Infantilized Aesthetics

The usual house cleaning when I get bored with an idea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Where I think its gotten overly cartoony is in player usable things such as mounts, weapons, and attire. . . .
What I’d like to know is if anyone else thinks this is an issue, or what peoples preferences are regarding the exaggerated visual elements. I’m specifically referring to “glowing”, “oversized”, “cartoonish” items… almost all of the new mounts would fall into this category.

---

No, I don’t think this is an issue. For any “silly” costume or “silly” mounts, there are still “normal” costumes and “normal” mounts for people that don’t want to use the “silly” ones. If someone else wearing something that doesn’t fit your aesthetic breaks your immersion, well, I would suggest playing a single-player game, then. You cannot force one sense of immersion — one sense of style — onto hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of other people.

Quote:

---

Another thing that occurred to me while writing this was a hidden benefit of being able to loose items in the game to being PK’d. It would force players to either “guard” certain items and created an enhanced sense of value around things that were difficult to obtain. If you obtain something once and have it for life I think your treat it differently. I don’t know that there is a way to do this in the new world of theme park MMO’s but it was something I hadn’t thought of before.

---

This would involve making open-world PvP a thing in FFXIV, which I disagree with. I’d rather not work hard for something like a relic or an Utlimate weapon, and then run the risk of any player being able to “steal” it from me by trying to kill my character. No, thank you. I would legitimately unsubscribe from the game if something like this was ever a thing. But I doubt this would ever become a thing in this game. Thankfully.

So what I'm getting from your post is that you feel like items that glow, really special mounts, etc are too normal to truly be special. You also feel that the new mounts we have gotten are too cartoonish.

First of all, on the mount subject, I'm not sure I understand this complaint. Off the top of my head, the most recent mounts we have gotten are the manta ray from the kojin, the marid from the ananta, the mikoshi from the namazu, the dodo from heaven on high, rathalos, the pink t-rex from eureka, I may have missed some. Oh, and the primal wolves. of those, only the dodo and t-rex truly seem silly. the rays and marid are both very important to the cultures of the tribe they come from. a mikoshi is an actual thing; it's more commonly known as a palanquin. and rathalos is...rathalos.

as for the weapons, i haven't found any of them to be particularly egregious in the cartoonish department. perhaps to you it is, but different aesthetics appeal to different people. a glowing weapon to me is an enchanted, magical weapon. i play casters. why wouldn't the (arguably most) powerful caster in eorzea have an enchanted weapon? the base designs of most recent weapons and armors, while perhaps...subjective in their visual appeal, don't strike me as "cartoonish" or "exaggerated." also, we're talking about square enix, a company that has "belts, inc" as a subsidiary. se has ALWAYS been known for kind of outlandish armor designs.

when it comes to mounts the most special mounts are coming from the most special achievements. kirin even had a story behind it, a legitimate mythology. of course, it is easy to obtain now, but storywise, that was an absolutely legendary feat, to defeat all the primals and gain control of the horses they had created/tamed. why wouldn't they deserve a legendary mount in return? but it would be silly to lock that mount to just one or even a few players, so it ends up being common.

in the end, it's unfortunate that you feel the recent trend of armor and mount design is going against what you find an immersive or cohesive story, but i don't really find this to be the case. you are welcome to, yourself, use gear and mounts that you feel are more fitting, but different people have different goals in the game. i am entertained by flying around on my obese moogle while accompanied by two harp playing moogles. it brought a huge smile to my face the first time i saw it. i don't want this game to be serious all the time.

Eh, ffxiv has always been cartoony if you ask me. It's pretty much a anime. From the character designs right down to the plot. So everything ingame to me looks normal. Nothing here looks that serious to where a costume is gonna snap me out the game. Like carby shoes and moogle shoes would like to have a word with you. Keep in mind I'm also looking at the art style and nothing breaks it. It all fits the normal SE anime style most people love.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

For example, to me riding a dragon should be significant and not something everyone would have access too. To me it seems that the creators have decided everyone should be able to make their character look anyway they want and ride any mount they want regardless of any connective to a world narrative.

---

That's more a matter of the multiplayer world conflicting with the single-player story. The single Warrior of Light made friends with a single dragon and we can summon it as a mount. That's significant at an individual level. Nobody else in the story is able to ride that dragon, just you.

But every other version of the Warrior of Light made the same bond and now we can all summon the same dragon simultaneously if we so wished. That's just a matter of accepting you're engaging in a multiplayer, multi-reality world. Any deep emotional connection you felt between an NPC and your character played out exactly the same scene with every stranger you walk past.


As for people wearing bizarre things - I got used to that long ago. Just roll your eyes, think "oh, another one" and get back to admiring your own character in whatever gloriously setting-appropriate costume you dressed them in.

Considering the fact that monsters with small wings can fly, and how high our characters can jump compared to irl humans, I would say Hydaelyn probably has less gravitational force. Or the aether in the world changes the properties of the world. Either way, it doesn't seem unreasonable that our characters can carry larger weapons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

I've seen this decline in previous MMOs. As the game aged the creators loosed the strings on what players could make their characters look like and it always marked the beginning of the end for that games “prime”.

---

The two things are typically related in MMOs, but perhaps not in the way that you think they are.

