The New Sage Icon, Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by FrogDog

Most JRPG’s (including past ff games) understand there should be consequences for the protagonists and plot armor shouldn’t be heavily utilized to tell a story.

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If you consider the Scions to be the main party of a JRPG then very few of the FF games actually kill/maim/handicap/retire a party character before the very end. On that front FFXIV is in fact more lethal than most of them (and more than some other JRPGs series like DQ or Tales for exemple).

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Originally Posted by Tharne

If you consider the Scions to be the main party of a JRPG then very few of the FF games actually kill/maim/handicap/retire a party character before the very end. On that front FFXIV is in fact more lethal than most of them (and more than some other JRPGs series like DQ or Tales for exemple).

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ff2,ff4,ff5,ff7,ff12,ff13 just to name a few. it's just strange to me that the expansion advertised as the darkest and grimmest one yet, where we face the toughest foes yet, is the expansion with the least amount of consequences for the protags and with seemingly the most humor. Its especially odd when almost every ff game has had consequences in one form or the other. It feels very much like a 14 thing.

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

Graha was a mistake, we all know that, he should have died.

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Do we now? I don't. And I find it amusing how a lot of people on the forums seem to believe that their personal opinion is the general consensus. It is not.

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Originally Posted by FrogDog

ff2,ff4,ff5,ff7,ff12,ff13 just to name a few. it's just strange to me that the expansion advertised as the darkest and grimmest one yet, where we face the toughest foes yet, is the expansion with the least amount of consequences for the protags and with seemingly the most humor. Its especially odd when almost every ff game has had consequences in one form or the other. It feels very much like a 14 thing.

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Of the games you mentioned, I have only played FFXII, and I don't remember any character from the main cast facing any particular consequences. Admittedly, this was years ago so I may very well be wrong. I wouldn't mind an example.

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Originally Posted by FrogDog

ff2,ff4,ff5,ff7,ff12,ff13 just to name a few. it's just strange to me that the expansion advertised as the darkest and grimmest one yet, where we face the toughest foes yet, is the expansion with the least amount of consequences for the protags and with seemingly the most humor. Its especially odd when almost every ff game has had consequences in one form or the other. It feels very much like a 14 thing.

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Probably can add 15 to it too, since one of the party got permanent injury halfway through the game. And the original ending is pretty much a "no friendship power/plot arnor to dodge your fate" thing.

While I do think a story is more impactful it there is some real cost involved, and with such grand stories as in fantasy RPGs that often means a main character being killed off... I think G'raha was telegraphed for that role way too much, that it wouldn't have had any real impact. We all expected G'raha to die, so for him to survive was a more impactful conclusion. The result of which means we now have a new Scion, instead of the same old gang.

Endwalker however, should see us lose a Scion or two. I'm predicting one of the Twins, just one, and probably Arenvald.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

While I do think a story is more impactful it there is some real cost involved, and with such grand stories as in fantasy RPGs that often means a main character being killed off... I think G'raha was telegraphed for that role way too much, that it wouldn't have had any real impact. We all expected G'raha to die, so for him to survive was a more impactful conclusion. The result of which means we now have a new Scion, instead of the same old gang.

Endwalker however, should see us lose a Scion or two. I'm predicting one of the Twins, just one, and probably Arenvald.

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Arenvald is out of commission for the forseeable future. No more fights for him.

If only people were so up in arms about cash shops and their pricing. ^^'

I find the reasoning a bit silly but then again phobias are phobias because they aren't reasonable. I understand both sides, though. A little paint-over isn't destroying the game, though.

All this 'outrage' does is make SE not want to communicate with the players anymore. Kinda like the forums here. Haha

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

While I do think a story is more impactful it there is some real cost involved, and with such grand stories as in fantasy RPGs that often means a main character being killed off... I think G'raha was telegraphed for that role way too much, that it wouldn't have had any real impact. We all expected G'raha to die, so for him to survive was a more impactful conclusion. The result of which means we now have a new Scion, instead of the same old gang.

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More impactful, yes, but I don't know if it's a positive thing or not. The thing that piss me off is that him surviving is clearly due to being the fan's favorite. Two things that I have problem with:

1) the Exarch merging his memories AND soul to young g'raha is morally questionable, and were it attempted by other npc people probably will riot.

