Anyone ever got turn off to play certain class just because their aesthetic?

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Originally Posted by ckc22

Sounds homophobic.

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Wat.
/10char

I dislike most of the armor models in this game, in general.
I get that it's coming from artists with a Japanese background, but do they really need to make everything look like a dress? Even tanks?

The healer stuff is getting completely monotonous. Every patch/xpac: Oh look. Another white robe. Marvelous. /s

Aesthetics, lore, and tone is the reason my main is a White Mage and not a Scholar. I like feeling like a magical, nature-based healer -- not a physician academic who puts leeches on people.

It's also why I keep an alt character for when I want to try melee or tank classes. I just can't see my main character doing these things.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

I actually didn't play BRD for a while because I didn't like the "aesthetic" of it; it was too fruity for me, and I prefer my ranged classes to be woodsy archers.

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I like both -- I just wish Bard and Archer were actually separate jobs, not smooshed together into one thing. I really don't get why FFXIV did this. Bard and Archer have always been separate jobs in Final Fantasy, and very different from each other.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

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Because with the standard 4 man this game never really had room for dedicated support, their utility would have to be so powerful to make it so that the remaining 3 people in the party could make up for a pure support just supporting- but at the same time we also have 8 man groups, and could you imagine how immensely effective they'd be by effecting 7 people instead of 3?

XI had 6 man groups that had up to 4 dps or 3+ BRD and their group sizes never went up. Yes they had alliances but bards didn't influence groups they were out of so that's moot. So simply put, they mashed Bard and Archer together as a means of adding a utility heavy class into the game without having the difficulty of balancing playing with 1 dps or 3 in your party, depending on 4 or 8 man content.

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Originally Posted by Greedalox

Because with the standard 4 man this game never really had room for dedicated support, their utility would have to be so powerful to make it so that the remaining 3 people in the party could make up for a pure support just supporting- but at the same time we also have 8 man groups, and could you imagine how immensely effective they'd be by effecting 7 people instead of 3?

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Ah, that is an excellent point. Still, I think there could be ways around it -- there could be "chants" that are dedicated to only a single ally at a time, or group-wide buffs that divide their potency according to how many allies are affected. Heck, Bard could have easily just been a unique style of healer. Maybe have some songs that debuff enemies to mitigate damage.

Soloing could get a little weird, as pure damage attacks for a Bard seem dubious. In the old FF games you'd literally shoot musical notes at monsters, and pretend like that was an "attack." Meh, stranger things have happened. In Guild Wars 2, you can have a horn as an off-hand weapon, and summon a flock of birds to peck at your enemies. Or you could do some Skyrim shouts, knocking enemies back or breathing fire at them.

Regardless, I get what you're saying. Making a "true" Bard would come with a lot of hurdles, and it would be a disaster if the balance just wasn't there. The connection with Archers still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but what's done is done.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

No thread title has ever screamed the name "Summoner" at me as loudly as this one does.

...Where do I even begin? Apologies in advance for a rather extensive rant...

1. The books

I hate the books SO MUCH, for myriad reasons. Firstly, they're incredibly unwieldy, and that shows in ALL of the "Summoner"'s battle animations. Even the idle stance is painful to look at, and when we're waving those books around to cast spells it looks like someone setting themselves up for the Hammerthrow. It's like I'm pulling spells out of a slab of concrete. They're ugly, uninspiring, and they make that offensive sound when they open and close that just makes me want to rip my hair out.

For background context, I am a long time XI player. XI introduced a class, named Scholar, that also uses books and which I hate with the undying fury of ten thousand stars for various ranty reasons I won't go into here. Imagine my absolute revulsion when Summoner, my favourite class in XI, was announced in XIV and was combined with SCH and its books. I was utterly disgusted.

