Guild Wars 2

oh god, yes. but if you’re taking this into account, at least fix charr armor as a whole. too much clipping in an effort to adapt it to their body style from humans/sylvari/norn.

Krimz.2640:

No, I would rather you adapt a female variant to charr and asura body types. As someone who plays mostly asura, one of the biggest turn-offs to the game is the lack of variety in the armor and outfits available to my characters.

Putting them into a copy-paste male variant feels about as cheaply done to me as what we’re currently presented with. This is legendary armor. People are probably going to work hard to obtain it. At least make it worthwhile it by providing something unique?

This is the most sensible option in my opinion. Please do consider this.

Yes.

It’s completely incongruous to what we know of charr and asura culture, not to mention anatomy. It just reflects that you view human female as default, and put in little effort to make armour (Legendary! armour) that suit other races in the world you’re building.

And what’s with the female skimpy armour again? Compare it with the male versions, it covers 50% less skin. I wish Anet wouldn’t be so tone deaf about this.

I have a better idea. How about unlocking all armor for all genders of all races. Let everyone wear what they want when they want.

The boobplate goes against Charr and Asura cultural norms. If it’s available to them it can’t be the default.

Krimz.2640:

No, I would rather you adapt a female variant to charr and asura body types. As someone who plays mostly asura, one of the biggest turn-offs to the game is the lack of variety in the armor and outfits available to my characters.

Putting them into a copy-paste male variant feels about as cheaply done to me as what we’re currently presented with. This is legendary armor. People are probably going to work hard to obtain it. At least make it worthwhile it by providing something unique?

I agree with this whole-heartedly.

SilveryBeing.5082:

I have a better idea. How about unlocking all armor for all genders of all races. Let everyone wear what they want when they want.

Seconding this, but at a minimum PLEASE don’t put boobcups on Charr and Asura. It looks awful x_x

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Autumnmane.3574:

Six or none!

A more sleek version tailored for Charr and Asura females would allow for some femininity without looking like they’d just been stuffed into the ported over male chestplate.

But either would be an improvement over boobplate on races that don’t even have boobs.

It really makess the ridiculousness of sexualising only one genders armour more obvious when you see it outside the accepted humanoid female context eh?

MO’s thread touches on another topic: Should there be 2 plates or 6 on female charr. It seems we should call for a Reddit Q & A with lore Devs on what asura and charr anatomy should be.

As I stated before, I personally think that if you have a human-like creature (charr, asura, skritt, centaur, etc), they should all have human-like features.

Mike O Brien.4613:

You’ve rightly pointed out that it looks incongruent with Charr and Asura female anatomy

I think all they need is to have an internal Q & A..

Yes, please change it to the male model. Look, I can agree with wanting to give female asura and female charr distinctive looks, but I feel this just flies in the face of their established lore.

Sexual dimorphism doesn’t have to be expressed on them in this fashion.

Yes Charr. (Makes no sense, needs 6 cups or no cups at all.)
No Asura. (About kittening time we had Asura female armour that wasn’t literally the exact same male version… I mean I get it, people like fantasizing about playing a gender neutral race, but enough is enough.)

No, as they currently stand, they’re nothing short of ridiculous. A carbon copy of the male equivalent isn’t fun either, but take inspiration from the male CA medium chest, where it’s well-covering armour with metal reïnforcements at the chest.

A lot of people, myself included, really hope for the Legendary armour to live up to the expectations, considering the time, currency and effort invested in obtaining it. Please, I’m pining for larger steps between this precursor tier and the end result.

If ever an amour needs fixed it is this one, make the change Mo!

Dashrider.9360:

why not just let us choose in game which version we want. whether male or female.

For charr and asura especially, I would love to be able to have this as an option for most, if not all, armor sets and outfits.

Otherwise, I say keep the female version. There aren’t enough female-variant armors/outfits for charr and asura as it is.

