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

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I only want to play as girl characters
but I can't do it
Unfortunately

High fidelity character creation / customization and both genders for every class in an isometric top down arpg is beyond unnecessary. I'm glad GGG hasn't wasted time and resources on that yet, and hopefully never will. Priorities and vision do matter.

Nobody's asking for high fidelity character customization. I'm already on record as saying I have no need for Cheekbone Sliders in Path of Exile.

A "do you want the Plug or Socket version of the model?" toggle is not asking the world of a game developer doing what Grinding Gear is doing. Again - they already have to do "male and female" versions of all the game's various animations because any class can use any skill and weapon, so the animation work is already being done. When it even matters - most animations are going to be gender neutral and need no fiddling with between models. There is no masculine versus feminine method of drawing and shooting a bow.

Considering they use the same singular animation rig for every humanoid entity in PoE2, there's no need to duplicate most work. The only thing that would need duplication is VO, which has been acknowledged as the likely sticking point for the process. Voice lines and voice barks are the game's primary means of differentiating between characters on a non-mechanical level and would need to be made in both genders (or sexes, since some people want to be snippy about the term to try and get a rise out of me) in order to accomplish the task.

Would it be pricy, and probably time-consuming? Probably. But there's no need for the level of nitpickery that keeps being thrown about. I don't want and am not asking for any character "customization" outside the MTX system. I'm asking for one simple, strsightforward thing - a toggle on the char select screen between Plug and Socket.

It's not any kind of technical challenge. They can very easily do this, it would not be a difficult solve at all. What it could be is spendy and time-consuming, which I have repeatedly acknowledged. Let's drop the other fallacious, incorrect arguments and discuss the time and spend aspects, shall we?

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1453R wrote:

Again - they already have to do "male and female" versions of all the game's various animations because any class can use any skill and weapon, so the animation work is already being done.

Stopped reading here. You have no actual clue how any of this works and with that you lost me. Have a good day.

Ah yes. The classic "I don't want to engage with arguments that disagree with me, so I'm going to claim the other party is ignorant and mic-drop" dismissal.

Bye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Anyways. Reminder/discussion point: Grinding Gear routinely creates a new NPC from scratch every league. The League NPC that acts as the focal point of the league, introduces mechanics and explains stuff while also transforming into the end boss of the league about two thirds of the time. This NPC requires voice lines and voice barks, if generally not much in the way of new animations.

What percentage of the workload for a whole new gender/sex option for a playable class is the League NPC? Thirty percent? Twenty? Five? More? Less? Having an idea how work-intensive a PC class is compared to The League NPC would be very useful in figuring out, in broad terms, how viable/plausible it is to request gender/sex toggles for the twelve extant classes. I have absolutely no information on this matter, but if anybody does have a clue I'd be happy to hear them out.

If, as you put it, an "eight-foot roided-out pile of overblown testosterone wearing Karui war paint and a codpiece" triggers dysphoria, that's a you problem don't you think?

Man. It's like nobody reads anything. I've only addressed that nitpicky quibble about...four? Five? times already.

I suppose I'm just glad Grinding Gear doesn't think the way most of the people in this thread do. "If this isn't a direct, critically important dealbreaker issue for me myself and my own personal I, then it's an absolute nothingburger. Anyone who thinks differently should just get over it and stop caring about anything I don't care about because I don't care about it and therefore it can't possibly be important."

Such 'arguments' are not arguments, people. Yes, I have stated more than once that I kinda hate the Marauder. I find him to be ludicrous and annoying, and playing as the Marauder makes my experience in the game worse. Note I'm not calling for the removal of the Marauder. Other people love the fact that the Marauder has three dudes' worth of muscle piled on one steroid-chewing gymbro frame, and I am glad they enjoy. I'm absolutely down for them having a great time being The Big Dude and doing Big Dude things.

I would like an option to be a badass Lady of War. Many of the game's MTX sets are sleek armor combined with a waistcloak or other elements of battle gown; I would love the ability to wear such a skin with a female model, equip a shield and flail, and smash my enemies to flinders with style and grace.

I currently cannot do so in PoE2. No, you cannot "just make a Witch/Sorceress and path to the Marauder area!" This means you are wasting half of your skilltree allotments and all of your Ascendancy classes are going to range from sketchy to useless. You can make such a character, but that character will be bad. I am allowed to wish I did not have to choose between "fun to play mechanically" and "looks/feels appealing to play visually".

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1453R wrote:

Ah yes. The classic "I don't want to engage with arguments that disagree with me, so I'm going to claim the other party is ignorant and mic-drop" dismissal.

Almost like you did in the OP, throwing derogatary terms at 'anyone' that would use this thread to disagree with you :)

To be fair Phrazz, I also then proceeded to explain my position and arguments rather than saying "I stopped reading because you suck, peace out".

Yes, I was assertive and fierce-minded in my original post rather than being submissive and breedable. This forum has a history of being thoroughly awful on this subject, as it has now conclusively demonstrated over the last seven-odd pages. I am going out of my way to avoid addressing as much of the "political" baggage as I can, but it is impossible to ask for a feature like this without some people assuming you're going on some sort of crazy woke rampaging crusade that will Threaten The Fabric Of Society As We Know it. Ugh.

All I would like, in an ideal world, is an acknowledgement that gender-locked classes in a game all about customization, expression, and creative freedom sucks and that getting a selector toggle wouldn't be nearly as ridiculously impossible as people make it out to be. Every technical challenge in implementing such a toggle has been directly addressed by Grinding Gear as a thing they've already solved, so I have no damn patience for people throwing ten year old "but the animations!" nonsense in my face.

There's no technical reason they can't do it. None. "Technical problem" is an invalid argument. You can argue the time isn't well spent, and most people do (while also being as unnecessarily insulting and offensive as they can manage). I admit that there's no chance Grinding Gear would be able to do this before the game launches - that ship has long since sailed.

I don't want the issue forgotten. I don't want to hear Jonathan keep talking about "minimum bars" in half a dozen other areas while ignoring the fact that this issue is also a minimum bar for a chunk of the playerbase. And I would, pie in the sky, enjoy not having to write off Strength-based builds entirely because the Marauder is the Strength guy, he has to be the size of three bodybuilders stapled together shoulder to shoulder, and the Warrior is somehow even freaking bigger and I cannot take their absurdly overdone Gears of War gymbro models seriously.

Am I really being so damn unreasonable about this?

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1453R wrote:

Am I really being so damn unreasonable about this?

Is it unreasonable to want this feature? Absolutely not. But to (almost) paint it as objectively true that "all" games SHOULD have this feature is more unreasonable. I'm sure people ask for gender roles in Zelda and The Witcher too, but I would be opposed to it. And before you come with a counter-argument here; yes, it's different, but not that different.