Old Weather Animation Graphics - What do you like more in the Old Version of FFXIV?

Whole I really like the weather from this and it would be nice if they would consider it for DX11 (although my expectations are low so I don't get disappointed) the rain is especially noticable. I don't honestly think the PS3 could handle this kind of a weather system.

There were several other improvements including the area details which adds to the environment.

Again while this is a nice to have until I don't realistically expect it, and I don't want to sacrifice the little details that have been appearing for the weather niceties.

Thanks for sharing though. There were some aspects of 1.0 that were loads better but most aspects of 1.0 made the game a chore. In the end I feel it was a reasonable tradeoff

Having played 1.#, there isn't a game console today that could have handled it. My gaming laptop can run laps around the PS4 and it couldn't even handle 1.# very well at Medium settings. 1.#'s engine was a great engine... for single-player RPGs. MMOs there was just too much detail. People talked about the character culling during Odin and Behemoth fights back early in 2.0... imagine that level of culling, but everywhere. All the time. It was necessary because the models were just that detailed and complex. Again, rest in peace 1.#, rest forever.

From what I see, it's really just the lighting that was so superior in 1.0. Most of the models are close enough it wouldn't make a big difference. But lighting affects how the entire world looks. It's not more realistic because the textures are 10x better. The textures look better because the lighting reacts more naturally. I personally am very excited to see the direct x upgrade to lighting they keep talking about. I have a strong suspicion it will have a broad positive effect on the overall visuals.

Just look at those Garuda images. The reflections and shadows would really help move us back that direction without dramatic changes to textures or poly counts. People really underestimate the power lighting has for good or I'll on a games realism and atmosphere. ARR is a little flat, true, but lighting would really polish this game up.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

What I think is that you are to focused on a silly thing like weather to notice the things that make each area unique and interesting. Why is weather so important to you? Obviously our opinions differ about weather in the game.

When 1.0 was released, the game's graphics were never said to be anything less than impressive. It wasn't enough to save the game from it's many many faults though. The huge areas were bland and uninteresting with one part of the map looking no different from another. It looked as though they just took part of the map and the copy-pasted it a bunch of times to make one large zone.

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How the assets are laid out (mapping) has nothing to do with this thread, which is about the graphical effects (bump/normal maps, high res textures, lightning, filters, bloom, etc.) They could have easily kept the graphical fidelity while also keeping the new more unique but claustrophobic maps, but they obviously wanted to keep some parity with the PS3 version.

Remember what was said in the GDC: there were more polygons in the 1.0 flowerpots than there are in a 2.0 character model. It's like most of the money and time was spent polishing the graphics, that they completely forgot about gameplay experience (probably explains why the game tanked, huh).

It doesn't really bother me that much, though. I think what animations and graphics are in currently, given the overall plan of the game (time frames and business side included) is pretty amazing and I can always find a nice spot to just stare at. But then, I'm not one of those who gets pulled out of the game because of some bad texture somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Gextiv

Why did FF 14 launch without DX11?

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Because it would require a lot more work, and wouldn't hit the breadth of audience that ARR currently does? There's a reason why the DX11 version will have its own client, and why it is taking as long as it is to develop (it's getting there, though, as it is currently in the optimisation stages iirc). But obviously, development works by wishing things into existence (that's why non-developers in almost any software company always expect their developers to have things done in short notice and without any issues at all).

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

It does look nice, but it probably would have made it a bit too intensive for the mainstream PC gamer to run without choking.

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Yep, Yoshi P said a while back that one of the main problems that ver 1.0 had is that some object textures where so high that they had the same ammount of polygons as a playble character which made loading times and lag in towns a huge issue, sure, everything looked really nice in ver 1.0 but it wasn't the smoothest game in terms of lag or optimization, my computer struggled sometimes while running the game on high.

I actually think they made the right choice with the textures in ARR.

Seamless zones from 1.0. It felt like a 'world' albeit empty, but it felt massive.

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

You do realize that the DX11 version will probably add back all of the textures we once had in 1.0, right?

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Unlikely, Yoshida already confirmed not to expect a drastic change in terms of graphical quality beyond maybe, maybe better shaders for things like water.

I think the overall visual direction and detail is what I miss the most.

I miss having gender/race specific animations...