Some possibly controversial thoughts about a dancer addition

[KaivaC]

Alright...I am fully in support of the dancer role as well as many others here in the forums. The type of gear that dancers could get, their potential to be a unique role (support, as a lot of us would like to break the holy trinity that this game has), and most of all, it is definitely one of those classic jobs that could work quite well in Eorzea.

Except...

...well, given the disappointment about certain clothing sets, or how some of the hairstyles cater to female characters, I feel as though the dancers should be exclusive to female NPCs. Which leads to another question - should it? There hasn't really been a single class/job where the majority of animations are different from gender. Still...seeing a gigantic Roe shaking his hips while buffing the entire party gives me 'Shrek is Love' vibes. Kinda don't want that image...but now that I've typed it, that image is now stuck in my head >.<

So, as is my habit of putting up discussions that garner some thoughts, what do you think of this? Do you think dancers should be uni-sex? Or should they be exclusive to females, and male avatars get a role similar to it, and if so, what role would that be?

[Rinuko]

Worked fine in XI so i don't see the issue in a potential addition in XIV?

[Divinemights]

Worked fine in XI so i don't see the issue in a potential addition in XIV?

There was no social justice warriors at the time of FF11, but now....

[MoroMurasaki]

I think given the distinctly un-ladylike stances I have to be in as a tank or melee dps that some flowy animations from a dancer should only begin to tip the scales back a bit. Seriously WAR and DRG specifically have quite manly poses, one of the things I enjoy about WHM the most these days is twirling around and floating like a butterfly.

I think separating classes by gender has no place in an mmo really, why bother? Some people want a tiny female Auri warrior. Some people want a hulking male Roe dancer. I say our character customization is stunted enough as it is, why lock more things behind genders?

Plus, from a purely practical standpoint, if Dancer was female and there was a male equivalent... how does that work with fantasias? "Oh, sorry, I've only been a boy for like a week so I don't know how to play BLU yet," seems sketchy.

[KisaiTenshi]

I think given the distinctly un-ladylike stances I have to be in as a tank or melee dps that some flowy animations from a dancer should only begin to tip the scales back a bit. Seriously WAR and DRG specifically have quite manly poses, one of the things I enjoy about WHM the most these days is twirling around and floating like a butterfly.

I think separating classes by gender has no place in an mmo really, why bother? Some people want a tiny female Auri warrior. Some people want a hulking male Roe dancer. I say our character customization is stunted enough as it is, why lock more things behind genders?

Plus, from a purely practical standpoint, if Dancer was female and there was a male equivalent... how does that work with fantasias? "Oh, sorry, I've only been a boy for like a week so I don't know how to play BLU yet," seems sketchy.

There's really no point to separating anything. Other games do this so they can reduce the amount of gear they have to design. All gear save for a few costumes in FFXIV fits everyone, sometimes horribly. (Is it that hard to make clothing fit Auri and Mi'qote tails better?) If we had yet another race with a tail you think they could maybe justify making clothing that takes into account the tails instead of clipping through everything. There are some outfits that just look wrong.

Likewise, in other games, they often have absurd eye-candy jiggle physics, so you can't make gear that fits all races since the physics are inherently tied to the shape of the gear. If a character is essentially a DD, and the game lets you tweak it down to a B, every time the character jumps, it will still be as if they had DD's.

The only games that gate classes behind female characters are Korean fan service-y games. FFXIV's fan service is a bit more refined than that, so I don't think SE is going to risk the media backlash that such a decision would entail.

There's almost no jiggle physics in FFXIV, at least not for players. I'd almost say the game has no client-sided physics at all, and they instead baked animations in that are less ridiculous.

If a lala can be a tank, a roe can be a dancer. Also, maybe some people like the idea of a big roe booty shaking it in the dungeon...

As for clothing, yeah males are going to get the short end of the stick there.

Some people might have a RP problem with that, but nah, as long as the animations aren't grotesque, and can't be used to make it look like the character is grinding against another character without consent it's pretty hard to make anything wrong here.

[Alien_Gamer]

If a lala can be a tank, a roe can be a dancer. Also, maybe some people like the idea of a big roe booty shaking it in the dungeon...

As for clothing, yeah males are going to get the short end of the stick there.

[Blackbird1]

If a lala can be a tank, a roe can be a dancer. Also, maybe some people like the idea of a big roe booty shaking it in the dungeon...

As for clothing, yeah males are going to get the short end of the stick there.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...89/710/6f1.png
sorry i couldn't resist adding that

[Remilia_Nightfall]

The only games that gate classes behind female characters are Korean fan service-y games. FFXIV's fan service is a bit more refined than that, so I don't think SE is going to risk the media backlash that such a decision would entail.

[Hasrat]

You say "unique role" and all I hear is "required in all content."

What kind of drugs you gotta be on to be that optimistic that they'd completely tear apart the established system any time soon ever?

[KaivaC]

Booty shaking Roes...

Whelp, there goes my dreams for, like, ever.

On a serious note, I thought about it. While it does seem pretty odd to me, I'm still fairly new to the MMO landscape, and I've heard about certain classes being restricted by race and gender. Obviously, I love that FFXIV doesn't do that - in fact, it continues to be one of my main attractions. Moro's comments about fantasia makes sense. I imagine were dancer gender locks were implemented, either fantasias would be restricted, or the dancer role would be if you had it unlocked. Again, it was just a wandering thought that I had and decided to share with the forum just to get some thoughts. No harm intended on my end.