Successful mmos tend to be led by one or two people with firm vision of what they want and the will to exercise that creative control and direction over the rest of the team. This tends to keep things feeling coherent and focused. Pretty much all the genre leading MMOs are great examples of this, Vanilla WoW, 2.0 ARR, even Everquest maintained a very coherent feel throughout it's earlier tiers of content despite the underlying technology evolving so rapidly.

MMO's tend to start to falter and fall into their twilight years as these people pulling the strings in the background either lose interest or simply get moved onto new projects. This is usually accompanied by rapidly shrinking art and development budgets causing the game to both drift away from the original artistic intent (aka those neon dyes in UO) as well as massively dropping in terms of art consistency and quality (Later expansions in some MMOs often look like college grade art projects compared to earlier content. Everquest was a massive offender for this).

As far as the PKing thing goes, having both factions and the fear of death and loss to rivals scratches that little tribalism itch that is an old part of human nature.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Stream of consciousness:
For example, to me riding a dragon should be significant and not something everyone would have access too. To me it seems that the creators have decided everyone should be able to make their character look anyway they want and ride any mount they want regardless of any connective to a world narrative. Each player is a visual island unto themselves and their appearance is entirely at their discretion. This provides great freedom to the individual but undermines any semblance of a cohesive world that we’re all in on.

---

Before even getting to this point, you must put it into the context that every single person you see running around is THE Warrior of Light who is saving the world. At this point, any semblace of a cohesive world has already fallen apart. Cue suspension of disbelief.

Of course, everyone has their own limits of how far they are willing to suspend disbelief. For example, on the subject of mounts: my suspension of disbelief reached its limit the moment the yokai watch mount came into existence. And then I simply stopped caring. Flying elephants, t-rexes, warsteeds? I don't care, do whatever you want. At this point they should just make everything fly!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

@HyoMinPark


Understanable.
I feel that you're look at the short game here tho - I'm not trying to change your mind per se but I wonder how many people have that exact reaction but then get board with the game and leave for months at a time or permanently, or delete characters and start over every 12-24 months. I think the value of the things in the game, including your character are far more flexible than you might think to a lot of people depending on their immediate feelings of engagement with the game. Would you rather get the benefit of possibly caring a little more about your items while you're interested in the game, or not care as much about them and "loose" them when you inevitably quit playing anyways. I see it as a matter of perspective - considering that I've had dozens of MMO characters in my life and they're all gone now as well as their items. It's all just pixels on a screen that only possess the value we give them in the moment so why not make those moments more potent as they'll soon pass from pixels you care about to meaningless bits on some archival HDD.

I don't know if that makes sense or not. Food for thought tho.

---

No, I still disagree with a PK system, especially one where I could lose things I worked hard for. Despite your musings, I would not return to a game with such a system.

I've already given my characters more than enough meaning to not be trivial. I would suggest you stop assuming that, to me, they're nothing more than worthless pixels just because I would quit the game due to systems in place I do not like. Thank you.

On the topic of item value and being able to lose them, such a system would actually make the items have less value to me. I would take the game less seriously than I already do and would not even bother to obtain them in the first place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

@HyoMinPark
It's all just pixels on a screen that only possess the value we give them in the moment so why not make those moments more potent as they'll soon pass from pixels you care about to meaningless bits on some archival HDD.

---

That value can be created in a lot of different ways though - the outright rarity of an item (yes, they do exist), the memories attached to you obtaining it (maybe it took you a very long, painful farm to get this dungeon-piece or maybe a friend made you that dress) or simply that it looks damn sweet on your character.
For you "guarding your items" adds value aswell - for me it doesnt. And I even like(d) the PvP in the game - I still value my peace in the open world more than the idea to guard my items to add some weird sort of artificial value to them. I'm already attached to them and value them because of the memories they hold - or because my character looks good in them. I have a hard time tossing/converting gear that a friend made for me aswell, because it reminds me of that exact moment. I kept a pair of Heavy Darksteel Flanchard in my inventory throughout all of HW because it was the first difficult craft a friend of mine tried - I didnt need to guard them for them to have value.

On the general design... I'm not sure what you're talking about when you suggest that the gear as been looking more and more silly? We always had the odd silly piece in between, while most of the gear looks like serious robes and actual chain-mail. I dont even agree with your notion that it looks more "exaggerated" - some pieces do, yes. But when I think about the latest crafting/gathering-sets or some of the battlegear my characters are currently wearing or even current glamour-pieces like the Ao-Dai, nothing feels terribly exaggerated. The only pieces that I feel dont really fit the general aesthics of the game are those that are brought over from the chinese-cashshop (angel/demon, prince/princess) and that happend partly at our request.
In general I dont feel like the gear-design is degenrating - sure, one might not like the odd piece, but thats fair. For me they still fit into the general aesthetics of the game - and quite frankly: I rarely see someone sporting a silly outfit. And if someone does: all the power to them! Its a game, its meant to be to be fun - not be taken super serious.
(And honestly: ARR had those hideous subligars... we even had a quest that would give us golden, starsprinkled underpants - silly gear was always part of the game.)

Same goes for the mounts - yes, some of them might be a little silly, but even those are mostly rooted in this world (except the abdormitnation that is Yo-kai). If your personally dont like them, you can just pick one of the more serious looking mounts. As others have mentioned already though: Since we're all playing "your" character for the sake of the story, you'll have to share Midgardsormr.
The only notion I agree with here is that we need more mounts that are difficult to obtain - and by that I dont mean Ex-primal drops but rather something along the lines of Astrope or the Hunt-tiger: Mounts as rewards for high-tier achievements. Or make them an actual gil-sink and have NPCs sell them for 30 million.