Thanks for posting this topic, Mo. The way I see things, I do think the team should reconsider the “boob-plate” option at least for female charr, the reason being that it goes against the original artistic vision for the race as explained by the artist Kristen Perry who was responsible for the female charr look among other things in the game. I’ll provide the full quote from an old interview for context with the notable part (which some posters have already paraphrased in this thread) in bold:

Kristen Perry on the Artistic Origin of the Charr

Kristen Perry was the character artist who volunteered to craft a viable design for the female charr in Guild Wars 2. The female of the race had not been seen in the original game, so creating a concept that was both recognizably female and recognizably charr was a challenge.

Q: Kristen, can you talk a little about the different approaches you tried out for the female charr before settling on the final design?

Kristen: As a team, we had many discussions regarding the direction of the female charr, and a lot of that back-and-forth was in the form of thumbnail sketches and theoretical debate. These discussions centered around the tension between making the female charr attractive to the playerbase while still making it look like part of the same race as the male charr.

Much of the problem was in making the female charr more universally attractive, which leans towards a more human appearance. Those initial designs explored the tension between an acceptable human notion of beauty and an animalistic design that is cool, but just too “creature” for the average player to find engaging. This exploratory process brought about one model design that was indeed more humanoid and catgirl in appearance. It had the back leg joint articulation of the charr, but stood much more upright, had a human neck, slender arms and almost hand-like paws—and, yes, breasts. The problem with this design, though, was we were trying to find a solution between both goals, which meant we didn’t really satisfy either. The human part of our charr catgirl wasn’t human enough to be cute, and the charr part of her wasn’t charr enough to be fierce, let alone look like a female of the same race. So while this experiment was very important for visualization, in the end it didn’t give us the result we wanted.

By this point we knew we didn’t want a catgirl, but there was still another conundrum to solve. The males of the charr race are large, overly muscular, brutish, and monstrous. We couldn’t give the female of the race the same hulking masculine proportions, because then there’d be no real way to see any gender difference. But how do you make a smaller, less muscular, less imposing member of the race feel just as powerful as their male counterparts?

Q: So how did you strike that balance and create something that was both feminine and charr-like?

Kristen: Well, when I started designing the female charr, I definitely wanted her to feel just as fierce as the male of the race. She had to feel sleek and agile while at the same time have an appearance of strength and power. By thinking in terms of movement, it became clear the answer was in optimizing nuances. Yes, she had to be large and robust like the male, but we could tone down the testosterone by really extending her body lines to gracefully flow from the top of her head to tail tip.

I didn’t see any reason whatsoever to give her less clawing power, so I rebuilt the sabers on her hands and feet and brought out the padding design. The face and horns were designed with style and movement in mind, but also incorporated markedly more feminine cat-like features instead of the more monstrous male features, though there will be those options too. The horns don’t have a particular direction to denote gender; they just have to look cool. The female’s tail, however, has long hair. This was a very specific thing I wanted to include, as I love the sweeping feel to the long hair, and it’s an easy detail to note from behind in telling whether the charr is male or female.

Finally, there was the matter of the chest. It really didn’t make any sense to have boobs on a charr female, particularly with all the effort we took to make her sleek and fierce. We thought they should have no breasts at all or at least hide them under some fluffy fur. Above all else, we needed to be true to the race, of course! There was still some debate, however, so I gave them a choice: either be subtle and downplay the breasts (it wasn’t a point of the race, anyway) or go full-on realistic. Yes, that’s right—none or six!!

But really, the armor augmentation required for six boobs would be just as ridiculous, so none it was!
(Source)

I understand that Kristen is no longer working for Anet according to her LinkedIn profile, and we don’t really know who has stepped into her shoes regarding future charr and sylvari aesthetics (among other things) and if her vision still counts now that it’ll be in someone else’s hands. Still, I feel that Kristen brought up some notable points for why the “boob-plate” for charr females wouldn’t work due to the race’s biology and overall design aesthetics which Guild Wars 2 wanted to convey at launch and that it would be better for the lore of the game to continue on the path she and other artists set back then unless there’s a really compelling reason to go against it now.

Just my two cents.

Don’t swap, leave as is, male armor on females was always unfitting.

