Gender locked classes

Feedback and Suggestions
304

I recently bought the game and have about 80h+ playtime so far. I tend to always play female characters when possible so I went with the acolyte. I got to about level 30 and wanted to reroll some other build… well needless to say I chose the other female character rogue. I loved rogue way more and pushed it to 80+ levels so far.

Once again I wanted to try other builds but there are no more female classes to play. I ended up trying primalist. I instantly felt so much less connected to the character and less invested. Once I hit level 75 and got my endgame weapon finally equipped I simply lost all interest in continuing while I feel the urge to play the rogue more.

I really want to play with the Mage but the way he looks makes it very hard for me. I’m a visual person and these things are very important part that immerses and motivates me to keep improving my character.

I get that making the opposite genders to the characters would mean a lot of work as I’m familiar with 3d modelling/animating pipelines. I still feel it would be 100% worth it. As far as I know this game is an ARPG (action ROLE PLAYING game) meaning the more I can role play as my character the more I get invested and really care about them. At this point I really don’t feel any connection or depth in most of the characters (except the rogue<3)

Thanks for the awesome game still I enjoy playing it a lot and can’t wait to see what’s coming up next!

Thanks for reading my ramblings. Peace!

305

time for me to keep my eyes out for Dark Alliance.

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Think some folks might be underestimating the power of fashion. You’ve got lootboxes and cash shops that keep games going with vanity goods. People don’t call fashion the “true endgame” for nothing.

It’s not just about cool gear, it has to be cool gear for a character that you identify with and it’s easier to identify with a character when you can tweak it to your liking.

Not saying multiple genders or extensive customization is a “must be day 1 or no buy” kind of thing, but don’t think it would hurt the game’s finances down the line either. This is something totally out of my ass and anecdotal, but female cosmetics seem really popular in most games too.

As a funny aside, I was watching a video about Lost Ark that summarized what players thought was good/bad about their class and all the male classes got “must be male” as a con while none of the females had the gender thing as a problem.

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307

Fashion meta and gender lock doesn’t exclude each other, inevitably.

I don’t care about the gender in an ARPG. But I really care about the style of a character. For me it is important to look cool corresponding to the theme of the character. I can dress a Rogue or a Mage and have equally much fun.

So I get the “I want to identify with my character” thing. When I have a choice in games I’ll take a male character. But are you really going to Role Play in LE? This game is not meant for an immersive role play experience people have with real life role play events or in MMOs. And even in MMOs there are dedicated servers for roleplaying with a strict set of additional rules.

Just picking a character of a gender you like, doesn’t make you a role player.

The reason why this genre is called something related to roleplay is the character progression. You choose a class (or role) and progress from a weak amateur to a strong hero. You distribute character points over passives and skills and so flesh out your role in the game as a healer, tank, ranged damage dealer or whatever.

The connection of ARPGs to real roleplay is very weak.

Also for roleplay it can be very interesting to not choose the common perspective, but to play as somebody that has a different mindset or even gender than you have in real life.

Playing as a female when you are a male (or vice versa) drives people off? But playing as a Necromancer doesn’t? I don’t think every Necro player has real life experience in raising dead people.

So why do people insist of a gender choice, but are ok with fix classes?

And what do people do when they read books or whatch films? Do you have a gender choice at the beginning of a book? Do you avoid all books where the protagonist is not of the same gender as you? Because this would be consequential.

So I’m absolutely fine with a gender choice. But I can’t really understand why people would dislike a good game just because it has a gender lock.

It’s a point where you can be unsatisfied with when playing. But if the rest is good and only the gender lock is a negative aspect of the game (for somebody) this doesn’t mean to avoid the game completely.

Why can’t people just look over it?

I hope the fraction of people that can’t is very small. And I just want to encourage people to not take the gender lock to serious. Theres no bad faith involved by EHG, it’s just a matter of resources.

308

You may not care about it but I do and so do many more as the popularity of this thread clearly shows. I find it a bit annoying that people are basically saying “I don’t care about this and you shouldn’t care about it either.” People are different and have different opinions.

As you said the style of the characters matter more than the gender itself. I tend to agree but still I find myself playing as female classes way more because that is my preference. I can’t bring myself to play the mage even tho the builds are interesting, simply because of his looks (Generic uninspired old dude). I really try not to let it bother me but it does. Call me weird that’s just how I feel.

Maybe the bigger problem than the gender itself is the look of the characters is very generic and bland even ugly (except the rogue) to me which drastically decreases my will to keep playing that character.

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309

Pretty much all ARPG including LE is as much of a role-playing game as a McDonald’s is a restaurant.

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The thing is, gender can be seen as part of the style package because of the way outfits tend to be designed for male and female characters.

Extreme example would be 80s female warrior vs male warrior. The female warrior would be wearing the chainmail bikini, the male warrior would be buff loincloth dude. Another example would be a cute female mage outfit vs the Gandalf look. Chances are, if you’ve got an old wizard dude as your mage, you’re not going to get cosmetics that’ll make him look cute.

Could be the snippet you referenced, but I think you’re possibly taking the term “roleplay” a bit literally. I think roleplay, at least in video games and MMOs is more about the freedom to build and customize your character (visually/mechanically) and less about roleplaying in the tabletop or LARPing sense. It’s about creating a character that you can identify with.

