FFXIV: Do you think Square Enix will put more money and resources into it?

Honest question. With FFXIV popularity booming as of late, do you think Square Enix will actually put more money into it? Give Yoshi P and team more resources, staff and the like. I would really hope so. Just think of what they could do with more teams, resources and time! Improve Viera and Hrothgar, improve animations (Elezen run anyone?), be able to create more content easier, due to having more people to work on it. Improve textures maybe (HDTexture pack perhaps?).

What do you guys think? Will Square Enix actually do this, or do you think they'll just keep things the way they are? I really do hope they give the FFXIV team more people and resources and the like. They deserve it for all they've done.

Will probably depend on if the popularity "boom" keeps going or not.

Sadly money is not the issues the game is having right now. It is chip shortage, and just the state of the world.

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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Originally Posted by Wavaryen

Sadly money is not the issues the game is having right now. It is chip shortage, and just the state of the world.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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Ah... That would be a problem.

Hmmm, perhaps they could do what they did with PSO2 and it's new genesis?

Finish the story of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, then when the players travels to the 'New world' (as we've been told we'll eventually go to) that could be a good excuse to use an upgraded engine and the like. I can only make speculation though. I have no inkling on how such things would work to be honest... T_T

I *suppose* they could simply upgrade the engine via a new patch, could that really work? I don't think it could... Hmmm....

I highly doubt it, I mean, why would they? playerbase is increasing despite less content

The credits look like a lot more people have been hired since ARR, there has been more outsourcing and the liveletters and developer blogs talk of how the outsourcing is being done and what training new developers is like. The money from the mog station is reinvested into the game's development. I don't understand why people think money and resources are not going into the game.

Yoshi-P says that making the graphics too good would make developing fights and assets difficult, because the better the graphics the more work they are. He has a point.

https://youtu.be/emFem0PJdd0?t=1678 enable subtitles

More developers doesn't always mean more overall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The money from the mog station is reinvested into the game's development. I don't understand why people think money and resources are not going into the game.

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If the money from mogstation/promotional items would be reinvested into the game, we would have a whole different game by now lmao.

SE content for at least the future 3+ years is almost planned out completely, it is how they operate, on endwalker launch they will start finishing the end of endwalker and start the new addon development. They are highly predictable in what content they develop, they don't wanna take risks anymore. I highly doubt they will put more money in anything than needed, they would get away with a fraction of the fraction of content they delivered this addon and community will still praise them to heaven. Also it will become more difficult to find people in the future who will understand their code mess, you probably need a doctors degree in ancient 1.0 code to be able to optimize it a tiny bit further. And I can understand that some devs might want to leave the project and start with their own ones, after a decade working for them.

They have like hundreds of small issues that already exist since a really long time, but they always ask themselves if they even wanna fix it, when they could be doing new content instead, which attracts more people...

It feels like their marketing team is better funded than their dev team recently. They try to maximize profits from new players, while older players get bored by the dumbed down gameplay and lack of midcore content. Smallscale dungeonlike content that is harder has been requested for years too and all you get is "they will think about it" :). Some sort of special condition achievements for dungeons like in WoW (beat a boss while you have this debuff etc.), or speedruns or mythic-like difficulties in whatever way it would be suitable for FF14 are just totally lacking. Especially now that they didn't wanna develop the PotD lvl80 iteration.

But again, the average new player will take half a year - year now to just get past the vast content it has, which is nice for that player, but once you reached the endgame, I don't think it offers that much anymore, you are better off subbing once a half year or year for some time.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

But again, the average new player will take half a year - year now to just get past the vast content it has, which is nice for that player, but once you reached the endgame, I don't think it offers that much anymore, you are better off subbing once a half year or year for some time.

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There are plenty of grinds that take years for things like mounts and relics. You would only get bored if you didn't give yourself goals.

The game has been making a huge profit before the bandwagon of new players and streamers. We still cant get simple things we've been asking for for years, so no most likely not.

Pretty sure they're not lacking money as much as time to actually implement things they want to. Ultimately they have to choose what best to invest their time into and that means that sometimes things that people want might not make the cut. Also, things that might appear simple to implement aren't always so.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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I do hope you mean update as in "add stuff to it" and not upgrade as in "move the whole thing to another engine" cause the 2nd one would require remaking the whole game from scratch (again since that is what happened after 1.x).

Why?

