Why women criticise sexualised character designs |OT2| I have no pants and I must scream (READ OP)

PhillyCheeseHorse · Feb 1, 2019

esserius said:
JoJo is by no means mainstream. It's certainly more popular than it once was, but it's a long way from being mainstream and is still a frequent target of ridicule by the same people who love garbage like SAO. I honestly wish it were the mainstream though. Would be so much more refreshing than an infinite field of garbage isekai.

In the western stream, definitely, but it's been super influential in Japan, to the point that most of Street Fighter's early rosters were just JoJo rip-offs. Then again, folks haven't cribbed as much from it since it started to lean harder into the fabulous portrayals of masculinity, which frankly I'd love more of.

Twenty5Thousand · Feb 1, 2019

Xaszatm said:
...Bullshit.

Seriously!?! What the hell does Terra even do to earn that? Not be possessed for 10 seconds?

It's hilarious that Kairi and Namine keep getting shafted in these stories despite both having decent directions to go to. And also...like why? Why keep shafting the women in these stories?

With Terra becoming the leader, I think that's actually something that makes sense. In BBS they make a point of how Terra doesn't have full control of himself while Aqua does but at the end Terra has grown strong enough to leave his heart in his armor to continue resisting Xehanort, all the way until the end whereas Aqua falls into darkness and needs to be saved from it.
Thematically speaking Terra had to overcome the harder trial.

Dary · Feb 1, 2019

Xaszatm said:
It's hilarious that Kairi and Namine keep getting shafted in these stories despite both having decent directions to go to. And also...like why? Why keep shafting the women in these stories?

Oh yeah, regarding Namine:

she only shows up in the ending (thanks to a bunch of men bringing her back to life!) and then flies off with Riku. She doesn't even get a line of dialogue (outside an optional conversation during the point of the story where Sora is, eh, dead and trapped in Purgatory...)

Deleted member 5535 · Feb 1, 2019

Dary said:
Good to see Kingdom Hearts living up to its shounen influences and

making all its female heroes utterly useless 👍

Eh, except for Kairi, that's not really true. Aqua fights in pretty much every fight she can and she's on the same situation as Ventus (we even fight alongside her on keyblade graveyard) and the other Keyblade wielders for most of the game. Xion is the same in the time she's there where she's part of your party.

Xaszatm · Feb 1, 2019

Twenty5Thousand said:
With Terra becoming the leader, I think that's actually something that makes sense. In BBS they make a point of how Terra doesn't have full control of himself while Aqua does but at the end Terra has grown strong enough to leave his heart in his armor to continue resisting Xehanort, all the way until the end whereas Aqua falls into darkness and needs to be saved from it.
Thematically speaking Terra had to overcome the harder trial.

I mean...living in an area no "being of light" should be able to for 12 years without protection and only failing at the very tail end of it and even then only because the bad guy cheats probably counts as a trial as well.

Xaszatm · Feb 1, 2019

...ok, now I'm curious, how many times am I the first post of the page on this thread...

Twenty5Thousand · Feb 1, 2019

Xaszatm said:
I mean...living in an area no "being of light" should be able to for 12 years without protection and only failing at the very tail end of it and even then only because the bad guy cheats probably counts as a trial as well.

While I don't think Kingdom Hearts has ever had the best details in explaining what happens I do believe it's easy to see what the story sets up in a general sense. In a nutshell, Terra's heart resists possession while Aqua completely succumbs to it.

It's kinda similar to how Sora and Riku dealt with their mastery exams. While Sora certainly has accomplished stronger feats than Riku, Riku is the one who becomes a master because he has full control of himself despite falling into darkness.

Ikaruga · Feb 1, 2019

Persephone said:
Women get shit irl every goddamn day of our lives, we don't want it in our video games which are supposed to be fun escapism, not a constant reminder of how shitty being a woman is

Sounds horrible, perhaps you'd want to change your environment, if the environment can't be changed that is.

If male characters are fully dressed and women are running around in assless chaps, that just makes us feel like shit because it makes it clear the devs (and presumably a not-insignificant part of the audience) don't view us as people but as objects of titillation

Agreed, this is really stupid, it's not exclusive to games though, you will see this happening in all kind of media, anime might be the worst offender but traditional movies/shows will often feature the same theme.

