Can we get HQ textures yet? It's 2018

[JackHatchet]

Didn't Microsoft roll out some HD texture pack for Minecraft for money recently?

[Enla]

I don't see why they can't do this. Especially for the older areas that look absolutely atrocious with their low-rex textures in certain spaces. Make it optional like LoTRO does and it should work fairly well.

[Final-Fantasy]

Not going to happen, they already down-graded the visuals from 1.0, if anything give us back the 1.0 models, skin tones, and animations!

[Wilford111]

And next year its 2019.

And 2020 comes afterwards!

[duvvvv]

I'd love to see this game have higer quality textures but as an MMO, I wonder how SE's gonna do it when in instances like Eureka there are graphical issues with NMs disappearing mid-battle, animation glitches etc.? what I'm pointing at is despite having a good PC build for most new AAA games, FFXIV might still not run as smoothly/prettily on it due to other factors. I don't mind a possible separate content/DLC for such textures (optional of course) but let's not encourage SE to make us pay for it.

[Aomine1992]

Now that everyone should know a HQ texture pack must be free for everyone I can mention a second point, the PlayStation 5 will be released next year most likely and that is sure to allow FFXIV to reach new quality standards like much better color palettes for dyable gear and of course better graphics, it all relies in the power of options but the dev team has been reluctant to give a thought!...

Doubt it, unfortunately PS3 was the problem and now PS4 is some how the problem even though the graphics haven't been updated that much since then....soon enough PS5 will be an issue even though we already have higher graphic games on console already.

I think this excuse is just lazy SE talk....

[Arrius]

And yet texture quality from Mist of Pandaria (perhaps even Cata too) and forward is much better than anything we have at FFXIV ATM, also, despite WoW cartoony look in term of models/landscape geometry/complexity is also ahead of FF14. BTW, TERA and BnS also suffer from "ugly as sin" textures too (mainly terrain). Reality is in FF14 most of the textures don't hold up against a moderate close up.

I'm not asking for anything crazy but certain stuff, like character hair textures, is in need of an improvement.

World of Warcraft is already 14 (!) years in, and they had more than enough time to get themselves a graphical bump in all sections, alone 10 years -by the release of WoD- for the update in character models.

All you -could- ask for, however, are the 1.0 graphics and the body form. They were ahead of their time and the ARR look did take a step back in favor of streamlining stuff.

[DrWho2010]

PS5 will not be out next year. not till at least 2021.

[JCharms]

There's also a thing called "graphics options". We already have it in game and it allows me to play on both my potato laptop and my high-end PC.

Going to emphasize this, as its all that needs to be said as far as who has what and what can run on X system or Y specs.

[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.