Less content, more players

We will get more and more players, and much less content as the expansion comes

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Originally Posted by Ath192

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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The graphics are totally fine. If you want more fancy effects, use reshade. But no need to change the engine. Better graphics are not making a better game.

I would give the Creative Business Unit III the time, money and other resources to rework old systems like the glamour, housing, items and PvP. Maybe continue older content like the grand companies, squadrons, monster log, veteran rewards and novice hall.

And remove mentors xD

Prolly not, considering that the most popular expac to this game ever, just uh... Brought less and less content despite the big boom.

Luckily the game is fun with a single dungeon per Patch cycle too.

Tho... I'd wish they used all the money we pay for bigger and "better" content.

However, covid is still going on too.

Only time will tell, or FF16 If its crappy ^^

Depends, if they were to get more money I would suspect a decent chunk would go to the marketing team. Unfortunately that is kinda the reality with such projects rarely do companies put more money into an already profitable project when they have other projects to work on when it comes to development of the game.

Though infrastructure and marketing are highly likely yes.

Of course not.
Veteran players have been asking the same over and over, and while quality remains and improve: Content itself is cut over and over each expansion.

It is clear for anyone that XIV is not reciving the resources it needs to flourish and this has been a trend since it's comeback success. If it works don't invest on it.

I don't think so, sadly.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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Indeed. At least, SE should invest just to improve the FF14 textures for grounds, landscapes, buildings, environments, etc.... Armors/weapons and players are OK so far.
I'm sure it won't be a big deal. Or just use an AI to do the work.

They are currently throwing a load more money at FFXIV than usual, it's all going into new server infrastructure. US and EU are getting more instance servers, and the Oceanic DC is getting set up. That's where most of the money goes, to things behind the scenes.

As for content, it's not always the case that more money = more content. Too many people can muddy things up and actually drag development down.
Once thing more manpower would help with however is things like more options for the character creator, more headgear for Viera/Hrothgar, more weapons for newer jobs, etc. That's what they need to invest a little more in.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

The graphics are totally fine. If you want more fancy effects, use reshade. But no need to change the engine. Better graphics are not making a better game.

I would give the Creative Business Unit III the time, money and other resources to rework old systems like the glamour, housing, items and PvP. Maybe continue older content like the grand companies, squadrons, monster log, veteran rewards and novice hall.

And remove mentors xD

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We shouldn't depend on filters and third party tools to get a better look but that's not the only issue, reworking the game at that level would fix all the fundamental issues this game has like allow a trans mog instead of a limited glamour system, and I know you want to virtue signal and seem considerate of the creators and company but every problem this game has is tied to its horrible engine. Even Yoshi P doesn't like it and has expressed a desire to upgrade it.

So then why are you defending and even encouraging that the company doesn't do anything about it? Everyone knows its bad and even the people who work on it don't like it. This also doesn't have to come at the expense of working devs to death. While they could certainly go that route they could also simply expand their departments so that they can get more done and still give their employees good work life balance and weeks vacation.

People making excuses for the game are actively holding it back.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

The graphics are totally fine. Better graphics are not making a better game.

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But they do.

Graphics of XIV are not totally fine: Lowres textures actually hurt some of the amazings designs this game has to offer and take many players out of immersion by blocky pixalated textures, or even devious ones (trailer metallic DRG armor of heavensward vs leather, wet cardboard in game one).
The shadows on this game, i have to stand for a good while for the shadows of trees to become somewhat sharp, while interior shadows are blocky messes.
I play at 1080p so maybe i've got it all wrong because in 4k might not be much of an issue, but not having a proper anti-aliasing solution also is a bad thing.

Let's stop thinking graphics don't matter in videogames, they are in the name videogames.

Well, this thing ran on PS3 somehow too... But there is a reason why most players use some form of third party filter.

Many of the older character models and animations are looking very stiff and dated at this point. So texture improvements and character customisation enhancements are high on my priority list of features to push for.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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Agreed, and they do seem to be giving it serious thought (here and here.)

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Originally Posted by CaedemSanguis

We will get more and more players, and much less content as the expansion comes

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If, by "content", you mean instances (dungeons, raids, etc), perhaps. If, by "content", you mean new and possibly innovative features to please the home audience, not so much.

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Well, this thing ran on PS3 somehow too... But there is a reason why most players use some form of third party filter.

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Most players of this game do not use any form of third-party filter. Your anecdotal evidence is performed using a self-selected set of responders on these and other forums.

