Disappointment in Clothing Differences on Males and Females

This is my first time posting here, but I honestly just wanted to take to the official forums because of how immense my disappointment was when I saw the gender differences for the DNC gear in the upcoming Dawntrail expansion.

I have always loved cute clothes, like shorts or a stylish top, but I can't wear that on my DNC gear because I am a male character? I think many people agree that these differences cause a lot of sadness and anger in the community, but I don't know if Square Enix hears us...

I felt nothing but emptiness when I realized how huge the difference in the fashion was, yet again.

I was just about to make a post about this myself. I honestly had hoped they took feedback from these past years and learnt their lesson and yet... nothing. They keep using this formula of female: tons of skin showing, shorts/skirts, no pants, random slits in clothing and male: boring, flat, pants, no skin showing designs and it's honestly getting immensely boring and disappointing. This at this point isn't even about wanting to see a cute bunny boy in short shorts, but it's harming people who play female characters a lot too. I can't put my female Viera in 60% of gear just because it's too girly and frilly for her aesthetic. Also what, is it corporate 80's again where women aren't allowed to wear pants again?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPY2uBQa...g&name=900x900

That long shirt just ruins the whole silhouette, and it's not like cropped shirts for male outfits *aren't* a thing. The male Viera race gear HAS a cropped top ffs.

And this is just... no. I really am not a big fan of when they make such big changes from male to female that it looks like two separate glam sets.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPY2vREX...g&name=900x900

I really hope they let us choose between the Picto tops. This is not the Pictomancer I was excited for and I can't overstate how disappointed I was with the reveal.

This is particularly bad for situations where there is no alternative glamour to achieve the intended look!
Because the FF art team does this so often, there are no shorts for male characters to make the SCH armor look right - we cannot even glamour it ourselves to fix it, because there ARE NO alternatives. Everything is slacks or too-long shorts that will tuck into the very high boots.

Artifact armor in general is supposed to have an iconic look - it should not be changed so much, because by design there are very few things that can replicate it, so why are we deprived of it?

It does not look like finished work
This is a new job and its artifact armor looks like a sloppy, hasty edit. In fairness to the team, I think it probably was a sloppy, fast edit because so many were busy with the benchmark rush.
But in this case why was it even changed? Why take the time to make it look worse on purpose?

The response on social media has been devastating.
I haven't seen a single player even mildly content about this - most are expressing their continued disappointment with this trend.

The quoted posts in response to this reveal show how tired players are of these poor design choices specifically for male characters (also some players upset that female characters are always exposed, but mostly players with male characters upset that they do not get to enjoy any new/unique armor looks):

https://x.com/azothmyst/status/17986...1239415/quotes




I really hope SE takes heart and fixes these and also stops doing this so much in the future - especially for AF armor that there aren't often similar alternatives for.

It's been a constant pain point for players and despite the recent efforts to allow players to use both looks for previously gender-locked armor sets (which is very much appreciated), the situations where "this armor wont look like it's item icon when you wear it" is getting so much worse lately? Please stop!

The artifact armor look is supposed to be iconic, but we don't get to even have the look if we play male characters... it's so disappointing, I'm trying really hard to remember that there are other things to look forward to in Dawntrail but my character will look amazing and have nothing new to wear. I'm genuinely upset about this.

I was expecting to be disappointed by an edit similar to this (more covered, but at least with some consideration of the job's aesthetic) but we weren't even the bare minimum:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPaU01NX...png&name=small

That's why i play a lady, the glams for men worse overall.

The male top looks like a Turkish vest and reminds me of what a male bellydancer would wear, but I agree that there should be options for people to get the look they like and want. I would not be averse to seeing more male glams with skin showing, and options for female glams to cover more if they want to!

if you want to dress like a girl then just play a girl?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kikovoras

That long shirt just ruins the whole silhouette, and it's not like cropped shirts for male outfits *aren't* a thing. The male Viera race gear HAS a cropped top ffs.

And this is just... no. I really am not a big fan of when they make such big changes from male to female that it looks like two separate glam sets.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPY2vREX...g&name=900x900

---

The DNC artifacts are one of the worst examples.

The Horos set makes SENSE on the female character, as if the waist draping goes around the chest kind of connecting to the top. It just doesn't for the male version - seems like it was a big afterthought. Logically it would be just jewelry for males instead of getting a random vest.

And then comes the pants. Which is very confusing, because the female version could work for both. However the male version looks very uninteresting with the whole set BUT when you use it as a standalone item, it looks like a nice pair of gradient yoga pants... Which may make be the preference for some female characters.

Bottom line: Do NOT make vastly different gendered versions of the same item. It sucks both for men who wants to show more skin but also for girls who prefers a more covered outfit - unless is something extremely necessary like adding a bra to what would be a naked chestpiece on girls.