Please do NOT alter Dark Knight AF for female characters.

[MageBlack]

Women have it rough cause men are pigs...Funny and immature pigs...

[Kosmos992k]

You can blame the fapperinos for this.

Projection? More often than not, I find those making such accusations are the ones who's minds those thoughts cross. I mean really, it's insulting to players with pretty female avatars who prefer more feminine and/or revealing armor/costume when you reduce their avatar to little more than fantasy fodder for those so inclined. Honestly, this is a very tired line of 'reasoning'. It get's quite annoying everytime this topic comes up and anyone suggesting more feminine armor for female characters is told a) it's impractical, b) it breaks immersion and c) it's just for the "fapperinos" or whatever other stupidly ignorant term is being used.

First of all, the practicality of most of the elaborate armor in this game is non-existant, so using this argument is like pouring boiling water into a chocolate teapot. Pointless. Secondly, breaking the immersion? If you're still clinging to immersion then you must play with your eyes closed, bikini arkor, snowman tanks, etc abound, give it up, immersion was broken almost as soon as the game opened. Finally, the argument that it's only because people want to fantasize about their avatar in skimpy gear, etc...really? OK, why does that matter to you? Not gonna argue moral judgements on this, but if someone has an active fantasy life going on in their head, who's business is it, but theirs?

At the end of all of this, if any one still wants to argue practicality, I'll star pointing out every impraftical NPC armor/costume, and point out that such impracticality itself breaks the immersion some seem to crave.

Now, aside from all of that, the one thing the is missed in this discussion is that for any of the more heavily armored classes, the female armors are simply not very feminine. With the exception of the Dragon AF belly hole controversy of course. I'm not sure anyone is saying that all female armor must be sexy, or skimpy, but good god, can it at least be feminine? Playing though as a female tank from level 1, I hated the armor sets, especially the tin can variety. They are almost universally unisex, and actively diminish or erase any sense of gender from the avatar. Is it too much to ask that some, just a few, of the well designed and elaborate armor sets could be feminine for female avatars and masculine for males?

My avatar runs around in the bikini armor, sometimes I glamor a few things together to try to create a more feminine look, while retaining actual armor, but inthe end, it's still pretty generic because it's a combination of pieces that were not designed to go together, and in the case of some where made pretty bland in the first place.

What I would like to see, not for Dark Knight, but as a general DoW set is something more like this;

Not exactly, of course, this is art for an armor set from another game. However, this armor is very clearly feminine without being any more impractical or immersion breaking that what Raubahn runs around in. Why can't we have armor for female avatars that is feminine? Why does it always have to be either bikini glamor or spiky tin can?

[SDaemon]

Women have it rough cause men are pigs...Funny and immature pigs...

[Nyalia]

They can make it feminine without making it impractical. No swordswoman in her right mind would step onto the battlefield with her belly exposed. You can still have an elegant design that looks good on a woman without cutting away half the equipment.

The Lionsmane Cuirass is a great example of this, imo. I actually have no idea what it looks like on men, but on women, it shows off a feminine figure without being skimpy. Of course, the part of the armor that covers the torso appears to be leather rather than plate, so it makes sense to be shaped the way it is. And, I still can't tell if the whorls along the arms/etc are supposed to be tattoos or just skin-ish colored armor with a cool design on it, so the bits that seem impractical at first could just be painted-on aesthetics, not actual exposed skin.

Just six more PvP ranks and it'll be my main PLD glamour ^_^

[ShanaShirayuki]

SE will likely continue with the current trend of Tank AF being practical for females, and seeing as how DRK is a tank... well, no need to worry.

[Reinha]

Projection? More often than not, I find those making such accusations are the ones who's minds those thoughts cross. I mean really, it's insulting to players with pretty female avatars who prefer more feminine and/or revealing armor/costume when you reduce their avatar to little more than fantasy fodder for those so inclined. Honestly, this is a very tired line of 'reasoning'. It get's quite annoying everytime this topic comes up and anyone suggesting more feminine armor for female characters is told a) it's impractical, b) it breaks immersion and c) it's just for the "fapperinos" or whatever other stupidly ignorant term is being used. . . . They [leveling tank gear] are almost universally unisex, and actively diminish or erase any sense of gender from the avatar. . . . Why can't we have armor for female avatars that is feminine? Why does it always have to be either bikini glamor or spiky tin can?