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Welcome to the LE boards!
Your points about gender lock mostly agree with the professional side of the equation for the games I was involved in. The gender issues are both emotional and how our societies and upbringing play a part in what we feel comfortable playing. The key is comfort and engagement. Engagement can include the looks (MTX) action, feel and smoothness of play.

In many cases I play as many genders/races/classes as possible. I have at least one of every ascendency in PoE. Those are also gender locked. I cannot stand the Templar, have to mute him to play it. I was unable to play the Scion for a very, very long time just due to the personality.

Different hooks are used in attempt to hold interest for the varied type of players, but based on the core class/character has to fit into the story. How would people react to Cassia being the “templar” as a female class, since that is what she “claims” to be by calling Piety a “dirty word”.

Part of the issue again is that LE does not have 10 years of shelf life to go on like PoE does. Over time a p2p game will have to release new content. EHG could already have a female mage sitting there in the wings, 59% ready but just lacks the money, time and even ideas to bring it out.

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Well you learn something new every day. Personally I can’t stand her singing voice but that’s about the extent of my emotional involvement

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Right, but her earworm singing is burned into your brain is the hook. Now imagine her saying and the unrighteous will be burned to ash on every crit like the templar’s death to sin line. There is a line even the devs wont cross.

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Yeah, exactly. Sadly this seems, you

that people have different opinions than yours.

My apologies.

Are you aware that you might offend people that identify with that class, currently?

I never said that this topic is meaningless or something else. I’d say that the posts here from people that say they want to have gender choice, are about equal to people saying they don’t care that much. People that say that gender lock is an issue that prevents them from playing the game are a minority.

And that’s the key information for EHG. How much influence does this genderlock have on the playerbase. Yes, it will prevent people from playing. But at what extent? Does it pay off if they put X amount of their limited resources into this? Or is it just a gimmick?

Everybody has to decide for her/himself how important it is. I can just say that you will miss a lot of fun if you don’t get around this. The Mage is a really fun class in LE, both masteries are very well made.

I’ve played so many different characters in my gaming life. From Duke Nukem over Lara Croft, Faith Connors, The Masterchief or Mario and Donkey Kong, Geralt Of Riva, Nathan Drake,… I would not say that I could to identify with all of them. But that did not prevent me from playing and having a lot of fun.

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I am afraid you are glossing over the emotional/societal or other stigmas that will cause real problems for the player with relationships outside of gaming. You are blunt force answering the question by saying that it will prevent people from playing is true.

The real issue is how much of an impact is for a producer or product manager to assess the risk versus the cost, with the complaint and how it will affect player retention and recruitment of new players.

Gender locking has many outcomes than merely a linear equation. To suggest to someone who is already stated they are not willing to play something based on a valid reason to them is all that is required, your comments only add fuel to the fire and build resentment.

The poster made his opinion known and it’s up to EHG to decide on what to do about it. To get into a discussion beyond that is EHG’s responsibility. They have replied to me on a couple of issues already, so they do read these boards quite regularly, sometimes it may take a bit to get an answer.

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My suggestion to try to look over it are based on the fact that EHG will not change something in the near future. So this game will stay in this “unplayable” state for some people for a long time.

How is this different from what I wrote?

There are enough examples of games with genderlock that were/are really successful. And I never heard of a game failing because of genderlock.

So I fear that this thread might be forgotten after release when LE is propably successful. Then there might be no need to change the genderlock. The pay off of that feature gets smaller the more successful the game is without this feature.

I don’t get why you are so offended by my suggestion. My only intention is to open up people’s minds that also seem to be “gender locked”.

Maybe somebody that I can convince to play LE says something like this in a year " Hey, didn’t want to try LE in the first place because of genderlock. I got convinced and I’m happy because I really have a blast now."

317

It’s the tone and acting like you are the authority. In my past I have seen thousands of hate emails relating to gender lock that which is not fit for public consumption. Trying to tell me what I do or do not know is fallacy on your part. I know of three games that were concepts or made it to a press release that were scrubbed due to gender lock/playability choices. I cannot name them due to NDA’s and other legal stipulations.

Like I said in a prior post, there could be designs ready go and bundle them together as DLC or XPAC’s to keep revenues and development going, to make bug fixes and other features. Let EHG make that determination.

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They already have, when resources permit & not before launch (whenever that is).

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319

Yes, I understand that. The newer players that were adding comments recently may not have read it. Thank you for the reminders.

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320

Yeah, you can’t blame them for not wanting to read through nearly 300 posts…

321

No

Hm…

Yep.

322

Many people say Last Epoch is an ARPG.
Then here’s a good chance to prove it. It’s a RPG. So when I play a Necromancer, I don’t play any random Necro. I play the role of X (let’s say Katya), who is a young Acolyte, trained by a Mage master but attracted to forbidden magic. I’m the player, I am Katya.
Or I am Rogar, a Primalist going to the temple of Eterra to get some responses. Or I am Sue, a Rogue that tries to flee her strange nagasan employer. And so on.
And later, when EHG removes the gender-lock, the game can become a Hack’s Slah again. :stuck_out_tongue:

323

Agreed. I dont care for gender locking either. I don’t really mind if there is no character editor thing at startup though. However if there IS one, that would be cool, and like someone said even if it were a simple one like the old Dungeon Seige bit, or d3 where all you can really do is change colors and gender. (Personally I think that this would be the best option).