Can we get HQ textures yet? It's 2018

[Eriane_Elis]

The PS3 is no longer supported I think so there's no need to worry about performance on that system. This game is beautiful even without the HQ textures but I could imagine how much better it would be with it. I'd gladly shell $10 on the mog station for this. At the very least please let us toggle distant textures to the highest quality textures currently available because the distant textures look like they are from 2002.

I know this thread will get nowhere but maybe the echo will be heard somewhere.


Edit:
Turns out there were several interviews about the subject. Here's some points taken from this thread.

1. Yoshi P stated that he knows about dated graphics being a problem but for the time being, there's nothing they can do about it but because the PS5 is coming and they dropped PS3, 32bit and DX9 support, they will eventually look into the possibility of upgrading graphics.

2. The game engine is old and hard to work with. It's not terrible but certain things can't be done like adding hair to the new male cat race.

3. When they remade the game in 2.0, they did so using low-resolution textures, not high-resolution like they did with 1.0 and other games. It's regrettable but they would have to redo all the textures from ground-up and there's a lot of assets to consider. There's software that has Machine learning A.I. that could upscale to HD and even 4k, but again, Engine limitations might be a good reason to not do it.

I understand the limitations that the FF14 team has to deal with and the amount of difficulty upgrading textures might cause. While it's still a great dream to have, I don't think we will ever see these changes.

[CorbinDallas]

Uh oh, you said the M word, watch out because people will be out for your blood now.

[Tint]

Uh oh, you said the M word, watch out because people will be out for your blood now.

yeah, it's laughable how people are suggesting to put basic functions of the game behind an extra paywall. they must be brainwashed already.

all hail to the capitalism o.o/

[Eriane_Elis]

yeah, it's laughable how people are suggesting to put basic functions of the game behind an extra paywall. they must be brainwashed already.

all hail to the capitalism o.o/

I'm saying I'd be willing to pay for the extra effort put into something they wouldn't normally invest their time and money into because I'm a graphic snob. I don't buy into micro-transactions, I've only done it once, ever.

[LaylaTsarra]

I'm saying I'd be willing to pay for the extra effort put into something they wouldn't normally invest their time and money into because I'm a graphic snob. I don't buy into micro-transactions, I've only done it once, ever.

Shouldn't have to pay extra for graphic upgrades. It's something they should add to the game free of charge. We are paying subs after all and this add to mogstation line needs to stop.

[Vhailor]

I'm saying I'd be willing to pay for the extra effort put into something they wouldn't normally invest their time and money into because I'm a graphic snob. I don't buy into micro-transactions, I've only done it once, ever.

HD textures don't cost anything; graphical artists typically work in high-resolution anyway. What we get in-game is downscaled versions of the textures designed by the artists.

That said, I think the old 'SE sucks balls at coding' issue is at fault here. From what I understand, FFXIV's engine is incredibly inefficient when it comes to texture streaming. I can't find the Reddit thread where I saw a discussion of this, unfortunately. I realize that certain mods have produced a selection of HD textures, but they don't come anywhere close to re-texturing all of Eorzea - and my guess is there'd be a significant performance hit associated with it.

Frankly, though, I'd also appreciate HD textures. I wish SE would just take a year off of content updates (yes, an entire year), and spend that time resolving all the god-awful inefficiencies on the back-end, from FFXIV's graphics engine to the badly imbalanced server-client relationship. Done properly, this would enable them to create better content faster - and implement far cleaner functionality for things like the atrocious Glamour Dresser. I know this'll never happen, but I think it would result in a better experience at the end of the day.

[Fhaerron]

and my guess is there'd be a significant performance hit associated with it.

No performance hit at all, textures are all about Vram. If you're playing with a GPU from the stone age and only have 8Mb of Vram you can always set your textures to low.

It's 2018 8GB Vram GPU's are mainstream, no reason not to have it, I call lazy devs.

And the argument of 'minimum PC requirements' is invalid, they can just add a slider bar for textures (low, medium, high), voila.

[Cerbolt]

I wouldn't pay for it, but I do agree we should get some hq textures. Some of the cutscenes are starting to look a little tacky.

[bass9020]

We have been asking for this since 2.0. I wouldnt expect it anytime soon if at all.

[Hakuro89]

Oh look, something else modders have proved possible that SE will still come up with some BS excuse for. It's getting sad that it comes to relying on that to keep the game up to par with current pretty graphics standards.