Reminder: Selectable Character Gender is a "Minimum Bar."

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hmcg020 wrote:

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Solrac_1 wrote:

I totally agree, every class should be able to be both male and female. I'm only playing POE 2 if Witch and Sorceress have male options otherwise I'm skipping the game.

This post is not about gender not sex. So, some of the characteristics of both genders being able to be applied to whatever base sex-model like in BG3. Big dick, a beard and broad shoulders with a woman's voice, etc. Some people love that shit and a side effect is some hilarious combinations that we get to see. Others just want to see themselves in the game they're playing and that's a great thing for a company to be able to accommodate. I agree that I would like to have a sex-selection for each class. I don't expect GGG to aim for the progressive accolades BG3 got though.

BG3 received massive criticism for having attractive female character models. So, even though they had the most progressive character creation and some of the most progressive dialogue and romance options of any game every made, the hardcore leftists were still foaming at the mouth that it wasn't enough. As soon as GGG goes down that road, people who lament critical gender theory not being the focal point of the Dev team, will never stop. This is where the whole chud line of "get woke go broke" stems from.

Also if I remember correctly BG3 won all major 2023 game of the year awards. Because they went all in with the game, [Removed by Support].

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ABagOfChitlins wrote:

Here here!

Why is this a thing / thread? It is a game. It is an ARPG game. Doesn't matter who you are or what GENDER you are, if you can kill hordes of monsters and bosses then so be it.

Stop taking A GAME so personally. No reason to write a dissertation on the subject either... just LOG IN, have fun and PLAY!

And I'm even getting censored, GGG sure doesn't want to be criticized.

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ABagOfChitlins wrote:

Here here!

Why is this a thing / thread? It is a game. It is an ARPG game. Doesn't matter who you are or what GENDER you are, if you can kill hordes of monsters and bosses then so be it.

Stop taking A GAME so personally. No reason to write a dissertation on the subject either... just LOG IN, have fun and PLAY!

That's where you are wrong, I'm not playing the game if there is not a male Witch. There are other games out there.

lol u realize u can just go marauder and make a caster build? there's your male witch

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shadowthedead wrote:

lol u realize u can just go marauder and make a caster build? there's your male witch

That's not the same thing, I want a necromancer.

Sigh. And we were doing so well for a few pages.

Let me try something else.

I don't really care about trade improvements in Path of Exile. I think the people constantly howling their damnfool heads off about Trade this Trade that Trade the other thing are generally self-entitled ninnies with no clue how their game works. I think the system works as well as it needs to as it stands, and while there are certainly frustrations inherent in it, I don't see trade as a dealbreaker issue. Am I open to trade improvements? of course. The logic that the more sane and reasonable people lay out for improving trade is sound, and I have no issue with benefitting from the new system if they do implement it.

But I don't think it's nearly the invincible bugbear everyone else seems to, especially when the people who howl the loudest about trade are the people who spend all their time on TFT flipping thousands of items an hour. Those people deserve to have their "fortunes" ruined and wind up having to play the game instead of playing Stock Market Simulator before being a bunch of smug assholes to anyone who can't make five hundred divines an hour without even having the game client open.

Now. How did you (generic addressing-the-reader 'you' here) react to reading that? I imagine it was a combination of the following:

-eye-rolling dismissal and a sense that I just don't know what I'm talking about and am too uninformed and inexperienced to have a valid opinion; my opinion doesn't matter. The inevitable "git gud scrub" reaction.

-sharp irritation, even anger - how dare I dismiss a real problem like trade?! Can't I see that bad trade is killing the game?!

-frustrated annoyance - here we go again, some goober trying to justify GGG's bad decision-making with "it's fine for me so clearly it must be fine for everyone."

Those feelings, those reactions? Those are what someone feels when they're invested in something and told "this doesn't matter and you shouldn't care about it; care about what I care about instead". If you can't understand why someone would care about something so 'unimportant' as gender selection in an ARPG, rather than being scornfully dismissive? Consider what would happen if someone told you that whatever it is you care about and are invested in is simply a nonissue and you should stop caring about it.

Do I expect everyone to care about the things I care about? No. But I am certainly not the only Path of Exile player who cares about this particular issue. I'm merely one of the few willing to admit to it, and admit to why, here on forums well known for being transphobic, misogynistic, closed off and hostile.

