Interesting Bit of Speculation Regarding Game engine

SE refused to disclose what engine FFXVI is running on, and I share Quazii's hope that it makes it into FFXIV.

Since Yoshi-P has been tied into the game development he would be very familiar with it and maybe it can happen.

Supposedly some of the graphics update was going to get rolled slowly between 6.0 and 7.0 but we are over half-way in the 6.X patches and the only thing we've seen is dynamic resolution.

This leads me to believe that either they have run into issues and it's taking them longer OR, and perhaps my hope, that the graphical update is a lot bigger and better than we imagined and they are keeping it a surprise.

I have linked the time stamped video here:
https://youtu.be/c1GcWd3YasM?t=1215

This is a bit of copium but would wish it were true.

Single player game engines don't generally tend to make great mmo engines



Different needs and the like.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Single player game engines don't generally tend to make great mmo engines



Different needs and the like.

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Unreal engine is being used to develop MMO's so while this can be true, it doesn't have to be.

I thought ff14 was using some kind of variant of the luminous engine. i know 1.0 was made using crystal tools.

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Originally Posted by boldpaste2

I thought ff14 was using some kind of variant of the luminous engine. i know 1.0 was made using crystal tools.

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Yeah the thing is like a mesh between engines iirc, its a disaster. In the same interview they said they don't think its them whose going to be doing FFXVII, meaning that they may really begin to reinvest in XIV, I doubt they would leave Yoshi-P coasting. So since they are doing 10 more years, it would make sense to bite the bullet for a new engine, most games don't last 10 years, let alone 20. They must know this.

I know its a bit of a longshot, but nonetheless. We will find out in a few months during fanfest.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Unreal engine is being used to develop MMO's so while this can be true, it doesn't have to be.

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While not the best example but do recall that 1.0 suffered because they tried to use the Crystal Tools Engine which was used for FFXIII to accommodate for an MMO space which we all know led to a ton of problems.

I say not best example because current engines already are capable of doing MMO games with high graphical fidelity just depends on how well they're able to translate it into FFXIV.

Seems like there is alot of information going around, which may or may not be true..,
I dont recall where I read that XVI had either the same core, or a branch of what XIV has but tuned for A SP game.(though this was likely speculation from some forumer, specially since it tied too well with the Graphics update.., unless.., it's cause XVI is as such, that XIV Could retroactively improve..,)
Guess we won't know til XVI releases on console..,(and people dare to break in and peek..,) and once more information on the update surfaces/is released.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

While not the best example but do recall that 1.0 suffered because they tried to use the Crystal Tools Engine which was used for FFXIII to accommodate for an MMO space which we all know led to a ton of problems.

I say not best example because current engines already are capable of doing MMO games with high graphical fidelity just depends on how well they're able to translate it into FFXIV.

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Yeah but imo that wasn't the whole issue. If the people designing the game knew better than to make plants with hundreds of polygons and the like the game wouldn't have had anywhere near the performance issues they had. It was a combination of things that led to that disaster.

I'm sure someone with a lot of experience and knowledge on how MMOs work and are supposed to run could've made something decent with crystal tools. Either way though, newer engines coming out probably would be more robust and flexible for this sort of thing than the older ones for sure. So in technology, what was once true doesn't always remain the case in future iterations.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Yeah but imo that wasn't the whole issue. If the people designing the game knew better than to make plants with hundreds of polygons and the like the game wouldn't have had anywhere near the performance issues they had. It was a combination of things that led to that disaster.

I'm sure someone with a lot of experience and knowledge on how MMOs work and are supposed to run could've made something decent with crystal tools. Either way though, newer engines coming out probably would be more robust and flexible for this sort of thing than the older ones for sure. So in technology, what was once true doesn't always remain the case in future iterations.

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Polygons wasn't really whe whole reason for 1.0s issues.



Polygons didn't cause trading to take forever. That was archetecture.



The polygon thing gets mentioned a lot, because the game was graphically intense. But I only had a midrange system and was able to play at 1080p/60fps.



The whole game was server side. Mouse cursor, included.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Yeah but imo that wasn't the whole issue. If the people designing the game knew better than to make plants with hundreds of polygons and the like the game wouldn't have had anywhere near the performance issues they had. It was a combination of things that led to that disaster.

I'm sure someone with a lot of experience and knowledge on how MMOs work and are supposed to run could've made something decent with crystal tools. Either way though, newer engines coming out probably would be more robust and flexible for this sort of thing than the older ones for sure. So in technology, what was once true doesn't always remain the case in future iterations.

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Actually they've already done this successfully. Its called Dragon Quest X, the Japan only MMO that uses Crystal Tools. The reason why it worked there was due to how much simpler the game's graphics and systems were compared to FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Polygons wasn't really whe whole reason for 1.0s issues.



Polygons didn't cause trading to take forever. That was archetecture.



The polygon thing gets mentioned a lot, because the game was graphically intense. But I only had a midrange system and was able to play at 1080p/60fps.



