Infantilized Aesthetics

[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)

[Rokke]

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

[Fyce]

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.).

[Vidu]

@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.