The fact of the matter is

[Betelgeuzah]

At this point, wouldn't it be a little difficult to overhaul their engine?


Aside from that, I agree with you.

I think so. However, it is necessary. Otherwise, and it pains me to say this, but they will have too tough of a time working around the limitations.

Just look at them struggling to implement simple things to the UI. They seem to be proud to announce that soon all three action bars will be visible... simultaneously. months of work and they're finally close to the goal!

Goddayum.

[Cichy]

Betelgeuzah I think your original post maybe the smartest thing anyone said on this forum.

crystal tool limitations is the root of all evil

[Razor]

I think so. However, it is necessary. Otherwise, and it pains me to say this, but they will have too tough of a time working around the limitations.

Just look at them struggling to implement simple things to the UI. They seem to be proud to announce that soon all three action bars will be visible... simultaneously. months of work and they're finally close to the goal!

Goddayum.

I'm sure that ever since release everyone on the XIV development team has been working late nights and weekends specifically assigned to making all three bars visible.

Really? If this was the case we wouldn't be seeing any of the additions we have been seeing. Your signature even outlines it perfectly: "Yoshida: We’ll do our best! (laughs) We have to start with the fundamentals though. If we try to take on everything at once, we won’t be able to release anything at all." Things like UI and server fixes have likely been on the backburner and completely untouched because things like developing content and fixing the battle system took precedence.

[Razor]

Betelgeuzah I think your original post maybe the smartest thing anyone said on this forum.

crystal tool limitations is the root of all evil

Also, I appologize for the double post but this has been really irking me since I started following this forum.

I'm very attentive to little tidbits of information that is released about the game, where are people finding factual backing to statements like these and all the other unproven rumors (ie: crafting classes are getting limited). What proof is there that the Crystal Engine is any worse than any other engine out there? Its a proprietary engine so its its inner workings are likely well guarded and if an engine as basic as Source can make Portal 2 work well, Crystal has its work cut out for it.

[Tsukino]

I think so. However, it is necessary. Otherwise, and it pains me to say this, but they will have too tough of a time working around the limitations.

Just look at them struggling to implement simple things to the UI. They seem to be proud to announce that soon all three action bars will be visible... simultaneously. months of work and they're finally close to the goal!

Goddayum.

I fully support your main idea that the game needs to run better net-wise so that it can actually be played properly without lag. I'm one of the many people who "liked" your post for it.

But the idea that it has anything to do with the graphics engine or that the graphics engine should be "overhauled" is ridiculous. They spent years developing JUST the engine, and the entire purpose of such an engine is to be able to implement artists' work more easily into new games. To overhaul it would defeat its reason for existing in the first place. If they needed to redo the graphics (which they don't) then they'd just scrap the game entirely and build a new one from scratch.

They do need to fix the net code and stop asking the servers for extra special confirmation on every action. We need to be able to play the game and not have up to a few seconds of lag on a regular basis. We need more streamlined UI that doesn't ask as many questions as it does, or require scrolling windows where they're unnecessary. But the graphics engine does not need to be overhauled to accomplish this, nor would it even be remotely feasible to spend time and money on at this point, in what is already the best looking MMO around.

[Tibian]

They do need to fix the net code and stop asking the servers for extra special confirmation on every action. We need to be able to play the game and not have up to a few seconds of lag on a regular basis. We need more streamlined UI that doesn't ask as many questions as it does, or require scrolling windows where they're unnecessary. But the graphics engine does not need to be overhauled to accomplish this, nor would it even be remotely feasible to spend time and money on at this point, in what is already the best looking MMO around.

This, all of this.

[Betelgeuzah]

But the graphics engine does not need to be overhauled to accomplish this, nor would it even be remotely feasible to spend time and money on at this point, in what is already the best looking MMO around.

The server problems and the engine problems are separate. Together they create a feeling that I'm walking through a swamp while playing.

Just because the engine can create ultra HD graphics doesn't make it good. A good engine can achieve that and perform efficiently for both the players and developers. This engine doesn't.

[Coldfire]

Just wanted to mention:
The devs for ingame logics, GUI, graphical engine, netcode, etc. are most likely all different people. So they should be able to work on different things at the same time... that's how it's fastest actually. No point having the whole team work on a new battle system when everyone is expert in a different field :/
It almost seems like they lost the parts of the team responsible for the gfx engine and the netcode. Until now we only saw minor fixes to those things even though most complaints are about the lag and the high resource usage on slower systems.
Would offer them my help but I don't speak japanese that well xD

[Catapult]

Crystal Tools is not the issue in and of itself. The crystal tools engine ran XIII very smoothly with excellent responsiveness.

The issue lies in the server's ability to send and receive data and how much of it tries to do. It's in the coding that makes use of crystal tools to display the data. It's about where, how quickly and with what power commands are sent, received and are processed. It is game-specific, not engine-specific.

Now if you wanted to talk about the copy/paste landscape, then you can talk about the Crystal Tools shortcomings.

The user interface is a seperate topic again. It was designed for gamepad use in mind and, if I recall, plans are to create a keyboard-specific interface.

But back on topic, yes, the server side issues causing lag/latency both inside the servers themselves and through international transmission need attending to.

[Aistaraina]

You know what would be super sexy? If SE stopped trying to create a console MMO for a PC.