New gearsets preview is a disappointment

[miep]

Its a fantasy world. Its not real South America. Get over it.

The Devs said DT was inspired by rl South America so don't tell people to "get over it" when they use conquistadore-inspired outfits too.

[Aasir]

Mexican person here. They're tasteless at best.

I often think about a bit of design philosophy from the first stormblood art book:

"We can't use anything that has real-world religious or cultural connotations. If we want to make something that draws from religious imagery, ethnic clothing, and so on, it needs to be significantly altered".

XIV artists aren't doing a good job then. Avoiding fascist symbols or adding a few fantasy-like cuts to the clothes is not enough anymore. We're at a point where the cultural aesthetics and influences can't be "disguised" by these acultural patterns. The silhouettes, small details like the shape of a hat or the feather in it, ARE MORE THAN HUGE TELLS.

Hundreds of clothing examples of how latinoamerican people repurposed the fashion, both IMPOSED and secondly INTRODUCED, live in our day and age. Do more investigation. Besides, LATAM doesnt only have european influence. Born from the same historical event(our colonization). I thought a big theme of the expansion was "diversity" . stop lying to us. or be better.

[YulAvagnar]

Hello. I'm a long-time FFXIV player (started in ARR, 2.2 to be exact) and also a Latin-American from Puerto Rico. In my culture, we are taught from an early age just how harmful colonization was to the indigenous Taino people of our country, and we are taught that many of us continue to carry Taino blood, cultural ties, and heritage with us. We are taught it in schools. We are exposed to it in our daily lives, in our sayings, in our food and our community. However, when I was in grade school in Puerto Rico (some 20-ish years ago) we were also taught that the colonizers and conquistadors were 'good people.' That Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Cortez, etc. made these lands better. Obviously, growing up, we learned quickly that wasn't the truth. But that viewpoint of 'they made these lands better' is still a pervasive, incredibly harmful thought process that is STILL TO THIS DAY being taught to the younger generations by the older generations. Colonization has a very real, very damning and very harmful impact on TODAY'S lived experience.

The very depiction of this set is tone-deaf at best, downright harmful and absolutely, disgustingly disrespectful at worst. From a company that swore up and down in every interview leading up to Dawntrail that 'sensitivity teams have been hired and are working with us at every step of the way,' this is, sadly, the one time I had faith that Square Enix would learn and do something with their resources and knowledge. It's clear that the sensitivity team you hired is either sorely lacking (given the egregiously terrible native representation and bare-minimum Latin-American representation in Dawntrail) or is just completely non-existent. This has happened time and time again with Square Enix and CBU3. The New World sets are incredibly anti-native and they are STILL in the game almost 10 full years later. The very orientalist Thavnairian 'dancer' attire is still in the game. The Taisho Roman sets, the most recent Japanese name situation regarding cultural pieces of attire from non-Japanese nations. The Far Northern attire being a blatant disregard for the Sámi people. This is unfortunately nothing new for Square Enix/CBU3, but after how much this company fought to be heard when it came to sensitivity and how 'representation matters,' I had some modicum of hope. Especially after the absolute lack of care shown in other CBU3 properties (FF16 being its greatest and latest example.)

It is very clearly misplaced.

As a Latin-American person, there is nowhere else I can go to in order to seek an escape from this incredibly insensitive and outright disrespectful lack of care from a company that maintains a game I absolutely love and adore, a game where I've made lifelong friends. But I can tell you that unless something is done about this, I, quite frankly, cannot guarantee whether or not I will be returning to FFXIV. Many of my friends have already cancelled their subscriptions for the same reasons and I can't blame them.

[YulAvagnar]

As a Latin-American person, there is nowhere else I can go to in order to seek an escape from this incredibly insensitive and outright disrespectful lack of care from a company that maintains a game I absolutely love and adore, a game where I've made lifelong friends. But I can tell you that unless something is done about this, I, quite frankly, cannot guarantee whether or not I will be returning to FFXIV. Many of my friends have already cancelled their subscriptions for the same reasons and I can't blame them.