I'm all for more options in the game as long as they fit the general aesthetics - which I feel is still the case. I'm personally not a fan of the latest gear we've got, but I'm happy for everyone who is - I can look elsewhere and I rest assured that sooner or later I'll get gear that fits my taste more again. Until then I can value that other people have a different taste and actually manage to pull off items that I tossed for myself.

I'm tired and I read the first part as "onion piece".

Now that I'm more awake I realized I can't take this seriously.

I also agree that there's no "added value" to an item (or certainly not enough to outweigh the frustration) because you're forced to keep it safe.

Are your real-world possessions not precious to you unless you're actively guarding them from burglars at all times?

Someday I'll stop playing the game, and the items will be meaningless, but until then they're in my character's possession and I get to enjoy them whenever I want. If I have gear item I like wearing, I think about and enjoy it when I feel like wearing it, and the rest of the time it's just there. If I had to guard it... (A) I'd have to be thinking about it when I'm not wanting to wear it, instead of thinking about something else I do want to think about, and (B) if I lost it, I wouldn't have it when I did want to wear it, and I would miss out on the enjoyment I could have gotten from it. And then I'd have to waste time reaquiring it instead of doing something I want to do and haven't done before. (On top of the wasted time guarding it only to lose it anyway.)

I haven't played other MMOs, but I hate the idea of being able to be killed by other players. I'm not competitive like that. The fact the FFXIV doesn't allow it is one of the reasons I was drawn here in the first place.

Yes, I think the game should include pacifiers and more pastels altogether. And maybe bibs.

I don't quite understand the OP but... I paid a lot of real money (twice!) for the maid and princess outfits the moment they popped up on MogStation, and spent months crafting, spending millions of gil, RNGing and grinding for all the silly outfits, mounts and minions in my collection.

So unless the OP volunteers to pay my sub and reimburse me for all the time, money and effort I've invested into acquiring all those "infantile" vanity items, I can't bring myself to agree or even remotely sympathise with any of their points. Sorreh, I'm afraid all that maturity isn't worth as much as the contents of my glamour dresser ^^

When I do actually want to immerse myself in the world, I switch to my down-to-earth RP glamour, find an RP venue where everyone else is wearing their down-to-earth RP glamours, and go strike up some serious in-character conversation. I love doing that too and there are definitely people (at least on Mateus) who work together to create such environments.

In fact, the fact that I CAN make my character look however I want any time I want depending on my mood is one of the reasons I continue to play this game. To me, it's a selling point and I want SE to do more to capitalise on it, not less. I'm a big proponent of both adding more silly stuff as well as more RP friendly outfits (I'm still waiting for SE to give us all the Hingan kimonos and Sekiseigumi tunics that all NPCs everywhere wear but I can't ._.)

Those things are NOT mutually exclusive. We can have the cake, eat it and then order a different cake and invite friends to eat it together.

I only have one issue with mounts and it's not the rarity or design; it's how all of them have to fly now. I get it - if a mount can't fly, then players are less likely to use it. That may limit design choices in fear of making a mount worthless. SE first tried to make sense of mount that could fly. The Fenrir mount, costing one million MGP, was unable to fly at first, but was quickly changed and given and animated effect to make sense of how it's flying. Now, we've got a flying Tyrannosaur.

Remember back in Heavensward when you had do a quest so your chocobo could remember how to fly again? That's a bird with wings remembering how to fly. Now we have flying dinosaurs.

I've always felt like Final Fantasy fit into the "high" fantasy brand (unrealistic weapons, less focus on physics/'logical' details), even though they've been going weird places with it (imo) by adding more modern details lately. It fits the sort of story they're telling, which focuses less on the minutiae and more on the story, which tends to be epic-proportion (i.e. if we don't stop this the world will end, vs. 'evil bad guy wants to take over village', even if the bad guy tends to be what gets the story started.)

FFXIV has toned it down somewhat, to be sure, but it's still part of the final fantasy brand and in a game in which we have King Mog, I'm not going to question the size of a weapon someone can wield (also, *side-eyes Cloud*). Sure, FFXIV has a lot of odd, cutesy stuff that doesn't quite fit in with the "main aesthetic", but that's always been in the game and is certainly not "added because the game is dying".

It really comes down to, this is an "accessible-to-all-and-friendly-to-casuals" MMO and if that's not the style of game you're looking for, then you're probably better off looking for a different game that has the sort of "high-danger" mechanics you want. And, to be honest, the fact that FFXIV is accessible is one of the reasons it's not going to be in danger; those of us who had 12-14 hours a day back to play MMOs back in the early 2000s (and even people who never got into 'hardcore' MMOs) look at this game as something they can play and have fun at without having to constantly worry about "keeping the things we paid for" safe, because we no longer have that kind of time.

I always have to look at these threads with massive, "change the entire way the game works" outlines and wonder, do you really think they're going to go back and rebuild the game from the ground up? And if you really dislike the game as it is to the point that you want it rebuilt from the ground up, then this... probably isn't the game for you. They're not going to rework it. We can't even get them to redo the glamour or housing systems or give us more faces because "server limitation". There's a lot wrong with the game, and a lot I like. And because there's a lot I like, I stick around. I bring up the things I want changed, but even I know that if what I want would significantly change gameplay, it won't happen. These threads feel like the equivalent of walking into a fast food drive taco joint and looking around and going "if you just gutted the building, redid the decorations, and hired different chefs you could have a really nice sushi bar in here." If you have suggestions as to how they can make better tacos, that's good. If you want sushi, you should probably go to place that... serves sushi.