Yes, please change it to male/gender neutral as this is more suitable to the asura and charr physiology. And thank you for asking!

Yes. Please no boobplates for my charr. The best option would be armor designed specifically to accommodate this without simply reverting to the male armour but if that has to be the case then, personally, I think it’s better than it currently is.

Geneticide.6987:

Yes Charr. (Makes no sense, needs 6 cups or no cups at all.)
No Asura. (About kittening time we had Asura female armour that wasn’t literally the exact same male version… I mean I get it, people like fantasizing about playing a gender neutral race, but enough is enough.)

It makes no sense on Asura either. Male and female asura are the same shape. The boob plates would be totally empty and serve no purpose other than damaging the wearer’s sternum when struck.

Mo,

With the Experimental Precursor Armor, I am very very VERY dissapointed on how much clipping there is with male AND female charr, mostly on the medium set.

This is something that I, personally, have been aiming for ever since raiding and legendary armor was announced. Please do NOT leave charr out of the picture when making the armor, the tail clipping looks horrid and honestly makes the armor less appealing for A LOT of players.

You guys have made armor w/ tail plating before Carapace Light Armor Pants, T3 heavy Charr, and even the Arah medium coat. I KNOW the team can make good armor on charr. With the legendary armor, there is NO excuse on clipping on charr tails.

Thanks.

Cuet Calib.8046:

Yes, please change it to the male model. Look, I can agree with wanting to give female asura and female charr distinctive looks, but I feel this just flies in the face of their established lore.

Sexual dimorphism doesn’t have to be expressed on them in this fashion.

You realize there is literally zero lore that states asuran culture recognizes sexual dimorphism any less than any of the other races right? That’s just something perpetuated by the forums based on assumption about why the asura only have one armor set between the sexes, which is, in reality, just because it makes a more reasonable pipeline for the art department.

In fact, in game, Asurans use sexually dimorphic identifiers (Geniusette anyone? As well as having a male/female naming structure, which two of the playable races do not) more frequently than any other race.

And aside from that issue, how is everyone involuntarily looking male, any more gender-neutral, than everyone looking female? This stance makes absolutely no sense.

No, please don’t.
There are so few choices for female asuras in general and I’m really looking forward to use the Chestpiece (along other parts) on my ele. If, however, you decide to change it due to the amount of people complaining about the state right now:
1. Don’t just copy the male version, if I wanted to play a male character, I’d have made one.
2. Please keep the current skin in the game somehow, it doesn’t have to be part of the precursor armor, I just want to be able to obtain it somehow
3. If you are going to create a new model, how about adding a “select skin” button or something (like when selecting stats) so people at least have the choice
I think, if the legendary armor is as similar to the first tier precursor as the weapons, you really don’t have to worry about it, just keep this skin as it is and “improve” the looks with every tier so to say, just like when getting a weapon. Then everyone should be happy; almost noone here just wants the male skins imported, so they’d never use the changed skin anyways.

Just keep the skins as they are and change the next ones. Don’t take them away from people who like them, everyone can decide for themselves how their character should look and a male import would definitely NOT add to diversity in any way

If you keep it the same as it is now, you will be further scorning players who previously had some amount of pride in the game’s designs for female asura and charr.

If you change it, you will mostly only be offending people who are just saying “no” to annoy “SJWs.”

You are better off just changing it and never trying to arbitrarily add breasts to their armor like that again. Or perhaps you could make it so each gender on each race can choose between both the “male” and “female” versions of armor sets so that people and choose what they want.

Krimz.2640:

No, I would rather you adapt a female variant to charr and asura body types. As someone who plays mostly asura, one of the biggest turn-offs to the game is the lack of variety in the armor and outfits available to my characters.

Putting them into a copy-paste male variant feels about as cheaply done to me as what we’re currently presented with. This is legendary armor. People are probably going to work hard to obtain it. At least make it worthwhile it by providing something unique?

Also this bears repeating. Why not just modify the top to be a wrap instead of a breastplate? Nothing over-the-top. It would be a good strategy to approach many of the female armor sets in the game for charr and asura.

