My problem with solution 9 - spoiler

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Originally Posted by Ath192

It really makes you feel like you come from renaissance faire or something and makes a lot of the medieval fantasy concepts look silly. It's very immersion breaking. I'm glad some people like it but to me it doesn't feel like it blends with the world very well.

https://i.imgur.com/ZSw4JZW.jpg

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How do we knows it immersion breaking? We have no idea the story, why it exist, what its purpose is. You're saying in a game where u teleport to crystals, summon elementals, travel to the moon, visit another dimension, space travel and kill monsters literally 1000x larger than you a advanced civilization is the part that is "immersion breaking"?? Idk but maybe the problem is just you

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Solution 9 art style is a low point of dawntrail for me.

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Well at the end of the day, you can enjoy a game and focus on what you enjoy about it or you can latch onto negatives and try to think of everything negatively. Same effort except one probably makes you happier.

That's always been true of MMORPGs actually. They are never perfect. But if you try to find positives or positive ways of thinking about it, it ends up better than drowning in negative and bitter feelings.

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One of the users in the first page had it right, like the game is fun but it's just not immersive anymore. You just have to accept that a lot of things don't make sense anymore as a player.

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It's never felt like it ever has really. Ever since I started the game, dungeons just had loads of chimeras, hydras, dragons and other legendary creatures excessively placed in them without much explanation or where it was a big stretch, out of what felt like a desperate attempt to convince us it was a fantasy game.

But what else were they going to do to convince us it was a fantasy game when the game was new and lacking content. All they could really do is just make a start at placing fantasy creatures as many places as they could I guess.

It's not all bad though. The story is good, and widely praised, so something came out of it. But nothing's perfect.

And to be fair, technology has always been part of many FF games, like FF7, FF8, FF15, all the FF games that involve transcending their own world somehow, etc. I am sure they will work Solution Nine into feeling magical or like Alice in Wonderland somehow, despite the technology lol, by putting the focus on the fantasy elements like magic, emotion, feeling, and leaving the technology as a mere background or vessel for magic.

To be honest, I can already see how they are achieving it with the Launch Trailer. How they work that technology into lots of emotion, history, mysteries and hidden secrets. They just know how to make it work somehow.

I get it, its just too sci-fi, Azys Lla was good because it combined fantasy with Sci-fi well, Amaurot was good because it was made specifically to look modern so us the players could relate to the Ancients more and have sympathy attached to them. I am not opposed to Solution 9 existing, other people like this look. I will say I am a bit dissapointed that it is just a straight up cyberpunk mall instead of something more interesting.

My first time logging in and walking through Gridania, I remember seeing a male Roe in a giant moogle mask and leopard-print Speedos doing the Manderville on top of a lamp post that had no business holding his weight. Immersion breaks when people are given the freedom to break it; the only way to prevent it is excessive railroading, which is even worse.

As for Solution 9, while I won't judge it in full until I actually get to play it myself, so far it doesn't really feel out of place in a setting where we stumble across ancient ruins filled to the brim with forgotten magitek and bio-engineered horrors every time we sneeze.

I think that between allagan tech being embraced more and more (in particular by garlond ironworks whose latest gizmos literally look like allagan nodes), lopporits, garlemald starting to trade their hi-tech gizmos for food, building a FTL capable spaceship, and almost casually succeeding in implementing the large scale, cross shard engineering project of siphoning light aspected aether from the first to the thirteen, it makes sense story wise for FFXIV to embrace science fiction. "yeah we can build spaceships but let's continue to shun running water and electricity for some reason" would make less sense at this point.

It's also a good way to differentiate the next story arc from the one that just finished with EW.

I don't hate Solution 9, but what was nice about Allag and Alexander was that it iddn't look like modern day/scifi. It had an assortment of runes, strange geometries and uncanny styles or designs. Look at the Allagan gear and the Alexander gear- then look at the Tactical PvP gear. One of them is fantasy adjacent and the other looks like something ripped from Cyberpunk. Alexander leans into Steampunk. Everything is steam powered, clunky, crude, and designed with an realistic aesthetic. Allagan gear and technology is bright, neon, and a blend of sorcery with technology. The crystal tower is a crystal, not a sky scraper. Their weapons utilized runes and had strange fantastical shapes and designs while Solution 9's weapons from the trailer look like something from a scifi shooter.

I don't personally think the advanced technology itself is the problem, but the way it's represented. Allag and Garlemald with their advanced technology exist, but they're both very far removed from the reality we live. Allag is kinda just straight up advanced fantasy with the way they've generally been presented, at least aesthetically (Late Allagan gear notwithstanding), whereas Garlemald, though advanced, leans into more of a Dieselpunk aesthetic. What both of these have in common is that relative to the society we live in, they're further back in time, with Allag just not really being comparable to any period of history, and Garlemald being an era backwards in time aesthetically, despite how advanced it is.

Solution 9, on the other hand, leans into the aestehtics of cyberpunk, a genre of sci-fi explicitly built around things only present in our current society and onward- it's built upon the technological advents of the information age. I think to me, that's what makes Solution 9 grating whereas Allag and Garlemald are fine, because for how advanced they are, they still feel like they'd exist backwards in time in other aspects, and don't hit too close to home. It's started to feel a bit like that as of Endwalker too.

Personally, I prefer when advanced technology in fantasy can exist without pushing society closer to what our own modern reality is like. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be consequential, but ultimately, what I want out of a fantasy setting is a world that feels different from my own, and this certainly is not helping that.

Love Solution 9.
If it had any Neptunia Vibes, BEST CITY.

I'm more concerned about some new interpretation of Ascian Involvement.

I SWEAR TO FN _______ if ascians are involved. I'm just tired of Ascians, I don't want them for ANOTHER EXPAC.

Can't we just have a Random Hyper Advanced Nation/City-State. That doesn't involve Ascians.

Regardless though, hope the story makes up for any mishap, cause it would be a Crying Shame if SE/CSIII had to pivot on the story cause people didn't like the potential path forward.

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Solution 9 Fits, if it was really out there, we likely never would of gone as far.

Also, Expected Answer of. ITS NOT CYBERPUNK, ITS TOO DAMN CLEAN TO BE CYBERPUNK. If anything it's NeoTokyo-ish, or PSO for some.

Me, I hope we got a Sharicite angle on all this, we did see random suspicious Crystals before.

This is nothing new in a Final Fantasy game. And it's not as if in Endwalker we didn't find civilizations as advanced (or more) as this, or Omega itself several expansions ago. We've known for a very long time that super civilizations exist(ed) in FFXIV.

Moreover, if the inspiration from FFIX is true, you can bet that those folks are not from Etheirys OR the First. What wouldn't make sense and would really break immersion would be for the whole multiverse to be at some medieval-esque age, I think.

I think the issue is thinking this or any FF game is meant to immerse you in a “medieval” world. Getting immersed in FF is getting immersed in the blending of genres. That’s what I love about it, since personally I find pure fantasy to be boring.