Are some jobs 'too feminine' in aesthetics?

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

Ah thank you -- so it is just what is normally worn by each gender I guess -- though is thinking that dresses are for women and suits for men a bad thing? I guess most people would call myself and most of JPN/Asia old fashioned or, worse, prejudiced or something for not knowing what the modern definitions and/or acceptance things should be, so sorry in advance if I offended anyone ^^

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Is it a bad thing? Mm I would say think what you want so long as you are content to let others live their lives' without your interference based upon your own preferences. I would say it is only a bad thing if due to your own expectations you tried to control or limit another persons self expression ykno? Similarly, people need to accept that not everyone has the same views as they do and not vilify people with your views! Live and let live, so long as you are not hurting someone what business is it of anyone else?

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

Ah thank you -- so it is just what is normally worn by each gender I guess -- though is thinking that dresses are for women and suits for men a bad thing? I guess most people would call myself and most of JPN/Asia old fashioned or, worse, prejudiced or something for not knowing what the modern definitions and/or acceptance things should be, so sorry in advance if I offended anyone ^^

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You definitely did not offend me, and I understand your point of view :) I think for me it hit home many years ago when the son of a friend of mine was around 5 years old. He loved pink. And when he saw a pink shirt with rainbow stars on it, he wanted it so badly and he was so happy when he got it. He went to school all proud and he was made fun of because ‘it is for girls, you’re a boy’ and got punched. He came home, took it off and never wore it again. And later on he himself said that that was for girls.

The thing is tho, it’s just a piece of fabric. Like any other piece of fabric. Pink is just a colour, like any other colour. In a way it is decidedly strange how we agree on some things being feminine or masculine. And even stranger when we can see how in the past we had different agreements on this, or even in different cultures right at this moment. There’s nothing ‘factual’ about it, even tho it gets treated as facts. And it limits personal expression in a way. Should everyone wear pink? No of course not, some dislike the colour very much :D But that should be the only reason not to.

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Originally Posted by Vrankyl

Or how about, stay with me now, we even it out and give less robes/dresses/skirts for healers and casters and more jackets and trousers like people are asking for. Which includes women! They want pants too! While ShB has been better about healer and caster gear it is still very one sided rather than balanced. This is explicitly true when it comes to the AF gear. WHM is almost always some kind of Nun or dress styled outfit. Which could look good on a male character, but unless you are a male miq'ote (And like the male viera will be able to pull it off too) it just doesn't fit you. A male Au Ra in the ShB or SB AF gear just looks ridiculous. Like straight up comical. I doubt there would be half of the complaints if these types of outfits were actually tailored to the male bodies but unfortunately many of them are not, or if they are they aren't done right for all of the male models.

Edit: Specifically talking about the WHM AF gear. The main topic is about that, but just thought I would clarify.

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I actually think Au Ra are the males that can pull 'feminine' outfits the best of all 8 races simply because of their hourglass waist/hips, which is one of the main traits that separate 'unisex' and 'women's' clothes - one is specifically tailored to highlight the curves, which most men simply don't have, and specially not races like Roegadyn or Highlander.

Also, no, people don't think that just because it's a long robe, it's the same as a dress, it's when that "robe" has a boob window, exposed shoulders or back, a corset, ribbons or frills everywhere, etc that one can't help but question if it was even made as a unisex robe, or whoever designed it only considered one sex over the other - the Edengate dress is a prime example of a set that's explicitly made for female characters. By contrast, the only healer/WHM sets I can think would classify as explicitly 'masculine' are the SB AF gear, the Shisui set, Ghost Barque, and Neo Ishgardian - all of them genderlocked anyways. Everything else is either unisex, just happens to looks better on females, or it's outright feminine.

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Originally Posted by Nishira

Should everyone wear pink? No of course not, some dislike the colour very much :D But that should be the only reason not to.

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I agree where you're coming from, but how is 'I don't like frills' different than 'I don't like pink' in that context? if I don't like pink, I can likely just dye it another color, but if I don't like frills, it's not like I can rip them off, I just deal with it or not use the item at all, which limits my options.

