Gender locked classes:Yay or Nay?

[Emperor Hardin]

1 minute ago, indigospace said:

If it's any consolation, Brigid was a pirate, but not by class I'm afraid....

Lewyn/Levin was also a troubadour, just not by class.

[De Geso]

I'm all for gender locked classes, though I think there's a moe factor in something like female axe fighters. I suppose it depends on the particular class in question (duh).

[foxysauce]

43 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Would also be nice to get more females in the enemy army. We see the enemy nations recruit soldiers of both genders, so why only male generics in every game but 4 and 5?

I was about to say that the Vallite army in Fates had more female generics, but as I try to come up with examples, the only ones I can think of are the classes that are usually locked to females. (Kinshi Knight, Strategist, Priestess, etc. )

That said, one could argue that a lot of the generic enemies throughout the series could potentially be anything underneath all that armor, since many of them don't show their faces.  You never know, Gra might secretly have an entire army of lady knights. ;)     

6 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

My personal guess is they only wanted to make one model for the DLC classes.

 

That's what I figured also. :P It's a real shame too. As a female player I was super bummed in Fates when I couldn't make my avatar into a Super Rainbow Yato-weilding Grandmaster Dragon Princess. 

 

In all seriousness though, I personally have never been a fan of gender-locked classes. With context and lore they can sometimes be interesting, but a lot of the time there's no real reason for them to be there (For example why could Faye not be an archer in Echoes again???)

However I do think that some characters become more interesting as a result of them being there; namely through defiance of the rule.

Echidna from Binding Blade, for instance, was immediately interesting to me, as she was the only female Hero/Merc in her game, or any of the GBA games if I recall. 

If it were up to me I'd probably get rid of them. They seem to do more harm than good, and often be there purely to cut back on design costs. Luckily though that seems to be the direction we are currently headed with the newer games, excluding remakes. :P 

[Soleater]

Strictly in the nay category - since characters (for the most part *looks at Awakening Avatar*) are already restricted by each of their classing options only having two or three unique branches, so why not let some guys (like Virion comes to mind) reclass into Peggy Knights?  Or some girls (S U L L Y) be Fighters/Barbarians?  It just doesn't make sense to not have those options - because imagine if Cherche was a guy and had the same backstory of being trained as a healer - but healers were a female only class (not counting Priests here) - it just wouldn't make sense

[Emperor Hardin]

7 minutes ago, foxysauce said:

I was about to say that the Vallite army in Fates had more female generics, but as I try to come up with examples, the only ones I can think of are the classes that are usually locked to females. (Kinshi Knight, Strategist, Priestess, etc. )

That said, one could argue that a lot of the generic enemies throughout the series could potentially be anything underneath all that armor, since many of them don't show their faces.  You never know, Gra might secretly have an entire army of lady knights. ;)     

That's what I figured also. :P It's a real shame too. As a female player I was super bummed in Fates when I couldn't make my avatar into a Super Rainbow Yato-weilding Grandmaster Dragon Princess. 

 

In all seriousness though, I personally have never been a fan of gender-locked classes. With context and lore they can sometimes be interesting, but a lot of the time there's no real reason for them to be there (For example why could Faye not be an archer in Echoes again???)

However I do think that some characters become more interesting as a result of them being there; namely through defiance of the rule.

Echidna from Binding Blade, for instance, was immediately interesting to me, as she was the only female Hero/Merc in her game, or any of the GBA games if I recall. 

If it were up to me I'd probably get rid of them. They seem to do more harm than good, and often be there purely to cut back on design costs. Luckily though that seems to be the direction we are currently headed with the newer games, excluding remakes. :P 

If I can nitpick a bit, Knight is male only in the DS games. 

That doesn't explain why they never use female Snipers or Female Clerics, the latter even have their own sprite separate from the male Curates.

[foxysauce]

6 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

If I can nitpick a bit, Knight is male only in the DS games. 

That doesn't explain why they never use female Snipers or Female Clerics, the latter even have their own sprite separate from the male Curates.

Fair enough you make an excellent point. 

[Lemmy]

I'm ok with gender restrictions, as long as it coinsides with limited classes per charcater. I want the classes to suit the character more than anything else.

[ZeManaphy]

Nay. The only valid reason you would gender lock classes is to ensure that Galeforce isn't obtainable by all units so you can easily sweep the game. ( Looking at Awakening. ) 

[Emperor Hardin]

6 minutes ago, foxysauce said:

Fair enough you make an excellent point. 

No problem.

I think enemy Dracoknights are female in Shadow Dragon. They're definitely male in New Mystery though, known through hacking.

[EricaofRenais]

Nay, get rid of the gender locked classes.  FE is a fantasy series so a guy should be able to be a peg knight and a girl should be able to wield an ax if they want to.  I may loath Fate's story, but having male peg knights and female fighters was one of the changes I had been waiting for years to see.

