About the whole '' shorts and skirts '' thing...

[YatoShishi]

For me its the devs themselves that perpetuate the stereotype in this game, of pants for males, skirts for females and i believe its down to playing it 'safe' due to how many countries they sell to. It is boring but it is 'safe'.

I see you havent seen the fanfest, cause they explained how gear is chosen, the devs dont choose the design. An artist makes different designs and yoshi picks what he likes and then gives it to the devs and they create the gear that was chosen. we cant blame the devs for everything thats in the game.

[Crushnight]

I see you havent seen the fanfest, cause they explained how gear is chosen, the devs dont choose the design. An artist makes different designs and yoshi picks what he likes and then gives it to the devs and they create the gear that was chosen. we cant blame the devs for everything thats in the game.

Artists and Yoshi P are part of the development team for ffxiv are they not, their positions are different but they are still part of the same team/division of SE so the devs do decide what goes in the game (Yoshi more specifically but even he can get overturned as was the case with Lakshmi's music) and generally(please correct me if i'm wrong as not an artist but have friends who are) when you present pieces to your boss/employer your happy with the base concept you may like to tweak things but the core design you tend to be happy with at that stage, so yes the devs do perpetuate the stereotypes but i do feel this out of playing it safe not because they don't want to.

[TroySoFab]

I'd rather not have a boobplate on my armor, thanks.

[Schan]

I'm sort of like Iscah, but let me explain why I personally prefer trousers on my character.

First of all Females mostly get skirts or super short shorts. I'd like some more variety like... anything other than booty shorts for females. Can i get like a thigh or knee or even chin length shorts/trousers? Some jobs barely have any options regarding those lengths.

Secondly, skirts and shorts scale horribly on tall races like Roes. They suffer from what i call the "A shape syndrome". In other words they go at that angle and physics be damned. If you're tall it literally sticks to that angle and never changes. One of the pvp robes managed to tackle that somewhat but guesss what... they rarely use that model as basis for other robes / skirt shaped stuff for some reason.
To show you what I mean...

A shape syndrome on tall races:


This is referred as by me and my friends as the "tent" armour. they like to sit on my feet.

Booty shorts on tall races? It basically looks like underwear. I see it on cat and lizard girls and is this nice mid thigh length. If I try it on? Crotch level shorts.

Really short skirts? Looks okay on cat and lizard people. I can see my virtual underwear without tilting the camera. I just needed half an inch to cover that up but I guess that's too hard.

Hopefully if Viera are popular enough, people will complain enough because there's no way SE will listen to Roes and Elezen regarding this. We have been complaning for YEARS.

[SannaR]

Then you have the hot mess that is the Quintrell set where you can only tell you're wearing the skirt because it comes with stockings as the top has a skirt of it's own that over writes the actual skirt. I don't think I saw anyone break down the whm lv 80 pieces as that's one of the long time offenders of you call this a skirt when it shows shorts or pants which the guys will get. I do know that the guys get a full gown for the body and the ladies get a robe that has a cut away that shows a dress's skirt that goes down to the knee which is probably still part of the top some stockings and princess shoes. The big fear being that we'll get hopefully not get what we got this time which was some fancy underwear or the Eternal Sailor Moon skirt that barely covers the butt even on a lala, but a nice skirt that is the same length as the dress.

You can then go and look at the lv 80 blm set for the ladies what we can see is a top that seriously stops right at the bottom and yes it's a cute style and many might even like that style but the bottoms are so short you can't really see them. Meanwhile I want to say the guys get a whole different style and a fear me I'm going to burn you with a huge fireball kind of look. I do like an occasional skimpy outfit, but when it feels like it's the default for just about everything it makes me groan.

[Bahati]

Japanese game, Japanese gender ideals used for outfit design. As a business I imagine SE monitors what sets are popular (which are usually short shorts, frilly things, etc) and makes more of that to please the majority.

[Iromi]

OP, you should have seen the forums back in 1.x days when they revealed the first AF and the female DRG armor had a hole to show the stomach..heh.

[Melichoir]

Hmm,

I think the nuance here is they should provide both options (skirts and shorts), which most people are a-ok with. The complaint about women gear having attributes that are more culturally feminine (most notably, things that show off or extenuate parts of the female figure) I think is a misguided one. As the OP points out, saying that 'gender neutral' = shorts isnt correct, as thats more culturally masculine. In any case, there does seem to be fringe extremes who think that shorts/skirts of any kind, or showing off women as being sexy/attractive is misogynistic; not realizing that female players actually have their own tastes, and may want to glamour anything form being more masculine to Cute to Sexy. I think that view quite literally a short sighted view that takse to much liberty with what they think other people want.

You dont like shorts/skirts, and want your female to dress masculine, there are plenty of options for that. In fact, its easier to argue that in FF, you have a broader variety of styles and glamour for women than you do men. But I think people should lay off the outrage about female armor aesthetics. Give everyone the options they want, and leave it at that.

[Jonnycbad]

Hmm,

I think the nuance here is they should provide both options (skirts and shorts), which most people are a-ok with.

How about they don't? I highly doubt it's as easy as letting players toggle which gender's legwear to use. Male characters and female characters have different skeletons and animations. That means they'd have to create a pants/skirt for males, and a pants/skirt for females. For each race. That exponentially increases the amount of workload, and there's thousands of leg armors in the game.

[Melichoir]

How about they don't? I highly doubt it's as easy as letting players toggle which gender's legwear to use. Male characters and female characters have different skeletons and animations. That means they'd have to create a pants/skirt for males, and a pants/skirt for females. For each race. That exponentially increases the amount of workload, and there's thousands of leg armors in the game.

If the discussion is "Is it worth it to have it be allowed by everyone" that is something people can actually discuss the merits of. But the broad thing here is the complaint that the fact that you have females wear shorts/skirts and males wear pants is an issue. One that is solved best by giving the players the choice. That eliminates all complaints. You get to dress as you see fit. But short of that, having semi gendered clothing is probably the next best solution, because the broad player base is going to agree that youll more typically see women do shorts/skirts that show leg, while men will wear cloths that make them appear bigger.