Your post was saying that people outside of the west don't put thought into their character designs.
Relative to how they ground things in the setting more often than not compared to Japan. Not that they don't put thought into it but there is a huge problem of sexism there even more so than here when it comes to the design of female characters and that only becomes more apparent as time moves forward since a lot of their studios haven't budged in that regard even for their biggest games, last year we got Quiet, this year we got Cidney, two prominent examples, there's also the issue of alts being completely unreasonable and more like dressing up a doll than an outfit that a character would genuinely wear, nothing about Moara Burton's character makes this ok:
or Sherry:
or Lightning:
or Kat:
or the women in Persona:
it is absolutely not racist in anyway shape or form to see that overtime this is something that is much more common in Japanese games, as let's be honest it says a lot that the biggest critique of a design for Aloy is that some of her outfits expose her midriff when it likely wouldn't make sense to expose skin to the elements of a post sci-fi world filled with giant dinosaurs, likely even less so in a rainforest.
Your perspective, via that post, was that if somebody doesn't make a design to western sensibilities or standards, then it's coming from a lack of intelligence.
Not with western design philosophies since grounding things is inherently more common. Hell the bigger defense for some of this shit is "but it's video games." Think about the context of that statement from a character design perspective. If anything, that puts a lack of faith in a designer to come up with a design that makes sense.
The way you worded it painted a broad stroke that western designs = good, intelligent because of their design philosophies. Non-western (and, judging by the conversation, you meant east Asian or Japanese) designs are mindless because of their design philosophies.
I'd recommend reading the above.
Even ignoring how erroneous the generalization is, you laid a blanket statement that western = mindful, non-western = mindless. Like even if that wasn't the intent, it's clear how that post rubbed people the wrong way. At the very least, it neglects the intersectionality aspect of this discussion and comes off as xenophobic.
I see how people misinterpreted the statement.
Anyways, I'm happy to see this trend continuing, though I do hope we continue to see more non-sexualized designs ala Aloy. Sexy character designs are fun, but there's such a disproportionate amount when it comes to feminine characters. Like, not to say that there aren't sexed-up or aesthetic-focused masculine character designs out there, but there's much more of a balance. I don't really feel comfortable criticizing Japanese developers for this though - different cultures, shouldn't expect them to make stuff to fit our social standards/needs. Just saying that as far as my preferences are concerned, I'd like to see more of a balance.
It's not just different cultures, that's really not a valid excuse as that says that anything inherent to one culture is a-ok JUST because it's inherent to one culture, the social stigmas and treatment of women in Japan is absolutely not ok.
i'm not necessarily saying exposing skin will help, just that it doesn't make a difference in terms of practicality over what she's already wearing, which is one of the original arguments you made.
It does but ok.
in the image of her with the midriff exposed, we can't see all the way down to her feet. perhaps much of the clothing on her legs are removed as well, and the skirt is just intact?
Dude there's a demo of it.
i don't really care if the midriff is there or not, the ins and outs of the character don't really mean anything to me, but you're dismissing any possible reason as to why the midriff could be exposed. I don't really think you want to hear any arguments on the matter, which is perfectly fine, but if you really want to know why she doesn't have anything covering her, you're either going to have to wait for the game or ask a character designer at the studio.
Because the reasons people have provided ITT really don't add up, if it's hotter out first of all she's wearing more armor everywhere EXCEPT for her stomach and she's already wearing an undershirt, it's just seemingly pulled up for some odd reason. Just genuinely not seeing reasons there.
i don't think you're wrong for criticizing, but i do think that the reasons for things are often times a lot simpler than we think they are.
Maybe the modelers like showing off their ability to sculpt abs.
Crossing Eden is right in this regard. Without a push from the consumer base for more female characters in gaming, why would anyone even bother to do it? Now I don't think that Guerilla Games would specifically come out and say "yeah, we have a female lead because people asked for it", because that's probably not exactly what they were thinking when they chose Aloy to be the MC, but it definitely is a result in general of people asking for more diversity in player characters.
Do not entertain his "find this exact quote" fallacy.