I don't ask that you care about my issue I care about. Can I instead ask that we dispense with arguments about politics, accusations of wokeness or based-ness or whatever else, dispense with snide digs at people's identities, and get back to where we were in the first five-odd pages where folks were actually having a reasonable, reasonably productive discussion on the issue?

And for the record, since I know half the people reading this will stop the moment I started talking about trade: I meant everything I said about trade. I think the people who can't stop howling about it are blowing it way out of proportion, and the system works perfectly fine for the vast majority of players. I've never completely failed an objective I had in the game because of 'bad Trade'; I've had to wait, sometimes a couple days, for something I needed to do (usually a currency exchange) and I've had to adjust my plans, but I've never been hard stopped in a league by bad trade.

I also understand and agree with the fact that fixing trade is more important to PoE2 than gender selection is, and that trade is an issue that affects more players than gender-locked classes does. I agree trade is a more important issue; I simply used it as an easy example most folks will relate to of "this is a thing many people care about that other people simply do not", to try and frame the problem in a way those folks will understand.

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Solrac_1 wrote:

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hmcg020 wrote:

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Solrac_1 wrote:

I totally agree, every class should be able to be both male and female. I'm only playing POE 2 if Witch and Sorceress have male options otherwise I'm skipping the game.

This post is not about gender not sex. So, some of the characteristics of both genders being able to be applied to whatever base sex-model like in BG3. Big dick, a beard and broad shoulders with a woman's voice, etc. Some people love that shit and a side effect is some hilarious combinations that we get to see. Others just want to see themselves in the game they're playing and that's a great thing for a company to be able to accommodate. I agree that I would like to have a sex-selection for each class. I don't expect GGG to aim for the progressive accolades BG3 got though.

BG3 received massive criticism for having attractive female character models. So, even though they had the most progressive character creation and some of the most progressive dialogue and romance options of any game every made, the hardcore leftists were still foaming at the mouth that it wasn't enough. As soon as GGG goes down that road, people who lament critical gender theory not being the focal point of the Dev team, will never stop. This is where the whole chud line of "get woke go broke" stems from.

Also if I remember correctly BG3 won all major 2023 game of the year awards. Because they went all in with the game, [Removed by Support].

I'd really like you to try to reword that so it doesn't set off moderation alarms. I'm super curious because clearly you had an argument and frankly I feel the censorship obliterates it.

@NumbersR: bit sharp there, sister. This isn't a game of whose argument is more valid, is it? Not when they're all quite valid.

I suppose. My intent wasn't to push the idea that any opinion was more valid than any other. More push back against the increasingly constant idea in this thread - and every other thread I've ever seen/been in on this matter - that my stance/opinion completely invalid because the poster invalidating it simply doesn't care or consider it important.

I've seen lots of "if the gameplay is good I don't care what the model looks like" comments, and a few accusing me of bias.

1.) Yes, I am biased. I have been completely open about this from the start. I am a trans woman, and the Marauder pokes my dysphoria. I've tried playing that class a few times to mess with its Ascendancy options, and it tends to give me moments of having to put the game down and walk away for a bit because the model, the VO, and all the rest of the Marauder gives me the sads. Not all the time, but often enough that I generally don't bother trying to play it anymore.

2.) No, this isn't a dealbreaker issue that will sink the game forever, and if the game is otherwise fantastic then yeah. I'll play it, enjoy it, and it'll be successful. I simply feel it could've been more fantastic, more successful, if Grinding Gear had been willing to let go of gender-locked classes. They've been killing sacred cows with such regularity it's honestly been astonishing to watch, I'm so damn proud of the PoE2 team. In this issue though, I am the sad. Especially since the Scion was arguably my favorite of the three available ladies in PoE1 (even if she stopped being viable to play when Ascendancy dropped) and she's gone for good in Path the Second.

Oh well.

EDIT:: since I saw you ask, Forever - 'she/they'. I take either set of those, whichever the speaker is more comfortable using, and frankly I don't get pissy about he/him. My only ask is no 'sir' please, that word jabs me right in the gut. Heh. You can call me Rae if you like. Can't change this decade-old account name, but that's no biggie. I don't expect people to go out of their way to accommodate me on this forum in particular, but it's always nice when someone asks and acknowledges. Thanks.

PoE's main focus is gameplay, not roleplay. Bringing things up like BG3 is just stupid. More options is better for sure but in the long run gender selection is pointless in game like PoE. On top of that it doubles the amount of work in many things like animations, voicelines, armor design etc for very little gain. Its simply not worth the time and effort required. So no, its not "bare minimum", its pointless addition.