2) why merging with the Exarch suddenly makes current g'raha to be super OP? Before sleeping, he was more of a Scholar than fighter and his weapon is a bow. Now he suddenly a caster? Since when did he got photographic memory that even able to remember the cure for freaking tempering in just seconds? As the Exarch he's able to fight only because he link himself to the crystal tower and also use Allagan tech.

Merging memories is the equivalent of the Echo, which never gave indication that it strengthen the echo user. Merging soul is the equivalent of rejoining, which again, doesn't mean you're stronger after that.

And speaking of Crystal Tower... Why did we wake g'raha now? The Eorzean still haven't reach a technological age where they can use the CT, it was the future time line who did. And now g'raha isn't asleep anymore, what if he died or his Allagan blood lost its effect? The CT will be unguarded and unusable to us.

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Originally Posted by Herebedragons

Do we now? I don't. And I find it amusing how a lot of people on the forums seem to believe that their personal opinion is the general consensus. It is not.



Of the games you mentioned, I have only played FFXII, and I don't remember any character from the main cast facing any particular consequences. Admittedly, this was years ago so I may very well be wrong. I wouldn't mind an example.

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For what it’s worth i do agree with their Graha statement.

Reks,Reddas,arguably Vossler, party members that kicked the bucket. Consequences wise, they lost against the antagonist and the world slowly lost magic.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Nothing this miniscule ever effects the game design, it hasn't since 2.0's launch.

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Given your word choice, there appears to be some manner of mental fog here - for you to refer to it as minuscule, you must be referring to the icon change itself or believe that such reasoning wouldn't be extended beyond that. To the former: again, is not the issue that many have with this, but rather the reasoning invoked and responded to. To the latter: alas, I am rather disinclined to just take your word for it, that such reasoning won't affect future design decisions (particularly visually), or that it hasn't since 2.0. It certainly has under other pretexts, e.g. Chinese cultural sensitivities and the design of undead (hence the general absence of skeletons outside of Tam Tara), or the fear of players feeling "stressed" when healing or tanking being a factor in role design and healers’ simplistic rotations, as well as giving into player concerns about certain of their favourites being killed off, amongst other things, all of which can be gleaned from interviews scattered all across the landscape.

The proof will be in the pudding with 6.0 and what comes after. I would rather that such concerns were unfounded, and they may well be, e.g. if this is merely a strategic business move, but your say-so in this regard won't suffice to convince me of that.

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Originally Posted by Yencat

CLEARLY some people very much care about the icon, we're on page 26 and we're apparently not on a slippery slope anymore but in Action Park about to break every bone in our bodies going down it because they made a UI change and who knows what they'll do next? Listen to more player requests? Perish the thought...

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No, there's three separate issues being discussed here: 1) whether the icon would even trigger the so-called phobia as well as how consistent they are about it; 2) the design of the icon itself; and 3) whether the principle will be extended to other areas of game design (particularly visually), particularly in 6.0 and beyond, when the story is due to break from the grittier story elements of ARR that 6.0 is wrapping up.

Most of the discussion here is centering on 1) and 3), not so much 2). Certainly, the correct interpretation of Theodric’s original post is 3).

Personally, I made it clear from the outset I don't really care about the icon much in and of itself. I never liked the original icon and it continues, unfortunately, to look bad to me.

However, there's more than a few here who doubt that this phobia (and it is debatable if it is one in the usual sense) would be triggered to the degree claimed by that icon; I certainly consider that claim to be dubious, as someone who actually experiences this sense of disgust – that is, when the imagery is actually up to the task to "trigger" it. If some want to adopt the rather typical stance of "you don't get to judge how someone is affected by a phobia or isn't", let's apply that consistently and give the other ones, like aichmophobia a fair shot. Not that I’d want that affecting game design, but you know…

Also, I don't think anyone advocating for them to listen to player requests has ever made the argument they should entertain each and every one. They are aware of the fact that they're making competing demands on the devs. Out of that process, there will be winners and losers, and mostly arguments arise over competing visions for the game and uses of resources. We know this from how the design of male Viera turned out, for example. At a certain point, the threshold is reached where certain players find the game is no longer for them, and before reaching that point, rather than being the frog that doesn't even realise it's being boiled, they speak out against such changes. You saw as much with the male Viera, and granted, you were courteous about expressions of disappointment with the design. Nonetheless, unanimity will not be achieved on such matters and the devs are surely aware of this complexity each time they grant a request. Yoshi identified it himself when discussing the matter of removing genderlocks.

