The 7.3 Armour preview is offensive

[This has already been brought up on the General forums but I feel its important to be mentioned here aswell]

As said in the title the previewed armours for the 7.3 dungeon showcases armours with blatant influences comparable to the colonising forces that attacked the America's centuries ago

Especially after all the fiasco's with wrongly depicted cultures before you'd think they'd avoid doing this again. Most of the future sets seem fine(someone more knowledgeable than me may correct me-) but two of the sets appear to have strong influence from European armours of the 1500s? Particularly spanish and french influence which would be fine in another setting but- in a Latin American and SEA influenced context can be extremely insensitive considering the history behind those forces and what they did to those regions

Some potential alterations to the sets to lessen this invocation of historical genocides of the cultures we're representing so we don't accidentally put fascistic themes into our heroes' wardrobe. With better future consideration behind the contexts of such influences

Bumping this since it's in the items section. The conquistador set is wildly inappropriate to release for this expansion.

Bumping this as well! For the devs reading this, here is the original thread so you can see the uproar behind the issues!

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...disappointment

Hello! Also bumping this since it is in the items section.

Also here to offer a solution.

The easiest would be to give us a recolor of a gearset from a previous dungeon (or a dyable version... I am a 100% sure people would enjoy a dyable version of the Yuweyawata Field Station gear)

The second might take a little longer, but shouldn't be a problem. Remove some parts of the new gear. The helmet, some armor pieces. Im not sure what you could do for the aiming set.. changing the pattern of the tabard maybe? It's only a few verticles!

Hopefully this will be fixed when 7.3 is released.

It's definitely fixable, it's just gonna take a bit. But I don't trust them to do anything; the New World set is still in the game, after all.

Bumping this thread as well. I mentioned this in the general thread: I think it's in very bad taste to have outfits inspired by conquistadores in Dawntrail of all expansions. It makes me question the integrity of the dev team and their promises to "do better" and utilize sensitivity readers. Why evoke the image of colonizers in the expansion inspired by the Americas pre-contact?

I haven't really considered canceling my sub before but this might be the last straw for me. This will alienate a lot of players.

But to talk about potential solutions, the easiest would be to introduce a recolor or dyeable version of past gear (the Yuweyawata Field Station gear, for example) to replace this new set.

It's likely too late to edit certain elements of the set we've seen screen shots of. But if it's a potential option: the helmets of the armored gear and the frontal fabric on the gear with the big hats are the elements that evoke the look of a conquistador the most, in my opinion. Changing the helmets to a tiara or hair clip and removing that fabric would do a lot to lessen the resemblance to a conquistador outfit.

Bumping this. As I said in the other thread, even as someone who's not part of the culture in question, the serious problem with these gearsets is BLATANTLY obvious and needs to be addressed.

bumping this thread as well - as I said in the general thread, remarkably disappointing design choices. even an incredibly quick fix to this would be better than actually using the design choices shown.

Bumping this thread as well with a disclaimer for the inevitably literacy-challenged that may come to troll here: we know it isn't entirely accurate. The semblance is still there. It is still deeply concerning.

Replying to co-sign all this

Agree that this set is incredibly inappropriate; adding gear inspired by the colonizers of many of the cultures drawn from for Dawntrail is cruel and disrespectful. The gearsets really should be replaced with a palette-swap or dye-able version of existing gear.

It's extremely tone deaf and insulting to players.
The fact you can tell at a glance what the inspiration was really must mean that no sensitivity experts were consulted! I really hope they listen to us and redo that armor, theres nothing good to come from alienating and hurting your player base.

bumping to show my support

The gearset is offensive and the developers of FFXIV need to change the designs before release. They should absolutely know better and it is alarming to see them releasing a set based around conquistadors in a region based off of the indigenous peoples of South America. Just extremely disgusting behavior.

Bumping this the same way others are, and including my post from the General thread for proper visibility in the correct category.
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I'm frankly just letting my sub run out and not coming back at this point. I'm latino, many of my friends are either indigenous or latino (if not both!) and we were all cautiously hopeful for Dawntrail after promises from the development team to take cultural sensitivity further into account after past mistakes. We hardly get to see our cultures represented in any good faith without egregious stereotyping and fetishization, so we hoped this expac would be a chance to see what that could look like after proper research and due dilligence.

