yeap this would be the gold standard. i too like how scrawny the acolyte is. tho i really would prefer if we could just outright choose our models. that way i can play as a beefy mage or a scrawny primalist.
i do get what you mean by making classes feel different and more special and i dont think LE will throw that away since this game has a lot of classlocking.
It’s not ideally if it means less skills and items though.
Actually it’s a good idea I think, just letting players to choose any model they want. never thought about it. The problem with LE though, skills are class-related, so there are no animations for non-rogue models using rogue skills, if it works like I think it does. But it could be done in Poe, where skills shared across all classes.
But you could do it with free choice of model.
And for a second I thought someone is advocating for a class called “sexworker” 
. There are a lot of topics on this and afair EHG used their money wisely and reduced the workload back in the they when they were a tiny studio. Extra voice line, animations, fitting gear to a modell, making the modell itself and so on and so forth costs a lot of money. That’s why there is no such thing as a gender choice for now.
I mean, everything other than skills and items inevitably leads to less of them. WASD means less skills and items. Autotransfer and having inventory tabs for materials means less skills and items.
Any QoL feature that is added always means less skills and items, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be added. It’s just a matter of priority and when they should do it.
I don’t think anyone thinks gender choice is a bad thing to have (other than some extreme opinions). It’s just that most people (myself included) think there are more important things to focus on first, even in the QoL field.
Sure, but if I wanted a beefy female I couldn’t have it, because the beefy models are males. And if I wanted a scrawny male I couldn’t either because the scrawny ones are female (except for the mage, which is an old male).
So you’d either scrap those models and make 2 generic ones like GD, or you would need to increase the models anyway and, like you mentioned, adding animations for other skills.
Overall, I think it would be less effort to simply create an opposite gender model that is similar in stature to the existing one because most animations would be kinda the same. Which is basically what D4 did (although with many more extra options as well).
I would probably not even make models for specific classes, just couple of slim models of both genders, couple of beefy male models, one beefy female, maybe couple of old models, something like that.
Sure, this is why it doesn’t make sense to discuss it like it’s free. I mean, ofc ideally would be having tons and tons of everything to choose from, but it doesn’t mean anything because it’s not free.
Regarding to cost, having more models not only requires time to make them, but also increases future cost of adding new skill into the game, unlike most other features which just require time for itself. So it’s probably important not to have too many models.
Or it’s only true for rags, i.e. skeletons, and they can make many different models using the same skeleton? Probably it’s more like this.
This would still be a lot of work, but I wouldn’t mind this.
I kinda like having the current models being class locked, since that gives them a different feel and makes them special to me.
So overall I would prefer, in order, having the current models but with gender choice, after that having general models for any class, after that having just a couple generic models like GD.
Yes, I agree that there is something in it too. I lean in the direction of free choice from some general models, but I’m not really against class locked models, overall both ways works fine imho.
And the other side of the argument isn’t? Dev resources notwithstanding.
Are they though to be fair?
It mostly feels like they were set up to be… but then it got forgotten completely. Which is quite disappointing to say.
The only differences are body build and gender, story-wise you don’t get any proper influx. Even the characters in PoE 1 provide personalized voicelines giving you hints about their backstory which at least minimally provides something… in LE that’s kinda not there.
I think this is where action/loot-focused arpgs differ from story/RP-focussed games differ. The characters in LE aren’t intended to be blank slates but die to LE being fairly story-light those lore-based differences quickly fade into the background. Maybe/hopefully this will change over time & EHG will add more character-specific stuff to the campaign in the future.
Yeah, they all get a short line on hitting certain levels and killing certain bosses. Fairly light touch & I don’t remember when they were added, I assume it wasn’t particularly early on. 
Ugh yes…
And worse… it looks to me like a childish misogyny, like when boys say something is “girly” and refuses to do it.
You know, like refusing to play rope skipping or clean their own dishes? It looks exactly the same when a grown up man says he refuses to play a certain character just because it’s a female model.
I played ranger in Poe 2 for couple of months and still not sure, which gender I am 
Probably there is a hint somewhere, I just didn’t find it 
Kind of gender choice — I can imagine whatever I want
To be fair, that can be different as some people do identify in a more personal way with the character that they’re playing as an extension of themselves thus if the character’s gender is different from their own then it may cause some emotional discomfort. I’m not saying that this is universal or even common, but it’s not all misogyny.
Would you be dismissive if it were reversed? If a woman refused to play a male character?
Well you look at it as ability to make money. If you attract more players, you sell more copies of the game, you make up money “lost” on developing this “feature” which suppose to be included in solid ARPG either way. And of course make more profit from sold expansions.
I can even see ad for this extremely contraversial feature: “We added sex”. Imagine how much money this would earn.
You see what you want to see. But about characters, you are making good point and only problem i see with this - the world we play in is mainly not single player. I dont really care about story of characters, but about story of itself. Same as D4. And about POE2: i think they should add sex there as well. Of course i do not care, because i do not play games which have any partnership with Tencent. As soon as i found out that POE2 is affiliated with them, i instantly deleted it and bought ultimate pack for LE. Hopelly this game will not have any contact with them.
You are aware that tencent owns 20% of EHG, right?
No, sadly i have to delete this. Goodbye.
TBH, this is the response I’ve had after a few dates sometimes.
Just to prevent you some future mistakes, here’s games that Tencent invested in (so you can’t touch them, it’s worse than Eternal Damnation) :
There is also Discord that got investment by pretty much everyone (including Tencent).
And, of course, now you know the terrible truth : EHG too 
I hope that help you makes enlighten choices!
But by the way, the most shocking revelation is that Tencent had majority stakes in the famous incredible fantasty best-OG-sht : Miniclip.
Sadly, Miniclip is dead.
Probably the fault of Tencent. (or that cheap flash browser games are not as popular anymore… but I prefer to think that Tencent slipped in Miniclip room one night and slit its throat in his sleep. gniak gniak gniak).
Rest in peace Miniclip.
You were my childhood and the best of us.