99.9% of the time the sexualised designs don't make any sense, in universe or out, and in the end the devs are harming their own narrative and world for the sake of boobies.

Agreed again, it's killing immersion for me and often makes a game less enjoyable, do we really need huge breasts that are jumping around all the time because they aren't supported enough by the clothing?!

esserius · Feb 1, 2019

PhillyCheeseHorse said:
In the western stream, definitely, but it's been super influential in Japan, to the point that most of Street Fighter's early rosters were just JoJo rip-offs. Then again, folks haven't cribbed as much from it since it started to lean harder into the fabulous portrayals of masculinity, which frankly I'd love more of.

Yeah, I'm really not sure where you're getting this from. JoJo has memetic influence everywhere at this point, and certainly moreso in Japan. But even in Japan it's not mainstream. Yes, a fair number of artists like the show/manga and thus take things from it, but much like in America it's a show/manga that's more often referenced than understood or enfranchised.

Latpri · Feb 1, 2019

esserius said:
Yeah, I'm really not sure where you're getting this from. JoJo has memetic influence everywhere at this point, and certainly moreso in Japan. But even in Japan it's not mainstream. Yes, a fair number of artists like the show/manga and thus take things from it, but much like in America it's a show/manga that's more often referenced than understood or enfranchised.

Yea, I always got the feeling that the creative cohort of Japanese ppl really liked jojo, which is why you see it referenced so much in other works even if it was never mainstream as a whole.

Dragmire · Feb 1, 2019

Everything with Aqua is complete and utter bullshit.
She never got corrupted by the place she was in. She just lost a battle during this game and got hit with a dark ball of whatever. Sora then saves her.
She later loses to opponents she has fought before. Twice she just stands there. Then someone tells Terra to take care of her and Ven, because Terra the MAN can take care of them including the ONLY Keyblade master. (But hey if you saw what we she her do in the game..)
Also she had these longing looks towards Terra at the end there. Like fuck!

Xaszatm · Feb 1, 2019

Dragmire said:
Everything with Aqua is complete and utter bullshit.
She never got corrupted by the place she was in. She just lost a battle during this game and got hit with a dark ball of whatever. Sora then saves her.
She later loses to opponents she has fought before. Twice she just stands there. Then someone tells Terra to take care of her and Ven, because Terra the MAN can take care of them including the ONLY Keyblade master. (But hey if you saw what we she her do in the game..)
Also she had these longing looks towards Terra at the end there. Like fuck!

Yeah, like, it's known that The World of Darkness is so dangerous that going in unprotected is akin to a death sentence. Not even Xenohort and his million of clones do this and they are the supposed masters of darkness. Yet Aqua manages 12 fucking years because her heart is that strong but nope, one ball of darkness at the tail end of it and suddenly the guy who was the puppet of the big bad is now the strongest because apparently writing strong women is too hard. Have to make them dependent on men!

It's like the only role women in action games can go is a bastardized version of Eowyn's arc in Lord of the Rings. And the original has problems too but they make it even worse. Apparently after women are badass they must now realize their true role is in the arms of a main (usually the main character) as a dutiful wife and forget any and all skills she had beforehand.

Dary · Feb 1, 2019

Another issue with KH3 is that it sidelines the female Disney characters, too. Rapunzel is the only female party member, and she's reduced to an NPC once her world is complete...

nayriee · Feb 1, 2019

I'm so blind to this sort of stuff, maybe I just dont play enough games tbh.

Dragmire · Feb 1, 2019

The few times that we see her, she just acts like a the typical anime brat with those cliche movements too. She's the only female member of Org XIII and the only reason she was helping them was because of a guy.

Kairi always sucked. But they had a chance to give her something of an identity in this game. She(and Axel) were training in the infinite time chamber and they show NO TRAINING. Did Axel throw a fireball at her and then she blocked swiftly during a training montage? Fuck no. Even in the CG OP and in this game you see moments of her standing there while Sora blocks whatever attack from their enemies.

Dary · Feb 1, 2019

Kairi always sucked. But they had a chance to give her something of an identity in this game. She(and Axel) were training in the infinite time chamber and they show NO TRAINING. Did Axel throw a fireball at her and then she blocked swiftly during a training montage? Fuck no. Even in the CG OP and in this game you see moments of her standing there while Sora blocks whatever attack from their enemies.

It's especially painful after all her talk of protecting Sora. What does she do instead? Eh, kinda wish him back to life?