Everything after the first half of Dawntrail has been a letdown on that front, but the irresponsibility of the gear sets are the final nail in the coffin. Seeing conquistador uniforms side-by-side with indigenous patterning and fabrics as if somehow these are the same culture on the same side of history has been the last bit that finally sets in "wow, they bothered to /lie/ about caring."

I'm not new to video games or media. I wasn't born yesterday. I know no one cares to represent peoples whose cultures have been obliterated by imperialism and slavery, not when the ones putting us in their games are to this day directly benefitting from the result of those attrocities. If we don't make anything ourselves, no one is going to care to see our lives the way we do. Whatever. That's not good and I want change, but I can stomach what I have to for some entertainment after a long day of working a job where my life already doesn't matter.

What makes the difference is transparency and honesty. I don't want companies to feed me lies about caring just to not follow it up. I don't want the false hope that something will be different, I want /real/ hope. I want a backbone and commitment from a team that claims to care. If you don't, then don't say you do! But if CBU3 or anyone else is actually sincere about wanting to enrich the world of FFXIV with the cultural reality of the diverse players that have supported the game to become what it is today, I would like to see actual sensitivity going forward about what they're really putting in their game.

I don't know how realistic it is to get this newest armor set changed with the patch release in a few weeks and the limited resources and budget this game already gets. But the heart of the matter is, unless something changes for the attitude they take with development to match the attitude they tell us they have, I'm not coming back.

This is a very longwinded essay but this has happened so much more since DT release, /after/ they said they'd do better, that I felt it important to express here.

Bumping this as well! I'm not part of people affected by this, but the few sets that represent conquistadors made me recoil and feel extremely weirded out. Also, including Christian imagery on the one blue set has me feeling weird too. Please redesign, remove those parts, or replace the sets with dyeable gear from Yuweyawata Field Station until you fix these gear sets.

Hi. Indigenous woman here. Echoing all sentiments here, everyone has already said anything I wish to say and with greater articulation. Do better Square Enix.

Bumping this to show my support.

Echoing others in this thread that this is extremely tone-deaf and racist. Please exclude this or redesign this gear.

Bumping this because this is important and needs to be addressed! SE can't promise to do better and then release something like this, it's hurtful and discrespectful.

Also bumping this and agreeing with having a dyeable previous dungeon set instead!

I'd much rather have a dyeable version of a recent gearset than this gear. It was a mistake to not have a culture sensitivity specialist involved in the design, and I hope SE acknowledges this.

bumping; i agree with all that has been said. as a quick fix to it, may i suggest making the dungeon gear just be a dyeable version of the yuweyawata gear that has already been released? a whole lot better than the placement of this particular set in the game :,)

much has already been said about this so to avoid repetitiveness i will make this short. the insensitivity and lack of care is very evident in this gearset, and frankly it is disappointing to see. i hope with this thread and the other one in general discussions, a proper change will be implemented, perhaps a recolour of previous gearsets as others have mentioned. and it doesn't stop here, square enix needs to do better in the future as well, these mistakes cannot be repeated.

Bumping this to show support.

Bumping this as well. This set is beyond insensitive. Give us dyable versions of Yuweyawata's instead.

I've spoken my thoughts on this set and my own lived experience as a Latin-American person from a colonized country in the general thread on this attire, so I'll be bumping this and wishing that those of you who see this also go over there and read the thoughts of people actually affected by this.

And I'll also bring up how harmful the stereotypes portrayed in the preview picture for the 7.3 gear are, not just from the design but from the deliberate choice to place the casters and healers in vaguely native attire next to Conquistador-inspired armor which plays into harmful anti-native stereotypes.

I would accept a recolor of the Yuweyawata Field Station gear as a replacement for this, but knowing that SE/CBU3 has yet to remove other insensitive/outright racist pieces of clothing, I don't know that they'll do it. Still, visibility matters and these discussions need to be had, and this company needs to do better and do right by the people it is actively appropriating from and harming in its perpetuation of harmful, racist stereotypes and imagery.

Bumping for support

I feel like it's not enough to comment that I'm simply bumping a post so I'll add my two cents in. As an indigenous latin american person I am deeply offended by these gear sets. To put these outfits clearly inspired by Juan Ponce de León the conquistador next to the native designs shows SE's deteriorating care for the playerbase and people that inspired their latest expansion.

