The evolution of FFXIV

[Luluna]

I have to admit as a 1.0 player and enjoyer I could not believe this awful emote it is everything I hate in the outside world and I play FFXIV to escape this shit haha. I know some who will love it but not for me and I understand times change and trends but nah.

The game has lots of high fantasy and I understand bits and bobs of modern mix but it is everywhere in the game now it has become saturated by the real world. It looks so bad like something a 14 year old would do, give me a time machine so I can go back and when they ask what should they do rebuild the game or switch it off I will say turn it off it is doomed lmao. In fact give us another Dalamud so I can watch it burn.

[Hallarem]

It's not even a cohesive level of sci-fi. Allag and Garlemald both fit the idea of highly advanced civilizations still grounded in the context of the setting, and now Cosmic Exploration is a mix of Gundam and NASA. The Ninth's detritus isn't even coherent with itself, ranging from generic cyberpunk to Phantasy Star and plenty else.

This is the main issue that the "But FFXIV always had scifi" - defenders always conveniently shut their ears and eyes from.

Scifi isn't bad, it's not about not having a full "fantasy" FFXIV. It's about do the inserts MAKE SENSE or follow the worldbuilding and cohesive point of view. We went from magical unattainable allagan tech that fiddled with magic and science, to scrappy magitek that wasn't even near levels of the allagan tech but derived from it.
To suddenly modern day scifi references, the devs favorite gundam references, and a full blown cyberpunk reference (copy), and now star trek combined with all that. Not to mention the ludicrous fact that Electrope just can do anything the writers want it to do.

Endwalker ruined the worldbuilding, and it's been marching to the grave ever since.

[Underscore]

It's not even a cohesive level of sci-fi. Allag and Garlemald both fit the idea of highly advanced civilizations still grounded in the context of the setting, and now Cosmic Exploration is a mix of Gundam and NASA. The Ninth's detritus isn't even coherent with itself, ranging from generic cyberpunk to Phantasy Star and plenty else.

The "punk" part of cyberpunk doesn't even make sense within the setting of Alexandria. That kind of aesthetic and cultural attitude doesn't come out of nowhere just because the technology is advanced enough.

This isn't a futuristic capitalist dystopia, it's an idyllic kingdom ruled by a universally beloved queen where everyone lives equally in luxury apartments with all their needs met, never having to worry about death from unnatural causes. It's like the devs wanted the surface level aesthetics of cyberpunk but didn't understand the point behind it.

[JohnLakeside]

What "modern" audience?

Btw why is none of you "they ruined the game with smartphones" people crying about guns and technology in their middle age style game?

My problem with that emote isnt the technology, but that it its another sign of this game becoming more and more of a dress up game where people are fine just standing around as long as they can make their character look cute/do cute things.

[TKMXIV]

Another aspect is that all the potentially spaceworthy technology they could have seen after going to Etheirys would have roots in Amaurot or Allag. Even if you expand that to Jammingway's experiences in Ultima Thule, you still get nothing that looks like what's being made.

The only thing close to it would be the biggest shark jump the spaceship Ragnarok. But Ragnarok's design looks more advanced than the Cosmic stuff.
The Ragnarok looks so out of place next to everything else Sharlayan has made that I try and forget about it as much as possible.

And to touch on solution 9. It is from another kind of reality? So, I can believe in the fantasy of it a fair bit. It's mostly just with how Dawntrail MSQ was done poorly I'm a bit lost.
Ok so they have medieval kingdoms. They find magic lightning rocks and maybe the Ascians pushed them a little so that is why Living Memory has a touch of Amaurot like buildings hidden under the glam.
However, they somehow managed to become the most advanced thing despite their world ending. Even the Omicrons are outdated next to them. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff can only do so much to dismiss logical progression of events.

Last thing I'll rant on a little is AAC M8. It screams Phantasy Star so much I would believe it if someone said it was a crossover fight like the Rathalos. Nothing about it says Solution 9.
It is pure Phantasy Star from the way the boss looks the music the battlefield. It all captures that space fantasy Phantasy Star is known for. Kind of like the Ragnarok.
For the theme of Solution 9's culture it just comes off as so out of place. Don't get me wrong I love the fight the setting and the music. But that is because I like Phantasy Star.

[Mawlzy]

The "punk" part of cyberpunk doesn't even make sense within the setting of Alexandria. That kind of aesthetic and cultural attitude doesn't come out of nowhere just because the technology is advanced enough.

This isn't a futuristic capitalist dystopia, it's an idyllic kingdom ruled by a universally beloved queen where everyone lives equally in luxury apartments with all their needs met, never having to worry about death from unnatural causes. It's like the devs wanted the surface level aesthetics of cyberpunk but didn't understand the point behind it.

Completely agree with this. When we first got to S9 I was excited because I figured we were going down a cyberpunk path. But instead of William Gibson we got Jane Carruth.

[Arzalis]

Personally, it's how much they've leaned into it. Final Fantasy has always had sci-fi elements in the medieval fantasy games, but it's still usually pretty cohesive.

FFXIV has completely jumped the shark to the point the game world has just kind of stopped making any real sense. There's basically no focus on how things fit in the overall world, just how it fits within its singular expansion.

Nothing will ever meaningfully affect anything outside of the expansion it released with because that would force them address the strange discrepancies they've created with haphazard storytelling.

[BunnyBrat]

Let people enjoy things. It's really not doing anything to you because someone chooses to wear modern looking clothing. And considering we've had events where people visited from other worlds(IPs) it wouldn't be a stretch that someone thought it would be cool to replicate the modern clothing they saw. On top of that the world doesn't have a time period that it fits neatly into. It's a fantasy world. Our world would look much different today if magic were real.

[Minneyar]

We went from magical unattainable allagan tech that fiddled with magic and science, to scrappy magitek that wasn't even near levels of the allagan tech but derived from it.
To suddenly modern day scifi references, the devs favorite gundam references, and a full blown cyberpunk reference (copy), and now star trek combined with all that.

Really does feel like I'm being forced to participate in some dev's anime hyperfixation of the season with items released/story updates.

[ConantSivrha]

Actual slop. They couldnt even be bothered to make it a tomestone like the other emote.

To be fair, it's not supposed to be a tomestone. It's supposed to be the tablet you use in Cosmic Exploration. (Though, I wish they would've made it larger and more square in the emote, to be more consistent with the appearance suggested by the tablet menu.)

That said, I'm not the biggest fan of either emote. I like the sci-fi element of XIV, but fantasy-smartphones feel somewhat out of place.