[Suggestion] Gender Neutral Skins

[liamlockheart.6203]

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this. I looked but could only find a suggestion forum for gem store things.

 

Please make the armor skins and outfits gender neutral. It would add so many new ways for people to be able to customize their characters and it would be so much more inclusive.

Sometimes you have the perfect skirt for your character, but the tops for that armor weight and bodytype don't go with it at all. This would give players twice the amount of skins to use without Anet having to design a bunch of skins all over again.

I do recognize that some things just literally would ot work for being put on the bodies with breasts because there's nothing covering half the chest (like the masculine version of Braham's shirt skin) but other than those few, there's no real reason why the skins can't be gender neutral.

[Oglaf.1074]

The outfit that Carnac (or whatever his name is) has always bothered me.

 

The male version looks like a Heavy "plated" (as much as plant armour can be plated, lol) set whereas the female version looks like a Light armour set. I would've loved a slightly more feminine and less bulky version of the Heavy one for my female Sylvari Revenant: she just doesn't look right in a Light-looking set since Revenant is a Heavy class...!

[liamlockheart.6203]

And even with skins like Braham's shirt, I feel like the team is skilled enough to find a way to make it work, honestly. It wouldn't be exactly the same, but it would be a much more close match than what we got.

Like, for example, when I got the mistward shirt and realized what it looked like on my human female character, the one I had REALLY wanted it for, I was really let down. I wanted Rytlock's shirt, the shirt Rytlock actually wears, not a knock off.

[MythMaster.4756]

This is a FANTASTIC idea! It sucks to see someone in a skin and want it, Get it and realize it looks awful on my character because it's literally completely different. I have a make character and some of the female outfits look great and I'd wear them but I see the male version and it's just God awful. And I've seen the female versions of stuff I wear and it's just not right. Get that gender neutral stuff in there.

[Chadramar.8156]

This has been asked over and over, with no reply, but I'll never not second it anyway because the extremely gendered armors (or "armors" in the case of many of the female versions) are one of the biggest nuisances in the game IMO. There's so much good, nicely themed and practical and/or impressive stuff for men that looks not even _remotely_ similar on women. Canach's new outfit is indeed one of the worst cases. The plant equivalent of full plate on men, a layer of body paint with a handful of bark scraps thrown on it for women. What the serious F. It is especially galling since there is so little gear for sylvari to begin with. That outfit would likely have been my first ever cosmetic purchase if it had been gender neutral.

[Mikuchan.7261]

There is a technical issue with making the currently existing armors and outfits "gender neutral" and that is that the 3d model for the armor is modeled after the character.

If you would put female version of an armor on a male character, it would have boobs.

Now I don't mind men with boobs, but it doesn't necessarily look like it makes much sense.

The waist would also clip massively.

On the other hand, putting a male armor on a female character would not have boobs, and probably not the rigging necessary to weight it for having boobs.

There are of course other issues as well, but this one is would be enough to, sadly, break the idea I feel.

 

Some of it can be fixed with changing rigging weights in the model, potentially even automatically, but it wouldn't change the basic shape of the model.

Not saying it'd be impossible, but there's a ton of armors and all of them have a male and female version for 3 races. All those have to be altered for the opposite gender.

Probably not where they should focus their workload.

 

For future armors it could absolutely be a thing, but for existing armors, they'd have to all be revised.

[liamlockheart.6203]

> @Mikuchan.7261 said:

> There is a technical issue with making the currently existing armors and outfits "gender neutral" and that is that the 3d model for the armor is modeled after the character.

> If you would put female version of an armor on a male character, it would have boobs.

> Now I don't mind men with boobs, but it doesn't necessarily look like it makes much sense.

> The waist would also clip massively.

> On the other hand, putting a male armor on a female character would not have boobs, and probably not the rigging necessary to weight it for having boobs.

> There are of course other issues as well, but this one is would be enough to, sadly, break the idea I feel.

>

> Some of it can be fixed with changing rigging weights in the model, potentially even automatically, but it wouldn't change the basic shape of the model.

> Not saying it'd be impossible, but there's a ton of armors and all of them have a male and female version for 3 races. All those have to be altered for the opposite gender.

> Probably not where they should focus their workload.

>

> For future armors it could absolutely be a thing, but for existing armors, they'd have to all be revised.

 

Oh I absolutely understand that it wouldn't be easy, but I'm still going to keep requesting this in every MMO I play because not making the armor gender neutral from the begining is just stupid. In every MMO the players ask for gender neutral skins and almost every MMO fails to deliver.