Yes, and I dislike it a lot. As a caster main (and male character), I wish caster and healer gear wasn't 1000 types of robes.

I also wish WHM was similar to DNC. DNC has AF sets for male and female characters and they look kinda cool, especially the EW ones. WHM always goes for the holy priestess whatever aestethic which is very annoying.

Some of the robes really looks awkward on male Roegadyn...

...Ends up using no clothes at all :)

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

I had a conversation with a friend earlier who was complaining about White Mage in Endwalker because they believe the AF is too 'dress-like' again, and that many of the animations are 'too feminine' for him - such as the huge lily for Holy 3 and the (in my opinion very cute) heart-shaped lilybell for the Lilybell level 90 skill.

This got me thinking, do people think some jobs (perhaps WHM and DNC) lean more towards certain genders as far as animations/AF gear/etc.? Not wanting to start any arguments about genders or who can wear what, etc. This is merely wondering out of curiosity from a game aesthetics standpoint ^^ I would actually tend to agree with my friend, in that I find WHM to be slightly leaning towards a traditionally feminine aesthetic.

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There are some really good Gear for WHM/BLM etc but people keep wearing horrible and disgusting casual glams, specially Sneakers+shorpants/mini skirts and jackets in a mediaeval theme MMO.

I think some jobs definitely gravitate towards being masculine or feminine themed. Not a big deal. Just kind of how the aesthetic goes with some jobs, abilities, and gear. Flowers and Fairies are very feminine, so it's going to look kind of weird to some folks if a masculine avatar is playing jobs like WHM and SCH due to the contrast. Also not a big deal.

Whither or not these jobs are "too feminine" in aesthetic just confuses me because I don't know what it means in that context. It's like asking me if the sugar is too sweet, or if the sun is too bright. It would make more sense to me to ask if these particular jobs can be made to be less feminine. In which case I would ask back, "Why?" Because that's like asking if sugar can be made less sweet, or the sun less bright. In which case I ask, "Why would you want to do that? Because then you make them into something they aren't."

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

I had a conversation with a friend earlier who was complaining about White Mage in Endwalker because they believe the AF is too 'dress-like' again, and that many of the animations are 'too feminine' for him - such as the huge lily for Holy 3 and the (in my opinion very cute) heart-shaped lilybell for the Lilybell level 90 skill.

This got me thinking, do people think some jobs (perhaps WHM and DNC) lean more towards certain genders as far as animations/AF gear/etc.? Not wanting to start any arguments about genders or who can wear what, etc. This is merely wondering out of curiosity from a game aesthetics standpoint ^^ I would actually tend to agree with my friend, in that I find WHM to be slightly leaning towards a traditionally feminine aesthetic.

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That's what annoys me about WHM too. Too many dresses as AF and the casting animations are.. meh.
But I liked the gameplay so I just ignored the existence of the AF and went on a glam hunt to find a proper glam to wear, and over time I leveled other jobs ( Including other healers ) and I only used WHM recently for some DR speedruns, otherwise my main for healing is SCH and AST is a good alternative to WHM so right now for me I have no reason to play WHM

Point is, sometimes not all jobs in the game are for everyone. What we can do is either leave them behind or try changing how they look on our characters. Otherwise not much can be done about that since everyone has their own personal preferences.

I'd agree WHM af might be too one note,
but Caster/Healer sets in general for ShB have not been feminine at all

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

I too remember the last time I went out in a full suit of armour.

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Wait, you mean you don't go out to buy bread in a full suit of well-tempered steel plate armour? It's dangerous out there!

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

I had a conversation with a friend earlier who was complaining about White Mage in Endwalker because they believe the AF is too 'dress-like' again, and that many of the animations are 'too feminine' for him - such as the huge lily for Holy 3 and the (in my opinion very cute) heart-shaped lilybell for the Lilybell level 90 skill.

This got me thinking, do people think some jobs (perhaps WHM and DNC) lean more towards certain genders as far as animations/AF gear/etc.? Not wanting to start any arguments about genders or who can wear what, etc. This is merely wondering out of curiosity from a game aesthetics standpoint ^^ I would actually tend to agree with my friend, in that I find WHM to be slightly leaning towards a traditionally feminine aesthetic.