That's it. A Princess of Light turned Keyblade wielder, and her sole contribution is literally holding Sora's hand.

Dragmire · Feb 1, 2019

Since Japan has had this game longer(at least officially haha), have they said anything regarding Aqua? I remember there was a Japanese event where they showed the Sora and Aqua fight for the first time and there was a pretty big reaction.

Xaszatm · Feb 1, 2019

Dary said:
Another issue with KH3 is that it sidelines the female Disney characters, too. Rapunzel is the only female party member, and she's reduced to an NPC once her world is complete...

Wait...I haven't gotten to Frozen world yet but they literally have the Snow Queen right there and don't use her as a partner?

Kinsei · Feb 1, 2019

Xaszatm said:
Wait...I haven't gotten to Frozen world yet but they literally have the Snow Queen right there and don't use her as a partner?

Nope. No Honey Lemon or GoGo Tomago in the Big Hero 6 world either sadly.

I guess we should be thankful that Ariel is a summon.

Deleted member 5535 · Feb 1, 2019

Dragmire said:
Everything with Aqua is complete and utter bullshit.
She never got corrupted by the place she was in. She just lost a battle during this game and got hit with a dark ball of whatever. Sora then saves her.
She later loses to opponents she has fought before. Twice she just stands there. Then someone tells Terra to take care of her and Ven, because Terra the MAN can take care of them including the ONLY Keyblade master. (But hey if you saw what we she her do in the game..)
Also she had these longing looks towards Terra at the end there. Like fuck!

It wasn't really like that.

Aqua was corrupted because she entered the water of the dark realm which is much deeper than the realm of darkness. The ball of darkness has nothing to do with it, it just made aqua fall there and then be corrupted.

As for Terra, that's clearly because he surpassed the darkness and because Aqua had the burden to do that for both of them for a decade and suffered because of it. Considering Aqua's personality, she'll do the same for Terra and Ventus.That's a bit of exaggeration tbh because even if Aqua loses, she had her own fights which shows her capacity, was able to deal with vanitas (and only lost because she protected ventus), fought against Terra-Xehanort and in general she had agency as much as the other characters not named Sora. The only character you can really criticize in that way is Kairi.

Dragmire · Feb 1, 2019

Dragmire · Feb 1, 2019

The point was that Aqua never seemed that weakened or corrupted in the RoD until that point. And in that fight she could of used magic. Unless all keyblade wielder abilities must come from keyblades. She could of done ANYTHING else to protect the shield, like block that fireball with her keyblade. ANYTHING. But no she had to go down despite looking into the camera in a previous cutscene "to tell us that it's her time to shine."and then Ven saves the day. With Terranort (another previous opponent ) in the KBG, she just stood there when Ven got smacked. She doesn't compare to Kairi, but it was still awful.

esserius · Feb 2, 2019

Gonna call Occam's Razor on this one and say Squenix's Kingdom Hearts writers are just complete dipshits (and sexist to boot!).

Village · Feb 2, 2019

esserius said:
Gonna call Occam's Razor on this one and say Squenix's Kingdom Hearts writers are just complete dipshits (and sexist to boot!).

Kingdom Hearts 3 , to leave it vague has a story issue where they really want you to see why sora's the protagonist and other characters pay the price for that. Sexism compounds ontop , of that problem.

Oinone · Feb 2, 2019

Xaszatm said:
Eowyn's arc in Lord of the Rings

Oh lawd, good ol' Eowyn who chooses her love interest depending on royalty...
Well, those books are ancient and Tolkien truely came from a different time. Almost every women is just a diamond to decorate a man.
They tried to sneak around that a bit in the movies with Arwen looking for them instead of Glorfindel for example, but how much are you allowed to differ from the original story? They had plans on letting Arwen fight in Helm's Deep too, but dropped it because of too much criticism.

Deleted member 20850 · Feb 2, 2019

So they announced the Viera as a playable race in FFXIV and I am not too happy with that trailer. And it's possibly a female only race?

MirVie · Feb 2, 2019

They might still show the male version at a later date, we can only hope.

But I'm utterly disgusted by the Viera race I have to admit. The last thing FFXIV needed was yet another "sexy girl with animal ears" race, we already have those in spades. I also absolutely despised Fran's design in FFXII, she is a literal Playboy Bunny from a Playboy Bunny race who's high heels are part of their feet. Ugh, ugh ugh ugh....