Honestly, the fact that we even have to ask for this at this point is redundant.

 

But anyway that's a tangent. I realize it wouldn't be easy to redo the armors from the past but the least Anet could do is learn to stop making clothing gender specific in the future.

[Moyayuki.3619]

I agree, but do have to say that Braham's Wolfblood (?) outfit looks quite "gender neutral" on female toons. Sure, on the males it exposed part of the chest, but the female version is not sexualized whatsoever, so I appreciate that outfit a lot. Though I do admit to having different female toons who might have different aesthetic tastes (one toon may, in my head canon, prefer to be skimpy, but another does not for practical reasons).

More variety never hurt anyone! :)

[liamlockheart.6203]

> @Moyayuki.3619 said:

> I agree, but do have to say that Braham's Wolfblood (?) outfit looks quite "gender neutral" on female toons. Sure, on the males it exposed part of the chest, but the female version is not sexualized whatsoever, so I appreciate that outfit a lot. Though I do admit to having different female toons who might have different aesthetic tastes (one toon may, in my head canon, prefer to be skimpy, but another does not for practical reasons).

> More variety never hurt anyone! :)

 

Yea that's exactly what I mean! My character David likes to wear pretty dresses but my character Bail, who is a afab norn, likes to wear more covering clothing. But almost everything he can wear has boob windows that make him (and me) uncomfortable.

Making both the masculine and feminine versions of armor available to everyone would eliminate this problem and add more customization options for everyone!

[Ozimul.9185]

This is a fabulous idea. I'm all for more, inclusive, and more inclusive customization!

[Chickenooble.5014]

> @Mikuchan.7261 said:

> There is a technical issue with making the currently existing armors and outfits "gender neutral" and that is that the 3d model for the armor is modeled after the character.

> If you would put female version of an armor on a male character, it would have boobs.

> Now I don't mind men with boobs, but it doesn't necessarily look like it makes much sense.

> The waist would also clip massively.

> On the other hand, putting a male armor on a female character would not have boobs, and probably not the rigging necessary to weight it for having boobs.

> There are of course other issues as well, but this one is would be enough to, sadly, break the idea I feel.

>

> Some of it can be fixed with changing rigging weights in the model, potentially even automatically, but it wouldn't change the basic shape of the model.

> Not saying it'd be impossible, but there's a ton of armors and all of them have a male and female version for 3 races. All those have to be altered for the opposite gender.

> Probably not where they should focus their workload.

>

> For future armors it could absolutely be a thing, but for existing armors, they'd have to all be revised.

 

Well, this person summed it up. Time to close the thread. :)

[TheUndefined.1720]

I couldn't disagree more with this suggestion. **First, I'm not disagreeing with some gender neutral armors. Sure, add a few here and there, but in mass quantities, I think this is a bad idea, here are a few reasons why:**

 

* **It limits outfits to one look only;** With gender specific outfits, you get 2 outfits in one - one for men and women. In other words, you get more bang for your buck

* **It dulls down the look of armor overall;** I like the look of my female characters, and if I were to choose to play a male character, I would play that character for the male attributes. I enjoy the distinct looks between male and female armors, and in general ANet has handled these distinctions incredibly respectfully (not a lot of armor-clad bikinis). This would be like me complaining that I like armor on charr more than human and for the art direction to make all human armor look the same as charr, it just waters the armor down overall.

* **There's already a very gender neutral option in game - Charr;** I get this doesn't apply to most, not everyone plays a charr, but it doesn't take away the fact that most (if not all) the armors on Charr males and females are pretty much the same or very indistinct from one another (at least from what I have experienced through my playthrough). Sure, there are certain gender specific armors like the wedding clothes, and in general the cloth gear. Still, there is an option for this in game.

 

Again, **I don't think gender neutral in limited quantities is bad, but in large quantities it could be a really terrible choice;** I think it limits the artist, the player, and could give an incredibly boring and dull look to the game.

[castlemanic.3198]

> @TheUndefined.1720 said:

> * **It limits outfits to one look only;** With gender specific outfits, you get 2 outfits in one - one for men and women. In other words, you get more bang for your buck

 

Outfits SHOULD be limited to one look, as should every armour set as well, because then you get weird issues with armours that look *nothing* alike being called the same armour set.

 

Examples:

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winged_armor https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Witch%27s_Outfit (like really, WHY REMOVE THE WITCH HAT FOR MEN?)

