Gender locked classes don't belong in 2023 let alone 2024

i find it sadder that there are still people in 2023 that get so bent out of shape because a game has gender locks....it's a non issue.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Anyway, we're approaching triviality here. Everything in the game is the way it is because GGG made it that way. And yet, there's a feedback and suggestions forum specifically for people to suggest it be different. If "it exists" is sufficient justification for things to exist without question, then we may as well delete this forum.

Well said, though I also think they may as well delete this forum anyway :p

gender lock is dividing the player base!

The characters literally have established backstories, they are existing characters prior to the game start. I get a weird feeling that a male scion killing his wife on his wedding night wouldn't be seen as very sympathetic for people fighting for inclusion in video games.

It makes perfect sense for men and women to have different qualities and talents.

There have been a surprising number of good points in this thread, but the most important one I haven't seen yet:

the characters each have a LOT of voice lines. Have any of you actually bothered counting them? And there's also all of the lines NPCs have which refer specifically to the characters' genders (Nessa's intro to the duelist, and so on).

And after you add all that up, multiply that total number by SIX, because that's how many languages you can play PoE in.

Adding the ability to gender swap classes is not at all a small detail which would take minimal resources to implement. You're talking DOZENS of voice actors and THOUSANDS of man-hours, for something that would make no difference to over 90% of players.

There's a reason games which have full character customization have the blandest dialogue possible and make up excuses to give the player a generic unisex nickname (in Skyrim you're always THE DRAGONBORN, etc).

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Uh, do you want to re-read what you're quoting?

What's being discussed as 'true or not true' isn't "whether the protagonist is a particular. It's whether there's a "deep lore reason" for them to be that gender. Nobody's arguing that the witch is male if you believe they're male.

I quoted the particular line, but the context is the entire post. The argument absolutely is why the witch is female and not male. It is the title of this thread. In the post the argument is being made that gender-locked classes don't belong. The lore part was simply a secondary argument they tried to use to explain that original point.

And yes, I still believe that, due to the character design being female, there MUST be a deep lore reason for it. Even if we aren't given the whole story, the fact is that this is a "person". They have a story. And their story includes them being born as a female. To use my book analogy again, there are plenty of characters where we aren't given their entire life's story and yet they still are assigned a gender. And we can infer that person has a background: they didn't just "appear" out of thin air. Take Luna Lovegood (another HP reference): could her character have been a male? Sure, there is not a single thing in the books or in her backstory/"lore" that specifically designates her as absolutely female....and yet she IS a female because that is the gender the author assigned to her as we see her in the story-line of the books. Similarly, we don't know the entirety of the lore around the Witch's upbringing and background, but she is absolutely female in all the context we are given.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

Adding the ability to gender swap classes is not at all a small detail which would take minimal resources to implement. You're talking DOZENS of voice actors and THOUSANDS of man-hours, for something that would make no difference to over 90% of players.

I thought about including that point as well in my initial post, but I disregarded it because GGG does have the funds and ability and time to add those voice actors and lines in...should they care to do so. If it were important to them and the game to have double gendered characters, they definitely have the resources to do it. They might not be able to for PoE 1 at this point, but certainly for a game that doesn't exist yet, PoE 2, that can be a design choice. But it is equally fine for them to decide NOT to do that and to have the characters have a specific, gendered identity.

But that is sort of an entirely separate argument. I'm sure it factors into their thinking and planning, but this thread is more about the philosophical rather than practical "need" for gender-swapped characters.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

And yes, I still believe that, due to the character design being female, there MUST be a deep lore reason for it. Even if we aren't given the whole story, the fact is that this is a "person". They have a story. And their story includes them being born as a female. To use my book analogy again, there are plenty of characters where we aren't given their entire life's story and yet they still are assigned a gender. And we can infer that person has a background: they didn't just "appear" out of thin air. Take Luna Lovegood (another HP reference): could her character have been a male? Sure, there is not a single thing in the books or in her backstory/"lore" that specifically designates her as absolutely female....and yet she IS a female because that is the gender the author assigned to her as we see her in the story-line of the books. Similarly, we don't know the entirety of the lore around the Witch's upbringing and background, but she is absolutely female in all the context we are given.

This is exactly the triviality I was talking about: using the thing as justification of itself. The character is a man therefore the story is that they're a man, therefore they SHOULD be a man. It's circular reasoning, completely pointless.

Just, you know, bear in mind that in the hypothetical world where GGG made the change to allow a choice of gender, you'd be just as happy, because when someone picks a woman, then by definition, the story of that character is that they're a woman, which is apparently a "deep lore reason" (I really don't know what 'deep' means to you if superficial circular logic qualifies, but hey) that justifies them being a woman. And vice versa for a ranger who's a man, etc etc.

I can't imagine rigging MTX of the past 10 years on new models let alone twice as many.

I already know that no matter what some stuff is gunna look scuffed on release.
They still have issues with older effects acting crazy on newer models.