This is a good summary of my own views. Give me equal options.
Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
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Some of the sets have parity but A LOT fall into the stupid goddamn convention of having thigh exposure among other things. :| LOL at the two spoiler sets.
I don't care about practical armor unless it's a grounded setting. I just want to look like a badass and hot pants and stripper boots ain't it.
topics you don't suffer from? you mean racism?
non - whites exist in this thread and it's insane how you think everyone here is white? I'm a WOC myself, and while I'm at it I live in one of the most misogynistic countries in the world, so idk what you are talking about "topics you don't suffer from", yuck
The early swordsman job lines in RO are probably the best character designs in the game. I really like them
Swordsman
Knight
Crusader
But after that, the designs strip away most of the utility
Lord Knight
Paladin
Then we get to the third jobs. Rune knight went through a redesign settling on the last one
Rune Knight
Overall not super egregious, if typical anime swordswoman fare. Now we come to the final job stage of the Crusader posted above
Royal Guard
The Crusader line just strips away all the armor haha. I guess they thought the big shield was modest enough. I remember another player on a private server back in 2011 complaining about it and wishing she could change the sprite. Which eventually you could. They added alternate job sprites. These are the alt designs
Rune Knight v2
Royal Guard
this kept getting worse and worse
it looks like one of these super bad mobile ads with the armor bikini legit looks like a joke
Yep, as I explained earlier in the thread, I finally went with male for this one, and seeing this example makes me think I made the right choice. I hope Capcom lets you choose your armor variant regardless of the character body type in the future.Yeah. :/ Especially the Wroggi Armour, some cool Western Outfit for Male types, while the female one still doesnt have any pants. Shit sucks.
Not sure what looks worse, the big metal skirts or all the armor designs getting out of their way to show thighs.
OP
OP
feminism is dressing your male power fantasy self-insert in a crop top and assless chaps goddammit
I was really hoping Rise would have been better with regard to female armours after that leaked Capcom memo last year :/
I think it was more about female roles than designs, wish they improved both aspects
I strongly believe it's because on a lower level many of these games from japan are created with the male teenager as the one important group they want to cater to. In cooperation with the whole "your youth is your most precious time" you get a stale mix of "men are either cool or strong" and "women are either sexy, in love with he protagonist or almost naked just because". A teenage boys paradise and because of japans "fixation" on youth even from adults you get most of the male gaming consumers if you target juvenile ideas of manhood and how women should look and act.
The armour in your example is sexualised so that males can see more skin on the female characters. And you can't choose to simply use the male design because then others in your group couldn't "possibly" ogle your female character while battling a giant monster... priorities people...
imo this is also the reason for the whole pedo bait designs and laughably softcore outfits women get to wear in too many of these games even today. It's the fixation on youth and school days that will get you teenage boys and old salary men as customers.
If women would look like men why would they even be around in such games? I'm pretty sure that we would get almost no women in these games if they had to be older than 18 (visibly) and had to wear the same functional clothes as men. Maybe a npc here and there but not in the mcs party.
Without the looks women would only be weaker men (in their eyes). So why would they incorporate them into a game?
I can't imagine an AAA game like The Last of Us 2 from a big japanese studio.
That's true, that seemed to be one of their main points in the memo instead. I do remember something about them calling out their own problematic designs like in MHW or SF but I guess thinking Capcom would connect the dots was expecting too much of them.
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This is a very weird thing considering the character creator goes with "Type 1" and "Type 2" instead of "Male" and "Female" like you'd usually expect
It almost made me expect some pretty loose non-binary friendly rules in regards to outfits, a la Animal Crossing, but nope.
Yeah that's a really good point. Capcom so close to getting it, yet so, so far!This is a very weird thing considering the character creator goes with "Type 1" and "Type 2" instead of "Male" and "Female" like you'd usually expect
It almost made me expect some pretty loose non-binary friendly rules in regards to outfits, a la Animal Crossing, but nope.
