I understand the neat to match hitbox's for 'fairness', but honestly I never felt FE was a e-sports grade twitch shooter... it felt pretty fair in terms of using the wrong weapon for the right opponent like said above. Having hard time hitting someone running and jumping, shotgun is your friend. Their standing still or running right at you, well anyone can hit a target like that... but I'm off topic here.
I personally found division (and similar games) enforcement of making female character hit box's match males... has a huge negative effect on visual appeal/customization. For a FPS lobby shooter, it makes sense thats where you cut your corners... but an crafting/exploration MMO? Are what you getting back with 'fair' hit box's worth the 'massive' turnoff for every female player being unnaturally bulky?
For example another MMO faced the same issue. "Pirated of the burning Sea" they too decided to match the female skeleton/hitbox to the males... and the visual effect of it was a large point of contention (which I think lasted the full life of the MMO). Though in their case I believe the choice was not made for PvP in mind, but saving animation time but using same animations for both sex's.
I have played the division games, and playing a female character in them is a 'terrible' experience. I hope the same dose not happen to FE. Please 'PLEASE' do not throw customization and uniqueness out the window trying to balance the game to a e-sports degree. Players adapt, and I do not think small/skinny female characters were ever as bad as Oddjob from Goldeneye 64. Of course I have never seen any PvP analytics saying small female characters were a problem. Just speaking from my own experiences in FE.
Going off on a tangent though, I always felt conventional balance has never been the best course of action for RPGMMO's. Sure everyone 'should' have an equal footing, but where dose it say a player can't chose to handicap themselves with a drawback? Games allow hardcore mode, or other similar changes. Some have special modes to enable to make for a more challenging experience. My point is, if a player wants to play a short/skinny character they can... but a small skinny character 'logically' would less resistant to damage, or can carry's less weight (Like a small race in a DnD campaign). FE as an RPG could implement such boons and cons. A big buff character might be slower, but carry more and deal better melee damage, a smaller character faster, but can't carry as much and easily effected by melee. The balance would be a nightmare... but that is part of the fun of making a unique character. Ideally such a system would need far more pro's and cons, like how you allocate attribute points on a table top character. Instead of tying it all to stat blocks/traits, could be a rebel and tie it to appearance. Its a fun pipe dream to imagine in anycase.
-Really looking forward to the return of FE, have missed it dearly.
