Please do NOT alter Dark Knight AF for female characters.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Yes, Seida, I claim That. Women are most times more flexible. In order to optimize That trait of theirs, their armor is less rigid, and thus, there's no chainmail.

If a male DRG is more confident in his flexibility than in his endurance, he may choose to not wear any chainmail either.

I'm not the machist one there, but certainly, those Who see machism everywhere are. It's a choice. There's no women exploitation, Just a matter of personal choice : Whether one prefer to use more defense or more flexibility when fighting.

[Shougun]

Chainmail is quite flexible (can make it into a ball if you wanted), it is however one of the heaviest parts of your armor but still worn because of how useful it was (with or without plate)... For weight female dragoon would have taken off the chainmail but kept a padded under garment and the plate for the belly (risk your own armor piercing you without the mail, and attacks at the joints though). You would loose more range of motion in plate but people often mistake some as nearly all (knights of yore were not restricted to zombie movements lol). Also if you're in plate you'll want something underneath because metal to the skin with many parts sucks lol. But I'd add that a battle prepared female would have no problem with that weight.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

There's no "battle prepared" male or female, it all depends of your fighting style. If your style is That of a fast and flexible gymnast, you'll want no additional weight.

[Shougun]

Battle prepared, as in physically fit and trained. So I'd hope there are battle prepared males and females or.. good luck Hydaelyn, so long and thanks for all the fish .

[Seraphyna]

It's a "serious" fantasy world though, or at least it tries to be.

"Magic" is the answer to any of those issues. However "Magic" must at least make some sense, like if "Magic" explains the bellyhole for the women's DRG AF why is there no bellyhole for the men's DRG AF? Magic still exists, therefore bellyhole must exist outside of game influences.

If you want to look pretty, work with the glamour system to wear flowing dresses and the new belly dancer outfit into battle, please stop trying to tread of those who want semi-sensible armor for girls as an option though. Besides, you're arguing that your aesthetic wants are the only choice, some folks would like a different sense of aesthetics. You have glamour to wear pretty outfits, so leave the armor as armor ought to look for use who want a semi-sensible option.

If you seriously want to go this route, glamour the armour with the "belly hole" that is making you so upset. Settles the problem no? The game has a ridiculous amount of armour that has full covering and people are nitpicking on one item. Nothing better to do?

[Hypie]

I dont understand why Ppl are crying around over ilvl 50 Chestpiece you switch out like in hours...if you know what you do...and in days if you are new.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Don't know, Shougun, do the Scions seem remotely prepared to you ? =(

Seriously, yes, you can be trained and so, but if you're trained to move normally with a chainmail + plate armor, then you'll be trained to move way faster with only the armor on. Then, it's only a matter of choice when it comes to equipping the chainmail or not, depending on your fighting style.

[Samcaesar]

Snip

Grasping at straws aside. There is a difference between the men's "Bellyhole" and the woman's "Bellyhole"

Snip

Cool, what's sexual dimorphism in this context then? Most physical differences between men and women are determined by either a Y or a X chromosome in the 46th chromosomal spot, however there's plenty of other factors that influence it, such as.. Genetics. Seriously, have you never seen a naturally feminine man or a naturally masculine woman? Look at that link in the second paragraph for examples.
It's fantasy, which means armor ought to make as much sense for one party as it does for another. SE has a relatively good track record of this in FFXIV, I'd hope they wouldn't change armor to the WoW esque model of Tankini tops for ladies and bulky armor for men. I draw and write in my own time, that however isn't something that needs to be brought up here, but excuse me for existing and enjoying a game. Way to be rude as hell "petty communistic whims"? Seriously communistic? How does that even apply here? It's only petty because you consider it petty. I consider complaints about RMT petty, but you don't see me stomping into threads telling people to stop "whining to get someone else to conform to your petty communistic whims"

Snip

Excuse me for responding on a forum.

I'm not denying the truth, I'm saying that women aren't as monolithic as you guys are saying. Like.. Seriously, look at the diversity of body shapes in that picture of women athletes I linked. Likewise, stop ignoring the fact that Roegadyn women, excluding their breasts, look about as masculine body shaped wise as most of the male models in the game. The bellyhole exists some reason, and I can tell you it's not because of the biology of a woman.

Cool, but I lack the option to. And I seriously doubt "hardware reasons" are the reason for that. Like.. We get new glamour all the time, why not make the male DRG AF standard and have a "Glamour bellyhole edition" option open for those who want it for cheap.

Snio

My only issue is that the armor is suppose to be for tanking or fighting dragons, not looking sexy. Like, the only reason I suppose that gear ought to look equal for both men and women, as opposed to the idea that men have full bulky armor while women get much more skimpier sets, is because I'd prefer if things are going to look silly, they look silly equally. It is preference ultimately, but I just feel that glamour should be more reserved for that because it's not meant to really look practical while armor is(Within the sense of practicality in the FFXIV universe).

[Reinha]

You're ignoring however that I've also said "In fantasy, feel free to do whatever ridiculous thing you want to it, but if it's going to make sense on the male model (Or make little sense on the girls model) it ought to be equal for both sides."

I didn't ignore it, I asked you why it ought to be equal [in metal thickness and coverage]. Here's what I said:

Practicality is not something you require of every gear piece, which is why I must ask if you have some other motive to argue against more feminine outfits. Do you, for example, believe that having separate gear is an act to diminish female fighter's value (in showing that they are different from men)? Or that tightly fitted armor makes a female character to be taken less seriously?

