Guild Wars 2

They come from vast silos of plot convenience.

Final Notes:

• I’m not asking for any armour to be taken away, revealing or otherwise. This suggestion would only improve armour options for everybody.
• I like some of the armour sets that fail the maxims a lot. I ’d like them even more if I could wear the same armour version on a male or female character.
• You may be perfectly happy with a particular gendered version of an armour you purchased. That’s fine, but the issue itself still stands.
• If you feel this would require additional resources, note that I said splitting divergent armour into a different set did not mean two sets needed to be worked on/released simultaneously. Aside from that, it’s up to Anet how they divvy up their resources. This is the suggestions forum, and this is a suggestion.
• I don’t really care to argue over how many sets already meet the maxims, and how many don’t. I want them all to meet these maxims, because there is no real good reason for them not to.

2) Armour sets that don’t meet these maxims:

• Flamekissed: Female | Male | (Reskin. The design is not entirely consistent though I don’t think it’s hard to place the two in the same set. The major offence is how much more revealing the female version is compared to the male version which comes with pants and zero midriff or boob window.)
• Phalanx: Female | Male | (Female version gets boob window and skirt with no leggings. Male version is fully covered from head to toe. Visual design is generally really inconsistent here and they don’t look anything like two parts of the same set.)
• Viper: Female | Male | (Oh, you wanted pants? Sorry, you’re a woman. No pants for you! Also, if you’re a guy? Cover them ugly legs up. Nobody wants to see that.)
• Phoenix: Female | Male | (Completely different visual designs, as well as being much more revealing on the female than the male version. Male version barely has any thematic touches and lacks a lot of detail lavished on the female version.)
• Magitech: Female | Male | (Relatively similar designs, but female version again has missing pants for no particular reason.)
• Aetherblade Light: Female | Male | (Subjective note: I love both designs and wish they’d been separate sets. Objective note: They really look nothing like each other apart from a few cogs strewn here and there. Female midriff tips the balance on revealing and makes it unequal.)
• Aetherblade Medium: Female | Male | (Fine in terms of equivalent revealing, but ultimately are very different designs within the same set.)
• Aetherblade Heavy: Female | Male | (Kiiiind of okay in terms of equivalent skin cover, though your mileage may vary on the boob plate. Again, completely different sets of armour though in terms of visual design.)

WARNING: Do not derail this thread with discussions about armour practicality, video game realism, what you personally think about skimpy armour or the people who wear it, and so on and so forth. It is irrelevant. Multiple perfectly legitimate feedback threads have been trashed as a result of this, and I don’t intend to let it happen with mine.

Problem: Armour diversity and choice is sometimes arbitrarily restricted by character sex.

Suggestion: For future armour sets, keep the following design maxims in mind:

1) The armour set should look aesthetically very similar on both character genders. Minor detail changes are okay, but as an overall rule of thumb, they should look like they belong to same armour set. Key defining features of the armour set should be present on both versions (e.g. if there’s a particular motif, or mantle design, or design shape/flow/pattern going on). If there has to be variation, it would probably be much more appropriate for it to be based on race, because the charr get short-changed so often with humanoid armour basically just stretched to fit them.

2) The armour set should not be more revealing on one gender than it is on the other. Revealing armour is okay. Showing flesh is okay. But keep it generally equalised.

If the concept/design with one armour set for one gender becomes divergent from the other gender’s version based on these two design maxims, split them into separate armour sets. This could mean keeping the variant aside for later release as a separate armour set, or introducing armour set variants in some way, shape or form (discussion on which is welcome).

Why this is important:

• Aesthetic consistency
• Ensuring that players aren’t locked out of armour they might have wanted because it is arbitrarily only available to certain genders
• Ensuring that players don’t feel they have to play a certain race or character sex in order to achieve the non-sex/race-related aesthetic they want for that character
• Avoiding player disappointment when they see one gender’s version of an armour, based on preview pics and marketing and armour icons, but discover they can’t have it on their character because their character is not a man/woman/ or is a male-armour-by-default race.
• Reduce confusion/improve consistency around the male-armour-by-default races, who have in the past been given gendered town clothes for arbitrary reasons, but then only get male armour in other cases, etc. . .
• Given that most revealing armour falls on the female version of a particular set so far, this would also open up a lot more diversity in available male armours, for players who want their boys to be wearing something less restrictive.

The Faren cutscene was the best thing about the whole instance IMO

TehPwnerer.7215:

Very disheartening to see Kiel in the lead. People want to vote for “the nice, pretty human lady” and are voting for the wrong reasons. Cheaper waypoints for a few weeks are just as useless as cheaper keys nobody will buy for 4 weeks.

Sadly, you’re not psychic, and don’t actually know the reason every individual chose to vote the way they did. Even if you did, what makes your vote more legitimate than theirs? If players like the waypoint cost reduction, that’s okay. If players don’t want to support gemstore RNG, that’s okay. If players are voting for story reasons, that’s okay. If players are voting because they actually want the Thaumanova fractal, that’s okay. Vice versa applies to voting for Evon.

It’s okay to be disappointed by the result, but acting like everyone made the “wrong” vote just because it’s not the result you wanted is pretty silly. There is no “wrong” vote.