Is POE 2 going to have male and female options for each class / character

if my memory is working correctly , CW said that it could happen but would be mtx to buy.

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ZenJelly wrote:

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Rannulf wrote:

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RitualMurder wrote:

i never cared about the gender of a character in a video game before

Sure, you may not have a problem with it, but that's because you're seeing these as "characters", which is 100% fair.

I personally think there's a problem with just considering it a "character", yet the players are still allowed to name the "character". There's sometimes a sense of "you can make this uniquely yours" when you allow people to do something like name the thing or person they're playing as, which I think is where your understanding may trip up a bit.

The reason it bothers so many people that they can't swap gender AT LEAST (more customization options is always better, of course) is because it almost completely takes away the axis of customization and personalization, and can make it harder for people to connect with or care about the thing they're playing as, especially when it's treated as something that should be relatively faceless. The player characters are just called by their classes. "Shadow", "Witch", "Marauder". These are very generic.

Something as simple as allowing people to change skin tone, hair styles, facial structures, and the like also go a long way towards helping people connect better, but being able to gender swap is considered the most basic of basic customizations. It's why diablo 3, when given the opportunity let people customize their character in some small sense, chose to do gender swapping, and it was enough, because no other ARPG (to my knowledge) had taken the steps to allow even THAT level of customization in character creation.

I may be able to play a class of any gender now, but I would be lying if I didn't say that gender locking has turned me off of A LOT of games, including this one for a while. People just like customization.

HA. Way back when, I used to play a game called marble madness in the arcade, you couldn't customize jack. I cared more about that marble falling then I have about any character I could "personalize."

duuuude i had marble madness on NES that game was fucking HARD

Suffering: thank you for that clarification. Re suss, well, the forum is a game unto itself and it's one I have been playing longer than PoE thanks to GGG forcing me to use it to get a beta key back in March 2012. Blame them for my presence, if anyone. And only they can get rid of me -- despite a few close calls, hasn't happened yet. Last time I quit to just observe someone pulled me back. I have had a fairly unique PoE/GGG experience that goes well beyond merely playing the game, and if that somehow enables me to discuss PoE despite no longer playing...so be it.

Re PoE, the masses and why GGG made it -- it's not that simple. You can say they didn't make it for the masses but PoE had twitch integration before it got almost any real UI QoL. Kripp brought masses. Just not the so-called mainstream or the casuals. There was a niche arpg early GGG intended to make but I can guarantee you that game never happened and any resemblance to it is long gone. To see that sort of thing you would need to look up early videos of the cut throat events, of 2-3 hour races. These were the sorts of things the devs themselves could play and enjoy. 3 month slog leagues through ten choresome acts and a bloated endgame loop designed for no-lifers (by dev standards)? Yeah, no. I doubt even the QA folks engage much with that.

And thats fine. How many casino owners gamble in their own establishment?

Please disabuse yourself of the notion that PoE is any more handmade or 'special' than any other game, including DIV. It is just another product aimed at a specific sort of consumer. Part of its appeal is the illusion of being exclusive or superior. Of making its players feel smart and skillful just for making it past the initial barrage of mechanics and moving parts. This is 100% the intended effect and it is very effective as a selling point to gamers who find that sort of thing satisfying. They would have put more effort into lowering the entry barrier by now were it not.

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Re gender as mtx: it would be pretty expensive (voice acting and modeling would put it past the usual mtx price range) and the backlash would be catastrophic. GGG have shown us they simply won't allocate resources if they don't have to. Especially when something is both costly AND increases the game's resemblance to titles Exiles consider inferior and unworthy.

This is an incredibly clever trick GGG pulled: they convinced their players that some of the more expensive portions of modern game development (gender choice included) would in fact cheapen their game.

Fucking brilliant if intended. I am not convinced it was. But they definitely capitalised on it, to the point where Exiles are weirdly proud of how primitive PoE is despite being anything but a small indie effort these days.

One would think that GGG's 2022 profit would enable them to do pretty much whatever they wanted. they have had at least 3 excellent years money wise. They may choose not to spend money on potential projects, but that is a different question/answer.

The "new" Zana is pretty old at this point and recent NPCs look excellent. For certain we will have seven new looks; maybe more. I doubt we'll see custom features though.

