Seriously, If You're Only Going To Create Designs For Women, Just Genderlock

[Fredco191]

Your character actually looks really good in that outfit.

[TaiyoShikasu]

snip

I'mma repeat myself and androgyny is fab, yo.

[Iscah]

I'd rather have gender locked gear than another expansion filled with feminine looking dresses, high heel boots and bedsheet robes for my spellcasters and healers. Seriously, I think the gear designers at SE have no reason idea what stylish masculine gear looks like, since they are so obsessed with feminine gear and cutesy crap for the ladies all the time. If 5.0 ends up delievering the same sh*tty gear designs and reskins, then that will be the last expansion SE will be getting my money.

I said in my last post but you might have missed it - there are lots of practical boots for mages if you just look on the marketboard. Prettymuch everything, in fact. Working down the list, the Marid Leather boots have low heels but still practical, and the first (only?) set of "high heels" are the Lv60 repurposed-Evenstar set for casters. Then low-heeled Serpentskin boots and ARR dress shoes.

For other gear available from Stormblood specifically:

The Lv68 caster gear is a ragged "desert traveller" robe. The healer gear is a mid-length coat (a dress-like coat, but still not a dress) that was also given to tanks.

Lv66: serge gambison and pants for both mages. Really nice looking and not at all feminine. I particularly like the healer colour scheme.

Lv61: the Ghost Barque set for casters uses the Wind Silk Coatee model.

Also the Lv70 Farlander dungeon set gives us short actons that were previously Lv69 melee gear.


The game's 'standard style' for mages is long robes - that's clear by now and I doubt it will change - but they vary from it often enough. Are you seeing these things or are you too focused on the ones that you find offensive? Discuss the imbalance - I know there is one - but stop spitting the same exaggerated descriptions and anger into every topic. It doesn't get your point across better, it just makes my head hurt to read your posts. People will just stop listening to you.

Also these sets are not trying to be "stylish gear" for either gender. They aren't supposed to be judged by modern fashion standards. Historical/fantasy-setting styles have an inherently different range of what is considered to be men's clothing. (I don't want my male character in fashionable clothing, I want him in tunics and elaborate coats. Floor-length robes, not so much, but that's for practicality and we don't get much of that anyway.)

That said - yes they should have designed some of those costumes differently for men. I'm not so insistent on "wizard robes" being a problem for male characters, but the "Ruby Cotton Chasuble" is clearly a women's dress, and a redesign would look much better. (Compare the Lv69 Valerian priest's robes for a good male variation of what is a feminine dress on female characters.) Likewise the Sky Pirate coats, which should have been amazing and instead are identical to the women's version. They made the Plague Bringer coat around the same time, so I don't know what went wrong there.

[Iscah]

100% agreed. Honestly I feel like by the end you had kind of already answered your own query about male-specific outfits being bad business. I would also say it would be a good idea if they would see use, the issue right now is that if they made something exclusive to male characters they're locking out the majority of their players. It will, by it's very nature, see considerably less use.

By "specifically for males" I didn't mean gender-locking the male gear (though I now realise it reads like that), but I do think they could do with more outfits where they set out to design something that primarily suits male characters, and appeal to a different fashion taste than their usual gear, but still make it available to everyone.

Of course, it seems that part of the issue is what they perceive to be male fashion in the first place - whether it's because of cutural differences or personal design taste. They're starting from a different reference point.

[RiyahArp]

There's ample pieces of cultural and historical attire to tap into when it comes to stuff that looks cool and masculine on a male model.

Mmm, the good fashion isn't really all that different, though. If you look at portrayals of P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster, he looks incredibly stylish and very modern almost, despite the time being the 1930s. Men's fashion is really restricted in terms of what it can do. Here's a fun little blog telling you what happens when you try for real experimentation and androgyny in the past, Plaid Stallions's Fashion Mockery section.

I think what you should ask for is more masculine male COSTUMES, instead. If anything some of the issue in this game, male and female, is how realistic and modern the glamour is for a fantasy game.

[Usho]

Please stop forcing your limited, biased concepts of gender onto everyone else. Make everything open to both genders, and actually look for the gear that is modern and masculine. it's there. There are literally pressed suit pants, khaki cargo pants, and classic blue jeans, suspender shirts, leather coats with white button ups underneath. you're grasping at straws. Besides, feminine clothing for males is NOT a bad thing....

