can someone explain the whole 1.0 graphics > 2.0?

ive seen screenshots, ive seen videos but i just dont see it.
1.0 looks very muddy and shiny at the same time somehow.the colors look very muted and extremely plain. everything is very gloomy (even before the world ending event)

ive watched some attack animation videos and while yes, it does feel nice to have the attack weight in the animation, its simply not possible to do it in this game with how much fast reflex movement is needed

I think most people go on about how the textures look on the character models and the terrain. These were scaled down for 2.0 most likely (among other things) to be better run on PC and not make the PS3 sound like they are gonna explode.

They scaled down textures and polygon models by a small percentage to increase the amount of machines that would be capable of running the game. However the lighting effects and some other graphic enhancements blow 1.0 out of the water. I've played since 1.0 Alpha and I think their changes were for the best, sure my crazy PC can run it but I have a lot more friends in my FC for their decision to allow the game to run on something other than a supercomputer :)

Graphics were far more detailed back in 1.0 but it had a cost of requiring a F load of system requirements that can make a PS3 over heat.

Just look at the detail for 1.0 cutscene compared to now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXSHLPB1aM

they scaled down character model? really? because this game has crazy detail for character model
especially fi you looks at the more intricate armor like ironworks stuff

hard to imagine how detailed 1.0 must be

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

Graphics were far more detailed back in 1.0 but it had a cost of requiring a F load of system requirements that can make a PS3 over heat.

Just look at the detail for 1.0 cutscene compared to now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXSHLPB1aM

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ok i watched that and im sorry but that looks awful. everyone is extremely shiny for some reason. their skin looks very plastic-like and it seems like the cutscene has some instagram filter on it or something

I remember hearing that the primary focus on development of 1.0 was to make as pretty looking a game as possible- to the detriment of pretty much everything else.

I have a pretty decent computer, and it handles 2.0 just fine but 1.0 made it drop frames like an art gallery in an earthquake.

I think it's worth a mention that they replaced the game engine (from Crystal Tools, the engine FFXIII was built with, to a game specific engine). Not that it exactly has anything to do with the "downgrade".

FFXIV 1.0 had ubsurdly high polygon counts for everything. Many regular objects, like a flower pot (as mentioned by Yoshi-P), had about as many polygons as a player character model. That's how ridiculous it was.

By the standard of polygon count, 1.0 looked much much better. Lighting and environment detail wise, however, 2.0 is generally seen as the better. We've gone from LITERAL rotated copy pasta maps to areas built with detail in mind. The areas feel smaller by comparison, but this among other factors (like optimized game engine and each city/area is zoned off like in FFXI) allows lower end computers and the PS3 to run the game.

And a cut from the Polygon post about it:

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Yoshida pointed to three main reasons for Final Fantasy 14's failure in that first form. First, the team had an "unhealthy obsession with graphical quality." In a series of videos comparing the original version of Final Fantasy 14 to A Realm Reborn, he showed that the core game may have looked slightly better, but its areas were also empty and it took up a lot of processing power.

For a specific example, Yoshida showed a screenshot of a flowerpot outside of an inn in the first form of Final Fantasy 14. He called it "the loveliest flowerpot in an MMO," but then revealed its heavy cost: That single flowerpot contained over 1,000 polygons and 150 lines of shader code, meaning it took up as many resources as a single player character.

In order to accommodate such heavily detailed graphics, the original team made compromises that went against the reasons why people play MMOs. For example, they limited the number of player characters on screen at any one time to 20. While this allowed the game to look beautiful while still running, it lost sight of how great it is to log on to an online game and see dozens of players running around at once.

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http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/20/552...n-new-approach

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Originally Posted by File2ish

We've gone from LITERAL rotated copy pasta maps to areas built with detail in mind.

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^ This, 100 percent this. The areas in 1.0 felt huge but they were almost all a blur of similar looking areas. The Black Shroud especially was like a nightmare to try to navigate.

I'm with the OP on the comparison of 1.0 to 2.0.

To put it kurtly, too much bloom! Everything looks like it's glowing! How can I appreciate the detail when it looks so washed out?!

So, yeah, I much prefer the color palette and lighting of 2.0.