And now I want sushi.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Another thing that occurred to me while writing this was a hidden benefit of being able to loose items in the game to being PK’d. It would force players to “guard” certain items which created an enhanced sense of value around things that were difficult to obtain. If you obtain something once and have it for life I think you perceive it differently. I don’t know that there is a way to do this in the new world of theme park MMO’s but it's a thought I found interesting as I think a big issue in this game is a lack of relative significance.

---

Nope. nope, nopenopenope GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY NO. That would require a complete overhaul of the game and bring about a schism of players, mass unsubscriptions, months of griefing and generally TEN TIMES the amount of complaints that SE already gets. Hell, Aion had open world PvP all the time and even THEY had to introduce "fast-track servers" with no PvP (indeed, it was VERY annoying to be around level 25 and all of a sudden a level SIXTY shows up and two-shots you in the middle of your quest); and even Aion didn't make you drop "loot" on death...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

Yes, I think the game should include pacifiers and more pastels altogether. And maybe bibs.

---

I can get behind this, and if someone complains about another person's toon (or whines about a raid boss needing to be nerfed) more than 5 times a day, all your glamours sets get auto-switched to this for a week.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Disclaimer:
*snip*

---

I completely agree, but unfortunately this game caters to those who prefer such shallow tripe. You're wanting what we'll never see in XIV, by Yoshi's own admission. Shiny shinies and meaningless content with no sense of accomplishment is here to stay. I am on your side though, agreeing that the game should've tried to have more in common design-wise with FFXI than with WoW.

The idea that someone thinks XIV is more "cartoony" in terms of appearance and aesthetics as opposed towards realism...and then I look at WoW's art direction and how brightly colored everything is...

I can't help, but have the John Travolta GIF reaction. >_>;

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by InkstainedGwyn

It really comes down to, this is an "accessible-to-all-and-friendly-to-casuals" MMO and if that's not the style of game you're looking for, then you're probably better off looking for a different game that has the sort of "high-danger" mechanics you want.

---

A lot of these complaints have always struck me as somebody trying to be intellectual with a faux sense of superiority because they like "the gritty stuff" as opposed to something brightly colored or less "realistic". It's bothersome to me.

This game has always had cutesy, weird, jokey elements. It's nothing new and certainly not some sign that the game is dying.

You say this NOW when we had friggen the Yokai happen TWICE?

That wasn't catroony enough to trigger this post?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hypnotic13371337

You say this NOW when we had friggen the Yokai happen TWICE?

That wasn't catroony enough to trigger this post?

---

Not sure how a crossover event with a different company somehow dictates that the entire game's art direction is too "cartoony" now. It was a mutual benefit crossover event with the makers of Yokai Watch. It was basically an advertising and marketing tool that the other company probably paid to have it done.

It's not like all the mobs on the open world suddenly look like Pokemon ripoffs now.

I have no love for exaggerated, large weapons with lots of colours and would never be caught using one but it doesn't bother me too much to see others with it and if it makes them happy then all is well with me. What distracts me more are the people running around cities, the world and dungeons in swimwear or bunny outfits.


Other than that... I really, really wish they just stuck to their guns and didn't allow every single mount to fly (and swim). I find it obnoxious, an eyesore and a bit lazy on the player's part - but that's just my frustration talking since I doubt said people even care about those details in the first place. I'd much rather they'd have divided the various mounts into the categories defined in their tooltip and you could select you preferred mount for land travel, air travel and sea travel. So for the sake of making it easier, if you're running along the ground on your chocobo and decide you hop into the water, it ""transforms"" into a Syldra or whatever it is you chose without you having to dismount first and then you don't have actual bird mounts flying through the water.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Knahli

Other than that... I really, really wish they just stuck to their guns and didn't allow every single mount to fly (and swim). I find it obnoxious, an eyesore and a bit lazy on the player's part - but that's just my frustration talking since I doubt said people even care about those details in the first place. I'd much rather they'd have divided the various mounts into the categories defined in their tooltip and you could select you preferred mount for land travel, air travel and sea travel. So for the sake of making it easier, if you're running along the ground on your chocobo and decide you hop into the water, it ""transforms"" into a Syldra or whatever it is you chose without you having to dismount first and then you don't have actual bird mounts flying through the water.

---

While that might make some amount of sense for jumping into water, having your land mounts transform into a flying mount whenever you fly would just be extremely off. Land mounts are quite simply inferior to flying mounts from now on. Outside of pvp, there's no reason for me to ever have one no my hotbar, as flying mounts are quite capable of running on land. This limits future design of mounts, and makes all previous non-flying mounts more or less obsolete.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

While that might make some amount of sense for jumping into water, having your land mounts transform into a flying mount whenever you fly would just be extremely off. Land mounts are quite simply inferior to flying mounts from now on. Outside of pvp, there's no reason for me to ever have one no my hotbar, as flying mounts are quite capable of running on land. This limits future design of mounts, and makes all previous non-flying mounts more or less obsolete.