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I personally don't see any of the jobs in the game as utterly feminine nor masculine, both in terms of AF and animations.

That being said, more varied options won't hurt as long as they're available to everyone, not just old typical "here this item looks like mini skirt on girls and as ugly pants on boys but hey it's pants".

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Robes have been a gender neutral thing for a large part of human history.

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There's a fair difference between robes alike to the Nomad or Crystarium sets... and those with the lace and ribbons, however.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

There's a fair difference between robes alike to the Nomad or Crystarium sets... and those with the lace and ribbons, however.

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It's a "all dresses are robes, but not all robes are dresses" kind of thing.

Real men don't worry about wearing ribbons and frills.

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

So much attacking of this friend for not being a fan of the more feminine aesthetic. What's wrong with y'all?

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Hmm. Designer who genderlocks class in RPG - e.g. healer female characters only - if more likely to be the... just that? Person with that sort of opinion. Feminine aesthetic < masculine/neutral aesthetic. Of course I do not have any ironclad evidence, other than we are imperfect human being with our biases and those biases colour whole bunch of stuff for us.

FFXIV community is lovely and tolerant and all that nonsense. I am not even the kind of fem!boy glammer some of my friends are, mad respect to them btw, but there is some fragile sensibilities walking around too. E.g. when it come to masculine characters showing even little bit of skin (coliseum set for DPS, republican steel speedos).

Female character bikini tank is so normal sight to us all, yet people writhe and coil in horror whenever male character of any job with exactly same amount of clothing armoring passes by?? If anything, this I find kinda banal in our community.

Some fun topical pictures:

My former static was confused, bemused and amused by my barbarian aesthetic glam. Question about shirt was made. While our AST looked like that. No one had commented on her glam.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...0442/howis.jpg

We have glamour system. It can make your character look unique and intereting, in best case scenario. Grab pictured glamour from here :)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...1629223393.png

Bikini tank male version.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...33fcc53e45.gif

Atleast Sage and Scholar have masculine designs.

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Atleast Sage and Scholar have masculine designs.

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Nothing screams more masculine than fairies, I know, right!

The thing here is peeps are a bit confused about animations, purity was always shown as something light/delicated. So that ol' thought of women are sacred and men are brutes/powerful. Peeps can't see main characters out of those stereotypes, just sidekicks have the luxury of that.

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Originally Posted by LaughingBanana

Real men don't worry about wearing ribbons and frills.

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Real men don't put too much stock into what they wear at all unless its business related. They tend to value substance over style.

Such a non issue in a game that prioritizes and is literally famous for its glamour options.

If robes aren't your thing don't wear them.

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

Some of the robes really looks awkward on male Roegadyn...

...Ends up using no clothes at all :)

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This is me... so many gd things clip on Roegadyn hence my himbo style of outfits.

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Originally Posted by Ilyrian

Such a non issue in a game that prioritizes and is literally famous for its glamour options.

If robes aren't your thing don't wear them.

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Kinda hard when 90% of healer glams are robes and incredibly feminine…

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Kinda hard when 90% of healer glams are robes and incredibly feminine…

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Robes are gender neutral.

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Robes are gender neutral.

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Right, like how the recent hairstyles are "gender neutral" or "androgynous" yet theyre incredibly feminine. These robes are totally not feminine at all!

https://i.imgur.com/ysjKuVq.jpg?1

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Robes are gender neutral.

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But they are boring when you have almost no other options, and some people don't like the look of robes period. I don't like the robes and skirts on the tank sets either, but I at least have an equal number of other options that still fit the tank role.

You are also being disingenuous, as you are well aware that in Western society long robes and dresses and skirts are considered feminine. Hell, the thread was started because of a comment from a Japanese player, so it is not just in the West. You can argue all you like about how mean old gender norms should be abolished, but you can't change the mass perception.