From the 'inspirations' CBU3's armor designers drew from to the depiction of Conquistador-inspired attire next to vaguely Native designs (which, mind you, are on the casters and healers, which plays into a very disgusting racist stereotype of native people) this whole thing has been a mess from the start. To say I wish CBU3/Square Enix would do better is at this point an empty hope, but I say it anyway.

Do better.

[Chasingstars]

I mean you can wear whatever you want. You wouldn't be wearing it if they didn't make it in the first place. You wouldn't have even known the existence of the gear if they hadn't made it.

This has nothing to do with you, it all has to do with the choices the devs made.

Actually it has everything to do with me and other players who choose to wear these outfits. While it is true that devs implemented them, yet if someone wears it, such as if in a dawntrail dungeon or trial or raid, are you going to be offended? Are you going to send that player a tell about how they shouldn't be wearing it because it offends you?

[Aasir]

Adding the extra, even when making an indigenous-esque set. What's the most indigenous thing about it? The fact that's embroidered? the tassels? the coins attached to the clothes for who knows what reason? Every new set released makes me wonder if they even looked at what traditional garments from the very much ALIVE indigenous people of America look like. I want to trust that the devs can follow their own philosophy while drawing authentic inspiration. i really do

[MinamotoRin]

Actually it has everything to do with me and other players who choose to wear these outfits. While it is true that devs implemented them, yet if someone wears it, such as if in a dawntrail dungeon or trial or raid, are you going to be offended? Are you going to send that player a tell about how they shouldn't be wearing it because it offends you?

This is not about you and this is not about players that choose to wear these outfits. That's on you and you only, you have all the rights of disagreeing and doing your own thing. We're just asking, as people SE used as inspiration for the expac, to be seen by SE by posting on the boards. Sorry if it sounds harsh and rude, I still find language barriers when writing English and it's hard to express tone through typing. But, ye! In a summary, we're just asking for something different, since we also consume the game's content and also pay our subs! Not every latino and native will be offended by these outfits and that's okay, it's their right not to (such as is our right to express our concerns, I think)

[musapichi]

Bruh, you literally brought up the lineage thing. You open with purity test nonsense about roots and ancestry.



You keep saying I’m defending colonization just because I don’t agree with your take on a fantasy armor set. That’s not nuance that’s moral gatekeeping.

And if you’re going to drop cryptic phrases to mock people, maybe explain what they actually mean instead of using them as some kind of spiritual mic drop.

“ai’ipa ware, lmao.”
Translation: “I have no actual argument, so here’s a mysterious phrase and a laugh emoji.”

Also don’t shift the goalposts.

You accused me of being disconnected from my ancestry, I pushed back, now you’re denying you ever made it about ancestry at all, while still implying I betray my ancestors for not agreeing with your take.

love the quotes king but you're missing a crucial point
connection =/= blood quantum. connection =/= purity. connection is making an effort to learn, be involved in your community. caring about your ancestry is not "blood purity". connection is who claims you. we're having 2 completely different conversations here, and for the record, i'm not using "cryptic phrases to mock people". i'd actually appreciate if you wouldn't equate my language to that, Oh Great Indigenous Man Of Complex Lineage Online from El Salvador. let me also remind you that you replied to my post and now you're saying i'm accusing you. pick a struggle.

i said, "goodnight, my friend. lmao." i'll say it again in english for you. goodnight, my friend.

[whats-a-username]

replying in agreement so hopefully Sqex does something about it. Offensive to include it at all but in the setting of Dawntrail too? And even if you can ignore how offensive it is (which you really shouldn't) this isn't a locale inspired by Spain, so evoking that imagery makes no sense (unless the goal is to imply Spanish colonists are inevitable to South America, which is worse!). Sqex has had years to grow out of standard fantasy racism, and they just won't. It's disappointing to put it mildly.

[Nero-Voidstails]

Sure, but you have 700 posts so I assume you actually use the forums. I refuse to believe that 100 sub-5 post accounts just happened to decide that this was problematic at the exact same time.

I do when bored not gonna lie but mostly when I am on the throne. now being a exception because of how easily people are actually offended and break the forum ToS to speak xx)