---

Even in my head, my idea is far from ideal but any alternative would only be unnecessarily obnoxious on the part of the player were they locked into some sort of proper mount transition before take-off, but I can definitely understand how odd it might look to see your mount "glamour plate" every time you lifted off, especially if someone were repeatedly flying and landing. Honestly, its probably nothing I'd be willing to compromise for myself had I to deal with it first-hand for a little while, but ah well... its a dumb little peeve to begin with anyway.

Look, I'm going to fight fantastic evil in a shirt, jeans, and sneakers and there's nothing you can do to stop me!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Well, if you don't see it I don't think I can explain it to you. We're just different.

---

Try. You can actually show me by pointing to the gear you consider silly and immersion breaking.
But let me right now remind you that with the additon of peiste-skin-maps in ARR we got the nightgowns which to me arent just silly for combat but silly looking in general aswell as the spriggan-cap and Mistbeards Mask. I already pointed out subligars and their special starsprinkled version. And the Flanchards I was talking about looked ridiculous and I'm very glad they havent done those since 2.0.

Its not like some silly gear is such big news to the game - so please show me where you see such an increase of that. If you wont try, you'll never know if I'll understand. Give me some examples of how the recent gear and designs are sillier than what we had in ARR - or accept that this might just be a wrongful perception on your part (which it has to be if you cant back it up with evidence).

If you want a dark, edgey look for your character, you can achieve that. But this isnt a dirty, gritty, dark game and it never was or was intended to be one. Remember those quests that lead up to Titan and the reason we went into Brayflox? Cheese. We went in there for freaking cheese. Talking about Titan - another set of weapons from ARR that look pretty stupid to me (I mean look at that bow! No way you can use that to fire arrows!)
So no, unless you bring me evidence that the development goes to more and more silly gear or at least show me what you consider sillier than the ARR-nightgown and bards first and second AF, I'll just assume that this is more a "feeling" of yours. Maybe because you expected this game to be different from what it is or because you want the game to be different from what it is.

This game tells several rather serious stories, it offers you gearsets that are meant serious and also look that way (depending on the job, they might add frills, but thats mostly fitting for the general aesthetic of the job - PLD, BRD and WHM all fit into that pattern, for example, while jobs like BLM, DRK and WAR tend to get more "edegy" looking gear, at least by my definition).
But it also offers people a place to just be funny and silly and I cant see anything wrong with that. People use this game to escape from their maybe not so funny, but dull to outright depressive lifes - so whats so wrong with entering a world that also offers the option to dress up in a silly way?
Specially since, as I pointed out, the other option exists - and it exists far more of that other option.
In what way is the current raidgear "silly"? (And I'm asking that as someone who doesnt like how the gear looks on my character)
How is the current tomestone gear "silly"?
The current dungeon-design from Swallows Compass is based on something a player submitted during a contest, but again: how is it silly?
The gear from Skalla... I cant see anything silly about that, please enlighten me!

I could go on, but safe for some of the sets that are either intended to be more on the "silly-side" (like the most recent frilly-sets for males and females) or were actually meant for the chinese-version (angel/demon, prince/princess) I only see "serious" looking gear that fits the aesthetics of the game quite well. And as I pointed out: a few "silly-sets" are nothing new, we have them since ARR.

So please try to show me whats "silly" about the gear... I'm listening.
Or if you cant do that, show me what you would consider "not silly".

Edit: ...and I mean - your current glamour reminds me more of a wannabe-biker than a tank. Short leather jacket, high boots? For someone whos talking about immersion and such I wonder how your character withstands hits when tanking...?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

I'll buffer my point with the added fact that this is happening across game genre's.

---

MMOs are far more accessible these days than they used to be. Players who were once high-school/college age "rebels" playing these MMOs are now adults with jobs of their own. Games have become much more of an acceptable medium of entertainment than they once were, and because they're more popular, they're becoming far less niche than they were, which means the aspects and details that they take on are going to become more "commercial".

That's my take on it, anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

@Vidu
I get where we're loosing each other, there's a lot of blurry lines in terms of what might overly cartoony to ME vs. YOU. How about I limit my beef to things that glow, flame, flash, or otherwise make visual spam when I'm standing in Limsa.

---

But this stuff has been in the game for, like... 5, 6 years? Yet your OP seems to indicate it's a recent thing.

Quote:

---

I love bass-heavy rap music, I blast it with my windows down at 1200Watts on the daily. Do I agree with the lyrics? No, in fact I think for the most part they're quite toxic and set a bad precedence. I don't really have a good alternative tho, I like that kind of music, I can say on one hand that genre is entirely devoid of substance and has been heavily commercialized but on the other hand I do like the boom-boom. I don't see why people here can't/ won't make that leap, yeah, I like this game too - but it's pretty ****** devoid of substance.

---

I absolutely can't understand this. If I don't like the lyrics to something, then it has failed to click with me and I simply won't listen to it. In your example, you use rap; why not listen to older music? It hasn't stopped existing.

Is this game devoid of substance? I could agree with that, but I can't agree for the reason you seem to be implying that it is. What it's lacking is content more than itemization. (I'm using "itemization" loosely here to refer to all encompassing category of items, and not just their statistics)

Mmmm, it's not that gamers are getting older, it's that whereas earlier the "parental" generation was saying "you'll rot your brain go outside" now there's a lot more parents playing, which means also allowing their children to play, and as more MMOs move into the mainstream, more people of all ages are finding them that might once have only thought about movies and TV. I think the core age group has gone up maybe from the teens/20s to like... 20s-40s, but that's not "old". But also, "older" doesn't mean "more mature."