2. The "Egi"

What the hell are these even supposed to be? People have ranted on this forum about these monstrosities enough times so I won't bore everyone with a retelling, but honestly. They're offensively bad to look at, offensively bad to use in-game, offensively terrible reflections of the Primals they supposedly represent... Urgh. Urgh. And "Egi"? Really? I mean, I know it's probably not intended to sound like "Eggy", but... how can you not read it that way?

Even Carbuncle, who I love, has moments when it looks pretty shoddy in XIV. Don't get me wrong, I've been a massive fan of Carbuncle through multiple iterations, but that idle pose it does where it sticks its backside up in the air, and shakes and twitches like it has chronic mercury poisoning? I'm not sure why anyone thought that was a good idea.

3. The Quests

The Mithra in the job quests really loves to uncover "hidden ancient summoning techniques" that have LITERALLY NO CONNECTION TO SUMMONING WHATSOEVER. Every time I received another poorly thought out DoT-based ability I wanted to smash my face against my keyboard. FESTER? Really? The only thing I was remotely excited about was Spur - and that was a weaker version of an ability I got from my class more than ten levels ago! Enkindle? Wow, that certainly looks exactly like something that should be on the pet toolbar and not our job capstone. Love a bit of Tri-Bind as well - look, it even seems to have colours associated with our Primal Egis! It MUST be summoning. This makes me so angry.

4. The Lore

The ENTIRETY of "Summoner" lore from the job quests is SE making excuses for why the job is so utterly awful. Here's a summon for you! By the way, it's literally terrible because something something Hydaelyn something Aether something. Also it's kinda basically identical to the associated Carbuncle because something Arcanima something Gemstones something Primal Essence. Remember those Arcanist spells that are unrelated to summoning? Yeah, keep using those because your Egi can't be your primary tool, as something Crystals something something Devours Life Force something Impossible. Hey, how'd you like to crack open a fresh bottle of Bahamut aether and spray that out of every orifice for some direct damage? That's much easier than summoning a new "Egi" because something something Limited Aetheric Capacity something Ritual something something, and it's not dangerous like that evil sort of summoning because something Cartineau something! It's also still definitely summoning, and NOT a direct damage spell, because it's got the name "Bahamut" in it! How completely riveting all this lore is, right?

A class in a game has NEVER been such a complete disappointment to me as "Summoner" in this game. I really want to like it! I've tried so hard to enjoy it, to look past its innumerable flaws, to embrace the patchy and ill-conceived lore, but I just can't. It's bad to the core. Even though I KNOW this, even though I've done this dance a thousand times, I sometimes still swap over to "Summoner" and give it a try - see if it's magically got less awful in the few months since the last time I was naive enough to believe. And it's always still an absolute mess, every single time.

...sadly, after all that, I then had the misfortune to try Archer as a replacement for "Summoner". It really has a baffling lack of identity. Is it a bard? Is it an archer? A spellcaster? A physical damage job? Nope! It's not really any of those things! Oops. The bows all look like abstract sculptures from an art museum, and I've never seen so many flashy colours spew out of an arrow before. Maybe I'm playing the wrong game if I want simpler animations.

I'm really hoping one of the new jobs in the expansion is something that I can enjoy. Aesthetics (both visual and lore-based) are really important for me. Maybe RDM will turn out to be something special?

On the positive side, I do quite like a lot of WHM's aesthetics. The casting animations are sometimes a bit... weird (what is going on with my feet when I'm casting Cure and Stone, exactly?) and over the top (the floating is great, but is the staff spinning at the end of Aero III really necessary?) but on the whole, it's good. I really like a lot of the canes, as well - especially the Alkalurops. :)

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This is basically the same post I was going to make about the class. I do hope one day they revisit it and completely start from scratch.

its a bard-cher! A caster bard-cher! with flava for days!