Tanking gear is where the healer gear should have been at. There are tons of badass coats that work perfect for healers/casters (just like those casters in syrcus wear the high allagan coat), instead of umpteenth frills and dresses. And on a different note, still no proper beard/short haircut, while we keep getting endless variants of long hair...

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

I had a conversation with a friend earlier who was complaining about White Mage in Endwalker because they believe the AF is too 'dress-like' again, and that many of the animations are 'too feminine' for him - such as the huge lily for Holy 3 and the (in my opinion very cute) heart-shaped lilybell for the Lilybell level 90 skill.

This got me thinking, do people think some jobs (perhaps WHM and DNC) lean more towards certain genders as far as animations/AF gear/etc.? Not wanting to start any arguments about genders or who can wear what, etc. This is merely wondering out of curiosity from a game aesthetics standpoint ^^ I would actually tend to agree with my friend, in that I find WHM to be slightly leaning towards a traditionally feminine aesthetic.

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I wish Viera were more feminine.

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Originally Posted by LioJen

But they are boring when you have almost no other options, and some people don't like the look of robes period. I don't like the robes and skirts on the tank sets either, but I at least have an equal number of other options that still fit the tank role.

You are also being disingenuous, as you are well aware that in Western society long robes and dresses and skirts are considered feminine. Hell, the thread was started because of a comment from a Japanese player, so it is not just in the West. You can argue all you like about how mean old gender norms should be abolished, but you can't change the mass perception.

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I'm well aware of Western societies views. I just don't care. FFXIV is not western or even modern society. Also robes and gowns were considered a very masculine thing for a while as well as high heels. I'm not trying to change a mass perception. I've also already stated that I'm very in favor of more options.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Right, like how the recent hairstyles are "gender neutral" or "androgynous" yet theyre incredibly feminine. These robes are totally not feminine at all!

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So the only part about that outfit that looks feminine to me is the open chest hole. However I know people who like that sort of thing on guys. I'm all in favor of more options as I've stated earlier. I'm just a bit peeved at people saying that robes = feminine instead of posting examples like you have. Thank you for that btw.

I do find that in general, the outfits available for magic jobs, save the RDM and BLU relic gears, fit waaay better female character. I mean, just take a quick glance at Shadowbringers Urianger for instance. A lot of the times they end up looking more like dresses than robes.

Eh.. Skirts and Robes wouldn't be so bad if they didn't feel.. samey. And alot of them just look bad imo.. But then again, I'm playing a FemRoe and... Despite how good I look ( ;D ) I can't make alot of these things look any better then a burlap sack. It'd be nice to have more metal on their armor though. Like Battle Healer kind of stuff. Why would you want you're healer to be wearing robes? Why? They can't heal if they just got cut to hell with a broadsword. Eh, I just glam over it with Warg armor, atleast that looks good.

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Originally Posted by Yma

If you think Urianger looks femme in his astrologian outfit, I don't really know what to tell you. That is literally the exact moment when Urianger suddenly becomes hot.

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Even before that for me. His first face reveal had me going..."oh he's kinda handsome", then wearing the AST AF and showing his toned biceps had me going "oh no he's hot". Then he asks us if there's anything different, or how does he look...and I just stuttered, "have you always been this hot?!".

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Unfortunately so

Casters and Healers have far too many frilly dresses, robes, coats etc. Where's the damn armour aesthetics SE? You couldn't even leave judge drace's armour in the law's orders set alone, no you just had to make the cape into another fucking skirt.

As for animations, most of the jobs are either overly masculine or feminine, or they are lifted straight from older ff games.

some jobs do nail it however like dragoon.

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Go watch "big blue dress" by Cranius. It's on YouTube. It's a wow machinema (spelling) about an awesome fire mage that's upset about having to wear a dress.

So, I'm a fella. I play a lady character. I have a L80 Dancer. I hated doing the job quests because every time I came across someone I knew from my past I always got the line; "Oh, the famed WoL is dancing for money now... That's... Cool.. >_>".

So I started ignoring the story and made my own headcanon for the job. I'm a throwing weapon specialist who uses wind magic to augment my abilities.. Like an Airbender.