Overall... I have a lot of different small thoughts about it, but I wouldn't say any lean towards wholly good or wholly bad. Part of me does miss the days of super niche games, exploring to find random achievement spots or treasure chests or raids the whole server works together to open or... you get the point. But on the other hand, I remember playing vanilla WoW when patches were unheard of and you got new content maybe once a year [don't quote me, it's been a looooooong time and I've played a lot of MMOs since then]. Small improvements occasionally, but nothing massive. I like having new content every few weeks even if it bothers people that it's not "brand new" or "innovative". And a lot of that comes because of the "commercialization" of games.

I don't have a ton of time to play anymore, and I appreciate the game being easier to access. I like knowing that I can get things I want; they're not the Ashes of Al'ar again. Even back when I played LotRO or SWtOR, content wasn't nearly as accessible. Now, there are a lot of QoL features from those games I wish we could get here and I loved them and their stories and still do (for the most part *eyes KotFE*). And if "commercialization" is the price I have to pay for all of this (you can't constantly churn stuff out without revenue, after all), I think it's a small one.

Fair disclosure: I also used to spend hours upon hours running around as a miniscule speck on my blood elf warlock after having both a noggenfogger elixir and one of those candy pumpkins that shrinks you so... I've always enjoyed silly things, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

In the end, "frivolous" stuff has never really bothered me, but while I've RP'd many times in my many MMOs, I've never desired to "completely immerse myself" in an MMO (other than ESO, but that's because I'm used to my Elder Scrolls games being single-player) so... I don't have an issue separating the seriousness of the story from the silliness of the social aspect. But I also recognise that it's a personal PoV. I don't feel like FFXIV has gotten any more frivolous than it was 4 years ago, but I also recognise that its frivolity may not be for everyone.

I didn't want to reply when the thread was first posted up because it's so well written and I didn't want to lower the tone with a lazy post, but I think we're past that. Sorry about the people who misunderstood you and reacted defensively. Your assessment is a nice read and I do think something was lost compared to the old way, the niche mmos with more consistency and restraint in their presentation. The v2 relaunch of this game aimed at the mainstream, the elements that make WoW attractive to a large audience, so you have lots and lots of big flashy rewards to show off. I'd like to add more substance to the discussion but you know, me lazy... Well, it's money. That's the reason. It's better to have 10 million customers who kind of like something than 120k customers who really love it. Satisfying the niche isn't as viable as targeting the mainstream in a world that uses a monetary system. This game is designed to have as broad appeal as possible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

snip

---

I personally don't care much about rarity. If everyone got the Savage mounts, I'd consider it solely a blow to the unique incentives to do Savage content, not to the visual integrity of the game.

That said, I do actually take issue with particular gaudy or aesthetically incohesive mounts and gear. (That said, mounts are about the only real offender there, in my opinion, and even then only really the magic ponies, the Youkai Watch mount, and flying wingless creatures -- and hell, I can even find the flying turtle humorous and "XIVish" enough to be fine.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

I get where we're loosing each other, there's a lot of blurry lines in terms of what might overly cartoony to ME vs. YOU. How about I limit my beef to things that glow, flame, flash, or otherwise make visual spam when I'm standing in Limsa. How about the Rog's with pink afros? I don't know man, there's some cartoony sh** that's just beyond the pail. I don't want to go item by item and debate you on whether or not the afrno hair style breaks the rules of the world. That might be part of my point, there doesn't seem to be any rules for the world... anything goes. Afros? Why not! Mohawks? Woohoo! Let's just make the game into GTO, maybe we can get some glocks and low rider mounts too.

---

not Vidu but jumping on this -
The game has rules that most NPCs adhere to: Ishgardians tend to be elezen and wear certain clothes, Gridanians tend to wear earthy colors, the Xaela tribes have set outfits, Garleans tend to be very tall and pale, etc. Afros exist in the world (you'll see some NPCs with them) as do guns (the pirates use pistols/muskets, machinists use aether lunchbox guns, and then garleans use scifi-tier lasers, guns, gunblades). Our character is not bound by said rules, but everyone is completely free to dress within those rules if they want a stronger sense of belonging to the world.



imo, the FF series has always had some goofy anime elements to it. I personally came into this MMO expecting an anime flavored WoW and it hasn't really strayed far from my expectations. The idol concert event seems out of place until you remember that a 3 foot tall anime gnome with an itty bitty sword can be your tank in a dungeon lol

Sounds like you'd rather play ark/rust ect.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

I get where we're loosing each other, there's a lot of blurry lines in terms of what might overly cartoony to ME vs. YOU. How about I limit my beef to things that glow, flame, flash, or otherwise make visual spam when I'm standing in Limsa. How about the Rog's with pink afros? I don't know man, there's some cartoony sh** that's just beyond the pail. I don't want to go item by item and debate you on whether or not the afrno hair style breaks the rules of the world. That might be part of my point, there doesn't seem to be any rules for the world... anything goes. Afros? Why not! Mohawks? Woohoo! Let's just make the game into GTO, maybe we can get some glocks and low rider mounts too.

---

It's not because the possibility of making a goofy character exists (which is something that was feasible since ARR, btw) that "the game" has become "cartoonish" as a whole. Whatever that word means.