As for the colorful arrow, i kinda like it though, at least its better to look at than.. Normal arrow color which is bland and probably cant see well lol

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

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The Egi's and "lore" killed it for me too.
Final Fantasy XIV reinvents jobs sure but floating jelly babies are not what I think of when I think summoner, they should have been like stands or how they're summoned in Dissidia Duodecium when you play as Yuna, might be hard to pull off but it's better than an auto attacking candy that just barely looks like what its supposed to be.

i got put off by summoner because of that too, i know SE probably think people running around with primal summon (full size) will look awkward

so at the very least i though the summon is going to be something like "powerful but long cast time and long cooldown" spell so we can summon full primal like titan or garuda but as glorious attack spell or such

not expecting a pokemon trainer class though lol

There is one job I don't like to play because of aesthetics, and that is WAR. I don't like how they hold and run with their axe (except the idle pose on Roe males, that looks great) and I especially don't like how Storm's Path (or eye, either of those two) looks as it's essentially a mix of previous skills' and auto-attack animations. That was a big let-down when I got it...

I was intrigued by Dark Knight when it first came out but I hate the combat stance with the Great Sword. It just looks so awkward and stupid haha. I mained Monk in FFXI and thought of doing it again, but when I was playing during launch I found their job armor to be laughably atrocious so I never fully leveled it up. Also avoided Paladin because I don't like the sword/shield combo. Blah, overdone, no thanks. I'm tired of being another knight in a fantasy game. Been main with SMN forever, but if they announce Samurai I'll drop it faster than you can say Bio. Just sayin'...Katana, gimme! T_T

The goofy poofy potato sack robes that dominate the bulk of the leveling process for casters made leveling my first character (started as arcanist) somewhat painful due to aesthetics. A breath of fresh air arrived when I hit 50 and could use glamours. The game became more fun for me once I could customize and enjoy how my character looked. I honestly can't understand why the quest to unlock glamours isnt accessible till so very late in the game.

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The goofy poofy potato sack robes that dominate the bulk of the leveling process

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if you watch closely, this is not just for caster, all class have this somewhat "robe like" armor getup and yeah i dont like it either

i finally got my lore armor for ninja and o why why SE? it look almost the same as bard one, i mean cmon a little bit variety maybe?

Bard

The first time I saw that Bard AF...

noped all the way into never using it past levelling

Not for the aesthetics, but for the lore and the backstory.

DRG, because our skills are essentially stolen.

SMN, because the Egis are unwilling slaves.

Somewhat thrilled we'll be able to glamour our Egis back into adorkable Carbuncles, then I can pretend again they're helping because they like us.

Yes. Many times.

I could probably like WAR if it wasn't for the ugly armor and animations. Sorry but my character is a lady and I don't like dressing her in scrap metal, chains and torn furs. Yes there is glamour but 1) axes are ugly and 2) cloth and leather glamour options don't go with brutish axes and heavy swing animations. WTB elegant plate gear.

MNK and SMN would probably be more fun if their weapons weren't so underwhelming. Punches? A book? Much scary, wow.

MCH animations and sounds are really lacking but at least the armor is kind of cool. Not a fan of the lunchbox and the hovering Gauss Barrel either.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

MNK and SMN would probably be more fun if their weapons weren't so underwhelming. Punches? A book? Much scary, wow.

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For what it's worth, some of the most badass events in this game involve characters wielding books of magic as their primary weapons. Never occurred to me to question the intimidation factor before lol.

Everytime i see mch with their gauss barrel attach, it remind with R-type game, probably the "bit" part lol

Just saw the new 3.5 relic weapon for BRD, holy wow i want that so bad!!!

But iam not really like brd uugh

I haven't been turned off from any of them by their aesthetic, but the opposite certainly happens. I'll get excited to play a job when I like its look.

-Only tank class I like is DRK.
-Fine with all healer classes/jobs.
-I'm fine with all of DPS classes/jobs, with the exception of MCH (I just don't like it for some reason).

MCH bothers me some - two hands on the damn gun!

It's not like it's a little pistol or handgun most of the time either where a one handed stance might make sense.