So yes, I can't ever see myself race change my awesome female Roegadyn into a Viera, and it is disappointing to hear they'll be the last race to be added to the game since they offer nothing new or exciting in my opinion.

Having said that, I know I'm in the minority and other FFXIV can barely contain their happiness and are already planning their skimpy outfits in anticipation of being one of the gazillion bunnygirls that will be plagueing the game this summer. Oh joy.

Theta · Feb 2, 2019

MirVie said:
They might still show the male version at a later date, we can only hope.

But I'm utterly disgusted by the Viera race I have to admit. The last thing FFXIV needed was yet another "sexy girl with animal ears" race, we already have those in spades. I also absolutely despised Fran's design in FFXII, she is a literal Playboy Bunny from a Playboy Bunny race who's high heels are part of their feet. Ugh, ugh ugh ugh....

So yes, I can't ever see myself race change my awesome female Roegadyn into a Viera, and it is disappointing to hear they'll be the last race to be added to the game since they offer nothing new or exciting in my opinion.

Having said that, I know I'm in the minority and other FFXIV can barely contain their happiness and are already planning their skimpy outfits in anticipation of being one of the gazillion bunnygirls that will be plagueing the game this summer. Oh joy.

I have noticed that alot of MMOs seem to have this type of armour in abundance.

Deleted member 20850 · Feb 2, 2019

MirVie said:
They might still show the male version at a later date, we can only hope.

But I'm utterly disgusted by the Viera race I have to admit. The last thing FFXIV needed was yet another "sexy girl with animal ears" race, we already have those in spades. I also absolutely despised Fran's design in FFXII, she is a literal Playboy Bunny from a Playboy Bunny race who's high heels are part of their feet. Ugh, ugh ugh ugh....

So yes, I can't ever see myself race change my awesome female Roegadyn into a Viera, and it is disappointing to hear they'll be the last race to be added to the game since they offer nothing new or exciting in my opinion.

Having said that, I know I'm in the minority and other FFXIV can barely contain their happiness and are already planning their skimpy outfits in anticipation of being one of the gazillion bunnygirls that will be plagueing the game this summer. Oh joy.

They could have blunted the blow by also showing male Viera. If that trailer was my only contact with the game it would take quite a bit for me to even give it a second look.

It's fine if people want to dress skimpy ingame but this is the first time I remember where they put this kind of stuff so front and center in their PR.

Gaming_Groove · Feb 2, 2019

MirVie said:
They might still show the male version at a later date, we can only hope.

Given that they had no problem adding the bunny costume for male characters, I think we'll probably see male Viera. It doesn't justify sexualized designs, but I thought it would be worth mentioning.

Ferrs · Feb 2, 2019

Funny how they changed Viera's to be more waifu-like but god lord if they change the shitty outfit! Priorities...

Deleted member 20850 · Feb 2, 2019

Gaming_Groove said:
Given that they had no problem adding the bunny costume for male characters, I think we'll probably see male Viera. It doesn't justify sexualized designs, but I thought it would be worth mentioning.

That took them years to add though. It's good it happened eventually at least.

Teriyaki Blues · Feb 2, 2019

Sadly, I couldn't get hyped at all for Viera because I had a gut feeling about them doing... well, exactly what they did. Lala and Roe have the superior women characters.

Komii · Feb 2, 2019

Gaming_Groove said:
Given that they had no problem adding the bunny costume for male characters, I think we'll probably see male Viera. It doesn't justify sexualized designs, but I thought it would be worth mentioning.

14 has skimpy armors for everyone and i could kinda say the skimpy armor for men are sort of a selling point of the game, which makes the decision of doing a female viera only video pretty baffling

Xaszatm · Feb 2, 2019

Amevila said:
So they announced the Viera as a playable race in FFXIV and I am not too happy with that trailer. And it's possibly a female only race?

Amevila said:
They could have blunted the blow by also showing male Viera. If that trailer was my only contact with the game it would take quite a bit for me to even give it a second look.

It's fine if people want to dress skimpy ingame but this is the first time I remember where they put this kind of stuff so front and center in their PR.

