Why do so many textures look like they are from a ps2 game?

[Deceptus]

Short answer? Because they were made to be playable on the PS3.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

In context through, this game looks far better then WoW or SWTOR. It may just be the price of the MMORPG to sacrifice graphics. So many AAA games come out now with stunning graphics and practically no story and fairly poor gameplay. In the end, I stop caring about really good graphics long ago because the "game" needed to come first in my eyes. Otherwise I might as well be watching an anime or movie.

No it doesn't

Art style and direction is different, i personally cannot stand it and is why i have never played it and probably never will. But texture budget of WoW is now higher than XIV. Their models have also increased over the years, in fact, WoW at its best settings is nothing short of good looking, at least for its universe is thematically fitting and it blends well with everything else. I cannot say the same of XIV, since in every cutscene that closes into Hien, i wonder if my GPU is actually artifacting. Or im reminded of early 2000s FPS enviromental graphics.

[Zarkovitch]

Short answer? Because they were made to be playable on the PS3.

No way how do you know that!?

[Edax]

No it doesn't

Art style and direction is different, i personally cannot stand it and is why i have never played it and probably never will. But texture budget of WoW is now higher than XIV. Their models have also increased over the years, in fact, WoW at its best settings is nothing short of good looking, at least for its universe is thematically fitting and it blends well with everything else. I cannot say the same of XIV, since in every cutscene that closes into Hien, i wonder if my GPU is actually artifacting. Or im reminded of early 2000s FPS enviromental graphics.

I agree the pixelation on some of the outfits is a bad problem. But WoW does not look fundamentally different to me now then when I played in back in Burning Crusade. It has the same wacky cartoon art style that was used by games that couldn't offer good graphics and that hasn't changed it seems. I grand you WoW's graphics isn't terribly pixelated, but it still looks low res, a consequence of being a 2004 game. Comparing screenshots from WoW today to screenshots from 2004, the game hasn't evolved that much in the graphics department. I've seen World of Tanks preform HD transformation that was practically night and day compared to WoW. Screenshots from 2010 and now look almost nothing alike.

FFXIV has a most realistic art style to it, but the resolutions are inconsistent. That makes it better in my opinion because they aren't cheating with cartoon art styles, but I agree the excessive pixelization is a problem. Even though the characters in SWTOR was cartoony and looked like they were made of clay, I don't really recall seeing that much pixelization in the outfits.

[Noodle_Trinidad]

I think you've mistaken why they zoom in on something in scenes.

It's not to impress you, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's because whatever they are focusing on is meant to be exactly that - the visual focus for a narrative reason. They aren't saying "this looks awesome, look closely at all 5 pixels it has" they are saying "this stuff is 'important' to what is going on in this scene right now" (relative levels of importance, obviously - early important stuff won't be all that important, but in the context of the scene in which it appears they are generally the focus of the narrative, at least briefly).

The focus is still meant to "Awe" you in some manner and the pixelization just takes you out of it because what was supposed to look like some grandiose or important item is now some staircase of a mess that has you wondering: "Is that suppose to look like that? Are my settings on Max? Did I accidentally drop it to low and AA off or something?". This game is in need of some serious texture overhaul, though I would love for the models to be updated a bit as well but thats more expensive and aren't in a position where earlier work would make them future proof like the textures should have been.

I agree the pixelation on some of the outfits is a bad problem. But WoW does not look fundamentally different to me now then when I played in back in Burning Crusade. It has the same wacky cartoon art style that was used by games that couldn't offer good graphics and that hasn't changed it seems. I grand you WoW's graphics isn't terribly pixelated, but it still looks low res, a consequence of being a 2004 game. Comparing screenshots from WoW today to screenshots from 2004, the game hasn't evolved that much in the graphics department. I've seen World of Tanks preform HD transformation that was practically night and day compared to WoW. Screenshots from 2010 and now look almost nothing alike.

FFXIV has a most realistic art style to it, but the resolutions are inconsistent. That makes it better in my opinion because they aren't cheating with cartoon art styles, but I agree the excessive pixelization is a problem. Even though the characters in SWTOR was cartoony and looked like they were made of clay, I don't really recall seeing that much pixelization in the outfits.