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To touch on the second part of your question about gender restrictions, first and foremost, I think there should be freedom in your values when it comes to the different genders. We don’t want to restrict attire and clothing that you wear based on characters’ gender or sex.

There’s two issues for accommodating that freedom. The first is a cost issue. Say you had a dress and it’s originally restricted to female-only and we were considering making it so male characters could wear it. We need to go in and make sure we’re adjusting the design on a male character model and make sure it makes sense on that form. The opposite applies for male only outfits, for instance Hien’s attire. we’d need to make adjustments for the female silhouette...We’d need to adjust for lalafells...If we’re making adjustments to one or two items, that’s easy. But we need to consider just how many items there are, and addressing all of them is not a quick task.

In terms of values and our players, it’s a time when there’s a lot of changes in perspectives, but we can’t ignore the people who refuse to make changes in their values. There may be players who do not want to see male players wear attire that’s traditionally worn on females...We do want to respect freedom of self expression and that people want to dress the same way, but we do need to consider and be mindful of those who look at people dressed in a certain way and manage how they perceive things.

Let me give an example: I was heading to the office on a Saturday and I saw a situation that made me very sad. I was trying to go into the office and I was waiting at a red light. I saw a high schooler coming from the other side of the road in their school uniform. It seemed that they were biologically male at birth but they were wearing a sailor fuku, which is traditionally female attire. In Japanese high schools, there’s more and more schools that are accommodating for freedom of not being restricted to a specific gender for your uniform...That person probably wanted to present the gender they identified with in their heart...On the other side of the road was a mother and a daughter. The daughter was perhaps 5 years old. As soon as the mother saw the high schooler, she shielded her daughter as if she didn’t want her daughter to see. The high schooler must have been very hurt. Situations like these still happen and there’s areas where there’s not as much understanding.

We need to see more change in the values people have, and we need to consider for Final Fantasy XIV how we push forward in-game and how we represent it.

That being said, we want to address this, and I think it will be gradual...For instance, for the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding, we’ve already started to make adjustments. Once we officially release this, you won’t have gender restrictions. If you both wanted to wear a dress, that’s perfectly fine. If you want to both wear the tuxedo, that would also be fine...That’s not available in game yet, but we have done the preparations for it.

You may be familiar with the [Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade] where we had a Final Fantasy XIV float participate. After that event, players in the Korean regions were very uncomfortable with it and people made complaints about now wanting to see that. “This is disgusting!” Things like that. It’s been very tough.

Change is happening. People are becoming more aware and understanding. Values do shift, but I think the pace...is very different depending on individuals. It’s a difficult and delicate situation. It requires us to understand and know how things are around the world.

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So they're not oblivious to the mixed reception certain changes can have... and once more, this discussion is not just limited to the icon design in and of itself (which we can agree is trivial), but the other things I mentioned as well. To proceed on the basis that this is all about an icon’s look is a trifle inaccurate, and in the case of some posts (not you), disingenuous.

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Originally Posted by Bellsong

I wanna play the JRPG's you're talking about here, cause you just listed several common tropes, all your missing is the power of love and friendship saving the day.

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Not all of them implement the theme, and not all of them interpret it the same way. Caius from 13 is notable for achieving his ends and forcing the protagonist into a difficult situation (a bit like Hydaelyn sundering the world and the Ascians...), and in 12, Venat’s success in fact dooms the world to an eventual dark age, with the protagonists playing into Venat’s hands (the game opens with the death of Vaan’s brother); Vagrant Story, a particularly dark JRPG, is linked to the world resulting from that. 15 itself is a pretty dark FF as well. Parasite Eve laid on the body horror thick. Type-0 was particularly brutal as well. To say nothing of the Drakengard and Nier series. But a few notable examples.