Dang...yeah as a huge fan of Ivalice the viera has always been just the fanservice race which sucks. It's really annoying too beacuse Fran isn't the fanservice character when we get to look at her character. So the outfit feels tacked on. Hell the viera race as a whole doesn't really work as the fanservice race, being one of the most serious races in the setting...that just happens to weary incredibly uncomfortable lingerie. Even in the tactics series, the viera's outfits are usually the most skimpy and fanservice heavy. I do hope they add male viera and at least make them just as skimpy but since the viera are an all female race in their source I'm not sure they will.

Also, I find it super annoying that we keep getting all-female races...where apparently they all decided that the best way to dress was in the most uncomfortable clothing imaginable that was specifically made to titillate the male sex they don't have.

Kalentan · Feb 2, 2019

Ferrs said:
Funny how they changed Viera's to be more waifu-like but god lord if they change the shitty outfit! Priorities...

As a person who plays FFXIV it's really disappointing. I remember when I criticised the Au Ra for making their females "waifu-bait" (you know making them incredibly small against their tall male counterparts), I got told it's not a problem becuase people asked for it. Which apparently makes it A-Ok.

Xaszatm · Feb 2, 2019

Mariip said:
14 has skimpy armors for everyone and i could kinda say the skimpy armor for men are sort of a selling point of the game, which makes the decision of doing a female viera only video pretty baffling

Que "It's the lore!" fanboys who will throw a fit if there are male playboy bunnies, I mean male viera. I can already see the Thermian Arguments already...

Famassu · Feb 2, 2019

Dary said:
Good to see Kingdom Hearts living up to its shounen influences and

making all its female heroes utterly useless 👍

To be fair, everyone is useless in KHIII. Kairi got done dirty but otherwise the women in KHIII aren't any more incompetent than men. Like, Ventus gets beaten within seconds of running into one bad guy and everyone dies because Sora is a big wimp & breaks down immediately at the face of a little struggle.

Gaming_Groove · Feb 2, 2019

Amevila said:
That took them years to add though. It's good it happened eventually at least.

True. I have not been big into the Ivalice series, but have we ever seen male Viera? Could it be that they were left out of the announcement because they're still developing the design/model? I know when I played WoW, we'd often only get to see one gender of a new race or redesigned model when they were announced because things were still not ready for prime time.

I don't play XIV (my girlfriend does), so I haven't actually watched any of the announcements or footage yet. Just thought I'd mention for full disclosure.

Kalentan · Feb 2, 2019

Gaming_Groove said:
True. I have not been big into the Ivalice series, but have we ever seen male Viera? Could it be that they were left out of the announcement because they're still developing the design/model? I know when I played WoW, we'd often only get to see one gender of a new race or redesigned model when they were announced because things were still not ready for prime time.

I don't play XIV (my girlfriend does), so I haven't actually watched any of the announcements or footage yet. Just thought I'd mention for full disclosure.

In game? No. But FFXIV is the first one to have concept art for males:

Xaszatm · Feb 2, 2019

Gaming_Groove said:
True. I have not been big into the Ivalice series, but have we ever seen male Viera? Could it be that they were left out of the announcement because they're still developing the design/model? I know when I played WoW, we'd often only get to see one gender of a new race or redesigned model when they were announced because things were still not ready for prime time.

I don't play XIV (my girlfriend does), so I haven't actually watched any of the announcements or footage yet. Just thought I'd mention for full disclosure.

No, in the games since they have been introduced, there has never been a male viera shown. They do exist however...it's just that apparently in every game they only exist in highly secretive communities that only ever contact the female only viera villages.

Maledict · Feb 2, 2019

Yeah, that's flat out disgusting and pathetic. Square aren't some small company hawking a bad f2p game with boobs and legs. The fact they thought *that* armour design was okay is terribly depressing. Add in the heels, the "breath out to show your chest more" and the fact that they don't even both showing any other outfits and it's pretty shameful.

Xaszatm · Feb 2, 2019

Maledict said:
Yeah, that's flat out disgusting and pathetic. Square aren't some small company hawking a bad f2p game with boobs and legs. The fact they thought *that* armour design was okay is terribly depressing. Add in the heels, the "breath out to show your chest more" and the fact that they don't even both showing any other outfits and it's pretty shameful.

It's super annoying too as the Viera have other costumes from the Tactics series so at least show those. Many of those outfits have only been in 2D images so showing a 3D version of them would have at least been interesting (the outfits themselves are still fanservicey though not to the level of FFXII's world's most uncomfortable lingerie).

