Does gender changes when changing classes bother you?

[MushroomCake28]

Some tactics games where you can change the class of your units have different genders for different classes. I'm thinking for example of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2. So does it both you when a unit who is for example a male soldier changes his classes and becomes a female white mage?

EDIT: To specify, I'm talking about gender swaps on non-main character units in the party. They are not part of dialogues and their graphics will only appear when selecting them in the menu or in battle.

 

[fizzly]

I don't like it personally. I'm for equality. If you have soldier, then you want a soldier, not a mage, doesn't matter it's a boy or girl.

 

[MushroomCake28]

I don't like it personally. I'm for equality. If you have soldier, then you want a soldier, not a mage, doesn't matter it's a boy or girl.

Equality has nothing to do with this, there's no morality involved. It's about gamedev decision to reduce work load. Having the possibility of having both gender for one class means doubling the amount of work in terms of art since you have to have a male and a female version for every classes.

For example, if you say a soldier is male and a black mage is female, if your soldier changes his class to black mage, he would become a female (graphics wise). If there's both version, a male soldier would become a male black mage, and a female soldier would become a female black mage, but that would mean having 4 different assets in terms of graphics (male soldier, female soldier, male black mage, female black mage) instead of 2 (male soldier, female black mage).

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

Honestly it would be a bit weird unless you had some lore reason. Mostly it would just give the impression of an unfinished game. You could get around that though if they're not really easily defined as anything. I mean a black mage with a cowl covering their face, a billowing robe, and no hair sticking out could easily be either or.

 

[SpaceBot]

Are you introducing the characters all at once during character selections? Say like, in Final Fantasy Legend 3, where you pick your characters and go from there. If they want to change later then they'd already know what to expect I'd assume.

 

[MushroomCake28]

@SpaceBot To clarify (I edited my first post to add details), I'm talking about gender swaps for non-main character units in the party. Those are units that fight in battle, but they are not part of the story whatsoever. You only see them and their bust graphics when selecting them in the menu and in battle.

 

[SpaceBot]

@SpaceBot To clarify (I edited my first post to add details), I'm talking about gender swaps for non-main character units in the party. Those are units that fight in battle, but they are not part of the story whatsoever. You only see them and their bust graphics when selecting them in the menu and in battle.

Oh okay, well then... hmm. I am pretty easy going, so personally I wouldn't care either way to be honest.

 

[daheji]

Gender changes after changing class doesn't really make sense, even for a non-main character.
Why not keep the gender from start to finish?
There wouldn't be more work involved into it.
Just like ImaginaryVillain said, it just looks like the dev became lazy halfway through and used what graphic assets they had at the moment.

 

[MushroomCake28]

Why not keep the gender from start to finish?

In a game where changing class often occurs, you'll be changing classes often to upgrade your units and learn more skills. So let's take a simple human for example, here are the available classes:
- Soldier
- Paladin
- Archer
- Thief
- Black Mage
- White Mage
- Summoner
Now, assuming that all humans can change to any of those classes, if they are males and females that would mean you need to have 14 different images for those classes: 2 genders x 7 classes = 14 images. If you say for example: soldier, paladin, archer and thief are all males and black mage, white mage, and summoner are all female, then you only need 7 different images. However, a soldier (male) could still change to a black mage (female). Of course I'm talking about non important characters, meaning units that only appear in battle and never speak.

Now imagine that but with multiple races and over 50 classes in total. The decision to go with 50 images or 100 images is a significant decision.

 

[daheji]

How about that? Instead of changing class for a unit, you are actually hiring another unit to replace the previous one.

Just like, you're firing the Male Soldier to replace him by a Female Mage.

That would make more sense to me.

 

[MushroomCake28]

How about that? Instead of changing class for a unit, you are actually hiring another unit to replace the previous one.

Just like, you're firing the Male Soldier to replace him by a Female Mage.

That would make more sense to me.

That's a bit weird, since changing classes doesn't mean you start from 0. You continue with the same level and stats, and you keep all your previous skills and abilities. Hiring someone else means you start back at zero logically.

 

[TheoAllen]

if there are males and females

Since the unit is not in any part of the story and dialogues, why bother having different genders at all? Why not just use "all males" (or all females) for the "extra units".

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

You really would be wiser to ditch the meaningless races over having people swap genders if they change class. Races don't add much, and people won't notice them gone. But the whole gender swap on class change, they're going to notice that.

So if you want to cut graphical overhead, I'd start by removing the races and just making 2 gender images per class, instead of X per class where X is one for every race for each class, but only one gender. Really the races are going to be infinitely more graphical asset requirements when you think about it.

 

[KoalaFrenzy]

This would really just be super weird to have a class change cause a forced change of gender and your worst case scenario would be inviting unwanted controversy to the game if someone out there feels it's sexist or something.

I know it doubles work/cost, but Ubisoft had this happen when they cited that as the reason for not having a female gender option for an assassins creed game.

 

[Aesica]

Seems lazy more than anything else, like "We didn't want to make a male and female sprite for every class, so we made each class male or female randomly."

The only time I can think of where I was really okay with it was in the Final Fantasy Legend games, where monsters could morph into other monsters. While they mostly looked sexless (ghosts, slimes, etc) there were a few that appeared to be male or female specifically, so your male imp could morph into a female pixie. I guess I gave this a pass because monsters overall felt pretty sexless.

A big no for traditional human/humanoid characters though, unless your game specifically revolves around the idea of a character that changes their gender for plot reasons.

 

[MushroomCake28]

Hnmm, now I'm hesitating lol.

The only time I can think of where I was really okay with it was in the Final Fantasy Legend games, where monsters could morph into other monsters.

They also did that in the Final Fantasy tactics games. Take a look at FFTA2, humans kinda change sex when they change their classes. They tried to make characters look genderless though, but you could still discern a gender.

You really would be wiser to ditch the meaningless races over having people swap genders if they change class.

I would agree if the classes were overlapping between races, but different races can bring different classes.

 

[dazed]

They also did that in the Final Fantasy tactics games. Take a look at FFTA2, humans kinda change sex when they change their classes. They tried to make characters look genderless though, but you could still discern a gender.

I've played that game a lot and I don't remember any of the human characters ever looking like they changed sex when they changed classes. For me, the characters did look genderless and I never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

I always viewed every one of the "races" of FFTA2 as having its own "gender" - like Viera and Gria were obviously female where as the rest seemed male. So it never felt like changing a class within one's race felt like changing sex.

 

[Aesica]

They also did that in the Final Fantasy tactics games. Take a look at FFTA2, humans kinda change sex when they change their classes. They tried to make characters look genderless though, but you could still discern a gender.

Aah, wasn't sure since I never played any of those games beyond FFT for PS1. Something about what I felt to be the FFTA games' dumbing down of the battle system turned me off to them. Humans with mutable genders is just another nail in the coffin to me.

 

[Finnuval]

Im sure you'll figure it out

 

[Eliaquim]

I also think that is a bit strange to change gender. Since a class is something attached to a character. If it is a male soldier, it can upgrade(or change) his class to another one. How does that will change the gender?
Not only for game dev but for the player it also seems strange for me.
I think that it will make more sense if the player changes the character, instead of changing his class. But this will mean not classes changes after all...
So, change class and change gender I think is not a good idea. You can confuse some players too.