6.1 Speculation (maybe spoilers)

If there's any major revamping to be done, it won't be in a patch. It'll be an expansion launch, because that's a huge hype generator.

That said, I'm hoping for some big changes by 7.0. The game's age has been showing for a while now, and it's not getting any younger.

I am expecting a new story with most of the original Scions retiring or going to another place or possibly back to the First. With the Ascians gone, there will be no more primals so the original need for us is gone. I also expect us to sacrifice our crystals of light during the final fight. With those gone, we’re back to being an adventurer but we do keep the Echo as that’s our Ancient heritage. I would not be surprised if G’raha becomes our traveling companion.

My guess is that Mericidia will be our next destination as our dragon friend has a lot to catch up. After that, on to the new world or the other shards.

ARR zones have only just been revamped. Sure it was 9 months ago, but in dev time that's only a couple of patches ago. If they ever get another major overhaul it won't be for another couple of expansions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hyperia

I am expecting a new story with most of the original Scions retiring or going to another place or possibly back to the First. With the Ascians gone, there will be no more primals so the original need for us is gone. I also expect us to sacrifice our crystals of light during the final fight. With those gone, we’re back to being an adventurer but we do keep the Echo as that’s our Ancient heritage. I would not be surprised if G’raha becomes our traveling companion.

My guess is that Mericidia will be our next destination as our dragon friend has a lot to catch up. After that, on to the new world or the other shards.

---

We still have Almost all of Islabard to go to since we are really only going to Garlemald, the rest of the continent is still clouded, I think after 6.0 they may try a more down to earth story and i imagine after all the destruction wrought in 6.0 and the power vacuum left in the wake of the Garlean Empire's collapse that some of the next expansions storyline might be about rebuilding in Islabard, that is just me i still really want to go to Islabard and I really cant justify anywhere else until those clouds are finally gone. There is also Hingashi and the rest of Orthard as well, we might at some point get a full far eastern expansion instead of just half of one. There is also a lot of development in Dalmascus and Yoshi P. hinted that it might be the next area we see a housing district restoration questline added.

Aside from a few aesthetic things you will probably not even reach, I doubt anything will be changed by the story.

I wish in future patches or expansions they'd revamp the ARR maps to combine each nation into a single map again though. This isn't 2013 anymore and PS3 got dropped long ago.

I'd love to see a huge revamp, more so into the engine, both graphical and structural, like of course I'd like to not see shimmering objects, have greater draw distances, be unable to count the pixels on an object pressed against the camera screen, etc, but there are other things like glamour, mog station account bound, limitations in combat that would be interesting to see stripped away, storage / memory limitations in general (race / creation, housing). A large note of caution for combat of course- more action like combat for a new mmo would be cool, but it would be a great way to alienate current players if done here so.. not a suggestion, but I would think smoother movement would be cool (movement abilities glide and feel more snappy, like in a MOBA, less invisble walls, more accurate collision, no kugane tower floating on nothing nonsense).

One wonderous element of it being a new mmo is that you get that new experience again, something kind of long gone for many without at least some wild revamp to everything (which provides it's own danger), at the same time though... the game is clearly not at fault of 'needing' such a thing. Just a personal thought, at the close of this 6.0 saga.. There are certain characters or things that I might feel have been 'old' and not as interesting again. While I know WoW has stumbled so it's not entirely that, I also think much of what WoW is having issue right now is it's just too dang old - little can reignite the child like excitement now that it's electric boogaloo part 50. The FFXIV team is skilled enough I'm sure they might be able to squeeze some more out, but at least personally I know I greatly want to get to see end of 6.0, but my mind is not 'pre-sold' on 6.1. I've faith they might figure it out, but I self recognize I'm not pre-invested like I am currently for 6.0. Something that is of course going to shift person to person, some people still play Age of Empires I or Total Annihilation daily.. I really enjoyed those game but I am not going to do that thanks lol.

That said I think it's why I hope / think they will at least do something significant. Not that I know they will, just a thought. Because it's easy to make your lembas bread turn into stale characters if you don't mix up something once in a while.

Temporary changes based on your progression like with Doman Enclave, Rhalgr's Reach and The First? Quite possible, they seem to like doing it lately. Permanent overhaul? Unlikely, tbh, though not impossible.

As for 6.1, there's still a good half of the world we didn't visit. All story we had so far was in a northern semisphere, which isn't complete yet, and then there's southern semisphere with Meracydia and god knows what else.

Visually FFXIV looks good and I don't understand how it is dated. There are a lot of games produced even now with worse graphics because not all games care about graphics resembling real life.

An MMO is not likely to require too high-end of a computer because they need to be playable on a wide variety of specs to attract the maximum amount of users.

There is capability to make higher polygon models with more detail than they currently have, but they restrict polygons on purpose because if 30% of the models have high polygons and the rest don't then the inconsistency is weird and it's noticeable. This was one of the problems with 1.0 and one of the reasons the game had to be remade.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Visually FFXIV looks good and I don't understand how it is dated. There are a lot of games produced even now with worse graphics because not all games care about graphics resembling real life.

An MMO is not likely to require too high-end of a computer because they need to be playable on a wide variety of specs to attract the maximum amount of users.

There is capability to make higher polygon models with more detail than they currently have, but they restrict polygons on purpose because if 30% of the models have high polygons and the rest don't then the inconsistency is weird and it's noticeable. This was one of the problems with 1.0 and one of the reasons the game had to be remade.

---

I think what concerns most of us is that such an overhaul takes a lot of time and money. We want to hear that they are starting the graphics overhaul for two reasons. First, we know it’s coming and second is that they believe so strongly in the games future that they are willing to spend such resources on its future.

According to Yoshi-P, the game was designed with the flexibility to improve graphically as specs increase, such as the detail on the bones. What we do have to remember is that the graphics are limited by PS4 and will most likely be for some years.

I'm curious what graphics actually need changing, because again they already did an AI upscale of ARR textures and UI icons with manual modifications for the ones that looked weird after those changes.