So are consoles holding back this game?

[CodingSquirrel]

Except that...it's not. We don't have customization because the dev-team and the playerbase had stated that they don't care about customization since only the most efficient path matters. Blame the players.

Just stop hearing from uneducated players, then. Just a reminder, the PC and PS4 versions already have many things that the PS3 does not. So the only one who are "limited" by the PS3...are the PS3 players.

That's not true. Just because some things can be left out for the PS3 players without much issue doesn't mean that it's not holding the game back for everyone in other places. Some stuff can't be toggled off. World sizes, mob/player density, character customizations, neighborhood sizes, etc.

[Reynhart]

World sizes

Are the HW maps too little for you ?

mob/player density

That's why we also don't have large FATES, right ? Or perhaps you should just realize that the display is different for PC and PS3, to adapt to each support...

character customizations

A thing that, again, people don't want when it comes to building a character...or things that wasn't prevented by the PS3, since we have new hairstyles almost each patch, and they added an entire race in 3.0.
They also added new jobs, you know ? We new animation, and all that...

[CodingSquirrel]

snip

Those weren't things I said that need changing, but they are things that you'd have to account for the PS3 and couldn't simply implement for just the other platforms.

As for the FATEs I've only seen ones with a maximum of like 10 adds. Maybe some have more but that's not really that many. I've heard that areas like populated cities already chug quite a bit for the PS3, imagine if they wanted to increase populations per instance even more.

Excuses about what people do or do not want aside, the more detailed the customization the more resources it requires to display it all. No one said they're so limited that they can't add anything else, you're acting like a few examples of small updates like including some extra hair styles means that they're not limited in other ways or limited from going as far as they could go.

[Reynhart]

As for the FATEs I've only seen ones with a maximum of like 10 adds. Maybe some have more but that's not really that many. I've heard that areas like populated cities already chug quite a bit for the PS3, imagine if they wanted to increase populations per instance even more.

So you never ended with around one hundred people for a world-FATE like Odin or Behemoth ?

Excuses about what people do or do not want aside, the more detailed the customization the more resources it requires to display it all. No one said they're so limited that they can't add anything else, you're acting like a few
examples of small updates like including some extra hair styles means that they're not limited in other ways or limited from going as far as they could go.

Do you even know what the PS3 can do ? It already has games with far bigger worlds and customization than anything FFXIV and the vast majority of PC-only MMO already do.
The real limitation is not the diversity of what it can do, but the number of characters/monster it can display at the same time...wich is already different between PS3, PS4 and PC.

When the dev-team talked about limitations, they frequently mentionned a server-side problem, wich has nothing to do with what system you're on.

[Colorful]

Just stop hearing from uneducated players, then. Just a reminder, the PC and PS4 versions already have many things that the PS3 does not. So the only one who are "limited" by the PS3...are the PS3 players.

As someone else pointed at, that's not true. Do you notice the extremely low resolution textures on armour in cutscenes, and even in details on walls/floors and so on? It's due to the PS3. A googled a bit of comparisons and it seems that all platforms use the same textures, but with different levels of AF applied (and a much nicer rendering resolution for the game itself) to make them look nicer but no amount of AF can make pixel art look good. They could release higher texture quality for PS4 and PC, but catering to each platform is likely too much work, more than they want to take on anyhow.

[Kosmos992k]

Do you notice the extremely low resolution textures on armour in cutscenes, and even in details on walls/floors and so on? It's due to the PS3.

Not entirely, it's also due to the lowest common denominator PC specification that allows even older laptops to run the game. SE smartly set the bar low on performance to widen the audience, that is not entirely the fault of the PS3.

[Colorful]

Not entirely, it's also due to the lowest common denominator PC specification that allows even older laptops to run the game. SE smartly set the bar low on performance to widen the audience, that is not entirely the fault of the PS3.

Took a look at the minimum specs and you're right, both listed GPUs are under 1GB of VRAM (and FFXIV seems to use more even on standard laptop settings, at 1920x1080 anyhow). Though with at least 1GB of VRAM they should be able to push armour textures further, rather than the PS3's shared half a gig memory. Regardless of how ugly the armour might be, even WoW manages a respectable armour texture resolution with the newer sets even on subpar systems.

[Kosmos992k]

Took a look at the minimum specs and you're right, both listed GPUs are under 1GB of VRAM (and FFXIV seems to use more even on standard laptop settings, at 1920x1080 anyhow). Though with at least 1GB of VRAM they should be able to push armour textures further, rather than the PS3's shared half a gig memory. Regardless of how ugly the armour might be, even WoW manages a respectable armour texture resolution with the newer sets even on subpar systems.

Indeed. But if they wanted to do an HD texture pack, I'm sure that they could. In that event, all that would b e needed would be to modify the PS3 client to continue using only the default textures and allow other clients the choice. In part the failure is the decision to stick with the textures as is. The PS3 hardware is a scapegoat for many things that are decisions made rather than limitations imposed.

[Reynhart]

They could release higher texture quality for PS4 and PC, but catering to each platform is likely too much work, more than they want to take on anyhow.

Yes, they could. And you know what, they could keep the low-res texture for the PS3 while giving higher resolution for PC and PS4. Like they improved the graphics on PC with DirectX11...

They explicitaly said that the engine is built so that it can adapt to the system you're playing, and I didn't see any "We can't do that because of PS3 capabilities" stated by the dev-team, except for mods. People are just making this up like they did for FFXI, which was also proven wrong, especially when people believed that we couldn't have new gear, new animations and more inventory because of the PS2...until we received brand new gear, new animation and more inventory.