The whole game was server side. Mouse cursor, included.

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yes, exactly, and by the time 2.0 launched the game was in a decent state even running on its original engine, but Yoshi felt the game needed a big come back. So it's always a combination of factors, and one the engine wasn't 100% to blame on.

it's also important to consider what an engine actually is which is just a collection of methods and systems that drives programs. if implemented correctly, adding functionality or updating existing modules could be easy and efficient. however, if you have modules that CO depends on other moduals to much, you start running into problems where adding capabilities or making adjustments to existing ones can be difficult. if updating 1 module breaks 3 in the pipeline, it's not an efficient engine.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

yes, exactly, and by the time 2.0 launched the game was in a decent state even running on its original engine, but Yoshi felt the game needed a big come back. So it's always a combination of factors, and one the engine wasn't 100% to blame on.

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They fixed the content issue (as in lack of content). The engine issues were still massively prevalent.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The polygon thing gets mentioned a lot, because the game was graphically intense. But I only had a midrange system and was able to play at 1080p/60fps.

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oh i remember these days lol. back then square had different divisions handling different functions of development and they had massive communication issues. hence the high poly flower pots. so even though there were engine issues, they had business structure issue also.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They fixed the content issue (as in lack of content). The engine issues were still massively prevalent.

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While I don't disagree the engine update improved things, which is what I'm hoping happens again you are attaching your entire belief to a bad experience with a single engine. This doesn't prove other engines can't do well at both single player and mmos just fine. But we can agree to disagree on this if it helps.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

While I don't disagree the engine update improved things, which is what I'm hoping happens again you are attaching your entire belief to a bad experience with a single engine. This doesn't prove other engines can't do well at both single player and mmos just fine. But we can agree to disagree on this if it helps.

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If they are going to go through the trouble of upgrading to a new engine, I'd rather it be one that's built to task than another "well, we can make it work"

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

If they are going to go through the trouble of upgrading to a new engine, I'd rather it be one that's built to task than another "well, we can make it work"

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I would too, but I'd take something over nothing xD

It doesn't matter how familiar Yoshi P is with XVI's engine, converting XIV to run on another engine isn't going to be an easy or cheap task.
I wouldn't hold out any hope for an engine overhaul until we hear anything from the horses mouth to suggest such a thing.
Speculating that a graphical overhaul could also come with a new engine, is quite a reach.

That said, I'm sure there's been a suggestion that XVI itself is running on a modified Luminous Engine anyway. If this is true, then it shouldn't be a stretch to more XIV over to that same modified engine, but at the same time, there's nothing there to suggest that would improve XIV all that much. MMOs and single player games work very differently.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

It doesn't matter how familiar Yoshi P is with XVI's engine, converting XIV to run on another engine isn't going to be an easy or cheap task.
I wouldn't hold out any hope for an engine overhaul until we hear anything from the horses mouth to suggest such a thing.
Speculating that a graphical overhaul could also come with a new engine, is quite a reach.

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It happened in 2.0 and rather quickly at that given they rushed development. unfortunately, the graphics went the other way haha but given how poorly it was performing during that hardware era it was perfectly understandable. I'm not sure, hence the speculation.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Single player game engines don't generally tend to make great mmo engines



Different needs and the like.

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Definitely this, as most single player engines I've seen in modern times aren't really designed with, for instance, large numbers of simultaneous onscreen actors at a time (think Hunts or certain FATEs especially). There's a reason why for instance the original Doom game engine is still heavily preferred for fans of mass slaughter shooter gameplay, it's because the old school 2.5D sprite based design can actually handle the hundreds of monsters and sometimes thousands of projectiles at a time (in fact, just try playing one of the "tons and tons of monsters in a room" experimental pieces like Nuts.WAD on a GL engine like GZDoom ... you'll find that even on a computer 20+ years newer than the thing was made you still can't get a decent framerate to save your life LOL).

Given the graphical level of FFXVI, and for that matter Forspoken, I could expect a disaster if such an engine was brought over verbatim to FF14. (In particular, given the reviews of Forspoken, I could easily imagine long time players suddenly having to scramble to get a PS5 and re-purchase all their XIV licenses for it or else literally have to get a RTX 4080/4090 to get decent speed in crowded areas. Might even make the Dalaran lag from original Wrath of the Lich King look snappy on less. I'd rather not have to replace my RX 6600 this soon ...)

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Originally Posted by Amarande

Given the graphical level of FFXVI, and for that matter Forspoken, I could expect a disaster if such an engine was brought over verbatim to FF14.

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The Engine does not equal the graphics of a game. A modern engine that is capable of rendering high-quality textures does not have to do so. Everything depends on the graphics team. More over games usually have graphic settings that you can lower and increase to achieve the desired framerate.

It's a nice dream, but I wouldn't use the refusal to name the tool (especially if new and proprietary) as being indicative of anything for XIV. Frankly speaking, whilst the updates to XIV will most likely be substantive, relatively speaking. I don't see them being that substantive.