This is a very weird thing considering the character creator goes with "Type 1" and "Type 2" instead of "Male" and "Female" like you'd usually expect
It almost made me expect some pretty loose non-binary friendly rules in regards to outfits, a la Animal Crossing, but nope.
That's like Pokemon. They don't ask "Are you a boy or a girl" anymore, but outfits are locked anyway.
It's like they are trying, but don't have a clue lol
I hate when people say things like "this character looks nothing like a knight" or whatever their job is. Like you don't have to like the character but this kind of obvious "I can't take a woman who looks or dresses a certain way seriously" is so blatant and stupid and it bugs me.
Haven't touched Pokemon since the 5th gen but is it possible that's just an edit made by the localisation company to the script? Animal Crossing: New Horizons rephrased the gender selection in the character creator to being about picking your 'style' but that was only for the English release, every other one still asks if you want a boy or a girl villager. Could be something similar?
??
This isn't it. It's about being dressed for the job.
Ragnarok Online is directly based off of Lee Myung-Jin's manwha Ragnarok, which ended early so he could work on the game. Given the source material, not too surprising - more or less every named female character in said manwha is dressed like so.
The furious vag plate is cracking me up.
I feel like there is a very broad line where you can have cute and/or sexy outfits before hitting stripper outfits and furious vag plates that could use some more exploration than we are getting in a lot of games and media.
Hm, not sure. They just ask to select "you" in the pictures.
No, it's just that you need protection to hunt monsters.
Tbh I wouldn't care about these costumes IF I had the option to choose something else.
I don't know about others, but the entire reason i play armored classes is to have cool armor 🤷
lingerie, metal swimsuits, booty shorts, miniskirts don't really fit the bill.
I was just thinking about how much of MHR's issues would be fixed if the different versions of outfits were available for both body types. So my femme character could dress in bulky armour and a masc one could wear a dress. Then I legit would have no issues with it lol.
I'm sure you could say this in some situations but sometimes people are just mean with it and of course only ever target women. I just don't believe that most people say things like "there's nothing knightly about this character" and then other stuff like that because they are sincerely concerned that a character in a game where no one wears armor isn't wearing enough armor.
I'm not talking about anything in this thread by the way, I am just venting about other threads.
Personally it does take me out of place if I'm playing online and I see a paladin/gunlance/something-that-tends-to-need-heavy-armor and they are wearing a bikini. Not that they should change it, mind you, everyone plays as they like. But I do have a "what?" moment.
I do recognize that I prefer bulky armours in any case more than stuff that is really fit to the body and such tho. But that's just preference in general. Maybe because I saw so many weird armours for women when I was little.
I have no idea what you're talking about if you aren't talking about this thread, then. Care to give an example of a knight character who unfairly not treated seriously because they're a woman?
Regarding Monster Hunter, I'd love it if they have parity between the body types so that you can have bulkier armour regardless of what you choose, and on top of that have the the same choices for male characters that the female characters have with regards to more flowing clothes (although from what I saw from the Rise demo, some of those clothes clip through the legs, cloth physics still have a long way to go).
But they only do this kind of parity for goofy looking armours, such as this old Plesioth armour which feels like "what if Elvis came from Atlantis" and "what if 3 Stacks' platinum wig expanded and covered his whole body".
One of the worst examples of armour being different depending on the character you create is the Hermitaur armour, which has the concept of fantasy armour inspired by protective NFL gear, but the women's version just throws that idea out completely, leaving only the colour and markings to connect it to the original.
But they only do this kind of parity for goofy looking armours, such as this old Plesioth armour which feels like "what if Elvis came from Atlantis" and "what if 3 Stacks' platinum wig expanded and covered his whole body".
One of the worst examples of armour being different depending on the character you create is the Hermitaur armour, which has the concept of fantasy armour inspired by protective NFL gear, but the women's version just throws that idea out completely, leaving only the colour and markings to connect it to the original.