In any case, that trope shouldn’t compromise the feel of an apocalypse, and I have to confess, depending on that implementation, it can be the one I care for least. It’s a little odd to me that you’d ask if it’s Kizuya’s first JRPG – surely you are aware of these examples? Outliers or not, they are nonetheless renowned JRPGs.

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Originally Posted by FrogDog

ff2,ff4,ff5,ff7,ff12,ff13 just to name a few. it's just strange to me that the expansion advertised as the darkest and grimmest one yet, where we face the toughest foes yet, is the expansion with the least amount of consequences for the protags and with seemingly the most humor. Its especially odd when almost every ff game has had consequences in one form or the other. It feels very much like a 14 thing.

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Exactly. No matter how ‘dark’ the game is in narrative terms, if there is lack of follow through in the consequences beyond the antagonist deaths, it ultimately loses a sense of threat.

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

Graha was a mistake, we all know that, he should have died.

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Couldn’t agree more – hopefully there’s still a chance of it.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

More impactful, yes, but I don't know if it's a positive thing or not. The thing that piss me off is that him surviving is clearly due to being the fan's favorite. Two things that I have problem with:

1) the Exarch merging his memories AND soul to young g'raha is morally questionable, and were it attempted by other npc people probably will riot.

2) why merging with the Exarch suddenly makes current g'raha to be super OP? Before sleeping, he was more of a Scholar than fighter and his weapon is a bow. Now he suddenly a caster? Since when did he got photographic memory that even able to remember the cure for freaking tempering in just seconds? As the Exarch he's able to fight only because he link himself to the crystal tower and also use Allagan tech.

Merging memories is the equivalent of the Echo, which never gave indication that it strengthen the echo user. Merging soul is the equivalent of rejoining, which again, doesn't mean you're stronger after that.

And speaking of Crystal Tower... Why did we wake g'raha now? The Eorzean still haven't reach a technological age where they can use the CT, it was the future time line who did. And now g'raha isn't asleep anymore, what if he died or his Allagan blood lost its effect? The CT will be unguarded and unusable to us.

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Re: 1, we can go further than "probably" - some people did with Mitron, even twisting the entire situation out of all proportion to achieve that result. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised if the authors go back and write it so it was all consensual, even if one of the lead writers for SHB is famous for having the player characters grapple with the gravity of their decisions in her own quest lines for DRK.

The original was much better looking. What a ridiculous change.

To further expand on the relevant posts made by Lauront and a few other posters, there is also the likes of Legend of Dragoon, which killed off a playable character. To say nothing of the Yakuza series which, although full of humour in side quests, tends to have a lot of death and betrayal within the main storylines of each game. There's a great many JRPG's with serious storylines and high stakes, some of which also have the 'power of friendship' in play as a trope but still manage to pull it off without eye roll worthy melodrama and a lack of meaningful consequences. Solely having the antagonists endure consequences does not make for a compelling story in the eyes of many.

Of course, there's many other examples that one could give. There's also the Shadow Hearts games which have an intriguing combination of humour and horror and also kill off playable characters.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

If it makes you feel better, here is a thread by someone who is afraid of whales and wants to be able to change the display of other people's mounts. It's from 2018 and that function hasn't been implemented, but they have added another whale mount since then.

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Interesting - maybe we should do something similar for fear of sharp objects - or maybe not, in case it actually is acted upon...

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...6OX0AMp1Mh.png

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Outside of the phobia, I think the new design just looks way better. But I really love this suggestion too, imo something about it makes it feel a lot more thematic with the other job symbols. I think there's something to be said for 'readability' too which is why I prefer the new iteration and this suggestion. Icons tend to be quite small so simple, distinct and obvious is better. Too many tiny holes can needlessly complicate.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

To say nothing of the fact that some people may simply prefer the old design to the new one.

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For healer design in any fashion don't bother, they only care about the new rather than the old.

Ast design when asked to consider reverting back to the old card design

"What about those that like it now"

Well what about those that liked it before and didn't ask for the sweeping changes to the job

Crickets

This icon is no different some people prefer the new one so it'll stay regardless whether or not you like the old one and yes I actually liked the old one better but I gave up trying get the devs to revert any decision they make long ago if it ain't a booty booty butt cheeks it ain't worth it to them. >_>

Honestly I don’t really care either way, it’s not like it’ll affect gameplay or anything. Nice of the game team to do it.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Personally, I made it clear from the outset I don't really care about the icon much in and of itself. I never liked the original icon and it continues, unfortunately, to look bad to me.