Choppasmith · Feb 2, 2019

Xaszatm said:
Que "It's the lore!" fanboys who will throw a fit if there are male playboy bunnies, I mean male viera. I can already see the Thermian Arguments already...

I distinctly remember Matsuno saying we'd see male Viera back when XII was in development, but then he quit and we didn't. We just have that old concept art floating around.

What bugs me about the trailer is that they all show the same outfit, like they're a bunch of Fran cosplayers.

Deleted member 20850 · Feb 2, 2019

Xaszatm said:
No, in the games since they have been introduced, there has never been a male viera shown. They do exist however...it's just that apparently in every game they only exist in highly secretive communities that only ever contact the female only viera villages.

Male Miqo'te used to be a myth too until a Realm Reborn. I hoped they learned their lesson regarding single sex races when they added male Miqo'te, female Roegadyn and female Highlanders.

And I think they would have mentioned if there were male Viera planned. None of the more recent designs they showed even hinted at them.

Kalentan · Feb 2, 2019

For reference I believe this was the first video showing off the Au Ra playable race:

Deleted member 20850 · Feb 2, 2019

Maledict said:
Yeah, that's flat out disgusting and pathetic. Square aren't some small company hawking a bad f2p game with boobs and legs. The fact they thought *that* armour design was okay is terribly depressing. Add in the heels, the "breath out to show your chest more" and the fact that they don't even both showing any other outfits and it's pretty shameful.

Choppasmith said:
I distinctly remember Matsuno saying we'd see male Viera back when XII was in development, but then he quit and we didn't. We just have that old concept art floating around.

What bugs me about the trailer is that they all show the same outfit, like they're a bunch of Fran cosplayers.

It seems to be the racial starter gear. It would not be a problem to go that route if the starter gear was not, well, THAT.

PhillyCheeseHorse · Feb 2, 2019

esserius said:
Yeah, I'm really not sure where you're getting this from. JoJo has memetic influence everywhere at this point, and certainly moreso in Japan. But even in Japan it's not mainstream. Yes, a fair number of artists like the show/manga and thus take things from it, but much like in America it's a show/manga that's more often referenced than understood or enfranchised.

From what I've absorbed over the years (which is admittedly rickety) it had a moment of intense cultural relevance around parts 3 and 4 of the manga, hence all the influence it's had, but then tapered off into cult hit. But yeah, definitely not mainstream in the time since then.

esserius said:
Gonna call Occam's Razor on this one and say Squenix's Kingdom Hearts writers are just complete dipshits (and sexist to boot!).

Nomura is a haaaack and should have never been allowed to direct the moment anyone realized how little he understood even the characters he helped design(turning Cloud into proto-fuckboy stoic).

Gaming_Groove · Feb 2, 2019

PhillyCheeseHorse said:
From what I've absorbed over the years (which is admittedly rickety) it had a moment of intense cultural relevance around parts 3 and 4 of the manga, hence all the influence it's had, but then tapered off into cult hit. But yeah, definitely not mainstream in the time since then.

Nomura is a haaaack and should have never been allowed to direct the moment anyone realized how little he understood even the characters he helped designed(turning Cloud into proto-fuckboy stoic).

I'm not sure I've ever thought anything Nomura had creative control over was actually good from a narrative perspective. I'm legitimately concerned for how VII remake is going to turn out, and that's as someone who doesn't really like VII all that much in the first place.

Xaszatm · Feb 2, 2019

Amevila said:
Male Miqo'te used to be a myth too until a Realm Reborn. I hoped they learned their lesson regarding single sex races when they added male Miqo'te, female Roegadyn and female Highlanders.

And I think they would have mentioned if there were male Viera planned. None of the more recent designs they showed even hinted at them.

I hope they do add male viera because the last race being female only would be dumb as rocks.

Choppasmith said:
I distinctly remember Matsuno saying we'd see male Viera back when XII was in development, but then he quit and we didn't. We just have that old concept art floating around.

What bugs me about the trailer is that they all show the same outfit, like they're a bunch of Fran cosplayers.

That outfit is the standard "village clothing" from FFXII so that's not too surprising. Do wish they went with the Tactics outfits because at least there are more sensible designs for the classes (the majority of them are actual things that class would wear...then again they also have a cheerleader outfit for the archery class because I give up).