One of the most frustrating things when discussing sexualisation, sexism, LGBTQ+ issues etc in games and I'm sure it's been sure it's been brought up before is when fans get defensive because their fav game gets criticized or/and then downplay it or point to positive examples like it excuses the negative (this is not a meta post about Era, please don't make it into one).
I've been replaying Fallout 3 lately and it reminded me of my frustrations with Fallout 4, the story, how the woman PC gets next to no backstory yet the man PC gets the entire intro and even gets to say the famous "War, War Never changes" line and is the first to appear, making it clear THERE the true canon main character (which is held true with the marketing, toys etc), the forced different sex romance, the forced baby plot, the fact they removed the same-sex perks from New Vegas for no reason, yet kept the different-sex ones etc. Someone I know offline REALLY got arsey with me for that and told me I was making a big deal out of nothing and it didn't matter because the story doesn't matter and you can romance anyone (which as a bi woman, I really dislike the "All bi" mechanic some games do because it makes bisexuality nothing more as a mechanics and it pushes out gay and lesbian characters).
It reminded me when Fallout 4 came out and anyone who pointed out those flaws I saw also got that treatment and it was depressing how little gaming media actually cared (was Fallout 4 the one people noticed all the reviewers who got early copies were white men or what that another game?) and in some cases, game's media praising it despite being a stepback over New Vegas in many ways in it's treatment of women and LGBTQ+ people (the main thing was it being pro polyamory... Which turned out to be false. The gaming reduced likeness if you flirted with someone else in front of someone you were already romancing and if you cheated on Piper, you can find her at Nicks asking him to spy on you).
Sorry for the thread derailment. More on topic. I like how in Fallout 3 the Power Armour doesn't do anything silly for women like no boob armour, making it thinner etc, the Raider armour for women though... Less so.
I've been replaying Fallout 3 lately and it reminded me of my frustrations with Fallout 4, the story, how the woman PC gets next to no backstory yet the man PC gets the entire intro and even gets to say the famous "War, War Never changes" line and is the first to appear, making it clear THERE the true canon main character (which is held true with the marketing, toys etc), the forced different sex romance, the forced baby plot, the fact they removed the same-sex perks from New Vegas for no reason, yet kept the different-sex ones etc. Someone I know offline REALLY got arsey with me for that and told me I was making a big deal out of nothing and it didn't matter because the story doesn't matter and you can romance anyone (which as a bi woman, I really dislike the "All bi" mechanic some games do because it makes bisexuality nothing more as a mechanics and it pushes out gay and lesbian characters).
It reminded me when Fallout 4 came out and anyone who pointed out those flaws I saw also got that treatment and it was depressing how little gaming media actually cared (was Fallout 4 the one people noticed all the reviewers who got early copies were white men or what that another game?) and in some cases, game's media praising it despite being a stepback over New Vegas in many ways in it's treatment of women and LGBTQ+ people (the main thing was it being pro polyamory... Which turned out to be false. The gaming reduced likeness if you flirted with someone else in front of someone you were already romancing and if you cheated on Piper, you can find her at Nicks asking him to spy on you).
Sorry for the thread derailment. More on topic. I like how in Fallout 3 the Power Armour doesn't do anything silly for women like no boob armour, making it thinner etc, the Raider armour for women though... Less so.
I would just like the option to dress my character as I would see fit. Even if we cannot outright abolish the marketing fads that draw straight males to video games, just give me options. That's all I'm asking for. Give women, no matter their sexual preferences or skin color, the options to choose! I'm in the marketing field for an entirely different career, but I get it with the industry. I get why they do the things that they do, but I never have to support or like it even.
But, you are shitting me that in the years and years worth of marketing research data on the most basic and most influential cornerstones that are general demographics, age groups, genders, target audiences, the net worth of sales for each region locally and nationally, global sales trends, and other contending points that, for the life of the marketing teams, that you can't figure out how to give that to people while knowing that's what they want to see.