How can I possibly know? The popular third-party filter doesn't run on any of the consoles, and "most" implies that population has been ignored completely.

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Originally Posted by IckeDerTyp

Prolly not, considering that the most popular expac to this game ever, just uh... Brought less and less content

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Less and less combat content in your eyes, possibly. It brought two new areas to concentrate upon for the Relic weapons chase. It brought new (and old) areas for crafters and gatherers to play.

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People should not ignore all of the non-combat changes made to the game, each of which can be considered "content" for purposes of this discussion. People also need to stop using ARR as the prime example of what constitutes "content". Yeah, there were more dungeons and other sorts of things to do than what followed after (even waaaaay more quests in the MSQ). But. ARR was written at a time when the viability of the new revamp was not guaranteed ... and players needed to know that new things were scheduled to crop up in-game to encourage them to continue subscribing.

The current team no longer considers continuous subscription to be the primary goal of this form of entertainment.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If, by "content", you mean instances (dungeons, raids, etc), perhaps. If, by "content", you mean new and possibly innovative features to please the home audience, not so much.



Most players of this game do not use any form of third-party filter. Your anecdotal evidence is performed using a self-selected set of responders on these and other forums.

How can I possibly know? The popular third-party filter doesn't run on any of the consoles, and "most" implies that population has been ignored completely.



Less and less combat content in your eyes, possibly. It brought two new areas to concentrate upon for the Relic weapons chase. It brought new (and old) areas for crafters and gatherers to play.

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People should not ignore all of the non-combat changes made to the game, each of which can be considered "content" for purposes of this discussion. People also need to stop using ARR as the prime example of what constitutes "content". Yeah, there were more dungeons and other sorts of things to do than what followed after (even waaaaay more quests in the MSQ). But. ARR was written at a time when the viability of the new revamp was not guaranteed ... and players needed to know that new things were scheduled to crop up in-game to encourage them to continue subscribing.

The current team no longer considers continuous subscription to be the primary goal of this form of entertainment.

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Diadem was literally copy and pasted from an old area. Firmament was new yes but SB was able to give us Shirogane without sacrificing combat content. Let’s not forget that we also missed out on primal weapons for Gnb and Dnc, Voice acting for the 3 weapons trials, voice acting for the nier raids, Dungeons per patch, deep dungeon, 2 relic zones seeing that SB brought us 4. An extra trial(SB gave us Rathalis and Yojimbo,) Allied beast tribe quests, Hildibrand quests, end of expansion glamours, and i’m sure much more i can’t think of atm.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

So then why are you defending and even encouraging that the company doesn't do anything about it? Everyone knows its bad and even the people who work on it don't like it. This also doesn't have to come at the expense of working devs to death. While they could certainly go that route they could also simply expand their departments so that they can get more done and still give their employees good work life balance and weeks vacation.

People making excuses for the game are actively holding it back.

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I m not defending anybody, where did I say that? There are tons of things SE should fix or implement.
I just dont think, that graphics should be top priority. Not before older/broken systems are fixed before.

All I want to say is, that it doesnt need to rework the entire engine just for better graphics.
Just a few tweaks on the directX interface may be enough. Or maybe a downloadable texture pack for PC/PS5.

There are tons of other MMORPGs with fancy graphics. Yes, they look gorgous. But on the same side they lack even the simplest, basic features of FFXIV. And dont forget: FFXIV is almost 8 years old now... .
If you re just looking for good graphics, Black Desert Online may be your game.

Speaking of PSO2 NG. I played it. I played PSO2 JP. NG is way better than the original PSO2. But that didnt stop me to quit after 2 days of playing.
Elite Dangerous promised better graphics but delivered one of the biggest downgrade in history. It looks now even worse and is lagging like hell. Thats not how to make an expansion.



PS: Reshade is not a third party tool or filter. Just saying.

There was an already old interview in which Yoshida talked about how throwing more money and people at a game will not magically make it better, and that there is other limits involved. I am too lazy to find it again though, since with the game becoming more and more popular, Google is showing me an awful lot of different interviews.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Diadem was literally copy and pasted from an old area. Firmament was new yes but SB was able to give us Shirogane without sacrificing combat content. Let’s not forget that we also missed out on primal weapons for Gnb and Dnc, Voice acting for the 3 weapons trials, voice acting for the nier raids, Dungeons per patch, deep dungeon, 2 relic zones seeing that SB brought us 4. An extra trial(SB gave us Rathalis and Yojimbo,) Allied beast tribe quests, Hildibrand quests, end of expansion glamours, and i’m sure much more i can’t think of atm.

