Please Stop Genderlocking Gear

[Purrnauskis]

Why do people like male characters in Genshin Impact so much?
Because they’re pretty.

Final Fantasy XIV doesn’t really have pretty male characters.
It tries to – kind of – but in the end, they’re mostly just bulky models with broad chests, and some of them have animal features.
Most of them feel stiff and a lot of glam scales weird on them, especially shoes.
So of course, more elegant/androgynous/feminin glamours and outfits don’t look that great on them.
Everything follows the same bulky macho aesthetic direction. Also male Viera do so.

To me, the real issue begins way before we even get to gender-locked glamours.
That's why, at the moment, I gave up after 10 years, to play with male characters.

So now I play an androgynous female that I can style in both gender directions. So I can have all the girly girl and good creative stuff that only female chars get. And I also can style an anime-like male/boyish look.

But it feels wrong to me that we have to take such strange detours for such a generic Asian media look. And of course it does not match emote and voices. xd

Here an exmaple of what I mean.
It does not have to be this new hair. I use a different one in general. This one just works in the more androgynous masculin direction.



But maybe you get what I mean. This typical slim anime-like look is sadly not possible to do with true male characters of this game.
I really wish it would be possible for midlanders.

Using Genshin as an example is almost self-reporting considering half the male designs there are obviously underaged twink boys that didnt go through puberty yet.

You are basically mad that males in FF14 look like men.

[SophiaDL]

Using Genshin as an example is almost self-reporting considering half the male designs there are obviously underaged twink boys that didnt go through puberty yet.

You are basically mad that males in FF14 look like men.

Pretty much this tbh, but I guess in 2025 (and to be fair the past few years), it's weirdly forbidden for men to actually look like men.

[Heavenchild]

Using Genshin as an example is almost self-reporting considering half the male designs there are obviously underaged twink boys that didnt go through puberty yet.

You are basically mad that males in FF14 look like men.

I did not even play Genshin xd
I just said what players all over the world prefer most of the time to play in games. And they prefer pretty boys and pretty girls. In FF14 we have pretty girls, but no pretty boys.
And I said that this more elegant and filigree glamour designs (that CBU seems to like to design more often) just don't look that good on all the more bulky and tall male character models.
And I guess THAT's why they often genderlock stuff.

It would look better on, lets say: the anime hero type. Slim and/or small and/or elegant. No wide shoulders, no stiff poses or emotes.
(btw..., also not all men irl have wide shoulders) But this type does not exist in his game. :')

I feel like the male character designs in FFXIV tend to lean more toward stylized, Ken doll-like appearances rather than portraying realistic male figures x3

[Iscah]

And I said that this more elegant and filigree glamour designs (that CBU seems to like to design more often) just don't look that good on all the more bulky and tall male character models.
And I guess THAT's why they often genderlock stuff.

That's just twisting the situation to make an unrelated and subjective complaint. We get plenty of fancy outfits for male characters, regardless of whether it suits your personal taste or not. You disliking it doesn't make it objectively bad.