So I move with the wind and use the wind to augment my weapon strikes. The colour behind the weapons is just light passing through a rippling atmosphere as my magic affects it.

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Originally Posted by Burmecia

We have glamour system. It can make your character look unique and intereting, in best case scenario. Grab pictured glamour from here :)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...1629223393.png

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Thanks for the mention – this is one of my alts. :)

So yeah. Fully armoured healer is possible, even if there isn't a huge variety of pieces to choose from. I also made a version of the same set in more healer-ish white and gold.

Someday I would like to get around to making a big compiled list of all the healer gear with pictures. I think there's more variety than people claim.

In the end, it seems like the devs take a very lazy approach when it comes to healers. Both balancing wise and gear design wise. They barely alter glams from the female version to the male version and in many cases you can tell the gear was designed purely with a female in mind. Probably doesn’t help that the main dev plays a female but :p that’s besides the point. It seems there’s always more feminine gear to go around and with the healers it’s even more prominent. Hopefully the next expansion fixes this issue but considering how detached the devs seem from their playerbase who knows.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Right, like how the recent hairstyles are "gender neutral" or "androgynous" yet theyre incredibly feminine. These robes are totally not feminine at all!

https://i.imgur.com/ysjKuVq.jpg?1

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Depends how you look at it. Focus on certain aspects sure it can look feminine. However if I said to me it gave a Greek god vibe then suddenly you see it in a different way, and actually with the right pieces accompanying it, it can look great on a male. In the end it's all about perception.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

In the end, it seems like the devs take a very lazy approach when it comes to healers. Both balancing wise and gear design wise. They barely alter glams from the female version to the male version and in many cases you can tell the gear was designed purely with a female in mind. Probably doesn’t help that the main dev plays a female but :p that’s besides the point. It seems there’s always more feminine gear to go around and with the healers it’s even more prominent. Hopefully the next expansion fixes this issue but considering how detached the devs seem from their playerbase who knows.

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In what way are the devs detached from their player-base? That's a very bold claim that doesn't seem to follow with the overall experience of the game.

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Originally Posted by Anya_Synia

Depends how you look at it. Focus on certain aspects sure it can look feminine. However if I said to me it gave a Greek god vibe then suddenly you see it in a different way, and actually with the right pieces accompanying it, it can look great on a male. In the end it's all about perception.

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If you put a pair of wings on him he would most definitely look like a Angel

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

In the end, it seems like the devs take a very lazy approach when it comes to healers. Both balancing wise and gear design wise. They barely alter glams from the female version to the male version and in many cases you can tell the gear was designed purely with a female in mind. Probably doesn’t help that the main dev plays a female but :p that’s besides the point. It seems there’s always more feminine gear to go around and with the healers it’s even more prominent. Hopefully the next expansion fixes this issue but considering how detached the devs seem from their playerbase who knows.

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I don't agree with your statement at all.

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Originally Posted by Anya_Synia

Depends how you look at it. Focus on certain aspects sure it can look feminine. However if I said to me it gave a Greek god vibe then suddenly you see it in a different way, and actually with the right pieces accompanying it, it can look great on a male. In the end it's all about perception.

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I actually saw a Roegadyn wearing this the other day combined with a face-covering helm (maybe the Swangrace one), and he looked really cool. I wouldn't have expected it to work so well.

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Originally Posted by Xirean

In what way are the devs detached from their player-base? That's a very bold claim that doesn't seem to follow with the overall experience of the game.

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It’s an overall thing, but a discussion not really suited for this thread, case and point though, they talk about being inclusive and wanting to give something to everyone yet like i’ve mentioned before, with the nier situation they gave us a purely feminine glam with no male alternative, theyve recently released androgynous hairstyles catered more to feminine tastes, we’ve gotten one male exclusive glam on mogstation in this expansion meanwhile there’s been what, 2 or 3 released for females? Theres just a constant bias that shows they’re pretty detached, and that doesn’t even go into their balancing ideas lol.

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Originally Posted by Snorky

I don't agree with your statement at all.

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I apologize if at any point i gave you the impression that i care.