So its 0-2 in the male female glamour department, yay?

[Reinha]

They should add Cid's outfit in the Mog Station. The sleeveless one. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Morningstar1337]

If I'm paying the same subscription as someone with a female character I expect an official response on why I keep getting less content, and a change in the pattern of female/unisex glamours. It's really not complicated.

I'd like to keep the "influenced by anime fanservice" card on the table please

[Lukha]

I'm angry and disappointed, even though I know I shouldn't have expected anything else. I want an apology to the community from the rep who said they would be releasing more male-only gear in the future to balance glamours, and an explanation of just why exactly they feel the need to dote on approximately half of the player base while leaving out, lying to and ignoring the requests of the other half.

I don't expect to get either of those things, of course.

They should add Cid's outfit in the Mog Station. The sleeveless one. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

See, if the announcement had been 'Minfillia for female PCs and Cid for male PCs will be added to the mogstation', I might still be a little annoyed about the 'new' bunny suit, but I'd deal with it, because female characters wouldn't be getting something as significant as a UNIQUE NPC'S outfit and hair while males get nothing.

[BreathlessTao]

I'd like to keep the "influenced by anime fanservice" card on the table please

It's alright, we got it. It's understandable too, acceptable though... I'm not sure about that. See, the thing is, they are not really the same category. With anime, they don't get money from each and every person who watches it (not in any direct sort of way, anyhow). Whoever likes it will buy it on BD when it's released, will buy the merchandise that's released - and whoever doesn't like it might drop out after just one episode, without having contributed a single yen to the profits. This game, however, is directly taking every single player's money on a monthly basis. Perpetually giving the short end of the stick to one half of them, while just as perpetually spoiling the other half, especially in ways that aren't even new and have been opposed a few times already... It is something altogether different. As far as I'm concerned, anyway, and it doesn't seem like I'm alone with this opinion.

[RazeLandale]

I think it'd be fine if males got to wear the ears at least.

[Serilda]

I'd like to keep the "influenced by anime fanservice" card on the table please

That's fine, though I don't think it's the full story. Anime/game fan service has been embracing fans of male characters for some time now (see all of the debate around females 'ruining' Comiket and similar events by 'taking it over', and the ever-increasing number of otome game adaptations). The hardcore anime scene in Japan has been rebalancing itself for years now to be more inclusive and drain money from a wider audience of geeks in the process. Even in mainstream Japanese society, acts like Johnny's male idols are massive - and the wider Final Fantasy series itself is notorious for its large number of attractive male characters to balance out its equally-attractive female characters. I think the problem here is less with a deliberate design ethos and more that the designers themselves are so biased towards their own preferences they aren't aware that the problem exists in the first place.

(Sorry, the rest of this post isn't really about what you said; it's more general.)

It seems pretty obvious that that's the case when they can release an incomplete event gearset for male characters then a few days later announce two new outfits locked to females (one of which can easily be adapted for men with small changes already suggested) and nothing exclusive for males at the same time. They don't understand that they're treating half* the playerbase unfairly or they'd at least attempt to show more tact.

There is precedent already in XIV's history for disgruntled players pressuring the team to treat players fairly; adding the missing genders for certain races and opening up eternal bonding for various combinations of partners were both community suggestions which were taken seriously and acted upon. There was even a staff post advising us to expect more equality with the gender-locking issue - yet all we're seeing is less.

I don't mind whether they open up the female costumes for males, with a tiny handful of items adapted where necessary to suit their sensibilities, or just add a bunch of male-only glamours (which stay male-only) to even up the total number of sets all characters can equip. I imagine the former would be simpler. But how many times do they have to make unfair decisions to restrict subsets of players before they start treating us all fairly from the start?

In any case, ultimately those who prefer inequality (and I'm not saying the person I replied to is one of them) are continuing to provide fuel for the debate and keeping these posts on the front page, so even negativity is helping raise awareness of the problem and highlighting interesting new details. All we can do is continue to express our discontent and hope that someone is passing the feedback on to those with the power to change things for the better.

* Whatever the actual global split, the live letter is in Japanese and aimed at the Japanese audience. The character gender split in Japan is almost a clean 50:50 in spite of the mentioned cultural bias towards cutesy female characters. Furthermore, gil sellers do not use Japanese accounts and gil selling is not prevalent on Japanese servers. I am including this note as Square-Enix's own official line is that the Japanese version of the game has an even gender split, therefore it baffles me that only half of that audience is being treated a certain way.

[Loki]

Why they don't add receipes IN GAME for crafting Yshtola's set and why they don't add haircuts IN GAME too?!

Damn Mogstation! You are playing a dangerous game SE if you continue on this way.

And they said they will add some male specific gears but when? Imo it's just unfair, most of gears are designed for girls, even contests rewards are for girls. They are just lazy for creating a set per gender?? Come on SE!!!!

[SakuraMidori]

And soon all the cash shop hate will start

[Ladon]

Consider also that the bigger female bias is in Europe, which is probably not the biggest region in terms of subscriptions going by the way it's treated, so the logic of adding all of the percentages together makes no sense at all. And don't confuse cause and effect; every time we complain that female characters are getting an ever-increasing number of special outfits just for them a bunch of trolls reply that we should just switch to playing female characters. It's not unlikely that some people do in fact do that.

If I'm paying the same subscription as someone with a female character I expect an official response on why I keep getting less content, and a change in the pattern of female/unisex glamours. It's really not complicated.

What exactly are you expecting here? What if the 'official response' is simply that the design team likes to design female gear over male gear? Are you just going to whine about it being 2015 and some nonsense about equality in a virtual world?

Your subscription affords you the same content as everyone else. There are no restrictions placed on you about what gender you play in the game other than YOUR choices. People around here really need to stop acting like it is the developers that are making these choices for you.

[Colorful]

snip

They didn't even have to create a set in this case, just rip it from a male NPC and throw it on the player characters. Raubahn's armour example, I think that fits the "manly" gear people have been asking for. I wish they didn't go with the route of important NPC gear though, I really do. >_>

2.55 spoilers.

I hope this means Minfilia is gone forever.