It’s 2021 now and we still do not have Race Restrictions REMOVED from Hempen Clothes

[Gemina]

Arbitrary restrictions in terms of cosmetics just ends up feeling like a punishment for not picking the "right" race, without giving any reasonable advantages.

It's a slippery slope. Punishment is not a word I would use. However, I can definitely relate to feelings of unfairness. It becomes a matter of perspective though. Where I see unfairness, I can also see additions. When I say additions, things like new races, gearsets, hairstyles, etc. can all be seen as additions to the game. This is a very good thing. However, if they are not made available for everyone due to some kind of restriction, then it is unfair. I think this is a perspective I've had difficulty seeing.

I think an argument which would have helped me understand where the unfairness is coming from is that a signature identity of this mmo that separates it from many others is how you can do everything on one character. That was an impression I got before I subbed. Knowing what I know now as a new sub, I would quickly question if this is true, then why do so many players have alts?

The thing about races in particular, is that I think the more diverse you can make them, the better. There is going to be limitations here, which prevents and excludes using iconic creatures like Moogles as a playable race. However on a sliding scale where one side is diverse and the other side is homogenized, I think the closer we get to the latter, the less purpose there is for actual races to be in the game. As a result of that, the only way to truly diversify the races is through cosmetics. And without restrictions, we move the scale closer to the point where there isn't even a point to have different races or genders in the game at all. Granted, we are far from that but I will point back to my slippery slope comment.

[GrizzlyTank]

The thing about races in particular, is that I think the more diverse you can make them, the better. There is going to be limitations here, which prevents and excludes using iconic creatures like Moogles as a playable race. However on a sliding scale where one side is diverse and the other side is homogenized, I think the closer we get to the latter, the less purpose there is for actual races to be in the game. As a result of that, the only way to truly diversify the races is through cosmetics. And without restrictions, we move the scale closer to the point where there isn't even a point to have different races or genders in the game at all. Granted, we are far from that but I will point back to my slippery slope comment.

There is always more to diversity than just races and restricting cosmetics to certain races would ultimately be counter-intuitive to forwarding diversity because now you got a situation where a race itself is cosmetically conformist putting us in situations where we are stuck with fewer and less diverse groups than what we would have had with total freedom.

The "diversity" you talk about could have been perfectly achievable by just making an FC with a strict race/dress-code.

Ultimately culture, art and styles is something that should be shared and used for inspiration or it's just going to stagnate and die out.

[Gemina]

There is always more to diversity than just races and restricting cosmetics to certain races would ultimately be counter-intuitive to forwarding diversity because now you got a situation where a race itself is cosmetically conformist putting us in situations where we are stuck with fewer and less diverse groups than what we would have had with total freedom.

The "diversity" you talk about could have been perfectly achievable by just making an FC with a strict race/dress-code.

Ultimately culture, art and styles is something that should be shared and used for inspiration or it's just going to stagnate and die out.

There is more to it than just races, but in this particular case we are talking about diversity within the playable races of the game. There is no avoiding certain restrictions cosmetically when it comes to races, which brings us to the leading question: Should restrictions be imposed on players when it comes to gear sets based on the race they choose? Whether the answer is no or yes, I don't think either is right or wrong.

I say this is a slippery slope because now we are no longer talking about just the hempen sets. The conversation within the thread has now questioned all restrictions within the game, as I knew it would. "Freedom" is a strong word with a dual edge. One side of this argument can express that players would be happy with more freedom and less restrictions within the game, but shouldn't the devs also have the freedom to place restrictions however they see fit?

I can think of two things that restrictions do for the devs and the game. These don't necessarily benefit any individual player. The first is it reduces the workload for the design team. A hempen set for example only has to be fitted to one race and one gender instead of all of them. The second comes into play when it comes to gear that has stats. Restrictions is how the game prevents players from using gear with stats that are entirely redundant to their job's performance (no tanks with an INT build for example).

Complete and total freedom comes at a great price to the dev team, which will ultimately be paid by every sub in the game when playable content suffers as a result of exploring and rectifying cosmetic issues within the game.

[Vahlnir]

Complete and total freedom comes at a great price to the dev team, which will ultimately be paid by every sub in the game when playable content suffers as a result of exploring and rectifying cosmetic issues within the game.

This is already happening to some degree. There have been more than a few issues over the last couple of patches of Shadowbringers, some of them since it launched. And yet...they add to Gpose like there's no tomorrow. And Perform. Those are fluff content that have no bearing on the rest of the game. Their time could have, and should have, been spent rectifying actual problems...and yet, their priorities are so messed up. I definitely don't want it to get any worse, though sometimes I feel it couldn't already.