Example: the primitive armor set looks infinitely better on a female than a male, yet charr and asura get the drab-looking male variant. I wish my female charr (a voodoo-themed necro) could wear the female version of the primitive armor.

An option to choose which version you want to wear would be absolutely heavenly!

Krimz.2640:

No, I would rather you adapt a female variant to charr and asura body types. As someone who plays mostly asura, one of the biggest turn-offs to the game is the lack of variety in the armor and outfits available to my characters.

Putting them into a copy-paste male variant feels about as cheaply done to me as what we’re currently presented with. This is legendary armor. People are probably going to work hard to obtain it. At least make it worthwhile it by providing something unique?

I agree that this would be the most sensible thing to do. I also play predominantly Asura (I have 23 in total) and while I normally love that Asura females get reasonable armour instead of combat lingerie, this is still legendary (precursor) armour and it would make me feel shafted if Asura females just got the male skins. I think Asura and Charr female characters deserve to have armour that’s more feminine while still keeping in line with the cultural norms of those races.

As someone who mains an Asura female, I can’t say I would be inclined to put any effort towards getting legendary armour if I have to use the male skins instead of anything remotely feminine.

yes: the current set looks absurd on female Charr, and even worse on female Asura

I don’t have a huge preference one way or another, but I WOULD prefer more feminine skins for asura and charr in general. I don’t stop liking dresses just because I care more about my brains.

Short answer, yes.

What I would actually like is for charr and asura to still have different male/female models, but for those models not to use human/norn/sylvari anatomy. I would like to have the legendary armor precursor actually be well designed for each race and gender.

But if the only two options are “keep the boob plates” or “use the male model”, I’ll go with “use the male model”.

No, don’t swap it. I’m tired of all my female asura looking like guys and would appreciate the tangible variety this “female” variant provides.

I find it hilarious that so many people complained asura ladies get stuck with male armor, and now that we have it the other way around suddenly THAT’S not good either. Greener grass, people. You can’t have it both ways.

This would be ONE female option among dozens of currently “male” ones; it’s not like keeping this female-ified tips the scales more out of balance than they already are.

No, don’t change it!
As a female gamer who plays a female asura I’ve been waiting so long for some armor that actually makes me look and feel feminine.
If you’re going to give me a choice between male and female, why would you force me to wear armor that doesn’t let me feel like the gender I chose? And if my race REALLY “doesn’t even have breasts”, why is it that when my character is stripped down to the bare minimum, my “non-existent breasts” are still covered?
To a further point, There’s been some great looking female armor coming out that I would like to get, but it makes me not want to play the game when I realize it doesn’t matter anyway because I’ll just be dressed like a male.
To be honest, it’s not even about having or not having boobs. Its about feeling feminine. I chose to be a female character, because I wanted to be a female who could dress in female armor (which I think we can all agree is generally more pretty than male armor by design.)
There’s no reason why asura and char armor meant to be worn by females, can’t be more feminine at least by design. With or with out boob plates.

Please change it. Looks nice on human females, but it just looks silly on charr and asura. Armor can be feminine without adding boobs to everything. I’m all for the “six or none” for charr breasts.

Please change it to use the male armor set for female Charr and Asura like with all other armor. It is incongruous to the entire style of those races to use the female versions as they currently do.

Personally… as much as i hate to say it, but yes. Actually, maybe just the coats, but..
I honestly love the design… itd be amazing if adapted to asura. I’d prefer to not have to use the male variant on female asura – i like it being unique on them, and honestly i like that -some- armours do show a bit of skin.
But.. the breast-holders on asura just look ridiculous, and i cant take the armour serious because of it. If it is in any way possible, i’d love to see it changed with a liitle bit of alteration to still be pretty much the same, but just without the blatantly obvious breast holders. But if that is not an option… somewhat grudgingly, i’m going to have to vote to replace the female (chest) armour with the male versions. Without either of these options, I’ll never be able to take the armour serious on my females.

I personally don’t mind the female chest on the Asura female, but I can swing either way with the decision.

