothgar the Ronso race from Final Fantasy X, they share that animalistic look. Either way I don't believe there is a way to make everyone happy.

I'm usually against gender locked classes and races in MMO's unless there is a clear and already established reason, like for the Viera. As for the Hrothgar I still think its cool despite gender locking. Doesn't really bother me, new race, new established history. Give it a chance to see why they are only male or if it will be brought up.

I look forward to seeing the eventual Tony the Tiger name on a Hrothgar when Shadowbringers release.

Based on Lore alone, there are both Male and Female Viera. To say that just because one game only portrayed Female Viera isn't enough to justify gender locking a race. Lore specifically states that there are also Males.

Let's look at Miqo'te for a moment. These were not Lore prior to FFXIV. Instead, they were similar to Mithra from FFXI Online. The lore states that Females are more common, and Males were a commodity as they were rare, and thus you can only play as a female.

They took inspiration from FFXI's Mithra to make the Miqo'te, and they also gender locked it. After a backlash, they removed that limitation.

All you need to do is take a step back to 2013 when FFXIV originally launched with two gender locked races. It didn't sit well with fans. When ARR was released, those limitations were removed.

Their whole argument behind gender locking is because it would have taken too much time to properly make the aesthetics of equipment for each gender.

That's a rather shallow reason to me.

Tiamat64 · May 2019

Metrobo said:

There is a legit reason for genderlocking Viera as they are a race with a history from another Final Fantasy game of being only female. They would not be Viera if not for that. Now if they wanted they could name it something else and make it have two genders. I'm all for the lore gender locking of that race.

Male Vierra canonically exist but don't show themselves and are kept hidden away. If I recall correctly, the FFXIV designers said they were aware that male Vierra existed, but didn't want to create them for FFXIV because they felt it wasn't their place to be the ones to make the first male Vierra designs for a game that isn't even canon to Ivalice.

But yea, the reason this interview in particular gives is budget and resource reasons. I imagine the above was at least a small factor though too.

Kajidourden · May 2019

MrJatobi said:

Metrobo said:

There is a legit reason for genderlocking Viera as they are a race with a history from another Final Fantasy game of being only female. They would not be Viera if not for that. Now if they wanted they could name it something else and make it have two genders. I'm all for the lore gender locking of that race.

However Hrothgar is their soley created one which seems to be only because the Viera are all female. Again no problem with this from me. If they wanted to make it two genders they could just make the Hrothgar the Ronso race from Final Fantasy X, they share that animalistic look. Either way I don't believe there is a way to make everyone happy.

I'm usually against gender locked classes and races in MMO's unless there is a clear and already established reason, like for the Viera. As for the Hrothgar I still think its cool despite gender locking. Doesn't really bother me, new race, new established history. Give it a chance to see why they are only male or if it will be brought up.

I look forward to seeing the eventual Tony the Tiger name on a Hrothgar when Shadowbringers release.

Based on Lore alone, there are both Male and Female Viera. To say that just because one game only portrayed Female Viera isn't enough to justify gender locking a race. Lore specifically states that there are also Males.

Let's look at Miqo'te for a moment. These were not Lore prior to FFXIV. Instead, they were similar to Mithra from FFXI Online. The lore states that Females are more common, and Males were a commodity as they were rare, and thus you can only play as a female.

They took inspiration from FFXI's Mithra to make the Miqo'te, and they also gender locked it. After a backlash, they removed that limitation.

All you need to do is take a step back to 2013 when FFXIV originally launched with two gender locked races. It didn't sit well with fans. When ARR was released, those limitations were removed.

Their whole argument behind gender locking is because it would have taken too much time to properly make the aesthetics of equipment for each gender.

That's a rather shallow reason to me.

As previously stated, bullshit justification used to save money/time.

Tiamat64 · May 2019

Kajidourden said:

MrJatobi said:

Metrobo said:

There is a legit reason for genderlocking Viera as they are a race with a history from another Final Fantasy game of being only female. They would not be Viera if not for that. Now if they wanted they could name it something else and make it have two genders. I'm all for the lore gender locking of that race.

However Hrothgar is their soley created one which seems to be only because the Viera are all female. Again no problem with this from me. If they wanted to make it two genders they could just make the Hrothgar the Ronso race from Final Fantasy X, they share that animalistic look. Either way I don't believe there is a way to make everyone happy.