 

Or you get really weird stylistic choices that look great on one gender but not the other

 

Example: Seer head piece. On women it's just a blindfold, on men the mouth is covered too for an inexplicable and inexcusable reason (if any exists). Also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phalanx_armor where for some reason the top of the chest and the inside of the thighs are revealed on women but men have perfectly intact armour.

 

Then there's also the "why does the female version show so much skin" question when the male armour is fully covered:

 

examples: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conjurer_armor https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Encasement_Outfit and others

 

> * **It dulls down the look of armor overall;** I like the look of my female characters, and if I were to choose to play a male character, I would play that character for the male attributes. I enjoy the distinct looks between male and female armors, and in general ANet has handled these distinctions incredibly respectfully (not a lot of armor-clad bikinis). This would be like me complaining that I like armor on charr more than human and for the art direction to make all human armor look the same as charr, it just waters the armor down overall.

 

Not everyone holds the same opinion. I think that a cohesive look between the genders wearing the same armour set means that the armourset as a whole would have more care put into it, because the reality is many gender differentiated armours have the styles drawn out for one gender specifically and then the other gender has theirs thrown together haphazardly (like the ice encasement outfit, clearly more thought went into the male version over the female version), which inevitably means one genders armour set may look better than the other genders armourset (for instance https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feathered_armor has way more thought put into it for women than it does for men, what are those chest squiggles supposed to be?)

 

Besides, it means even MORE armoursets could have been released, because the art teams would have had to make more varieties of armour without making one set look like a watered down version of another depending on gender.

 

> * **There's already a very gender neutral option in game - Charr;** I get this doesn't apply to most, not everyone plays a charr, but it doesn't take away the fact that most (if not all) the armors on Charr males and females are pretty much the same or very indistinct from one another (at least from what I have experienced through my playthrough). Sure, there are certain gender specific armors like the wedding clothes, and in general the cloth gear. Still, there is an option for this in game.

 

You've acknowledged the problem yourself, not everyone plays charr and there are some who will never pick the race based on any number of reasons, so it doesn't resolve the issue.

 

 

> Again, **I don't think gender neutral in limited quantities is bad, but in large quantities it could be a really terrible choice;** I think it limits the artist, the player, and could give an incredibly boring and dull look to the game.

 

I have to disagree completely, because artists can just make *new* armoursets instead of having to try and make a feminine armour look more masculine or a masculine armour look more feminine (and the latter usually by shaving parts off the armour) unsuccessfully. Gender neutral armour saves a lot of hassle (and ridicule because seriously, some of those choices oh my lord), which means more effort can go into making both gender sets equally awesome and viable (I actually believe that the mistward armour is one of the less egregious examples, but just because it's 'less' egregious doesn't make it problem free).

 

Arenanet can do better, they HAVE done better and WAY more tasteful armoursets too in case gender differences needed to be taken into account (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Braham%27s_armor https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pit_Fighter_armor) and they HAVE made gender neutral sets before too (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Royal_Guard_Outfit and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reinforced_Scale_armor are prime examples), which means they're capable of doing it (armour is armour, and as per a tumblr post I saw recently, not dying should be gender neutral), so greater care in making future armoursets and outfits gender neutral (or atleast recognisable between the genders) would be absolutely lovely.

[TheUndefined.1720]

@"castlemanic.3198"

 

Thanks for the counterpoints! I still disagree with your points, but I appreciate the thought out response :)

[Chickenooble.5014]

> @castlemanic.3198 said:

> Then there's also the "why does the female version show so much skin" question when the male armour is fully covered

Because women showing skin is sexier than men that show skin? I'm searching around now to see if there are any studies that look at this. I'll let you know if I find something.

[castlemanic.3198]

> @Chickenooble.5014 said:

> > @castlemanic.3198 said:

> > Then there's also the "why does the female version show so much skin" question when the male armour is fully covered

> Because women showing skin is sexier than men that show skin? I'm searching around now to see if there are any studies that look at this. I'll let you know if I find something.

 

And heres where the topic takes a turn i tried to avoid addressing directly. Yes, to the straight male gaze, women showing more skin is sexier than men showing more skin, but what about other genders and orientations who may not share that assessment? Are they not worthy of a voice? Shouldn't there, then, be male armour that shows more skin than it's female counterpart (and not just the chest area) to appease those fans?

