Infantilized Aesthetics

[FoxPaw]

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

[HyoMinPark]

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.

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.

[Elamys]

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.

[HyoMinPark]

@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.

[Vidu]

@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.

[ko_]

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.

[Iscah]

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.

[NessaWyvern]

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.