Also, there are countless examples of mainstream gear, mounts and customization options added to the game that aren't "infantilized aesthetics". Besides, your OP, doesn't provide any kind of actual examples to help us understand better your own tastes, even after you stated very clearly "This is an opinion piece, please take it with a grain of salt."
If this thread is just there so that one person simply says "I don't like [insert generality]", then it's pretty much not worth discussing at all. Especially without any actual ingame examples (gear name, screenshots, etc.).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxPaw

@Vidu
I get where we're loosing each other, there's a lot of blurry lines in terms of what might overly cartoony to ME vs. YOU. How about I limit my beef to things that glow, flame, flash, or otherwise make visual spam when I'm standing in Limsa. How about the Rog's with pink afros? I don't know man, there's some cartoony sh** that's just beyond the pail. I don't want to go item by item and debate you on whether or not the afrno hair style breaks the rules of the world. That might be part of my point, there doesn't seem to be any rules for the world... anything goes. Afros? Why not! Mohawks? Woohoo! Let's just make the game into GTO, maybe we can get some glocks and low rider mounts too.

---

You mean... stuff like people spamming their magic skills in a magic world? Pssst - thats why I crafted outside the main-market in Ul'dah. In 2013 already.

As for a pink Afro: Thats called freedom and options.
As Rokke pointed out: There is a set of rules and the devs and NPCs follow it. Each region has their own aesthtics and style of clothing for their people. Non of that looks very cartoony to me (Ul'dahn tunica, simple vests and dresses for Limsa, earth and gree tones in Gridania - all wearing lowlevel gear... Ishgardian high house attire along with simple, yet functional chainmail and dirty, cheap clothes for those living in the slums... We have Kimonos and more eastern fashion in Kugane and the Au Ra tribes of the steps are all wearing those coats - they're even colour-code for their tribe.)

So its not the game itself breaking the immersion, but the people playing the game. Maybe I missunderstood you indeed or maybe you phrased your question wrong, but to me it seems the question should - if at all - more aim towards the playerbase that makes use of the those tools to give their character a silly look, because, as I pointed out, the "real" gear has a rather serious look most of the time.
So the real question would have to be why more and more people dress up that way - first off: Personally I dont believe that thats really the case. But for the sake of this I'll work with your assumption.
The basic main reason would be: Because its fun, which is probably the main reason to play this (or any) game. Fun is obviously subjective and for some people, but playing dress up seems to appeal to a lot of us.
Maybe silly dressed people want to provoke, maybe it amuses themself greatly to play a half-naked male Roe with a pink Afro.
We also got more options to dress up silly since ARR - again: silly gear is nothing new but with adding new glamoursets and hairstyles with each patch, we got more and more options to pick and combine. Its nothing new, its just them following a trend they introduced along with the glamoursystem. And again: at the same time we also got serious looking gear - both for real use as for glamour aswell.

I honestly dont agree with your idea that the playerbase is getting more juvenile - I see as many silly dressed people as I did back in ARR. And they're by far not a majority. Cats in sexy, short dresses are by far more common to be honest...

You also seem to make the funny assumption that older = more mature, which in my experience doesnt always hold true.
And as I pointed out earlier: a lot of people are using this to escape their boring or maybe even depressive lifes - I can totally understand why someone would want to get a good laugh out of this.
I'm raiding with a casual static and to keep spirits high and give us all something to laugh about on a tuesday evening when we could look forward to wiping to Kefka for an hour, I would give glamour-tasks - we once defeated him, all dressed up as our favorite Disney Princess and had a blast with it. Grats, game, you achieved your goal! And the next morning we all went back to our serious jobs as software developer, libarian or uni-student. But this game gives everyone the option to just "ease out" for an evening and just do something funny or silly once in a while. Doesnt mean those people are juvenile all the time or dont take the game serious.
People also want their character to stand out, to be unique - something you should be able to relate to, judging by your OP.

And the game might be lacking substance - but the reason for that isnt the Roe in the pink Afro whos spamming Holy in Limsa. The reason for that is that the devs decided to bet on the wrong horse and poured a lot of ressources into content like Eureka, thats just not working quite as they intended to.

...and even if part of the reason that the game is lacking content in more than one way is that they dont have the money and manpower to developed more content: This game is still a multimillion-$-project by a major developer/publisher. Obviously it has to appeal to as many people as possible - games are mainstream now, they're accepted and they got more expensive, so they need to appeal to a bigger audience to get their moneys worth.
So they throw both in - silly outfits and serious ones.
Why someone would pick a silly outfit could have many reasons... but seeing how this doesnt seem to be a widespread issue to me, I'm not sure if I'd agree with that "trend" you seem to see here...

I would also like to point out that I never asked you to go through every item - just to give me an example. I have no idea what you're actually having an issue with when it comes to regular gear, just that you dont like the "extreme" of a Roe with a pink Afro. Which is both rare and realistic - I'd never do that to my own hair, but I'm pretty sure its possible to have a pink afro irl.

But yeah... maybe we wont understand each other. I like metal, boom-boom doesnt speak to me.

Just read this thread completely. There is so much cringeworthy masked insecurities hidden behind faux intelligence. If you need to try to use a thesaurus to stumble through your post and resort to forcing yourself to try to speak extra proper english on a forum to project the image of what you find yourself wanting to be... you have bigger issues than game immersion.

But yeah how dare these lala not be more realistic! I mean these are the minds behind real rugged historically accurate attire like Steiner, or common adventurer outfits like Tidus or Zidane and Sora.