[Soleater]

8 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

Nay. The only valid reason you would gender lock classes is to ensure that Galeforce isn't obtainable by all units so you can easily sweep the game. ( Looking at Awakening. ) 

P sure Galeforce was only added to the Dark Flier class - which didn't come back (excluding DLC) in Fates.  Base Peggys and Falcon Knights don't get anything that op, so it shouldn't be that bad to lift the restriction, as long as Galeforce is either out of the picture, or REALLY nerfed

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Do note Male Pegasus Knights have appeared in the past. Even the game that introduced the concepts of Pegasus Knights being female, rather specifically said "Pegasus Knights are usually female", basically they specifically didn't rule out male Pegasus Knights altogether.

Well, there could be exceptions, sure. Pegasi typically dislike men in Fire Emblem, but there could be exceptions. Just saying, if lore was used as a reason to restrict a gender from a class, I think it's perfectly fine.

[NinjaMonkey]

2 hours ago, Stroud said:

There is nothing that beats a strong Female swinging a Giant Axe in Fire emblem.

Yes, there is, namely a strong male swing a giant axe.

2 hours ago, CyberController said:

Sometimes, gender lock doesn’t make sense.

Like Fates. Why is the Ballistician class male only?

For the same reason that Witch is female-only.

[Johann]

42 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Well, there could be exceptions, sure. Pegasi typically dislike men in Fire Emblem, but there could be exceptions. Just saying, if lore was used as a reason to restrict a gender from a class, I think it's perfectly fine.

The lore is an excuse though, not the reason why. The only reason these decisions were made was because people working on the game wanted to put it in.

14 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Yes, there is, namely a strong male swing a giant axe.

Now that's a garbage statement. Sentiments like that are symptomatic of what's keeping video game culture as a shitty boys club

18 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

For the same reason that Witch is female-only.

And what do you believe that reason is?

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

6 minutes ago, Johann said:

The lore is an excuse though, not the reason why. The only reason these decisions were made was because people working on the game wanted to put it in.

Using lore as an excuse is acceptable to me.

[Ether]

There doesn't seem to be much reason to keep classes gender locked now that Fates broke the precedent. Before that, there was at least the consideration that it might not be taken well, but that's pretty well gone now.

Hot take, gender lock all classes to female only, kick out all of the men so that for once they're forced to not only give a woman a singular starring role, but make sure no one can take it away from her. Down with burly buff dude saves the day

[NinjaMonkey]

21 minutes ago, Johann said:

And what do you believe that reason is?

There's no reason why there couldn't be a male version of the Witch class called "Wizard", but I don't see anyone (including you) advocating for it.

[Anomalocaris]

There is no benefit to keeping classes gender-locked. Fates lifting the restrictions on Fighter/Pegasus Knight/Troubador classes was a highlight, even if they then flubbed it by being lazy with the DLC classes.

I don't mind if they have different names (i.e. Maid/Butler, Cleric/Priest) so long as they're functionally identical.

[Johann]

25 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Using lore as an excuse is acceptable to me.

Do you ever think about the impacts a design choice has?

9 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

There's no reason why there couldn't be a male version of the Witch class called "Wizard", but I don't see anyone (including you) advocating for it.

Did you miss how most people here, myself included, have said they don't think any classes should be gender locked? Whether they call male witches "Witch" or "Wizard" is arbitrary (google "male witch" and see what pops up).

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 minute ago, Johann said:

Do you ever think about the impacts a design choice has?

Impacts on society? Not really. I play games for my personal experience.

[Florete]

Nay all the way.

[Johann]

1 minute ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Impacts on society? Not really. I play games for my personal experience.

Well, more directly speaking, I mean impact on the audience (including you and I), since most people don't even play video games. Whether you realize it or not, playing a bunch of games (or watching a bunch of movies, etc) does affect the way you (and anyone else) think about some of their subjects or content.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 minute ago, Johann said:

Well, more directly speaking, I mean impact on the audience (including you and I), since most people don't even play video games. Whether you realize it or not, playing a bunch of games (or watching a bunch of movies, etc) does affect the way you (and anyone else) think about some of their subjects or content.

I'm not quite sure how to answer your question. If I say no, are you going to give me a lecture?

It's not like I'm against abolishing stuff like gender locked classes. I just think if a class has to be locked, they should make it a part of worldbuilding like Pegs, and not "just because" like Fighter.

[Johann]

22 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I'm not quite sure how to answer your question. If I say no, are you going to give me a lecture?

It's not like I'm against abolishing stuff like gender locked classes. I just think if a class has to be locked, they should make it a part of worldbuilding like Pegs, and not "just because" like Fighter.

I won't, partly because I'm not sure this is the right thread for that sort of thing (going far beyond the scope of FE class restrictions), but also because I don't really think you need a lecture on this. My big beef with the "lore as a reason why" thing is that it's frequently used as a poor excuse for bad design choices, and I see it a lot from people who aren't willing to critically think about the stuff they like. The reason I quoted you in the first place is because I think that we have things we can teach each other.

[Dark Holy Elf]

"Pegasi don't like men" is pretty weak lore anyway to be honest - it doesn't make much sense (animals typically don't give a fuck about the gender of other animals) and it doesn't actually add anything to the world. It also references something quite ugly IMO, the unicorn myth which treats women's virginity as having inherent worth. (Although in FE's defence, it doesn't seem to care about that particular aspect... but it still feels pointless.)