I'm usually against gender locked classes and races in MMO's unless there is a clear and already established reason, like for the Viera. As for the Hrothgar I still think its cool despite gender locking. Doesn't really bother me, new race, new established history. Give it a chance to see why they are only male or if it will be brought up.

I look forward to seeing the eventual Tony the Tiger name on a Hrothgar when Shadowbringers release.

Based on Lore alone, there are both Male and Female Viera. To say that just because one game only portrayed Female Viera isn't enough to justify gender locking a race. Lore specifically states that there are also Males.

Let's look at Miqo'te for a moment. These were not Lore prior to FFXIV. Instead, they were similar to Mithra from FFXI Online. The lore states that Females are more common, and Males were a commodity as they were rare, and thus you can only play as a female.

They took inspiration from FFXI's Mithra to make the Miqo'te, and they also gender locked it. After a backlash, they removed that limitation.

All you need to do is take a step back to 2013 when FFXIV originally launched with two gender locked races. It didn't sit well with fans. When ARR was released, those limitations were removed.

Their whole argument behind gender locking is because it would have taken too much time to properly make the aesthetics of equipment for each gender.

That's a rather shallow reason to me.

As previously stated, bullshit justification used to save money/time.

It was their (possibly bullshit) justification, if I recall correctly, in their first interview on the matter (again, I might be misremembering). This interview specifically (and likely more honestly) says it was a budget/money/time thing.

Which is how it almost always is. Many people keep saying "Genderlocking is okay if there's a good lore reason for it!" but the actual truth is that BUSINESSES tend to come up with a "let's BS up a lore reason for this!" only long after they've already said and decided "We don't have or want to spend time and money on this."

Albatroes · May 2019

parrotpholk said:

MrJatobi said:

Metrobo said:

There is a legit reason for genderlocking Viera as they are a race with a history from another Final Fantasy game of being only female. They would not be Viera if not for that. Now if they wanted they could name it something else and make it have two genders. I'm all for the lore gender locking of that race.

However Hrothgar is their soley created one which seems to be only because the Viera are all female. Again no problem with this from me. If they wanted to make it two genders they could just make the Hrothgar the Ronso race from Final Fantasy X, they share that animalistic look. Either way I don't believe there is a way to make everyone happy.

I'm usually against gender locked classes and races in MMO's unless there is a clear and already established reason, like for the Viera. As for the Hrothgar I still think its cool despite gender locking. Doesn't really bother me, new race, new established history. Give it a chance to see why they are only male or if it will be brought up.

I look forward to seeing the eventual Tony the Tiger name on a Hrothgar when Shadowbringers release.

Based on Lore alone, there are both Male and Female Viera. To say that just because one game only portrayed Female Viera isn't enough to justify gender locking a race. Lore specifically states that there are also Males.

Let's look at Miqo'te for a moment. These were not Lore prior to FFXIV. Instead, they were similar to Mithra from FFXI Online. The lore states that Females are more common, and Males were a commodity as they were rare, and thus you can only play as a female.

They took inspiration from FFXI's Mithra to make the Miqo'te, and they also gender locked it. After a backlash, they removed that limitation.

All you need to do is take a step back to 2013 when FFXIV originally launched with two gender locked races. It didn't sit well with fans. When ARR was released, those limitations were removed.

Their whole argument behind gender locking is because it would have taken too much time to properly make the aesthetics of equipment for each gender.

That's a rather shallow reason to me.

They were also trying to get people back into the game back then and likely had a bigger budget and more time.

The only people who care about male bunnies are...ok not going there but still people just let it go as that annoying disney song says.

You really dont know the FFXIV community if you dont think there's a large portion of the community that cares for male bunnies. Educate yourself by looking through the forums for the male bunny outfit thread sometime last year-ish. People wanting gender-neutral outfits is akin to cosmetics for lolis in games like BnS/Tera/any korean~chinese game. Couple this all with how lazy the hrothgar were (essentially just being a roe with a lion head), which honestly wouldn't have suffered so much blow back if they just used a roe female body with a lioness head. One thing I am myff'd about is why people aren't outraged that you dont get a free fantasia in the special edition like you got with heavensward when they introduced au'ra but I guess people like throwing money at SE.

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