New race in Stormblood? - Speculation and Discussion

[Zyrusticae]

Oh, just saw this post on the official forums.

 

Race

- No confirmation that we get one at all

- Viera almost became a playable race in 3.0

- The Lorebook comes with a Hummingway (also the codename of an Ala Mhigan spy)

- Beast tribes won't be playable for lore reasons, inhuman races for technical reasons, and not-cute races because japanese don't like em.

 

That last line is particularly disappointing, but also why, if we ever got a new race, I'd want one that occupies the niche in-between Miqo'te and Lalafell. Because, well, that's the closest thing we'd get to something I'd actually want to play that is also likely to be popular with the Japanese audience.

 

Really annoys me that they're completely unwilling to consider anything that is aimed at non-Japanese audiences, but oh well, that's business for yas.

 

That being said, I am still hoping they skip new races this time and, indeed, expand upon the character creation options for what we already have as well.

 

Multiple tattoos, muscle slider for everybody, certain features no longer being tied to face (like Miqo facial markings and Au Ra horns), maybe some additional body sliders (like a generic weight slider, for example), more face types, so on and so forth. I have no idea how their system is set up and what would create a greater workload for them, so I'm just spitting stuff out there.

 

There's a lot of potential for improvement. Hopefully they throw us a bone.

[Enla]

Not going to lie, I'd rather they skip any new race entirely this time as well. Especially since we haven't had the time to acclimate to a new race quite like we were able to with Yugiri and the Au Ra pre-HW. Of course past the Garlean wall is a mystery to most Eorzeans so they very well could explain it away in those terms, but it just doesn't feel right at this late of a juncture.

 

Plus I'm not the biggest fan of Viera and that seems to be what we'll be getting next if anything at all. I won't be upset if they are added as I know a lot of people are looking forward to them, but with how the teams changed the female Au Ra designs to be more 'cutesy' I'd be severely worried about them doing the same. Even though Viera is a pre-existing race.

[Steel Wolf]

Before Heavensward came out, lots of new gear for 3.0, and lots of new tier gear for 2.4-2.5 and so on... How is that different?

 

Maths.

 

The amount of gear from launch to 3.0/HW is < the amount of gear from launch to 3.0/Hw to 3.x to 4.0/SB.

[Kellach Woods]

I'd be more down with introducing a third clan before a new race.

[Gideon Aryeh]

 

Kitsune pls

[Haven's Fox]

I'd rather have them dump more into the customisation of the characters instead of another race.

[Nodem]

A lot of people seem to think that as soon as they cut off PS3 support the game will drastically improve overnight and every feature people imagine wasn't added because of PS3 players will suddenly appear. More likely is that we may see some nicer QoL changes like larger inventory and more housing.. but not much else.

 

S-E still has to worry about lower end PCs or they risk losing a big chunk of players, so they're not gonna suddenly ramp things up to 11 like some people believe.

 

They're raising the minimum specs required for the windows version of FFXIV when Stormblood is released.

 

 

 

I agree with some of the others here... Giving us more customization options would be great. Separating horns from faces for Au Ra please! BUT... I don't think I'd mind if they gave us a new race, long as it was introduced in a good way.

[Valence]

Problem is not the RAM. RAM is almost irrelevant as long as you can launch the game without exploding your physical memory and not go over using the system swap.

 

Problem will always be video memory, which directly contains graphical 2D and 3D drawcall assets. And on low end machines, its... well. Low. Maybe not that low though, which is an improvement. All depends how far they are ready to go with graphic memory usage.

Well, I mean, at 256MB system and video you're practically guaranteed to go over-budget unless you take drastic measures to prevent that scenario (and, y'know, this is a modern MMORPG, so I'd bet the PS3 did so on a regular basis). Those measures are (thankfully) no longer necessary. Even integrated graphics these days have a much, much better memory budget even as they pull from system memory to do so.

 

Operating on the assumption of gigabytes being available as opposed to a few hundred megabytes is obviously going to give them some more room to breathe. You would expect that, at least.

 

At any rate, I refuse to be less optimistic about this scenario. I'm freakin' happy they dropped support for that ancient hardware and absolutely no one can convince that that isn't a very good thing for the game.

 

I'm certainly impressed they manage to launch a game such as FFXIV with so low memory constraints.

 

What I mean is that the physical memory problem will be solved and will probably be a big chunk of fresh air to remove all the silly constraints and limits that are so infuriating ingame (inventory room, housing, etc).

 

But, we have to keep in mind that the lower end graphic cards are still stuck with specs like 512Mb of graphic memory. Granted, it's double the size of the PS3 yeah, but it's... very low compared to today standards, thus why I'm curious to see how high they are willing to go in that direction.

