Can we have a Male Healer and a Female Tank?

[Camiie]

can we not waste time on pointless stuff?

Is that really a valid complaint when dealing with video games?

[ElHeggunte]

No. He's simply asking for a representation of classes in press releases to include male healers and female tank characters.

[...]

Basically, he's asking for a "face", without affecting the actual "body" of the game.

The question is, why on earth does it matter? It's a change that doesn't hurt anything to do, to be fair, but it also doesn't hurt anything to leave it the way it is because it's only art that has zero impact on your ability to play whatever race/gender/class combo you want.

Is that really a valid complaint when dealing with video games?

Yes, especially when this "request" has to do with switching gender roles (sigh) in official artwork and doesn't even have anything to do with the game itself. Even if the request were for something in-game, different requests clearly do still have varying levels of "pointlessness" to them. For example, asking for a way to change the eyes of every NPC green doesn't hold nearly the same weight as asking for new glamour options. Both are "pointless" because they're generally irrelevant to gameplay, but the former is much more pointless than the latter.

[Ameela]

I will say that it would be cool to see more girl tanks in the story, since the only notable ones so far are Moenbryda and that Au Ra from the Warrior quest line, which is hardly saying much.

[kikix12]

The question is, why on earth does it matter? It's a change that doesn't hurt anything to do, to be fair, but it also doesn't hurt anything to leave it the way it is because it's only art that has zero impact on your ability to play whatever race/gender/class combo you want.

To me it doesn't matter. To the original poster it does.

As to why it does matter to him, the answer is simple. It is ideologically against his beliefs to leave the matters as they are now.

If you are a believer in any religion that have sacred items, sacred tomes or anything of that sort, consider this. Would you still say that it doesn't matter when someone would have such an item of special worth in your religion and officially, publicly, destroy it in a manner most offensive for the religion? For example, someone nailing the Christians Old Testament to one side of a standard cross, New Testament to the other and then burning the cross with the books?! This is the exact same case here. Religion is an ideology in which one believes, such as gender equality. However, various people have varying degrees of attachment. Some people would want to lynch whoever did such a thing as I described above for such sacrilege, others would say that if the books and cross were his, it's his choice what he does to them...but probably would think it's tasteless to do that as a show, at least.

I picked such a heavily controversial example for a reason by the way. I am in no way implying that this is nearly as severe case (though for some...it is). It's just easiest to explain using something most would understand...and most would understand there being negative reaction to a sacrilege as defined by their religion.

[ElHeggunte]

You had me until you veered off into the woods with talking about actual desecration of physical items that may or may not belong to you*. A more apt but-still-not-quite-accurate comparison to this topic would be some people trying to change the genders of the characters in religious text (which I guess would still be desecration to some people, but that's getting into an argument about semantics).

*I would consider myself an agnostic at best, but to attempt to answer your question, how I'd feel depends on who the item belongs to. If someone goes and destroys an actual historic item, like preserved text or a statue, I'd be angry simply because they're vandalizing something that doesn't belong to them, regardless of my religious belief. If they're destroying their own personal property, that's on them, and I'm a pragmatic man so I think I'd feel the same way even if I adhered to a religion that held that particular item to be sacred.

[kikix12]

You had me until you veered off into the woods with talking about actual desecration of physical items that may or may not belong to you*.

That was an example of the same concept. I'm constantly amazed how people compare things instinctively every single time they see something new, but repeatedly fail to see a connection when it is plainly given and explained to them.

A more apt but-still-not-quite-accurate comparison to this topic...

It's not more apt. It's the same, just on a less "intense" level. Ideology is a single concept encompassing every personal, non-universal belief a person uses to interact with the world. All ideologies work exactly in the same way. What I compare with one another, so long as it is an ideology and as long as the comparison is on that ground, will always be accurate. Your example IS perfectly accurate as well. But the same people that don't care about the representation of character genders in the promotional material are very likely to not care about that too much either, so how is that an example supposed to explain the concept? It'd fail at its primary function. That's why I used a very strong example...and even went ahead and explained the reason for that choice...Go figure.

(...)but to attempt to answer your question(...)

Where have you seen a question that needed you to answer to me in my post? I even wrote specifically for you to consider what I said. For you to answer to yourself. I don't care for discussing religious and related matters on this forum. I'm way too easy to agitate on actual ideologies...which is not actually rare or special in any way. I was just trying to make you understand why this thread was made after you implied you do not know why it would matter. Fruitlessly it seems.

If someone goes and destroys an actual historic item, like preserved text or a statue, I'd be angry simply because they're vandalizing something that doesn't belong to them, regardless of my religious belief.

Ironically, that is exactly the same as far as this topic goes. The concept of "ownership" and "right of the masses" where it is put on historical objects and similar wonders is the exact same thing. Negative feelings born from your belief of something wrong taking place. You seem to not understand that, but from ideological stand point, it is the exact same thing as the example I wrote. Just giving birth to a different kind of feeling. Feeling of being offended in my example versus anger in your example. All else is equal.

[Ayer2015]

They do certainly seem to lean towards those stereotypes. Maybe it's something they can mix up when they add new jobs. Though if the new job is Dancer as a healer, all bets are off. The marketing team is probably not going to want that to be a male Roe...

Oh, but you know there will be nearly naked male dancer Roes wearing chocobo heads....and it will be amazing.

[Eloah]

Wow, just, wow?

This thread seems to have escalated rather quickly. I do thank people for defending my inquiry, and for those who shared an honest opinion.

But for those who are more vocal about how "pointless" my question was, which I said in my intro post too, but to those let me rephase my question so that you might have a better understanding of where I'm coming from. Now I apologise if I am quoting anything someone has said prior... erhmmm...

I really want Dancer in the game.
I think adding in Geomancer would be awesome.
I would love to see a Mystic Knight Tank.
I think Puppetmaster would be a great addition.
I wish they could find a way to make Blue Mage work.

I hope one can see the parallels since my analogy is paper thin. But ultimately, its just a yes or no question.

[Kazgrel]

So long as the gear they are showing doesn’t drastically change going from male to female (or vice versa), I couldn’t care less about what character they use to model gear.

[Minerva-Redwater]

Man people complain about anything now a days lol