Says a woman(?) playing a female character. And no, feminine clothing for males IS a bad thing in this game, especially when SE can't come up with any good masculine gear. Some things just work, some things really won't work. Have you not seen the sh*t SE has been giving us since HW? The morbidly ugly caster Stormblood sets should be enough to make people say "WTF?" alone. SE doesn't know how to make modern and masculine looking gear. Some guys may like the dresses, some may even play female characters just for THEIR glamour, but there are males who play male characters (like myself), that don't want to be thrown dresses with high heels for their BLMs.



Or keep getting bedsheet robes from your grandma's house for body gear on healers. Not all males want that sh*t. SE isn't going for diversity anytime soon, they are so stuck up on their old ways of appealing to women (pandering to them ALOT) in this game like with gear and glamour....but leave scraps or basically nothing of interest for guys.





Defending them allows them to keep up the status quo. Keep that in mind if you don't want change. As for me, I want change and I'll continue to speak up for it. As should other males who feel the same.






/2 cents

[Alleo]

...and when everything is made unisex, the vast majority of items end up being very feminine/androgynous in design. At least when it comes to casual glamours, certain job sets and various hairstyles.

The developers have shown repeatedly that when they go the 'unisex' route they just use it as an excuse to embrace a feminine/androgynous aesthetic. There's a few exceptions, but until they can be trusted not to do that then more gear should be gender locked.

I agree that there should be more masculine designs but they should be unisex too. Gender locking things will not solve the problem because they could still either then decide to create more female glamours or just more androgynous stuff but now restricted thus both sides will have less glamour. Lets have less restrictions but simply more different glamours in the game thus more for everyone.

[Magic-Mal]

Says a woman(?) playing a female character. And no, feminine clothing for males IS a bad thing in this game, especially when SE can't come up with any good masculine gear. Some things just work, some things really won't work. Have you not seen the sh*t SE has been giving us since HW? The morbidly ugly caster Stormblood sets should be enough to make people say "WTF?" alone. SE doesn't know how to make modern and masculine looking gear. Some guys may like the dresses, some may even play female characters just for THEIR glamour, but there are males who play male characters (like myself), that don't want to be thrown dresses with high heels for their BLMs.

Or keep getting bedsheet robes from your grandma's house for body gear on healers. Not all males want that sh*t. SE isn't going for diversity anytime soon, they are so stuck up on their old ways of appealing to women (pandering to them ALOT) in this game like with gear and glamour....but leave scraps or basically nothing of interest for guys.

Defending them allows them to keep up the status quo. Keep that in mind if you don't want change. As for me, I want change and I'll continue to speak up for it. As should other males who feel the same.
/2 cents

Just wanted to poke in and say the glamours have absolutely nothing to do with catering to female players or some old tradition of pandering women or whatever. SE releases glamour for female characters, and the people who play them. Not female players.

And lastly, you don't have to be male or play a male character to want to see more masculine options on male characters. You don't have to be male to want to fight for such a thing. It kind of seems like you have some sort of hate against women.. let's get that out of here please. This is a topic about wanting to have more casual glamour for male characters. Not a hate topic.

[BillyKaplan]

thus both sides will have less glamour.

Assuming they're being unfair and releasing glamour only for one gender, which admittedly they have done on occasion, like with the frilly dress. I honestly aren't sure we'd have gotten the frilly match if not for the immediate outcry. And locking the mats behind Pagos or the new canals makes sense for the delay, but is also unfair and so very arbitrary, especially when considering their track record.
BUT, if they give us matching glamour sets, what difference does it make if it's gender locked? Both genders get the same amount of glamours. The difference is, as we've seen before, guys will now have more variety of masculine glamours to pick from, because if it's unisex, they go with either androgynous or feminine, especially for casters and healers. Which isn't inherently bad, until it starts piling up and there's nothing to counter that for people who don't want that.
Thing is, it's actually hilarious, because all it takes is to look at how many people wanted the Gambler's coat and Best Man's set to see that people want masculine outfits for their female chars, too. People also asked for Aymeric and Hien's sets SE just needs to finally get the memo that there's demand for masculine designs on all sides.

[Rokke]

Investing time and money in male only glam when far less people are going to use or purchase it is just not good business.

Were this a F2P game this logic would make 100% sense as the game would need to sell to the majority to keep the lights on. But since we're not playing TERA its a moot point. The next expansion isn't likely going to have a miqo exclusive class regardless how much more use a miqo class would get compared to an elezen.