You worry about everything being spoon fed to casual players yet dream of a runescape-esque open world pvp. I wonder if that's because high end content scares you, limiting that to the only way you could obtain these items? I haven't checked logs but who knows.

I'm a black mage, the fire and flash is what I'm all about. As a tank you break my immersion by being in jeans/jacket. Where is your plate armor? You briefly mentioned products targeted at wrong consumers (kids meal) however that's blind to who the real target consumer is (parents who will pay extra for a "kid" meal and toy) I think you've had the same mistaken impression when you bought this game expecting a...what? Dark gritty... dark soul's clone? Part of your issue is you haven't even started what you expected this world to be. Based on your attire not the general wizards and knight style. Not final fantasy styles with everything from eiko to quina to Vincent. Just a vague unhappiness that other people are enjoying themselves which breaks your immersion in a multi player game...

There are solo games suited for what you seem to want, or games with LIMITED multiplayer such as souls or monster hunter.

Then again maybe I just don't like the condescending edgelord hipster vibe of this post. I can almost smell the vape clouds attached to all your replies

Plays a miqo with pink hair wearing a jacket. Complains about silly outfits and game going cartoony. Just saying. :/ that's like saying sonic is too silly for a blue hedgehog running at the speed of sound. You're playing the wrong game.

Aginst my better will and judgment this thread kinda stuck with me throughout my afternoon shopping which made me think of several points I want to adress here - I can accept that everyone has a different opinion and I'm happy to leave OPs theirs, but my opinion is that thats based on a wrongful perception of this game and certain facts related to it. Seeing how OP corrected their course a few times throughout the thread, I'll try to adress several points (without forgetting anything).

Designs provided by the game

I wont go into details again, since I already did but to me OP seemed to claim that the general design of the game has gotten more "cartooney" over the years, something I dont see any evidence of. The odd cartoony-silly-gear-set has existed since ARR; a rather anime-like fantasy-style is part of the brand since FFI. I've already been wondering if OP never saw one of those very colorful Amano-illustrations.
I fail to see a trend towards more infantilized gear or aesthetics here and OP kinda refused to even give one example of a current gear-set that he would lable "infantilized".

There are no rules!

There is no proof!
And indeed there are rules within the game - for once the NPCs all follow a general, "serious" aesthetic related to the area they live in, their social status etc.
But there are also rules for us, as players: We have a minimum amount of race-locked gear, we have far to much genderlocked gear and SB took gear thats locked to certain jobs to a new level. Gear dyes exactly one way - aka: certain parts dye and you have no control over the other parts.
Hair is limited to two colors and you can only have one type of Make-Up. We see weekly threads about people asking for more customisation options or the removal of gender/race/job-locks on gear.
You'll never see a healer in chainmail, because there are rules by the game preventing that.

Players dress up more juvenile!

Again a claim that I would like to see evidence for - I'm not saying that Pink-Afro-Neonorange-Subligar-Naked-Roes dont exists, but I am saying that they're not far spread. Its the odd one out in a majority of people who dress their character in a "serious" way. Or in the case of a lot of catgirls: a sexy way. Honestly, I've seen far more catgirls in skimpy clothes than characters that are dressed outright ridicolous.
In my anecdotal experience they're still the exception rather than the norm - and I havent seen a trend towards more pink-afros (please note that I'm using those as a metaphor right now).
I also argued my main-reason for this: Fun. Which is not something unlikly to seek in a video game.
But I would like to adress a few more points - you argued that you'd expect more adults to play games nowadays. That might be true, but that doesnt mean that there arent any 15 year olds playing anymore!
I also already pointed out that just because you're 30 you have to act mature all the time - I'd expect to be quite the opposite the case when it comes to this game: We have to act mature and like proper, functioning adults in most aspects of our life - work, family, friends, taxes... - and this game gives us the room not to act like a super-serious buisnessman for 2 hours.
Sometimes, a silly glamour might also just be a joke - I would consider myself a rather mature person for the most part, but I've been tanking in a coralle-pink armour before because this stupid dungeon refused to drop the gear I wanted and only gave me said dye, that I ended up using out of protest. What I'm trying to say here is: When you see someone in a silly glamour you get a very, very short glimpse of them. There could be 101 reasons why the person picked that glamour - living out their juvenile side is only one of them.

In general: wether you pick the "the gear looks more and more juvenile" or the "players dress up more and more juvenile" approach, I'm afraid I dont see it. At least not on my server.
The game - and the franchise itself - has always been rather colorful, with a more fantasy-anime-style and the odd silly-part, while maintaining darker and more serious options aswell.
I hold the firm believe that a player should be allowed to break the immersion of a game, if they wish to - as I pointed out: You did that yourself, your leather-jacket is no chainmail that would withstand blows, hits and bites from various enemies.
Maybe I missunderstood you about this, but you made it sound as if you've got an issue with that and are judging the people who want to run around in a pink afro, because thats not mature enough for you. Thats what I'm taking the biggest issue with here btw.
If you want a game with strict rules on what people can wear to avoid running into silly stuff... you might want to pick a solo-game. If you have an issue with the anime-cartoon-style this franchise has been using from basically day one, thats okay! Maybe go look for a game that has a darker, grittier and more realistic style - FFXIV:ARR was never that game.
Its okay to like different things and to prefer a darker style - you can achieve that style within the game aswell btw - but FFXIV never provided that in the first place, so if thats your expectation at this game, you've probably been looking at the wrong place to begin with.