[Valence]

Before Heavensward came out, lots of new gear for 3.0, and lots of new tier gear for 2.4-2.5 and so on... How is that different?

 

Maths.

 

The amount of gear from launch to 3.0/HW is < the amount of gear from launch to 3.0/Hw to 3.x to 4.0/SB.

 

I don't see how?

[Jin]

My guess would be a third variant of the hyur race called "New Imperial"

 

Since Ala Mhigo has been under imperial occupation for over 20 years now, we shouldn't be surprised to see Eorzean born Imperials.

[Kage]

Before Heavensward came out, lots of new gear for 3.0, and lots of new tier gear for 2.4-2.5 and so on... How is that different?

 

Maths.

 

The amount of gear from launch to 3.0/HW is < the amount of gear from launch to 3.0/Hw to 3.x to 4.0/SB.

 

I don't see how?

 

Odin had an extra set ish but there wasnt really a Diadem equivalent or (if counting weapons) palace of the dead

[Zyrusticae]

I'm certainly impressed they manage to launch a game such as FFXIV with so low memory constraints.

 

What I mean is that the physical memory problem will be solved and will probably be a big chunk of fresh air to remove all the silly constraints and limits that are so infuriating ingame (inventory room, housing, etc).

 

But, we have to keep in mind that the lower end graphic cards are still stuck with specs like 512Mb of graphic memory. Granted, it's double the size of the PS3 yeah, but it's... very low compared to today standards, thus why I'm curious to see how high they are willing to go in that direction.

They are raising the minimum specs, so they probably won't even be supporting 512MB graphic cards (which, by the way, are nearly as old as the PS3 itself at this point). They did note that people should be upgrading to 64-bit hardware, so that's an interesting point and probably indicative of where things are going.

 

Speaking of video memory, bandwidth is proooobably more important and relevant for FFXIV than simply having a lot of it. There's not a whole lot of reason to have 2GB of memory if the bandwidth is too low to saturate it all. Personally, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect players to have hardware that's been released in the past five years (which is a bigger window than the release of the PS4). That's just me, tho. I don't know what the exact specs are going to be yet. Will be interesting to find out when they do release them.

[Fusoya2310]

Yes definitely happy about PS3 support being dropped. The changes coming won't be extreme, nor will they be quick to come. Things will happen slowly, one of the first things is the change to the battle system which Yoshi did mention, though not how it will be done. Hopefully the limit breaks become personal, as pretty much every MMO everyone has their personal thing, and that's how it was in XI anyway with the two hour. Part of the battle system change is simplifying some things which is definitely for newer/casual players. Of course we'll get the little graphical boost, and quality of life stuff, like more inventory I do know he has so much he wants to do for this game, and I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.

 

As far as new race goes, I don't mind as long as its presented well, and not just boom new race. This of course will make them money as people buy fantasia potions.. Looking at the artwork of the title banner, there's some Hell Boy looking dude off to the right.. He kinda looks like some sort of beastman lol, who knows.. I actually don't really care much for a new race, and would rather like to see more character creation options. Like opening up all of the facial hair, and hairstyles along with new ones, and... Please give the male Highlanders damn eyebrow options.

[Raeje]

Character customization. Lets throw in lots more of that. LOTS.

Races are nice, but ultimately they're all slightly different versions of humans. Slightly. None of them are ever crazy different, like playable moogle races, or anything like that, and to be honest, I don't really expect that from SE. 

I do, however want to be able to make a raging alcoholic town crier who wasted his life, and is now searching for his of being in the maelstrom at the bottom of an empty bottle, scratching his balding head, while hoping someday he may be able to afford clothes that fit his gargantuan gut.

[Suko'to]

I'd be all for either an Avian type or Aquatic type race, to be honest. I don't know if there's anything notable in the FF world that follows that archetype, but I think it'd be neat to implement.

[Skullcrusher]

Could we not just get beard options for existing races instead? I would like that. Currently, only Roe and Highlanders can have a decent beard and that's on ONE face option. The rest is funny moustaches and awful chin straps.

 

Please Square, allow us to have beard. It'll be optional, you won't instantly lose your Japanese audience because of it; I swear. Similarly, another large race like Roegadyn would be 100% 0K in my books.

[Shofie]

It's always possible, but I'm suspecting they won't this time around. Au ra are apparently one of the least popular (played) races in the game across all servers, and that's a lot of resources and time to develop something that ultimately people just weren't very excited for.

 

If they do ever add Viera, I hope we get tall Amazonian-like ladies, and petite-duders, just because it'd be a nice change of pace.

[Edda]

Please no new races. Given how the Au Ra (who are nothing more than dis-proportioned reptilian miqo'te) were handled, or rather... how they weren't handled, why would anyone want this? Zero relevance in their own expansion? What a joke. But then, would the opposite be better - an expansion dedicated to a new race, their lore and lands? Maybe, but not for 4.0. I'd rather the focus be on Ala Mhigo, not some human-looking race with random features tacked onto their models.

