Thematic issues. Why all the sci fi.

[Valence]

Anything Allagan isn't what's being argued against mostly. It is well blended and it feels more like ancient magical tech than star trek. You could tell they thought about how the Allagan technology and derived magitek would fit into the world.

It's the recent introduction of pop culture scifi and minimalism that doesn't blend well into the games aesthetic. When you walked into Azys La it the theme was clearly lost ancient technology and both you as a person and your character were in awe and wonder of what was introduced, likewise it looked much more retro-futuristic.

Now a days you're literally walking into trashy cyberpunk with shien streetwear and if you listen close enough you can probably hear the NPCs hollering at you YO YO YO WASSA HOLMES, YA GOT SOME ECSTACY ON YOU? all while they breakdance and drink fourlokos. I wonder if some people literally can't tell the difference. Like maybe an Allagan orb really is the same aesthetic as a harley davidson chopper or a DJI style drone to them.

Now I'd agree that the art direction isn't trying really hard to make their new sci-fy inserts really unique and creative, that's for sure. Allag was alike nothing else, even though obviously like everything it had its own inspirations. I feel like S9 is somewhere in between, where electrope is definitely its own thing with a clear direction, but the rest of Alexandria definitely feels more generic.

[Ath192]

Now I'd agree that the art direction isn't trying really hard to make their new sci-fy inserts really unique and creative, that's for sure. Allag was alike nothing else, even though obviously like everything it had its own inspirations. I feel like S9 is somewhere in between, where electrope is definitely its own thing with a clear direction, but the rest of Alexandria definitely feels more generic.

Yeah, the truth is that it's not that I have a huge issue with all the crap they've shown individually, the problem is that they've just tossed all these art concepts onto the game without blending them like Allag was. In reality it's not just sci-fi, it's the whole modern contemporary aesthetic that is the issue.

If you walk into a house with a bunch of mismatched lighting fixtures and appliances of different colors and designs it technically is a "functional" house, but it's not a nice place to be in aesthetically. And that's what this game feels like.

What's worse is that all this is a substitute for a lack of creativity, substance and depth into the game. Instead of really digging in deep into the lore of these places and showing us interesting concepts from within Eorzea, mystic creatures, lores, grand spells, involving stories; Places of wonder, fear, unexplained locations; they've opted for a very lazy approach of "lets bombard these people with all the pop culture and shiny concepts we can possible think of!" so that we're too distracted by all the shiny new stuff to really care about any of it.

The entire setting of this game is just a shallow prop. And the overworld definitely feels like it. To some degree I want to stick around because I had high hopes for this game but I don't know. Nothing is really treated with care or detail. Most people now a days get easily distracted and they like all this stuff though.

We're all over the place, but never for more than 20 minutes it seems. Now with cosmic exploration it just looks like we'll be redoing entire planets in 10 minutes a pop. I'll reserve my judgment for actual execution but idk how it can get more ludicrous. We have no cohesive date, time, era or any set location in this game. Kind of like the personification of ADHD. FFXIV is just everything at this point, and imo none of it is being done well. Including half solo game and half mmo.