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I don’t disagree with your general point (as a DNC main my lack of primal weapons makes me sad) bu NieR raids are Alliance, do those ever have voice acting? I know there was a little voice acting for bosses in Return to Ivalice, am I forgetting something?

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

Better graphics are not making a better game.

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I assume people are sometimes slightly talking past each other when they say things like this, or rebuttals to this. Some are like hyper great graphics do not make a great game on their own. Or some are talking like great graphics, as in the fidelity (4K TEXTURES WOOO), is not important but the art can be (like some pixel games, obviously pixel... not 4k lol, but are still very very pretty).

So going off that, graphics, the sum of art and fidelity and just generally meaning "visual presentation".. that absolutely matters, right? Many people here, especially before WoW had so much negative press, first listed "cartoon graphics" on why they don't like or will not try WoW. Matters so much it 'was' first response many gave on why they play FFXIV. Or alternatively why some people didn't try FFXIV, "weeb graphics". Powerful enough to be a frequent, very frequent, no before even giving something a chance, and then even after giving a chance enough to turn people off from the rest of the game (even though there are a lot of mechanical similarities).

If the gameplay is terrible then great graphics just makes a good wallpaper simulator, and I think most people start agreeing here- and where a lot of people might mean "graphics do not make the game better" as they imagine playing a decent gameplay terrible graphic game vs a beautiful, hard to run on your machine perhaps, awful gameplay game. But I think the major mistake here, at least for the people going.. "uh.. yeah it matters" is you've got the field of "how about great graphics great gameplay?". Certainly you can have both in some games, even with great toggle sliders to allow some lower in machines (although certain quality games just wont run below a certain level, which introduces certain problems). Easier said for single player games of course, but if graphics didn't matter, like it was some huge conspiracy, then companies wouldn't spend millions on it. Huge waste of resources if it was irrelevant, but obviously it's not.

There is a hierarchy, and I think that's what people might be referencing when they say stuff like this, but it does just ring.. .. off? When thinking about graphics to mean the presentation of the game. Presentation is very important. FFXIV is generally pretty good, but there were, at least, imo, moments where the presentation faltered enough to be like "oh wow, that's bad man" (like the Crystal Arm, and such famous examples of MSQ). Or areas where I could imagine better engines would make a space shine. Personally something I see unfortunate is occasionally the distance from concept art to reality, which I don't really blame on the team doing terrain- it seems they have to follow some strict budgets (which there are reasons for)... but oh man if it was closer, I want to live in some of those concept arts (and I feel the terrain team does a good job, but occasionally the colors are off, which are helped with reshade, or the object count is highly reduced and so the busy fantastic nature is not quite fully represented in the final product). Certainly it's not uncommon to have concept art have some distance from reality, sometimes because they did some better adjustments, but in recent days the concept art and reality differences have gotten smaller and smaller (some games like some of FromSoft's games sometimes at a distance you might mistake concept art for in game lol). Which again isn't to say I think the game looks bad, just that it would be cool if it more room to look better. I'm sure some of it is a giant pain to plan around lower end machines (you can see some REALLY pretty games scale down for the lower end, but I can't imagine what it takes to plan for that... it's probably even more annoying for an MMO where you want to have 200 characters on screen at once, though personally I wouldn't mind lower numbers like 50 tops lol.. it just gets so noisy visually past that, and it's not a machine problem, just visually I'm like "what.. am.. I .. looking at..?".

Sorry presentation matters and graphics are part of said presentation, FFXIV textures are a mix bag which makes it far more noticeable.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I don’t disagree with your general point (as a DNC main my lack of primal weapons makes me sad) bu NieR raids are Alliance, do those ever have voice acting? I know there was a little voice acting for bosses in Return to Ivalice, am I forgetting something?

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HW wasn’t. SB had voice acting for the final boss of Rabanastre, Final boss of Ridorana, and then every boss in Orbonne is voiced. 3 trials have always been voiced(minus Sephirot), but for some reason they aren’t in ShB.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

*snip*

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While I think you're perfectly right and worded this well, in the end the devs themselves already see the potential value in upgrading the engine and textures and so are mostly looking at ways to handle the costs and implementation. As such, anyone claiming it doesn't matter is fighting a losing battle and one I can't really say I sympathise with as a player of the game. Sure, I don't want the gameplay experience to degrade, but as we keep being reminded, the gameplay is designed by different teams to the graphics. And they keep saying it's not financial resources they lack for, but the labour to do it. So the tradeoff doesn't really seem to be at play here in the first place (they have mentioned in the past it would be in terms of graphical assets in any case), especially as the game grows increasingly popular.