I think the information and teases, or lack thereof, actually, for the graphical update, I just think they'll be saving it for the right time until it's more flushed out and ready to go. Arguably, it's going to be one of the pivotal feature updates going into 7.0, and as such, they'll tease it on the relevant live letters / fan fests.

I am curious what exactly this update or overhaul they are doing entails. Are we just getting textures and models improved or are we going to see new particle effects and sound design as well. I don't know what it is about XIV but most of the sound effects I get through it seem to lack any midrange or real bass unless it's really hitting the bass. I don't really think it's my settings since other games I play do not seem to have this problem. The tinkling sound with AST is especially egregious, after a certain amount of time playing my ears just can't take it.

FFXVI's plays like it's running on a Walmart-brand remake of the engine Strangers of Paradise uses.

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Originally Posted by Amarande

Definitely this, as most single player engines I've seen in modern times aren't really designed with, for instance, large numbers of simultaneous onscreen actors at a time (think Hunts or certain FATEs especially). There's a reason why for instance the original Doom game engine is still heavily preferred for fans of mass slaughter shooter gameplay, it's because the old school 2.5D sprite based design can actually handle the hundreds of monsters and sometimes thousands of projectiles at a time (in fact, just try playing one of the "tons and tons of monsters in a room" experimental pieces like Nuts.WAD on a GL engine like GZDoom ... you'll find that even on a computer 20+ years newer than the thing was made you still can't get a decent framerate to save your life LOL).

Given the graphical level of FFXVI, and for that matter Forspoken, I could expect a disaster if such an engine was brought over verbatim to FF14. (In particular, given the reviews of Forspoken, I could easily imagine long time players suddenly having to scramble to get a PS5 and re-purchase all their XIV licenses for it or else literally have to get a RTX 4080/4090 to get decent speed in crowded areas. Might even make the Dalaran lag from original Wrath of the Lich King look snappy on less. I'd rather not have to replace my RX 6600 this soon ...)

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None of that has anything to do with it being an 'MMO'. The main difference is usually architecture and data communication. But a game client is still a game client.

It being an MMO or Single Player game does not change how things are rendered at the core of the engine itself, that has to do with the pipeline and the expectation of graphical limitations for the amount of static or dynamic objects. Has nothing to do with.. Amount of actors in a scene. . ?

An 'MMO' Engine is typically a 2-3 part system with a client, server instance, and sometimes other interpreters for data exchange and storage. If you take the first part, the Client. Then you can write all of the game logic without server interaction and it would be fine. 'MMO' is all about saving as much memory, cpu, and network calls as possible with the server instance and infra all separated from the client.

So yeah, they can make a Single Player game out of the FFXIV client fork of Luminous. Which I'm pretty sure was forked again for XVI.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

The Engine does not equal the graphics of a game. A modern engine that is capable of rendering high-quality textures does not have to do so. Everything depends on the graphics team. More over games usually have graphic settings that you can lower and increase to achieve the desired framerate.

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Sorta, but the engine still forces a Rendering Pipeline that determines most of that. The team is limited by what pipeline and tools they have at their disposal. Being limited on dynamic lights because of the lighting model, or things like not having PBR, or newer shader systems have a significant impact on the art/tech team's ability to create complex systems and can also impact the client's overall performance.

I was under the impression that FFXIV was build on a modified version of whatever FF13 was built on.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I was under the impression that FFXIV was build on a modified version of whatever FF13 was built on.

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XIII used Crystal Tools, as did XIV 1.0
Luminous was used for XIII-2, which is what XIV, XV and Forspoken run on.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Unreal engine is being used to develop MMO's so while this can be true, it doesn't have to be.

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And pretty much all of the MMOs running on Unreal are some of the worst optimised games out there, because the engine was not built to support the sort of structure MMO needs.

Well, I'm trying to not get my furry ears hypped by this thought, but...

To change the engine and solve all the current issues and limitations we have now is a dream that I have for some years now.

Normally, the process take some years to make (the migrating to a new engine in an ongoing game). But they have experience in such things. I don't care if it takes 3 or 4 years to make and they possibly are trying to cover it up for now to not give us this very hype (and tons of threads here asking for the change xD ). But, I really think this could be a real possibility and I hope for it!

Can you imagine? If my ears react to my emotes/emotions like a real bunny does?
And if we can see our hats and use all hairstyles inside game? Well, in a new engine this could be possible! Maybe, that's why they are so lazy with Hroths and Vieras requests in these matters...
Imagine as well how immersive improviments this could bring to all the cutscenes! To all game content!! Oh my Goddess!!

Well, lemme breathe... like I said... I can't fall for such hypes... Well, not yet. '-'

The problem in FF14 is not the engine. The engine can already handle way better textures and light effects without any problems. If you do not believe me then join a night club discord and look into the screenshot section. There should be many screenshots made with mods.

The problem is the content itself like low res textures. If you have something like this then the best engine cannot help you.





Cheers