I think that GGG has perhaps struggled with time and staff in preparing POE2, but not money. August beta!

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Re PoE, the masses and why GGG made it -- it's not that simple. You can say they didn't make it for the masses but PoE had twitch integration before it got almost any real UI QoL. Kripp brought masses. Just not the so-called mainstream or the casuals. There was a niche arpg early GGG intended to make but I can guarantee you that game never happened and any resemblance to it is long gone. To see that sort of thing you would need to look up early videos of the cut throat events, of 2-3 hour races. These were the sorts of things the devs themselves could play and enjoy. 3 month slog leagues through ten choresome acts and a bloated endgame loop designed for no-lifers (by dev standards)? Yeah, no. I doubt even the QA folks engage much with that.

I disagree with that. The devs play the game themselves albeit in "ruthless mode". The devs would prefer to make the whole game ruthless mode but it isnt for the masses.

But I digress. The game they want to make is still there. It just has "cosmetics" applied to it.

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ChanBalam wrote:

One would think that GGG's 2022 profit would enable them to do pretty much whatever they wanted. they have had at least 3 excellent years money wise. They may choose not to spend money on potential projects, but that is a different question/answer.

The "new" Zana is pretty old at this point and recent NPCs look excellent. For certain we will have seven new looks; maybe more. I doubt we'll see custom features though.

I think that GGG has perhaps struggled with time and staff in preparing POE2, but not money. August beta!

I will just iterate: going by precedent, they simply don't do what they don't have to. It's smart business. Especially when you can convince your customers the bare minimum is a gift.

I always liked gender locked classes in videogames.

I find either just as immersive depending on genre, writing quality, intended function of character, etc.

Justify your lock and it's fine. I think PoE justifies most of them with the character backgrounds and its setting. Oriath is deeply patriarchal in structure and that would reflect on their, for lack of a better word, values.

So:

The Witch took the children when the villagers took her home -- a distinctly maternal crime;

The Duelist is an arena fighter -- traditionally a male dominated profession, although not fully exclusive;

The Ranger was exiled for poaching but lets be honest that likely wasnt her only deviance by Oriath's strict theocratic doctrine;

The Shadow got done dirty by employers who saw him as a loose end; it's likely a female counterpart would have been treated differently than a "toast, gentlemen!" and lights out (although I always found this rhe weakest part of the Shadow's writing -- assassins being poisoned suggests a weird lapse in competence);

The Scion murdered her newlywed husband in their conjugal bed in what seemed a snap decision and likely a rebellion against her station. A man in Oriath likely wouldn't be subject to the same humiliation and lack of agency;

and

The Templar was too high in the ranks of the Church to be a woman. Only Piety stood above him and she was not a member of the Church so much as its necessary evil agent -- and even then I think Dominus had gone rogue when he put all his eggs in the Sarn basket.

Which leaves us with just one completely unjustified gender lock. There is no reason why a Karui slave strong enough to survive Wraeclast can't be a woman. Maramoa is more than enough proof there. And since the modern Karui are meant to represent a freedom from doctrine and religious dogma, long evolved past the daya of being slave to the rituals of theie gods, it is very much a shame there aren't female Marauders.

GGG could have bucked the trend -- as they did so often early on -- and had gender lock for all starting classes but one. For no reason other than to show rather than tell how the Karui are, despite all the lavishness and colonial pomp of Oriath, the closest to a modern, enlightened people in their game.

Given what we know of NZ and its recent history with gender equality movement, it wouldn't have been far off.

Oh well. Chinese game now. Too late. :)

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

The Duelist is an arena fighter -- traditionally a male dominated profession, although not fully exclusive;

Other than the second most notable arena fighter in history (Fair Maralyne, Victarios lover) was a woman.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

The Shadow got done dirty by employers who saw him as a loose end; it's likely a female counterpart would have been treated differently than a "toast, gentlemen!" and lights out (although I always found this rhe weakest part of the Shadow's writing -- assassins being poisoned suggests a weird lapse in competence);

We see a female shadow in game as Clarissa, she dresses a lot like the shadow, she worked under Hargan.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

The Templar was too high in the ranks of the Church to be a woman. Only Piety stood above him and she was not a member of the Church so much as its necessary evil agent -- and even then I think Dominus had gone rogue when he put all his eggs in the Sarn basket.