However, there's more than a few here who doubt that this phobia (and it is debatable if it is one in the usual sense) would be triggered to the degree claimed by that icon; I certainly consider that claim to be dubious, as someone who actually experiences this sense of disgust – that is, when the imagery is actually up to the task to "trigger" it. If some want to adopt the rather typical stance of "you don't get to judge how someone is affected by a phobia or isn't", let's apply that consistently and give the other ones, like aichmophobia a fair shot. Not that I’d want that affecting game design, but you know…

Also, I don't think anyone advocating for them to listen to player requests has ever made the argument they should entertain each and every one. They are aware of the fact that they're making competing demands on the devs. Out of that process, there will be winners and losers, and mostly arguments arise over competing visions for the game and uses of resources. We know this from how the design of male Viera turned out, for example. At a certain point, the threshold is reached where certain players find the game is no longer for them, and before reaching that point, rather than being the frog that doesn't even realise it's being boiled, they speak out against such changes. You saw as much with the male Viera, and granted, you were courteous about expressions of disappointment with the design. Nonetheless, unanimity will not be achieved on such matters and the devs are surely aware of this complexity each time they grant a request. Yoshi identified it himself when discussing the matter of removing genderlocks.



So they're not oblivious to the mixed reception certain changes can have... and once more, this discussion is not just limited to the icon design in and of itself (which we can agree is trivial), but the other things I mentioned as well. To proceed on the basis that this is all about an icon’s look is a trifle inaccurate, and in the case of some posts (not you), disingenuous.

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You can and should be skeptical of companies and their actions, but to even draw parallels between this and the Blizz situation and almost gleefully use that type of abuse and heartache as a bat to take swings at SE with is incredibly inappropriate. I don't think that's a controversial take on my part and I'll stand by it.

I also have doubts about how big of an issue this phobia was for people that they had to change the icon, but at the end of the day does it really matter? If they said they changed it because people (like yourself, and myself as well) thought it was ugly would that have made a difference? I think it looks a little better but still not great, is it pandering if they change or tweak it again based on that? Would it be such a scandal then as well?

Yes, I do genuinely think it sucks for you and others that were disappointed with how male viera came out looking, especially after how vocal you had all been to see them added. But to repeatedly lash out, belittle, and mock these "vocal minorities" that allegedly influenced and ruined male viera is unnecessary. It's also completely discounting the very real possibility that people at SE probably also had their own vision for how they were supposed to look and looking at fanart comfirmed this was something (some? I keep seeing minority but I don't think anyone actually has these numbers) players would be open to seeing. It certainly wasn't how Matsuno had envisioned them, but he wasn't involved in their design. And let's be completely honest with ourselves here, had Matsuno envisioned them as dainty tiny little waifs we'd be talking about how this is FFXIV and that vision should be disregarded.

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Originally Posted by Yencat

lsnip

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It’s the fact it’s something so minuscule(and also the fact from the original poster, it seems like it isn’t even people with the actual phobia complaining about it which…is honestly a common phenomenon nowadays.) But something so minuscule was able to get SE’s attention more than likely because it’s simply the jp forums. NA (and EU for that matter) has always gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to SE recognizing pleas and feedback. There seems to be apparent favoritism and a post i posted a few pages back goes into that.In regards to the male viera thing, i think a big problem people had with the whole thing was that they couldve made them more appealing to all by simply making the height slider more varied, and giving them at least one masculine face similar to what miqote has. Which was a common thing brought up on the NA side but ofc, thats NA, not JP which SE seems to favor.

