Infantilized Aesthetics

[Elamys]

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.

[Hypnotic13371337]

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

That wasn't catroony enough to trigger this post?

[Sigma-Astra]

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.

[Knahli]

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.

[MomomiMomi]

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.

[Knahli]

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.

[Camiie]

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

[Vidu]

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...?

[InkstainedGwyn]

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.

[MomomiMomi]

@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.

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)