But the female chest for the female Charr has got to go. It just looks weird and doesn’t fit at all both just on the model and culture wise.

Yes. Please change it.

Please change it.

Boob plates should never be a thing on Charr, it’s horribly out of place when you import armor skins that look fine on humans and don’t take into consideration that Charr anatomy is drastically different. Clipping/floating shoulders are still a huge issue and even though it’s more work to model the armor to take into consideration manes and tails, it looks much better when that consideration is taken and models are rendered accordingly without tails clipping through your gear, manes disappearing entirely or your shoulders floating so far off model that there’s no point even wearing them at that point. Aesthetics are a huge part of any MMO and when non-human races get shafted, it leaves a large portion of the community bitter. We know it’s more than possible to model gear appropriately for the race, take the time and do it and you’ll have a happier community while increasing the number of people who want to do the content for the rewards provided. I’m personally tired of feeling like I have to play a human character or rely on outfits just to be able to put together an aesthetically pleasing armor set. Please stop poorly implementing human armor onto the the Charr and Asura.

I have no problem with the asura one, but I do think that the charr one needs to have, in the words of tumblr, either six boobs or none.

Yes. Even if it’s the female version without the boob plates, at least remove those boob plates. It makes about as much sense as crotch pouches for human females.

Yes, please change it to male. If the only option is male, or ridiculous fake boobs, then male is the better choice.

Although, it would be better if there were distinct male/female versions of charr armor, but female in a way that would make sense for a charr female.

and to people who think they need boobplates to feel feminine, what? Charr and asura are not human, they would presumably have different parts of the body they culturally consider attractive to highlight. If you want boobs so much you have three other races to choose from.

KEEP IT! It’s only ONE armor. Some people actually like this. More options are GOOD. People who don’t like it can always transmute the armor.

Yes, please change the chestplates. It’s weird and incongruent to have Asura and Charr having boobplates. Plus it’s just bad armor anyway.

I have to say I’m pretty disappointed with the precursor armors on charr and asura. I’m fine with more feminine charr and asura armors being similar to the feminine norn/human/sylvari armors, but in these cases the breastplates seem awkwardly rigged to the charr and asura bodies. Overall, though, more armors that are the same across genders/races better fitted to each combination!!!

MorganOneNine.1025:

No, don’t swap it. I’m tired of all my female asura looking like guys and would appreciate the tangible variety this “female” variant provides.

I find it hilarious that so many people complained asura ladies get stuck with male armor, and now that we have it the other way around suddenly THAT’S not good either. Greener grass, people. You can’t have it both ways.

This would be ONE female option among dozens of currently “male” ones; it’s not like keeping this female-ified tips the scales more out of balance than they already are.

^^^^^^ EXACTLY.

Yes. Change it.

Boob cups on races that do not have boobs makes no sense and is unnecessary sexualisation.

Yes, I would like for it to be changed.

Wojo.7906:

My order of preference:

1. New feminine skin for Asura/Charr that don’t have human boobplates.

1.5. Holes for tails, ears/horns, and toes/claws.

2. The current male armor skin.

3. What you have in-game now.

Exactly this. I would love to have something that better differentiates between the hulking masculinity of the male Charr and the more sleek femininity of the female Charr.

“Boobplates” are not that way.

I’m not sure how likely redesigning the chest area is, so between the two presented options I’d probably settle for “Yes, change the chest to the male armour skin”.

Yes, please change it to the male version.

Boobcup is not acceptable on charr and asura, many people enjoy playing those two races to get away from the awful bikini armor designs that human/norn/sylvari get all the time. The current design for female charr and asura does not work with these races at all and is extremely disappointing.

Also, feminine armor doesn’t and shouldn’t need to rely on bras/boobcup. It can look feminine without accenting the breasts, and it’s extremely lazy to just slap on some armor tiddies.

Please please please, yes, please change it. Charr/asura anatomy does not work that way.

Yes please please change it!

I main charr and asura to get away from boobplate. Honestly I’d love to see “male” variants available for all races, but in the meantime these two races are my refuge and having this super high-end armour bring in this type of design hurts.