Sort of on the topic of change, while I wouldn't claim it a phobia, the image viewer vibe of our map UI drives me crazy lol. If you zoom out, and sometimes the maps start that way, you will see the edge of the map and the border of the map UI have a transparent see-through section like a window with bad tint. Of all the map UI of other games I don't recall this issue so... Annoying? It's a very first world problem situation (meaning non-serious, clearly a pet-peeve of mine and I'm making it clear I don't believe it 'destroys the game'.. just looks 'meh'). But the map viewer always reminds me of a beta system that wasn't finished at the transition of 1.0 to 2.0, because of that. It doesn't help I'm particularly fond of WoW's pretty border art, and so going from that neatly engraved bordered socketed system to 'image viewer' 1.0, for my own opinion- is less than ideal, though like I said I can't think of another game I played and at least enjoyed that had such a 'we obviously have this loading an image inside the box' vibe (it's particularly this game, where I just don't like the map viewer, and I call it an image viewer over map because that's what it looks like- like I could imagine it might load my screenshots in game and that would fit perfectly as that's what it is). At least to me the fact the map can disconnect from the map UI border and leave transparent window pane look takes away the vibe it's a map, and also I just hate seeing the hole lol. It's like purposefully leaving holes in your terrain, you don't want that- I'd think.

Someone give me a phobia name for this lol, I'm getting it changed! :p

Also on that, the color difference for ready chocobos and full exp ready chocobos (when using light theme) is still very small, I've done color tests I'm not colorblind - it's just super similar.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

It’s the fact it’s something so minuscule(and also the fact from the original poster, it seems like it isn’t even people with the actual phobia complaining about it which…is honestly a common phenomenon nowadays.) But something so minuscule was able to get SE’s attention more than likely because it’s simply the jp forums. NA (and EU for that matter) has always gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to SE recognizing pleas and feedback. There seems to be apparent favoritism and a post i posted a few pages back goes into that.In regards to the male viera thing, i think a big problem people had with the whole thing was that they couldve made them more appealing to all by simply making the height slider more varied, and giving them at least one masculine face similar to what miqote has. Which was a common thing brought up on the NA side but ofc, thats NA, not JP which SE seems to favor.

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It was something miniscule with a miniscule fix. If they changed it because it was perceived by players as ugly or unappealing it would still be a small issue with an equally small fix, but I suspect the reaction would have been very different and more along the "Okay?" expected seeing.

It sucks when what you're asking for goes seemingly ignored (I play Viera, I very much get it) while they do this, but some fixes and changes are orders of magnitude larger than fiddling with a JPEG.

They could've done a lot of things with viera or any other race, I think it probably would have been better if they did, but obviously they're not interested in appealing to absolutely everyone interested in the race. They ignored a lot of talk about increasing the height slider for female Viera to be able to make them shorter as well so clearly they do have their own vision about how they want the races to look beyond player requests, and unfortunately this is the way the cookie crumbled for "your side".

Kind of off topic but when female viera hit the benchmark I had 0 interest in them as well and found them quite disappointing to be honest, it took a good long while before I warmed up to them and now I don't want to play anything else. Hopefully some people that are disappointed now will come around to enjoy them when they're actually playable.

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Originally Posted by Yencat

Snip

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My only problem personally with male viera atm is the horrible posture. I genuinely don’t understand how that even made it out of development. Every single glam looks horrible on them from the side and even partially the front and i hope it’s something they address before release otherwise it’s gonna be disappointing. In regards to the design change, it was a small issue with a small fix but there’s numerous of those in game that players have asked for and fell on deaf ears. Like that post i put said, people bringing up alphascape v3. Again though i’m really curious how many people with the actual phobia were actually affected by it, because again the main poster who created the thread didn’t even have it, and this is a common trend nowadays. People who don’t actually fall under whatever the category is and making things a bigger problem than they are.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

My only problem personally with male viera atm is the horrible posture. I genuinely don’t understand how that even made it out of development. Every single glam looks horrible on them from the side and even partially the front and i hope it’s something they address before release otherwise it’s gonna be disappointing. In regards to the design change, it was a small issue with a small fix but there’s numerous of those in game that players have asked for and fell on deaf ears. Like that post i put said, people bringing up alphascape v3. Again though i’m really curious how many people with the actual phobia were actually affected by it, because again the main poster who created the thread didn’t even have it, and this is a common trend nowadays. People who don’t actually fall under whatever the category is and making things a bigger problem than they are.

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I agree, the default posture causes nasty stretching with certain armor and hopefully it looks better with a different /cpose.

