Would you trade new ingame content for an engine upgrade?

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

Especially considering that almost every asinine limitation in the game is a result of 1.0 spaghetti code. So many core features hamstrung with "why the hell can't I just..." moments.

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It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0. It’s a result of the dev team having to make something cheap and fast to replace 1.0 but still works “good enough” to not be a repeat of 1.0.

Yoshi-P has already mentioned wanting to do a graphics overhaul post-6.0, but I don’t know if they would recode the game without focusing all their dev efforts on it and no new content being released for a very long time.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0. It’s a result of the dev team having to make something cheap and fast to replace 1.0 but still works “good enough” to not be a repeat of 1.0.

Yoshi-P has already mentioned wanting to do a graphics overhaul post-6.0, but I don’t know if they would recode the game without focusing all their dev efforts on it and no new content being released for a very long time.

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Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0.

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Nobody can say whether it is spaghetti or not as long as they do not publish the sourcecode. :) Maybe it is not spaghetti and they simply made some architectural decisions in the past, which are not so optimal today. The game was compatible with the PS3. And the PS3 architecture is vastly different to PS4/PS5/PC etc.

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Originally Posted by Nuki

Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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I guess they have most textures in a much higher resolution. This is how textures are usually made: create them in a high resolution and then scale them down. It is how MIP mapping works. But if they have deleted the high res textures then it will be time consuming to recreate them, yes. :)


Cheers

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0. It’s a result of the dev team having to make something cheap and fast to replace 1.0 but still works “good enough” to not be a repeat of 1.0.

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And "cheap and fast" usually means "reuse the code". In particular, it means "reuse the netcode that took most of the dev time".

What changed is the gameplay pacing, the graphics, the way progression is handled, but the foundation for the code still is 1.0, although it's slowly being changed. At this point, there is far less 1.0 code than there was in ARR, but the easily noticeable change to latency in AoEs dodging is a result of that, for example.

So no, I don't want to lose content for the game to have an engine change, since they seem to be able to make some changes that actually affect the core engine, and thus, slowly revamp the engine.

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Originally Posted by Nuki

Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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I never know how to read that. They are now massively successful. Why can't they hire people and invest in graphics/textures for the foreseeable future of the game, without foregoing content in the process ? I mean, if they've got something else in store (new game ?) I could understand.

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Nobody can say whether it is spaghetti or not as long as they do not publish the sourcecode. :) Maybe it is not spaghetti and they simply made some architectural decisions in the past, which are not so optimal today. The game was compatible with the PS3. And the PS3 architecture is vastly different to PS4/PS5/PC etc.



I guess they have most textures in a much higher resolution. This is how textures are usually made: create them in a high resolution and then scale them down. It is how MIP mapping works. But if they have deleted the high res textures then it will be time consuming to recreate them, yes. :)


Cheers

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It was said that they made them low res to begin with , quite a glaring mistake on their part , and done to speed up the re purposing of the game after 1.0 (and built around the ps3 not PC) hence why they cant dedicate staff to create a whole 2.0-6.0 bank of higher quality textures for all assets

If they already had a bank of 4096 textures we'd of had them inserted already , at the very least as an optional dl pack or preinstalled and an in game option to enable them (prob for PC only) with certain requirements to ber able to use said option ,like 8gb ram plus 4gig Vram min etc etc

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Originally Posted by Nuki

Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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Currently (WIP) but La Noscea and Thanalan have 2x upscaled res texture upgrade, and a test 4x res Thanalan currently available on PC on nexus website .

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Originally Posted by Teno

I never know how to read that. They are now massively successful. Why can't they hire people and invest in graphics/textures for the foreseeable future of the game, without foregoing content in the process ? I mean, if they've got something else in store (new game ?) I could understand.

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I'd imagine that it would require SE to invest more budget into the creative division that Yoshi-P is responsible for, which is also making FFXVI. I'd also imagine that hiring people would take time, effort, and money in order to train and pull people away from the existing dev work. The suits at SE also probably see the success of FFXIV as a sign that they do not need to invest that much into the budget to do an overhaul if the game is already so successful that they had to stop selling it. Why sink a lot of money, time, effort, personnel allocation, and office real estate in order to do a overhaul on a game that is already extremely successful? FFXIV is currently SE's cash cow that keeps them afloat and funds other projects (that seem to fail on their own).

There's also the fact that competent programmers don't exactly grow on trees. I don't know what Japan's economic situation or job culture is like or if they have the same "learn to code lol" thing over there, but just because you have the budget for it doesn't mean it will happen, especially if you're just hiring in order to do an engine/graphics overhaul. What would happen to the people they just hired then? Would SE keep them on and continue to pay them or just let them go?

It may not be the answer a lot of current players want to hear, but it's being realistic. Either way, there's a new letter from the producer in just a couple of days so I'm sure we'll find out more on 6.1+ and maybe even something about a graphics update then if it's something being planned for the near future.

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Originally Posted by Izar_Chillen

It was said that they made them low res to begin with , quite a glaring mistake on their part , and done to speed up the re purposing of the game after 1.0 (and built around the ps3 not PC) hence why they cant dedicate staff to create a whole 2.0-6.0 bank of higher quality textures for all assets

If they already had a bank of 4096 textures we'd of had them inserted already , at the very least as an optional dl pack or preinstalled and an in game option to enable them (prob for PC only) with certain requirements to ber able to use said option ,like 8gb ram plus 4gig Vram min etc etc

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They could make a community contest for this like the contest for weapons. I guess, many fans would recreate the textures with a much higher resolution.


Cheers

The underlying Engine driving 1.0 was scrapped completely for the Engine currently running (since ARR came out).

A lot of our limitations revolve around that Engine, which may see upgrades, but at a cost.

As for the supposed 'spaghetti code' ... this is a Realm shared by both PC and Playstation Console players. One has to understand that most other MMORPGs have solved cross-platform problems the old-fashioned way: separate worlds for PC and for Console players. Or, as is the case of WoW, not bothering to write code for Playstation or Xbox in the first place.

The fact that you can play with players on either platform is pretty much a miracle.

One should probably blame the inconveniences they encounter in-game on PS3 console limitations ... removing them without affecting the PC/Console cross-platform play of the current game can get risky.

Introducing new features is relatively easy, as the code doesn't conflict with nor replace what came before.

Be careful of what you ask for. A complete rewrite may put an entire expansion of content at risk ... the miracle of 2.0 rising from the ashes of 1.0 can only be performed once. If SE had not been in dire straits at that time, I doubt it would have been done at all.

The question to ask is "are you all right running an expansion-worth of content for 3-4 years, rather than 2?", not "would you give up content for an engine upgrade?".