You are delusional as a marketing team to not see the influx and radical climb of female gamers from the bare-bones ratios of the 80s-90s and into today how those numbers are matching the ratio of male players or outright beating them.
But, you are shitting me that in the years and years worth of marketing research data on the most basic and most influential cornerstones that are general demographics, age groups, genders, target audiences, the net worth of sales for each region locally and nationally, global sales trends, and other contending points that, for the life of the marketing teams, that you can't figure out how to give that to people while knowing that's what they want to see.
You are delusional as a marketing team to not see the influx and radical climb of female gamers from the bare-bones ratios of the 80s-90s and into today how those numbers are matching the ratio of male players or outright beating them.
There are some definite asymmetry in what gets praised and criticized in this topic that can be very frustrating to readers who prefer a cute or pretty aesthetic. Not all the asymmetry can be explained by practicality or sexualization. The discussion around Ragnarok Online class designs last page provides a pretty good example.
This is the crusader. It was brought up either as the best design in the game or the only relatively good one.
At first glance, that seems to be the case. But it does not hold up on close examination. Contrast the male and female crusaders. The woman has a concave on the shoulder pads, while the male has sloped shoulder pads. The man's offers much better protection, because it directs blows away from the body. The female crusader's body armor ends well above the waist, leaving a noticeable narrowing at the waist that is exposed. We do not know whether that is the case for the male crusader--his waist is blocked by a strip of cloth--, but it seems that she has an exposed waist to emphasize her figure. We go down a bit more, and you can see that the man appears to wear shorts above the armor, while the woman has clothes beneath the armor around her thighs. It is not exposed flesh, but it is less protected in the thigh area.
And lastly, we come to the worst design decision: The female crusader is wearing high heels. They are not stilettos, but they are clearly far too high for someone who is supposed to wear heavy armor into combat.
Despite these bad design decisions, the crusader might still be the best of a bad lot. That is not the case though. Here is the acolyte.
The male and female designs are basically the same: Long, vaguely priest-like robes. That is technically not combat gear, but in the contest of a fantasy game, a spellcaster wears robes and other cloth-based gear into battle. There are some subtle differences that makes the male acolyte's clothes better suited for battle. His robes are open, while her dress is not. This makes it easier for him to run. He is wearing pants, while seems to be wearing tights, so his clothes offer better protection. He has steel reinforced boots, while she is wearing cloth shoes. These all make the boy more suited for combat than the girl, but they are much less extreme than the contrast between the male and female crusaders. And of these differences, the only one that is really sexualizing is the tights--of which you can barely see above the ankles.
Between the two, the acolyte is better than the crusader, whether you look at it from the point of practicality or in contrast with the male design. But the crusader gets posted as a good example, while the acolyte is not mentioned. Why is that? Is it because the poster simply forgot? Is it because the pressure to look pretty disadvantages women in real life, so the posters feel only the ones that break the mold in some way merits a mention? Or is it something else?
A lot of this asymmetry in what gets praised and what gets criticized is systematic differences in what kind of woman is likely to be depicted in that style: A game with a cute or pretty aesthetic and has mostly human-like designs (and not specifically targeting women) is more likely to design women for the male gaze than one that is using a grimy and realistic aesthetic (at least in the last a decade or so). But as the RO example shows, it does not explain all the difference. So the question I would like to end with is: Can we do anything to make the topic more welcome to those who prefer cute or pretty aesthetics without sacrificing the point of the topic?
This is the crusader. It was brought up either as the best design in the game or the only relatively good one.