Personally I'm not too fond of the look of most of the magic classes bar WTM. However, to OPs friends, a big pull for me to play bard would be the look - I think they look fantastic.

if Red Mage or Dragoon looked like a pile of excrement i would still play it. hell if the only glamor option available was a glowing unicorn in a baby diaper i would do it.

if you love the class you do. how vain is the world? and besides you can find more manly glamor options if you want.

ARR Bard was all about how many frills I can get in my shirt and how big can I get my hat. The OP should let his friend know that Bards in Heavensward are a lot more reserved in their armor sets and actually look more like the traditional Final Fantasy Archer class.

Darklight Heavy armor repulsed me from tanks in 2.0 but glamoring has fixed any problems with "looks" around a job since then.
I think majority of nin weapons look awful though.

No, but I have been turned off by their role. -glares at dark knight being a tank- Oh well, I hope that the next two hand sword/plate user gets to be a dps.

I don't like the MNK aesthetic as much as NIN or MCH but I main it anyway.

dis-like: (IE: even if I got it to lv60 as this time I'd shelf it & never use it again) WAR,DRK,NIN,SCH,SMN,BLM,DRG,AST & maybe BRD (WAR's staying at lv34 FOREVER, 1 sound effect in their arrgo rotation grates on me nerves)

like: PLD Cause 1st class in any game & I can go no-shield now so yay, MCH cause I can't say no to a gun in a midevil-style fantasy game, MNK cause 3.0 gave us a Kamehameha & WHM (only healer I like)

Since it's coming up:
I have always hated how Redmage looks and acts (well, and also that it wasn't really good at anything, just decent at everything) so I stayed away from it in all former FF games if I could.
Now it seems in FFXIV the gameplay aspect is going to be fixed, but the AF is already so off-putting x_X Currently in the process of trying super hard to convince myself that I do not mind it,
because I'm desperately craving another magical dps to level and play, but..uh..

It's weird how I hate RDM's visuals so much because they are so gaudy, but do not mind the same thing on BRD in the least .-.

DRK. I hate how light the sword seems to be when it's unsheathed.

Finally people understand. I didn't want to touch any magic because my racial bonuses didn't suit it (highlander) (I know it doesn't really matter) but had to do white mage for paladin (I'm leveling white mage at moment purely for something different but seeing the fact I'll have to level black mage makes me uncomfortable, like they look really fun but they don't match my WOL per say).
Also seeing all classes at 60.
Like some others have said bulky amour, my WOL shoulders are so small despite being a highlander and all I see is this tiny head popping out of armour and it looks so disproportionate .

Dragoon. Everything about the class is so spiky and heavily geared. I also don't like the warrior class because it seems so barbaric and the gear looks pretty bad too. (I actually don't like any of the tanks...)

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Originally Posted by SachiBear

Dragoon. Everything about the class is so spiky and heavily geared. I also don't like the warrior class because it seems so barbaric and the gear looks pretty bad too. (I actually don't like any of the tanks...)

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Basically everything that doesn't look elegant and/or cute, right? xD

I enjoy every class to some extent but some things do bug me, MCH's running animation, SMN/SCH standing, moving animations, DRG standing, WAR savage-ness, MNK moving animations, & NIN's movement was cool at first but now I think it's too gaudy.

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Originally Posted by Valenth

Basically everything that doesn't look elegant and/or cute, right? xD

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Haha, honestly now that you've pointed it out, I do believe that that's true in my case cx

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Dragoon. Everything about the class is so spiky

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looking at their iconic armor sometimes i cant help but wonder how they going to sit on a chair with all that sharp thing, you can pretty much throw them hard to the wall and they will be stuck on it thanks to that spike from their armor lol

I find it very difficult to play non-magic classes in any game.
Why hit something with metal when fireballs are available????

I like every class but dragoon. Why would a cat girl be a dragoon? It was the last one to 60.

Makes no sense to me.