Some possibly controversial thoughts about a dancer addition

[Remedi]

Booty shaking Roes...

Stupid sexy roes

[BillyKaplan]

I've heard about certain classes being restricted by race and gender.

The whole point of this particular MMO is that you can be anything you want on any one character. My main Hyur guy can be the flimsiest glass canon of a BLM ever and one job change later go toe to toe with Eorzea's nasties as a MNK, and that's true even after a joke Fantasia change into a popoto. My lady Elezen is a DRG and my fem Au Ra is a PLD while my male Miqo is a WHM. The ability to be whatever I want on whomever I want is a big part of this game's charm for me, and one of their own admitted selling points so they really shouldn't do that nor do I see them doing it.
Also I feel duty bound to bring up the already existing disparity in the favor of female characters, especially since you brought up outfits. Just because it make you personally uncomfortable doesn't mean the rest of us should be restricted to accommodate it. No worries though, judging by how long it's taking them to give us the male bunny outfit, I'd say the devs largely agree with you.

[Kohdo]

Sure. And BLU can be male-exclusive.

[micropanther7]

Still...seeing a gigantic Roe shaking his hips while buffing the entire party gives me 'Shrek is Love' vibes. Kinda don't want that image...but now that I've typed it, that image is now stuck in my head >.<

LOL I'd love to see that myself In answer to your question, I'd like to see both genders get equal treatment, with various styles of dances... pretty much what Moro said really

[SenorPatty]

*Puts away 18$ in savings just to tranfer to Siren the moment dancer hits to twerk Roe butt in Kaiva's face*


Jokes aside, the only worry I have is the dev mentality. Yoshi has already admitted that his dev team are uncomfortable designing a bunny suit for males. Now I can just imagine them sweating bullets trying to come up with "masculine" or "neutral" dance for males.

Silly, silly devs.

[KaivaC]

*Puts away 18$ in savings just to tranfer to Siren the moment dancer hits to twerk Roe butt in Kaiva's face*


Jokes aside, the only worry I have is the dev mentality. Yoshi has already admitted that his dev team are uncomfortable designing a bunny suit for males. Now I can just imagine them sweating bullets trying to come up with "masculine" or "neutral" dance for males.

Silly, silly devs.

To be fair, if the devs really wanted to go the extra mile and keep dances separate for genders (highly doubt that will happen, not to mention that the potential PR nightmare by separating particular dances by gender...but for the sake of discussion and being a devil's advocate), I suppose they could draw on traditional dances like those in Maori as an example. But again, perhaps too much work for the effort to separate them.

[KageTokage]

Dancer debuted as a class usable by both genders, so don't see why that would change here.

They could just change animations slightly to be more appropriate for each gender.

[kikix12]

Dancing is unisex. In fact, there is hardly any established dance that is NOT meant to be done by a male and female dancing together. There is no issue here.

There are movements that people feel more feminine, but that's just cause people are too biased to realize that they are calling out to certain traits, not genders, within humans.
And people are too biased towards the inequality too. Women doing masculine stuff?! Perfectly fine. Men doing feminine stuff?! Absolutely unacceptable. That's the reality of how the common Joe or Jane think. However, this is WRONG, and restricting dancer for that reason is just fundamentally wrong.

By the way, Mobius Final Fantasy have a dancer too. And it is strictly male since there is no gender choice in that game and only special, unique classes change appearance outside of clothes...Granted, it does not actually dance at all...but hey. So Square Enix itself have nothing at all against male dancers.

To be fair, if the devs really wanted to go the extra mile and keep dances separate for genders (highly doubt that will happen, not to mention that the potential PR nightmare by separating particular dances by gender...but for the sake of discussion and being a devil's advocate), I suppose they could draw on traditional dances like those in Maori as an example. But again, perhaps too much work for the effort to separate them.

Hire any choreographer (and they will, that's a given) and you will have an endless supply of dance moves that are neither feminine nor masculine. No need to separate move sets between genders or making male use feminine moves or vice-versa. Why bother when there are more than enough moves that will perfectly match both?!

Bunny suits are significantly different. They have...eh...adult connotations, due to their origins. As such people have harder time with that than a female boxer or a male ballet dancer, for example.

[Tridus]

their potential to be a unique role (support, as a lot of us would like to break the holy trinity that this game has)

"Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it."

I'm not sure you fully realize what the knockoff effects of adding another role would be, especially if only one job can do it. If that role actually matters, it'll become mandatory (much like tanks and healers), and with only one job you've created a new bottleneck class that people have to wait for while reducing space for DPS in groups further. The more likely side effect is several jobs would get updated to fit into the same role.

The trinity is baked in at this point in the game's life cycle. Breaking it would have huge impacts on the game.

...well, given the disappointment about certain clothing sets, or how some of the hairstyles cater to female characters, I feel as though the dancers should be exclusive to female NPCs. Which leads to another question - should it? There hasn't really been a single class/job where the majority of animations are different from gender. Still...seeing a gigantic Roe shaking his hips while buffing the entire party gives me 'Shrek is Love' vibes. Kinda don't want that image...but now that I've typed it, that image is now stuck in my head >.<

I tend to think anyone shaking their hips to buff the party is ridiculous. It's a combat zone, not a cabaret. The whole premise of the job doesn't fit combat, I don't think it suddenly breaks at the prospect that a male can do it.

On a technical level, the game lets you be any job on one character. This would break that because male characters are now missing one. To make it fair, you'd also need to add a male only job. Imagine they outcry if they add Blue Mage as male only, or make Bard into the male equivalent of Dancer.

On an RP level... I mean, if I can be a female Lalafel Warrior and Fel Cleave magitek with an axe bigger than I am, why is the line at "men can't dance"? Some of the appeal of games like this is that you can be things you can't be in real life. That's how I get to run around as a healer in a frilly dress with a butterfly staff. I'd need significant story reasons to even consider something like this, something like how in D&D the Drow are a strict matriarchy so a male Drow can't be in a position of rulership in normal play. That doesn't really apply to an egalitarian society like Eorzea.

So, as is my habit of putting up discussions that garner some thoughts, what do you think of this? Do you think dancers should be uni-sex? Or should they be exclusive to females, and male avatars get a role similar to it, and if so, what role would that be?

Just want to add that adding a "similar male only role" is just increasing work on the dev team for no real gameplay reason. That means two sets of abilities and such to maintain instead of one. "Functionally identical but themed differently" is just duplication for duplication's sake and mostly adding cost. With how many things we already want done, I don't see the value.

[MuseTraveller]

Oi! I want male roe dancers! That'd be the best!

I don't see what's the problem with the dancing. We already have dancing emotes being performed by both genders just fine.