Please do NOT alter Dark Knight AF for female characters.

[Strika23]

I think it's more that in Japan it's more socially acceptable to view women as not having the same strength or purpose as men. In designing Au Ra, for instance, SE admitted outright that they wanted to show that the females need to be protected. In Japan that's still widely viewed as sweet (as it was in America 80 years ago). In America today it's viewed as demeaning. Needing to be protected indicates an inability to protect yourself or to be the protector. The damsel in distress role only makes sense if the character is inherently weak.

I didn't get that quote when I read it as I found it incredibly sexist. However, being from the west that explains why I interpreted that quote the way that I did. Thanks for clearing that up.
What confuses me though is that Final Fantasy has a lot of powerful female characters, so I'm unsure why Au'ra are an exception compared to other female races?

[Niwashi]

Personally I think that suppressing the gender difference and relegating females to being smaller copies of the male form is extremely disrespectful and treats femininity as something to be surpressed.

This argument would be more believable if the people who espouse it didn't all want the females to be the ones getting the gear modifications. If half the people who agree with you wanted the basic Dark Knight set from that concept art to be just for women and that the men should be the ones getting stuff switched around to avoid looking like copies of the female form, then maybe you'd have a point. It's the very notion that the basic form is inherently male that leads to the whole problem.

[Onikimaru]

Was there? I only saw a male Au Ra in it..

Here it is, it seems to be for all tanks though, still at least it isn't skimpy :P. Even though i personally don't mind if it is or isn't.

[Musashidon]

Here it is, it seems to be for all tanks though, still at least it isn't skimpy :P. Even though i personally don't mind if it is or isn't.

that's the i170 yasha set.

[Canadane]

Since Most of Us Agree that The Dragoon AF Female Chest Piece with the mysterious belly hole looks weird, anyone knows an armor that resembles it so I can Glamour that part away?

I Simply LOVED that overall look of Dragoon, to the point of almost going with the flow and started playing it because of its looks, I started Learning how to dodge, and everything, then I saw the AF, and I found it so strange, that I went to level a Arcanist, when Arcanist was lvl 35, I found out about Glamour(yeah, took me a while), so Now my Arcanist is 50, and I came back to level Lancer to get to Dragoon, and I wanna get rid of the Only Thing I disliked in that armor.

The hole exists for male sets too, it's jut the males are carrying scale or chain mail under it. If you're going to argue about something, be it not the hole, but the mail.

[Onikimaru]

that's the i170 yasha set.

I know that XD

[Nestama]

Mostly.

It's actually more realistic, though, since his stance as a knight is really flimsy for defense (most of the attack animations literally have you move the shield aside, which isn't very smart) so he literally isn't blocking most of the hits. Maybe Dark Knights are just PLDs who realized they weren't even bothering with the shield 99% of the time to begin with.

Very true. Savage Blade has them do a spin, Rage of Halone has them holding the shield to their side (facing the ground, I think?) and Spirits Within has their back to their enemy. Don't even get me started on Shield Lob.

[Musashidon]

Don't even get me started on Shield Lob.

we learn from the best!

[Niwashi]

The hole exists for male sets too, it's jut the males are carrying scale or chain mail under it. If you're going to argue about something, be it not the hole, but the mail.

If they have scale or chain armour there, then they don't have a hole. The problem is that the females have a hole in the scale portion of their armour. I'm not quite sure what your point is in trying to say they don't have a hole since that's the portion of their armour that has the hole.

[Khalithar]

I think it's more that in Japan it's more socially acceptable to view women as not having the same strength or purpose as men. In designing Au Ra, for instance, SE admitted outright that they wanted to show that the females need to be protected.

I never really got that feeling with the only Au Ra we meet. Yugiri is a badass, a capable warrior and a steadfast protector of her people. Despite her clear exhaustion and fatigue she's determined to hold it together, I never once got the feeling like I needed to protect her from the big scary world. The closest we ever see to that happening is when various characters are like "omg player only you can stop the primals and save us all! Kill them plz." But that's about it.