The game is competing with ever more visually impressive competitors (not just MMOs as any other game can compete for player time and money as an alternative use of both, except for those who absolutely must play an MMO), and has graphics which were held down by the PS3 and legacy issues related to that and various design decisions (especially regarding the textures). They're not even talking about making this have graphics like a game like 7R or Ghost of Tsushima, but just a matter of improving on the grainy pixels and allowing more flexibility in character design given the severe limitations their engine poses. This was something Ayumi Namae also brought up during the art panel for the lead up to SHB at the EU fanfest, that they'd like a less restrictive engine. So I am fairly confident that, provided that they can justify the costs, given the lifespan they now aspire towards for the game, it will come at some point. Maybe 7.0.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Sorry presentation matters and graphics are part of said presentation, FFXIV textures are a mix bag which makes it far more noticeable.

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One would hope it's obvious, but having had a few recently where people clearly partially skim read and formed an opinion from that, this is not addressing me right? lol

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Originally Posted by Lauront

While I think you're perfectly right and worded this well, in the end the devs themselves already see the potential value in upgrading the engine and textures and so are mostly looking at ways to handle the costs and implementation. As such, anyone claiming it doesn't matter is fighting a losing battle and one I can't really say I sympathise with as a player of the game. Sure, I don't want the gameplay experience to degrade, but as we keep being reminded, the gameplay is designed by different teams to the graphics. And they keep saying it's not financial resources they lack for, but the labour to do it. So the tradeoff doesn't really seem to be at play here in the first place (they have mentioned in the past it would be in terms of graphical assets in any case), especially as the game grows increasingly popular.

The game is competing with ever more visually impressive competitors (not just MMOs as any other game can compete for player time and money as an alternative use of both, except for those who absolutely must play an MMO), and has graphics which were held down by the PS3 and legacy issues related to that and various design decisions (especially regarding the textures). They're not even talking about making this have graphics like a game like 7R or Ghosts of Tsushima, but just a matter of improving on the grainy pixels and allowing more flexibility in character design given the severe limitations their engine poses. This was something Ayumi Namae also brought up during the art panel for the lead up to SHB at the EU fanfest, that they'd like a less restrictive engine. So I am fairly confident that, provided that they can justify the costs, given the lifespan they now aspire towards for the game, it will come at some point. Maybe 7.0.

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Oh yeah, the devs have said it's a thing to be done but just not high on their priority list (yet). Which in and of itself addresses a concept of value. I'm certain it will have to be (or a new MMO), given time; although, currently it's not that the game couldn't gain value from it.. just that they don't need to because the playerbase isn't going to leave for it and there isn't another mmo (yet) with enough pull to be like "I'm equally if not more fun, and better looking". Which is the magic of healthy competition certainly.

Also thank you for sharing the thoughts from the art team itself. I've always liked the terrain design, and concept art, and listening to them talk about pushing the engine hard to make some of the zones (like Khoulsia) was personally like "yes, thank you, thank you for your effort"- but I can feel.. there are restrictions in place that hold them down a little. It's not something I blame them for but just wish someone took a little off the leash lol (and I know that leash isn't made randomly, not to suggest it's a snap the fingers, pass a post-it note and it's fixed sort of thing).

But yeah, graphics matter. I always find it interesting when people have convinced themselves that graphics (read as "presentation") isn't relevant to the broader landscape of games. Of course someone may have a personal bias of "it really doesn't matter, I play roblox for the plot", but sometimes there are some arguments that are like "this can't possibly be even sort of true". Millions of dollars for something that has no relevance? That's just no... just a solid no. lol. But I do believe that 'part' of that is just people are using the same words to discuss different things, like some mention graphics as if it may mean texture size only (and of course there are games that don't use big budget textures yet still look gorgeous, in such a scenario one might say it doesn't matter). On a personal level one may really like MUD games, but clearly that's not the average user (so it may be a personal opinion but obviously couldn't be a global truth).