Completely agree with all of your post. As a straight female I don't feel any attraction whatsoever to other females, real or drawn, and it's infuriating to see anyone asking for more femininity, more revealing armor or other gender based differences in gear to be lumped with "fapperinos". To many people it's a matter of self expression and/or immersing yourself in the character and game.

The practicality argument is also ludicrous. Paladin AF armor has a crown to protect their head, which holds the most vital organ in the human body. Tanks might aswell be in their undies since they are clearly expected to be able to parry attacks. (Also shows how stupid the DRG belly issue really is considering they are not supposed to take hits.)

[Tsuga]

One thing I like about JRPG is how women can look tough and beautiful at the same time.

and it's always like this from the beginning.

you don't need to make a big hole on your armor to be sexy. I think SE can get it right (the female dragoon AF is ridiculous though).

This looks cool, and cute to me.

I like gear to show my character's gender, especially since she's a lala, and they're pretty androgynous on their own (which I also like being kinda androgynous, just not all the time). I do agree that boob windows and tummy windows can be ridiculous, but I also do not object to having variation in gear by gender. I guess what's important to me is that there are options.

I think that the bard and scholar AF gender differences are nice, and tasteful, for example. While I don't have a problem with the dragoon belly window, I can see why people find it silly. I think there can be nuanced differences in the gear without turning the character into a sex object (but I think there's room for gear like that, too!). What I don't want is to be forced to dress like a nun or be forced to look like a gundam with nearly all of my gear (that said, the white mage nun AF looks adorable!).

[Alacran]

I don't think anyone (or at least not many) want the ability to look impractical removed. We just don't want to be forced into it by having it on AF gear. AF gear is supposed to define the look of the job we're playing. It's for use when we want that level of immersion, at least for our own characters. If other people don't want that immersion and would rather glamour their tank gear to look like a swimsuit, well, that's their business. But let people of either gender who play a dark knight and want to look like one be able to look like a dark knight. (And preferably, allow dragoons who want to to look like dragoons, without silly nonsensical holes in their armour, though it's a bit late for that.)

This a billion times over. AF is what is being discussed here, not the culling of provocative glamour options. Is it really so bad to just have the Job look like the job? I'm sure many will glamour the new dancer looking gear top with the rest of the outfit, that's fine no issue, it's no reason to lock female characters into cheerleader variants of AF .

[Kosmos992k]

This a billion times over. AF is what is being discussed here, not the culling of provocative glamour options. Is it really so bad to just have the Job look like the job? I'm sure many will glamour the new dancer looking gear top with the rest of the outfit, that's fine no issue, it's no reason to lock female characters into cheerleader variants of AF .

Nor is it any reason to lock female avatars into being mere copies of the quite masculine/macho AF either. If the AF gear is meant to be iconic gear, then I can see no reasonable argument against there being a greater emphasis to ensure that the look of the AF gear is maintained while at the same time actually accounting for differences in gender.

Oh, to your suggestion about glamoring the dancer like gear over unwanted AF. WHY? Why should that be necessary? Why force players with female avatars to use the glamor system in that way?

...and on that note, the utterly horrid Papal robes and hat that has been inflicted on White Mage will absolutely require glamoring to eradicate it. Honestly, what focus group were they using to come up with that, one based in the Vatican?

[Tsuga]

Nor is it any reason to lock female avatars into being mere copies of the quite masculine/macho AF either. If the AF gear is meant to be iconic gear, then I can see no reasonable argument against there being a greater emphasis to ensure that the look of the AF gear is maintained while at the same time actually accounting for differences in gender.

It's worth noting that at least in FFT and FFTA the classic job outfits DO vary between gender and races. I happen to think that a lot of these designs are tasteful, and identifiable, even though some are very different based on gender. I would prefer that SE take this approach to our AF gear, but with more similarity between the gear for each gender than differences - which I think they got just right on a lot of the current AF.