 

Garleans get a free pass though, adding them in as a playable race might actually make some sense depending on how 4.0's story progresses. Not to mention they have the added bonus of already existing and having more than a page's worth of lore. And as much as I like Viera, if they were added to the game their presence would only serve to remind me that there will never be an Ivalice Online, so no thank you.

[Valence]

Please, no non-human race / playable beast tribes. I wish that game to remain as far as possible from WoW.

[Kilieit]

They won't do playable beast tribes or similar, because - as I recall from various interview answers on the subject - the JP audience doesn't like it, and because it presents too much difficulty/takes too many resources when preparing gear/hairstyles on a par with the rest of the existing races.

 

I really don't think WoW should be considered to have the monopoly on distinctive race designs, though.

[Daias]

I hope for no new race in this expansion but I would like to see the character creator to be improved like adding more tail shapes to au ra and miqo'te, scars and beards for every race and that kind of stuff.

[Branson Thorne]

Also hoping aboard the customization train. I'd much rather a ton of facial hair, hairstyles, body tattoos, new tails, new face shapes. Just a complete new set of everything!

 

Also, can we please get some middle aged looking faces? Tired of looking like a 15yr old!

[Altitis Acquired]

More customization options to the current races are always welcome. ^^

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Yoshi-P confirmed there would not be a new race for 4.0, but that they would maybe think about it for 5.0. Hopefully this means they're considering more customization for 4.0, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up given speculation on how their server architecture and character data packets are handled.

 

14. If they were to add a new race, it might be in 5.0

F: It was announced that the level cap is going to be risen to level 70. Will the new players have to finish the scenario of 3.x in order to continue with their adventures?

 

Y: Basically, yes. The problem is if we will implement the jump potion to skip the scenario. If we don’t, then the requirement will be that they will need to clear the scenario first.

 

F: The story will continue after revealing all of the secrets in Ishgard?

 

Y: The story will continue from the 3.x series. You aren’t mistaking there. We plan on making the story so that the player would want to see what’s coming up next as soon as possible.

 

F: Basically, 3.5 is the connector between Stormblood and 3.4?

 

Y: That’s right. You will be able to connect many things with today’s presentations, and a lot of questions will pop in, as well.

 

F: Do Stormblood maps have the Z coordinate, too?

 

Y: You can enjoy flying, yes.。

 

F: Do you plan on making the areas around the three main cities available to flying?

 

Y: We don’t have any plans to implement flying there. The reason is that we don’t have the budget to create content for that. We could fill the holes and only make it available for flying… I do understand that it would be much easier if you could do Beastmen dailies through flying (laugh). But, having only flying and having no content for it is a bit of a problem. It would be better if we used the big budget it would take into making new areas, rather than just making flying available.

 

F: Will there be any other means of transportation, other than flying?

 

Y: I won’t only limit myself to the types of transportation, but we do plan on bringing in new experiences, so please wait for further updates.

 

F: When looking at the FF series, usually using boats comes before flying. Flying is already implemented into the game. Are we going to be able to dive anytime soon?

 

Y: Not only are the graphics beautiful, but we do have swimsuits as well…. It would be nice if we could dive. (laugh)

 

F: You didn’t announce any new races this time. Is the usage of Au’Ra as you predicted?

 

Y: Since it is a race that was released at a later time, I think it is used in a decent rate. We also noticed that there are people who change their race with a phantasia without much hesitation… Maybe they have a lot of sense for fashion. It is not as if they don’t have a sense of roleplay, but rather a way to show love towards their characters. For example, if they were a Lallafel, they would act like one, or if they were an Au’Ra, they would pick clothes that suit the race. An old player like me has a different way in showing love towards my character, so it was quite refreshing to see that. So I thought that it might’ve been good to implement a new race just for that sake.

 

F: What about Beatmen Tribes?

 

Y: There will be new types.

 

F: Will you implement new areas that are not in the Ala Mhigan region, for example, north of Ishgard.

 

Y: I’ve no idea. (laugh)

 

F: I’m also wondering if we will ever go to other continents, outside of Eorzia, for example Ilsabard that connects to the Ala Mhigan territory.

 

Y: Whatever the case be, this time the main theme will be liberation of Ala Mhigo, like I said earlier. I want you to do speculate. But, I personally don’t like to follow a line… That’s all I can say for now.

 

http://gamerescape.com/2016/11/15/famitsu-sits-down-with-naoki-yoshida-at-fan-festival/

 

[Delilah Scythewood]

I'm still on the bun-bun bandwagon from my FF12 days.