Beyond perhaps missing on the word use creating a situation that appears to be in disagreement when not really, I think some are using opinion but wording it as a general statement. Though some of it reminds me of the travel discussion in the other wish thread (concepts that fold in and out of journey/exploration), where some consider it as not a gameplay element (in a factual sense, not an opinion sense)- which clearly can't be true given all the effort many devs (of both sRPG and MMORPGs) have given such a concept (and that, some, players keep enjoying games that do that). Statements that don't hold up if you remove the idea outside the vacuum. Though I like to imagine most people are just misunderstood (either by the reader's fault or their own accidental wording), and usually I'm pleasantly surprised with the back and forth (though sometimes... .. not.. lol).

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Originally Posted by Ath192

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

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Being quite frank, if they ever decide to overhaul the engine, they're just going to start working on the next MMO instead.

Reworking a game engine isn't a small commitment; it is a massive undertaking and an expensive one. Time that will detract from the development of the content pipeline, if not grind it to a halt until the game engine upgrade is finished. Good luck convincing the shareholders & CEOs how a game engine update will bring in giant swathes of new players when not only is the game experiencing unprecedented popularity without it, while also giving hard facts at the expected number of players such an investment would bring in when they can chuck that money into marketing instead and get 20x better results.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Being quite frank, if they ever decide to overhaul the engine, they're just going to start working on the next MMO instead.

Reworking a game engine isn't a small commitment; it is a massive undertaking and an expensive one. Time that will detract from the development of the content pipeline, if not grind it to a halt until the game engine upgrade is finished. Good luck convincing the shareholders & CEOs how a game engine update will bring in giant swathes of new players when not only is the game experiencing unprecedented popularity without it, while also giving hard facts at the expected number of players such an investment would bring in when they can chuck that money into marketing instead and get 20x better results.

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Agree. Engine overhaul isnt likely to happen at this point since their FF MMO entries have taken a slot within the main franchise series as 11 and 14. 11 I believe is still going and pretty sure has only gotten visual polish with no changes to the actual engine or gameplay. The closest thing to an engine overhaul for this game would have been the relaunch for 2.0. Dropping PS3 support just let them use higher settings essentially within the current engine. Also SE in the past with other single player titles released them using an engine they'd built for a previous generation game console which resulted in some gameplay issues and complaints from people. So I have very low expectations of them breaking that trend for this title. They are still commiting monetary resources to this game in the form of our upcoming expansion, addition of new worlds/data centers, and additional housing wards. A popular streamer or 2 playing the game isnt likely to make them suddenly gush more money than already planned towards this title.

They won't have an option but to increase resources if Endwalker explodes. We might have another 2.0 launch on our hands if this keeps going.

I'm not sure if the game itself will get an overhaul, but the systems side of things are certainly going to get upgraded out of necessity.

The Graphics in the game arent bad to be fair the main issue is that the game engine will need some retuning though to better support textures at 4k resolution. Some of the older stuff in the game is badly pixelated as well like Hien or Raubahns armor and could do with some upresing. Hell theres already some mods out there that essentially upscale the likes of hair and faces on PCs for example so its definately doable.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

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WoW is almost 17 years old. And you clearly see that the visual upgrade trough expansions.
In FF14, I feel like there are no upgrades and even a downgrade. ARR zones were far superior for me.

Furthermore, and speaking about BDO, the game released just one year after FFXIV ARR.

But as I said, 100% agree with you for a downloadable texture pack for PC/PS5.


The game can be beautiful :

https://i.imgur.com/TXTSi9L.jpg


And sometimes, I don't know what ground textures meant to be :

https://i.imgur.com/P6Cp3Vb.jpg


>>> https://i.imgur.com/P6Cp3Vb.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ApprenticeSmithy

Honest question. With FFXIV popularity booming as of late, do you think Square Enix will actually put more money into it? Give Yoshi P and team more resources, staff and the like. I would really hope so. Just think of what they could do with more teams, resources and time! Improve Viera and Hrothgar, improve animations (Elezen run anyone?), be able to create more content easier, due to having more people to work on it. Improve textures maybe (HDTexture pack perhaps?).

What do you guys think? Will Square Enix actually do this, or do you think they'll just keep things the way they are? I really do hope they give the FFXIV team more people and resources and the like. They deserve it for all they've done.

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No. I don't. I think they'll farm this wave just like they always have FFXIV's previous profitability to pay for their desperately long development cycles for other games.