We can keep going back and forth about why they did <X> and not <Y> but I don't have the answers either, they did one thing based on feedback and didn't do another despite feedback, I guess we can put to rest the worries they'll start catering to every whim of the playerbase at least?

Accusations of them favoring JP over other regions have been around for as long as I can remember, and whether or not that's true I'm personally not super keen on getting all that worked up over it because I have issues with neither the original Sage icon nor Alphascape and can't and don't want to speak for how big of an issue it is for others.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I meant moreso with the fact there’s an apocalypse going on but we have a sparkly eyed catboy at every turn.

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I would imagine any apocalypse you're involved with is going to have a sparkly-eyed catboy in it considering you are one. >w>

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

I would imagine any apocalypse you're involved with is going to have a sparkly-eyed catboy in it considering you are one. >w>

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I don’t have sparkly eyes, nor do i fanboy over every single npc during it. Don’t worry though that’s changing in EW when i become a bunnyboi

I don't really mind the change, the Icon looks okay imo. But the reason it WAS changed is a bit...meh.

As many others have pointed out, there are so many patterns with holes in the game (just take the Leatherworker Icon for example), and nobody ever complained. /shrug
People are saying it's nice that the devs listened to the needs of those who are affected by the phobia, and I WOULD like to agree, however...it's the reactions to this that leave a bitter taste in my mouth. For example, people on Twitter already started a witchhunt because of a lighthearted joke one specific player made about the icon change. Calling them insensitive, pressuring them into making an official apology and deleting the joke etc...which wasn't even a bad one in my opinion.

It's things like that that make me shudder a bit. Demanding changes and chastise people who don't share your opinion.. Doesn't paint those people in the best light. :/

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Originally Posted by Aniise

I don't really mind the change, the Icon looks okay imo. But the reason it WAS changed is a bit...meh.

As many others have pointed out, there are so many patterns with holes in the game (just take the Leatherworker Icon for example), and nobody ever complained. /shrug
People are saying it's nice that the devs listened to the needs of those who are affected by the phobia, and I WOULD like to agree, however...it's the reactions to this that leave a bitter taste in my mouth. For example, people on Twitter already started a witchhunt because of a lighthearted joke one specific player made about the icon change. Calling them insensitive, pressuring them into making an official apology and deleting the joke etc...which wasn't even a bad one in my opinion.

It's things like that that make me shudder a bit. Demanding changes and chastise people who don't share your opinion.. Doesn't paint those people in the best light. :/

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*sigh* The twitter of today is the tumblr of yesterday....except with less anonymity.

I am honestly thinking that the reason why might've been a sort of excuse because they weren't happy themselves.
Or they just saw negativity surrounding it and it was one of the reasons they decided to just use.

It really makes no sense.
Or maybe it was someone with a very extreme case of it at the office who brought it up too, I dunno.
I do agree that the reason behind it is silly especially in such a mild case where I have a hard time seeing people actually genuinely having issues with it.
More likely the people bringing up that phobia don't even have it, just like how the loudest voices complaining about things tend to be people complaining on behalf of others or a group they don't even belong to.
And then on platforms like reddit people karma farm etc, so maybe they saw that and thought there was a real problem when there wasn't.

Regardless tho I don't think this was the only reason why, I think they probably didn't like the design themselves and thought this looked better.

Edit: Also it seems like 50-70% of this thread is talking about something else lol.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

More impactful, yes, but I don't know if it's a positive thing or not. The thing that piss me off is that him surviving is clearly due to being the fan's favorite. Two things that I have problem with:

1) the Exarch merging his memories AND soul to young g'raha is morally questionable, and were it attempted by other npc people probably will riot.

2) why merging with the Exarch suddenly makes current g'raha to be super OP? Before sleeping, he was more of a Scholar than fighter and his weapon is a bow. Now he suddenly a caster? Since when did he got photographic memory that even able to remember the cure for freaking tempering in just seconds? As the Exarch he's able to fight only because he link himself to the crystal tower and also use Allagan tech.

Merging memories is the equivalent of the Echo, which never gave indication that it strengthen the echo user. Merging soul is the equivalent of rejoining, which again, doesn't mean you're stronger after that.