And this is what you reply:

It is degrading. Seriously, put a woman in a tankini top and a man in actual armor and which one are you going to take more seriously? Which one do you think is going to fight better from appearance alone? I can tell you if I (And this is in a fantasy world) saw a woman say "I'm a Dragoon! Dragons beware!" And she's going into battle in a bikini top, I'm going to have to ask her what sort of magic she's using and why the heck isn't it also on the guys? Seriously, I'd be willing to wager you'd raise a brow at a man saying "I'm a Dragoon! Dragons Beware!" and he's wearing nothing but a giant codpiece. I want women to be taken as serious as a guy is in combat while they wear armor.

Considering my example of a feminine armor set was neither a tankini top nor a bikini top (why you keep bringing them up is beyond me), I'm going to assume that you find fully covering, fitted to form metal armor degrading on women if it doesn't have the same thickness of metal as the male version. That's quite extreme, but you have a right to your opinion. I do not find it degrading because I want everyone to see my character's gender and beautiful shape and I don't find feminine gear stupid looking like you do.

Your general view on the exposure of skin in battle is really interesting though and can be read between the lines. It's called false-consensus bias and in short it means people assume others share their way of thinking. Going by what you wrote, you don't find women in feminine (=tightly fitted) armor or anyone in revealing armor something to be taken seriously, nor do you see them as capable fighters. I'm not going to try to change your point of view because these kinds of beliefs tend to be deeply rooted, but please at least acknowledge that this is your personal opinion and not a fact.

I'm not against women being feminine, I'm against men (Or really this idea that a woman MUST be feminine) making women feminine.

No one is saying women must absolutely be feminine. I'm gonna reply with your own argument and say, there's glamour options for bulky armor if you're into that. :^) You mention in another post: "If you want to look pretty, work with the glamour system to wear flowing dresses and the new belly dancer outfit into battle, please stop trying to tread of those who want semi-sensible armor for girls as an option though". Everyone is quite aware of the dresses thank you, but we are discussing fitted armor here. That can be pretty too so stop trying to tell everyone what kind of metal armor they should wear.

Also I'm gonna repeat that I'm a woman irl so this isn't (only) about what men want. WOMEN are asking for feminine, fitted gear. Or did you mean that the male developers of this game shouldn't make feminine job specific armor designs because of their real life gender? That would be a pretty sexist thing to say.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Cool, what's sexual dimorphism in this context then? Most physical differences between men and women are determined by either a Y or a X chromosome in the 46th chromosomal spot, however there's plenty of other factors that influence it, such as.. Genetics. Seriously, have you never seen a naturally feminine man or a naturally masculine woman? Look at that link in the second paragraph for examples.

I'm not denying the truth, I'm saying that women aren't as monolithic as you guys are saying. Like.. Seriously, look at the diversity of body shapes in that picture of women athletes I linked. Likewise, stop ignoring the fact that Roegadyn women, excluding their breasts, look about as masculine body shaped wise as most of the male models in the game. The bellyhole exists some reason, and I can tell you it's not because of the biology of a woman.


Cool, but I lack the option to. And I seriously doubt "hardware reasons" are the reason for that. Like.. We get new glamour all the time, why not make the male DRG AF standard and have a "Glamour bellyhole edition" option open for those who want it for cheap.

Every character in the game is only a big amount of datas, and that amount of datas takes massive space on SE's disks. They're already, for example, working on a solution to get the /visor saved with the gear you're wearing (meaning you won't have to do /visor each time you equip that piece of gear), and that takes time. Why ? Because it's not simply a switch to activate : you gotta make sure it doesn't take too much space, you gotta optimize it, you got many things to do. Now, doing that with every piece of DRG AF, a piece that most people have ? That would be a huge, huge waste of saving space...

X or Y chromosomal are in fact very important, that's not just half a chromosomal missing... Compare a rooster and a chicken, and tell me that just one chromosomal is nothing. And that's just a trivial example, there are many more that would make way better examples. They affect the phenotype in a very important way, and the others are as well very important, but they concern more the body functions, like breathing, and so. I'm not saying the whole phenotype is defined by X or Y chromosomal, but they are really important. Know why ? Because it implies what your gonads are going to become ? And what does that have to do with anything ? It defines what will happen to your body during the puberty, so what your final phenotype is going to be. That's why male and female children are very similar, while the typical woman is less muscular (for example, and sorry, but that's how the world works) than the typical man.

For roegadyns and lala, you don't know what puberty does on them. Female Roegadyns, as well as female Lalas, have to give birth, so their pelvian girdle (not sure about the name, but =( ) has to be large enough to let a baby pass by. They must have a feminine bone structure, sorry to tell you that. Maybe male lalas have it as well, but we can't know that, so... No, you can't use that argument...

And for the reason that hole is there... Mate, do you seriously think this game is sexist ? We have Bloefhiswyn, the sultana, Minfillia, Alisaie, Kan-E Senna, Lucia (I think that's her name...)... There are many women powerful enough to make all men pee their pants just being in the same room with them... The game is not sexist at all. The are absolutely no "sexy" outfit, except for the bunny GS thing, and don't even bring the Dzemael drops, they're equally sexy for both men and women (Although they look way better on male, I'm sure everyone agrees =( ).

So, they'd simply, after making a whole game non-sexist, take a random AF, and make it sexy because... Well, you know, you gotta anger the feminists, eh, that's how marketing works ! Nope. That was a design decision, and, hell, a belly hole is not sexy at all. That's just what it is. A Belly Hole. Something that show your belly. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not really excited by a damned belly button. Especially when the woman that shows it looks ready to beat the sh*t out of me...

The hole is not there because "Sexy is cool", it's here because of reasons. And that reason may be the fact that the fighting style is a little bit different.