The development team has reminded us with sincerety that there is no escape for us. That at the end of the day, the most exciting thing to make content about is brisk reminders of the historical suffering minorities face. I trusted SE with my money and paid for my experience with them so far, but I won't anymore. I will not be reinstating my subscription to this game.

Their sensitivity reader should be fired. All we wanted was dyable yuwetawata field station gear. SE does not even abide by their own published design philosophy: https://imgur.com/6aMySFj

Shame on you.

Adding my support for this gear set to be revisited. I want FFXIV to be a place where indigenous people feel welcome and respected.

Adding my voice to bump this. And agreeing for having a previous gear in dyeable version as a quick solution instead. Because this need to be addressed!

Bumping and essentially repeating what I said in the general forum, but: It’s very disappointing to see from a company who constantly claims that they’re going to be “doing better” going forward. Square’s history with sets like the New World and the unauthorized Sámi gear is bad enough, and I hate to see them repeating it.

Giving my two cents here, I am one of the many latinos upset by the newest gear presented for patch 7.3. The inspiration of Spanish and French armor used by people who perpetrated violent colonization against North and South American peoples is incredibly disappointing.

It is correct that it is not an exact 1:1 of either Spanish or French armor, and more a blend of the two, but the fact that this many people can look at it and immediately know where the inspiration comes from is enough.

As stated in one of the Encyclopaedia Eorzeas:

"Secondly, we can’t use anything that has real-world religious or cultural connotations. If we want to make something that draws from religious imagery, ethnic clothing, and so on, it needs to be significantly altered. FINAL FANTASY XIV is played all around the world, and just because something is allowed in Japan doesn’t necessarily mean it can be used in other countries, so we pay close attention to this."

Why, then, does this gear include a clear inspiration to armor used during a period of violent colonization towards those native to the Americas?

The FFXIV team had the wherewithal to be so immensely careful about the visual portrayal of the Garleans; knowing where to take influence without being offensive. Realizing which military uniforms to not use as a stepping point for the portrayal of an oppressive imperial force. How did we go from that careful nature to this blatant disregard for the history of the Americas?

This is incredibly disappointing to me, who has been playing this game since 1.0. I urge the dev team to rethink their inclusion of materials like this and to return to your own design mission statement.

I commented in the earlier thread, bumping this thread up and adding my comment from that thread to this new one in the gear section. "In an expansion that was told to have a cultural consultant, it's a very bad choice to make gear that, to this day, resembles a known symbol of hate and eradication of the Mesoamerican peoples of real life. Dawntrail is inspired by what these cultures have created, for the game to take from these people and then celebrate the symbols of their oppression is very disappointing. Even if it is done because of ignorance, it sends a hostile image to people from marginalized groups. I do not want the money that I have payed from my sub to go to fund a message of hostility. Please alter the gearsets to resemble the conquistador aesthetic less; if it's impossible for 7.3, patch it in."

given the historical context of the inspiration for this gear set and what that history means for the regions that directly inspired dawntrail, i believe the 7.3 dungeon gear set is inappropriate and should not be released. i agree with the suggestion to replace the 7.3 gear set with a dyeable version of the yuweyawata gear set instead.

In a vacuum these sets wouldn't be a problem, but because this expansion is explicitly about the Americas and South East Asia they are horrifyingly offensive. I don't believe the design team did it maliciously but it shows serious lack of care to add sets of the literal colonisers and imperial oppressors of the lands represented in Dawntrail. It would have been much better to have either more FF9 themed sets or native inspired ones. Save the Spanish/Portuguese conquistador stuff for back in Limsa, maybe a PVP set.

bumping this~
+ repeating what i have said in the other thread: tone-deaf, ignorant, and tasteless!

Just a really bad idea. These sets could be easily salvaged with different hats, but evoking the imagery of conquistadors in a latam expansion just feels kind of ghoulish.

The "Mystical Native" stereotype being front and centered paired with very questionable armor is a bad choice. All alone the armor isn't bad but in the context of DT's story it's a lot of bad.

(Registered my account finally JUST to post this.)

Like others have said, the armor sets showcased for 7.3 are extremely questionable and also disrespectful to the cultures which inspired much of Dawntrail. Hypocritical of SE to claim they had hired experts to ensure the expansion was handled respectfully and then pull this. FFIX didn't look like this, so you can't say it's inspired by IX as an excuse! Is this really the direction you are going in, SE?