And speaking of Crystal Tower... Why did we wake g'raha now? The Eorzean still haven't reach a technological age where they can use the CT, it was the future time line who did. And now g'raha isn't asleep anymore, what if he died or his Allagan blood lost its effect? The CT will be unguarded and unusable to us.

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Who says he's super OP? He has a staff made out of a piece of the CT, that's his link to the same magic he used when he was the Crystal Exarch. In fact he's probably weaker now than he was for Shadowbringers.

But your final point is actually really good. G'raha sealed himself in the tower for a reason, and that reason still exists in this timeline.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

More likely the people bringing up that phobia don't even have it, just like how the loudest voices complaining about things tend to be people complaining on behalf of others or a group they don't even belong to.
And then on platforms like reddit people karma farm etc, so maybe they saw that and thought there was a real problem when there wasn't.
.

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This is the case with the original forum post. The original poster created the thread about it despite not even having the phobia themselves lmao.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Edit: Also it seems like 50-70% of this thread is talking about something else lol.

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I mean, it's better then watching a bunch of people bicker back and forth. :B

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

This is the case with the original forum post. The original poster created the thread about it despite not even having the phobia themselves lmao.

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The OP isn't pretending to be concerned to get upvotes on reddit and win brownie points, that's what I am referring to.

While I'm happy for the people affected that they changed it, I hope they consider altering the design again. As someone who is very interested in Sage and will main it(As long as it doesn't play worse than Scholar) I don't really like the new Icon. It looks very odd having the one bottom Noulith being the odd one out with a hole. Filling in the holes on the original design I think looks better like Caitlyn designed:

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

This is my redesign I posted on page 19. No holes. No angles. All identical. Like the nouliths in the game. The top one isnt perfect (sorry).
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...6OX0AMp1Mh.png

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Or if not then the new design but with all the Nouliths filled in would look much better in my opinion.

didn't really like the first one, the new one's alright. new job icons are usually things that just end up growing on me over time due to exposure.

people who're getting like, Genuinely Angry over the change are kind of weird. people getting Super Defensive over it are also kind of weird.

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Originally Posted by Alaray

didn't really like the first one, the new one's alright. new job icons are usually things that just end up growing on me over time due to exposure.

people who're getting like, Genuinely Angry over the change are kind of weird. people getting Super Defensive over it are also kind of weird.

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I mean this is the community that takes personal offensive when people don't like the game. So nothing shocks me anymore with how some people act.

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Originally Posted by Aniise

For example, people on Twitter already started a witchhunt because of a lighthearted joke one specific player made about the icon change. Calling them insensitive, pressuring them into making an official apology and deleting the joke etc...which wasn't even a bad one in my opinion.

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If you're referring to the same person I'm thinking of (unless multiple Twitter Funny Men decided to make poor jokes about it), I didn't see any witch hunt. I think that kind of requires rounding up a bunch of people suspected of something, no? One person made a bad joke to get Big Numbers and people in the replies weren't impressed. Many even said they usually enjoyed that person's posts but were disappointed by that one. People are allowed to express their opinions about things, and I think it was worse to say "oh no guys, I'm cancelled now, lul" instead of just taking the L. They were the one that made a huge deal because their joke didn't land. It's not a witch hunt to hold someone accountable for making jokes about phobias, no matter how "real" people who aren't affected by it think it is.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

I would prefer this version. Keep the symmetrical style, but fill the holes (because the holes were actually the problem).

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...6OX0AMp1Mh.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...6OX0AMp1Mh.png

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Am I the only one who saw the icon as 3 Nouliths and the middle one is shooting? And the new one too..

like.. it's very anime build up of power and then PEWWWW

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Am I the only one who saw the icon as 3 Nouliths and the middle one is shooting? And the new one too..

like.. it's very anime build up of power and then PEWWWW

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The icon makes a lot more sense now...

They should remove the MSQ underwater parts, I mean thallassophobia
also heights are icky...

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Originally Posted by Awha

Not enough holes, I mean fin funnels.

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https://i.redd.it/08l8qio677831.jpg


Yes must fulfill the class fantasy.

and remove lalas for people with Achondroplasiaphobia