We also know Cassia was higher placed than the templar, having held Vianna's position previously and was a woman, and seems to not been discriminated against. A woman also TRAINS new templar according to the Templar himself (As noted when he kills The Matriarch in act 5's Oriath Square).

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Which leaves us with just one completely unjustified gender lock. There is no reason why a Karui slave strong enough to survive Wraeclast can't be a woman. Maramoa is more than enough proof there. And since the modern Karui are meant to represent a freedom from doctrine and religious dogma, long evolved past the daya of being slave to the rituals of theie gods, it is very much a shame there aren't female Marauders.

Hyrri and Lani are also both supporting examples of physical strong karui women who took to fighting that could be classfied as 'Female Marauders'.

I don't fully disagree with you in the overall, but like, it's pretty unreasonable to think a male wouldn't get exiled for the exact same crimes the Ranger is charged of (Kratylin and Hillock are charged with MUCH worse and where sentinced to Exile, not death. Keep in mind in this era Dominius is looking for any reason to exile, and judging by the populations of exiles, men are roughly equally exiled as women).

While Dominus seems EXTREMELY sexist in his reactions to many female characters (just like he's mega racist towards Karui, some how less so than Avarius), I'm not sure I can say that Oriathan culture is to the same level. It's some late era european rennocence modeling, so I assume it's pretty present, so I assume women are limited in their lives in Oriath, but again, the temple is looking to exile people, and don't seem to care about their gender in that regard.

I will say, occultists seem to be STRONGLY bent to females. I don't know if this is a blindspot by GGG (equating witch with an exclusively female role, which isn't not and only took that tone in the latter century, King Jame's Demonology, a text written on witches way back when that was a thing people where actually worried about, even talks about why male witches are rarer in their estimation). Or if this is an in universe thing, where the powers that be tend to favor contact with females over males for some reason (or if sexist oppression causes the repressed gender to seek out these powers).

Still we see the Player Witch, Alira, Catareina and perhaps Nenet (the nature of her abilities are a little less clear) all easily fitting into the 'witch' or occultist realm of things.

And again, while I'd lean in favor of the game allowing either gender with a slight shift in their background as needed, but I also don't think strongly for it. Be neat if it was there, but it's absence isn't really really a big problem, and the game as many more things I'd rather see them spend their time on (PoE two, some damage balancing stuff, better QoL for hideout related stuff, heck I think "MTX for skills without them" rates higher on my personal 'to do' list for the game than extra gender choices.).

And that's enough talking gender representation in a game about killing screens of enemies per second.

Clarissa always struck me more as a nod to D2 npcs assassins like Natalya. Cape and all.

Fair do with the Duelist. I admit I am ironically stuck in the game's past there, with the men doing the fighting and the women the singing. And both the jobbing, eventually.

Cassia eh...again fair enough. Too far into GGG's hot for glasses teacher phase for my awareness. Still seems contrary to the church but no one ever accused GGG of consistent lore. The Matriarch miniboss seemed to confirm to me that even someone of that esteemed title has been relegated to little more than optional named unique in an act very much dedicated to taking down male egos left and right.

Re Oriath itself -- we know it's modeled after colonial England circa 1600-1700s, probably deeper into the c18th given Wraeclast is proto-AU/NZ. The boats are meant to make it to Wraeclast, but obviously few do. Thats a bit of a shame -- would have been a nice twist to reach Sarn and realise what Dominus and Piety are doing with the arrivals. That is implied with the tasteless walls of bodies in an otherwise dead city but little is offered by way of explanation beyond that afaik. On one hand we have the idea of a desolate, lawless expanse forcing people to cannibalism and banditry...then we hit Sarn and its like man that's a lot of fairly fresh bodies...

Man, i knew this thread was bait. And here I am chewing gristle no one cares about. Damnit. At least with the DI V threads I knew it was wasting time. This just makes me nostalgic for back when it seemed GGG were going to explore Wraeclast's huge map instead of fucking off into dreamlands.