 

Or are we just going to continue under the blatantly false assumption that only the straight male gaze is worth appealing to? (not that lesbians can't enjoy sexier clad women, but lets be real, they aren't the target audience when those armoursets were made)

[Falseprophet.1502]

I don't know about you guys but my Sunspear outfit is pretty inclusive.

https://imgur.com/a/GIWSa

[Vyrulisse.1246]

> @Chadramar.8156 said:

> This has been asked over and over, with no reply, but I'll never not second it anyway because the extremely gendered armors (or "armors" in the case of many of the female versions) are one of the biggest nuisances in the game IMO. There's so much good, nicely themed and practical and/or impressive stuff for men that looks not even _remotely_ similar on women. Canach's new outfit is indeed one of the worst cases. The plant equivalent of full plate on men, a layer of body paint with a handful of bark scraps thrown on it for women. What the serious F. It is especially galling since there is so little gear for sylvari to begin with. That outfit would likely have been my first ever cosmetic purchase if it had been gender neutral.

 

Literally nothing wrong with revealing armor on Women or Men. Infact this game needs more of it that in the Medium or Heavy variety. I will never apologize that I don't enjoy looking like a Medieval Knight and I like to make my characters look sexy as possible. I can't go wild in real life and this is a game where I can. Practicality is a word often thrown around by people who want to dump on "skimpy armors" and those who enjoy them but the practicality argument holds no weight with me when magic fireballs and insanely huge dragons are a part of the story.

 

Just because you don't enjoy skimpy and revealing clothing or armors doesn't mean it should be ruined for those that do. And before anyone comes back with the typical "lol only teenage boys want sexy girls". That's an extremely false and insulting stereotype that needs to go. I'm not that and I enjoy sexiness.

 

To be absolutely clear I'm not against the original idea but I would be if it came at the cost of semi-revealing and sexy armors on my characters. I'm no Puritan and I don't want a game that covers me from head to toe like one just because some people can't handle a little pixelated skin.

[Jaken.6801]

> @Mikuchan.7261 said:

> There is a technical issue with making the currently existing armors and outfits "gender neutral" and that is that the 3d model for the armor is modeled after the character.

> If you would put female version of an armor on a male character, it would have boobs.

> Now I don't mind men with boobs, but it doesn't necessarily look like it makes much sense.

> The waist would also clip massively.

> On the other hand, putting a male armor on a female character would not have boobs, and probably not the rigging necessary to weight it for having boobs.

> There are of course other issues as well, but this one is would be enough to, sadly, break the idea I feel.

>

> Some of it can be fixed with changing rigging weights in the model, potentially even automatically, but it wouldn't change the basic shape of the model.

> Not saying it'd be impossible, but there's a ton of armors and all of them have a male and female version for 3 races. All those have to be altered for the opposite gender.

> Probably not where they should focus their workload.

>

> For future armors it could absolutely be a thing, but for existing armors, they'd have to all be revised.

 

Well, there are some heavy armor that get around the breasts, by adding a flat later on top.

[Chadramar.8156]

> @castlemanic.3198 said:

> Outfits SHOULD be limited to one look, as should every armour set as well, because then you get weird issues with armours that look *nothing* alike being called the same armour set.

 

This is one of the core issues. Again, look at Canach's new outfit, it's just grotesque how it differs and it makes no sense to treat the male version as the equivalent of the female one. Why can't female characters wear that actual, practical armor? Why can't male characters wear the weird "body paint with some bark scraps" thing?

 

Sure, include skimpy outfits and flat-out sexualized outfits -- but make them equal-opportunity. And if that looks "weird" or "wrong" on men, maybe ask yourself why, when similar or greater amounts of sexualization on women are considered fine.

 

> I have to disagree completely, because artists can just make *new* armoursets instead of having to try and make a feminine armour look more masculine or a masculine armour look more feminine (and the latter usually by shaving parts off the armour) unsuccessfully. Gender neutral armour saves a lot of hassle (and ridicule because seriously, some of those choices oh my lord), which means more effort can go into making both gender sets equally awesome and viable (I actually believe that the mistward armour is one of the less egregious examples, but just because it's 'less' egregious doesn't make it problem free).

 

Exactly. Gender-neutral gear and giving _both_ genders more and equal choice would make the visuals of the game much _less_ samey and boring, not more. It's like the trenchcoat-craze for medium armor: sure, you _can_ find non-trenchcoat sets, but there's not that much choice, no guarantee that you'll like what is there, and nobody would be hurt by having more non-trenchcoats in the future because the people who are crazy about them already have a metric ton of them to pick from while the ones that aren't, don't.