At first glance, that seems to be the case. But it does not hold up on close examination. Contrast the male and female crusaders. The woman has a concave on the shoulder pads, while the male has sloped shoulder pads. The man's offers much better protection, because it directs blows away from the body. The female crusader's body armor ends well above the waist, leaving a noticeable narrowing at the waist that is exposed. We do not know whether that is the case for the male crusader--his waist is blocked by a strip of cloth--, but it seems that she has an exposed waist to emphasize her figure. We go down a bit more, and you can see that the man appears to wear shorts above the armor, while the woman has clothes beneath the armor around her thighs. It is not exposed flesh, but it is less protected in the thigh area.
And lastly, we come to the worst design decision: The female crusader is wearing high heels. They are not stilettos, but they are clearly far too high for someone who is supposed to wear heavy armor into combat.
Despite these bad design decisions, the crusader might still be the best of a bad lot. That is not the case though. Here is the acolyte.
The male and female designs are basically the same: Long, vaguely priest-like robes. That is technically not combat gear, but in the contest of a fantasy game, a spellcaster wears robes and other cloth-based gear into battle. There are some subtle differences that makes the male acolyte's clothes better suited for battle. His robes are open, while her dress is not. This makes it easier for him to run. He is wearing pants, while seems to be wearing tights, so his clothes offer better protection. He has steel reinforced boots, while she is wearing cloth shoes. These all make the boy more suited for combat than the girl, but they are much less extreme than the contrast between the male and female crusaders. And of these differences, the only one that is really sexualizing is the tights--of which you can barely see above the ankles.
Between the two, the acolyte is better than the crusader, whether you look at it from the point of practicality or in contrast with the male design. But the crusader gets posted as a good example, while the acolyte is not mentioned. Why is that? Is it because the poster simply forgot? Is it because the pressure to look pretty disadvantages women in real life, so the posters feel only the ones that break the mold in some way merits a mention? Or is it something else?
A lot of this asymmetry in what gets praised and what gets criticized is systematic differences in what kind of woman is likely to be depicted in that style: A game with a cute or pretty aesthetic and has mostly human-like designs (and not specifically targeting women) is more likely to design women for the male gaze than one that is using a grimy and realistic aesthetic (at least in the last a decade or so). But as the RO example shows, it does not explain all the difference. So the question I would like to end with is: Can we do anything to make the topic more welcome to those who prefer cute or pretty aesthetics without sacrificing the point of the topic?
Wait a sec......Regarding Monster Hunter, I'd love it if they have parity between the body types so that you can have bulkier armour regardless of what you choose, and on top of that have the the same choices for male characters that the female characters have with regards to more flowing clothes (although from what I saw from the Rise demo, some of those clothes clip through the legs, cloth physics still have a long way to go).
But they only do this kind of parity for goofy looking armours, such as this old Plesioth armour which feels like "what if Elvis came from Atlantis" and "what if 3 Stacks' platinum wig expanded and covered his whole body".
One of the worst examples of armour being different depending on the character you create is the Hermitaur armour, which has the concept of fantasy armour inspired by protective NFL gear, but the women's version just throws that idea out completely, leaving only the colour and markings to connect it to the original.
Is it based on a cheerleader outfit?
Now that you mention it, it's possible, I never caught that before.
Ah no, I did not forget. I just didn't think to mention any of the base classes apart from Magician that was pretty tame in comparison to the first, second, and third job classes simply because you do not stay in those designs for very long and if you do, you're losing out on stats and abilities.
What's a large part of RO is that you have some pretty tame designs that increasingly become worst as you grow with the game and that was largely part of my point. It's a shame really.
Crusader was brought up as a better, but not perfect example where out of most of the higher leveled jobs...we have an instance where the women have some illusion of armor. But, you brought up very good points where even certain aspects of that is heavily flawed and not very protective.
They're talking about the leaked Genshin character Eula which I said in the Genshin thread has literally nothing in the design to indicate they're a knight
because they don't
The idea that it's unfair to say so because she's a woman haha oh boy
Shining Star just @ me next time
Here's NPC knights in the same game, they're all Knights of Favonius
Or Noelle a "maid knight" in training whilst having dumb BOOBA armour still at least seems like a fantasy knight. And Jean who is acting admin for the knights has a cavalry aspect.
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Fun thing about Noelle is that she is godly strong. Still it not reflected in her design.
Also GI team continue to find ways to have a lady that is generally fully cloth but have some sort of exposed skin.
Also GI team continue to find ways to have a lady that is generally fully cloth but have some sort of exposed skin.
Thanks for the explanation.They're talking about the leaked Genshin character Eula which I said in the Genshin thread has literally nothing in the design to indicate they're a knight
because they don't
The idea that it's unfair to say so because she's a woman haha oh boy
Shining Star just @ me next time
Here's NPC knights in the same game, they're all Knights of Favonius
I agree with you that this character in no way resembles a knight. She looks like she's dressed to go to a Babymetal concert.
lol @ the idea that people criticize this design "because she's a woman". Are you kidding me hahaha
Yanfei is the worst, like Nowi Fire Emblem bad
Yeah, see I don't generally complain about sexy designs in a gacha games so much, it's par for the course
However I at least want the design to be somewhat relevant to the characters story role, otherwise it could be any anime blob
Like if a character is a sexy (rolls dice) baker at least give me some oven gloves in the design
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huh i mean those are the only two outside of the npc's that are members of the knights that even look like knights
amber and lisa who are knights don't look like knights and kaeya
that's no knight, pirate(which may be his family's history but who can say) yes but knight like his job title no
huh i mean those are the only two outside of the npc's that are members of the knights that even look like knights
amber and lisa who are knights don't look like knights and kaeya
that's no knight, pirate(which may be his family's history but who can say) yes but knight like his job title no
Yes, but Amber has a pilot inspiration which fits her role, Lisa a witch in charge of tomes and Kaeya a pirate/rogue
Eula has the theme of lingerie model and nothing else
fair but she is a leaked character, is her role known is her other job known yet is she just a knight or like the other characters i mentioned something else? fair to criticize the design though,
Spindrift Knight, Captain of the Knights Reconnaissance Company, from an aristocratic family. Claymore user
So on the kind of "good" end of the spectrum you think of Titania from FE:PoR
I think I figured out the role that they designed her for it's definitely a very sexualized aristocrat design in my opinion she'll probably talk in that overly proper wordplay aristocrats are known for. But yeah titania works as a counter example.
They're talking about the leaked Genshin character Eula which I said in the Genshin thread has literally nothing in the design to indicate they're a knight
because they don't
The idea that it's unfair to say so because she's a woman haha oh boy
Shining Star just @ me next time
To add insult to injury, she uses a greatsword. With high heels, and thigh high boot legging thingies, whatever those are... I like Genshin's gameplay but some of the character designs are ridiculous but they know their audience and their audience eats up fan-service like they're starved for it.
It's quite a shame as well because that character looks fun to play. She's supposed to be from a noble family and most of the playable characters from the Knights of Favonius in the game wear quite different outfits from each other, but this one is ridiculous, specially considering that she's supposed to be from a well respected noble family. It feels like there's a part of her outfit missing but I know this is all part of an effort to profit from their playerbase.
What's weird to me is that they have female characters with more decent outfits like Jean who are still very much appreciated and beloved by their community but something tells me it will be a while before I see a female character that doesn't wear high heels for combat, even their younger female characters have them.
The heels thing is more of a "we are recycling this rig over and over" thing
There's probably about 4 female bases and 3 male so all the characters on one base are gonna follow the same silhouette
2 lady rigs with small heals the Qiqi sized one and the Main Character sized, 2 large heels with Fischl size and Jean size
This looks extra weird on Diona who has no heel so just kinda floats in the air due to the rig
I think there are three rigs, a small a medium and a tall one per male and female genders, don't quote me on that, but given how profitable the game has been, I don't really think they have any good excuse not to make a new rig that doesn't have such ridiculous designs.