The issue is while it's technically playing it safe by using a cartoon art style to make graphics and textures that much easier at the very least they have taken advantage of what they have to make sure their textures pop. FFXIV has gone for the realism route to an extent but haven't put in the effort to make it consistent in the long run. The biggest offender is the fact that Yoshida himself admitted to making low res textures when by now its known that the industry standard is to make the source files at a higher resolution and scale them down accordingly for level of system and its limitation. If you're gonna go for a "Realistic" style then you can not make compromises with such things with base textures as that can run your overall aesthetic. Art Style can take you far but if you're not willing to put in the work to make it work and instead go for the fastest possible route you'll eventually pay for it. The textures were fine at launch because it was launch. Now that game is running freely with a decently sized playerbase and one of its original consoles discontinued it would have only made sense for Stormblood to have introduce that texture bump for PC and PS4 players alike.

I'm more than certain that if we had actual high-res source files for the textures PC and even the PS4 would have been able to get a bigger bump in graphical fidelity that would slowly get bogged down by the Low-Poly models a few more expansions which by then would probably mean an overhaul overall given the standard would be significantly higher than it is now.

[Radacci]

Then you can play many free-to-play titles. They are designed to look good, which is their major selling point. And mostly nothing else.
And they usually don't last long.

I prefer a story-heavy mmo that keeps me invested in the characters and lore. Which exactly works for FFXIV.

then you can read many books, they are designed to have good story, which is their major selling point, and mostly nothing else.

Actually the entire point of games, is the visuals, otherwise SE could just have written books.
ppl play FFXIV for many reasons, SEEING and interacting with the world, is a rather colossal selling point.
increasing the graphics, ruins the game for exactly no one. while having out-of-date graphics, ruins the immersion for many people.
increasing graphics, would probably draw in more players, and higher profits.
FF has always made a big deal out of using the latest tech, to make beautiful games, as well as having deep story, so why are you acting as if XIV should have bad graphics, or the story would suffer?

I wish people would stop using this silly argument: if you don't like this, go play something else!

Uh and also, here's some high poly models from XIV.
If i remember correctly, they have this guy who sits around and make high poly models all day, so why not have someone sit around and make HD/UHD textures?
ARR has been around for 5 years, imagine if they spent 5+ years making HD textures, instead of not.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20141025111116
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/...xauto-7177.jpg
http://66.media.tumblr.com/35589365f...lj4o5_1280.jpg
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/...g/sqex-005.jpg

[Edax]

The issue is while it's technically playing it safe by using a cartoon art style to make graphics and textures that much easier at the very least they have taken advantage of what they have to make sure their textures pop. FFXIV has gone for the realism route to an extent but haven't put in the effort to make it consistent in the long run. The biggest offender is the fact that Yoshida himself admitted to making low res textures when by now its known that the industry standard is to make the source files at a higher resolution and scale them down accordingly for level of system and its limitation. If you're gonna go for a "Realistic" style then you can not make compromises with such things with base textures as that can run your overall aesthetic. Art Style can take you far but if you're not willing to put in the work to make it work and instead go for the fastest possible route you'll eventually pay for it. The textures were fine at launch because it was launch. Now that game is running freely with a decently sized playerbase and one of its original consoles discontinued it would have only made sense for Stormblood to have introduce that texture bump for PC and PS4 players alike.

I'm more than certain that if we had actual high-res source files for the textures PC and even the PS4 would have been able to get a bigger bump in graphical fidelity that would slowly get bogged down by the Low-Poly models a few more expansions which by then would probably mean an overhaul overall given the standard would be significantly higher than it is now.

I agree that SE is not reinvesting enough effort into FFXIV. Hien is a major character and his outfit should never have been that pixilated for more than a single patch cycle. Doubly so since his outfit ended up in the Mogstation. Even my beloved Samurai class gear has parts that are strangely low res, while others are not.

[WellFooled]

Right now, there are so much graphic assets in the game, that tuning up them will be a huge cost, so huge that this possibility has been definitely dismissed by the team.

Scaling a graphic asset down, you can do that easily, but scaling up, you need a lot of work. Worse, you need redo it completely.

A "better" graphic maybe can come with Final Fantasy XX online.

I’ll preface this by saying I have never designed textures for a video game so I’m just guessing, but with that said—It can’t be that hard. I’d compare it to games like Skyrim where modders who work for free and on their own time have made high definition texture packs to replace every texture in the game. Usually these are made by one person and they come in a million shapes and sizes. If hobbiest can do it, why can’t a AAA company working on what is probably their most profitable game?

I’m sure FFXIV has significantly more textures than Skyrim, but they also have significantly more resources than an amateur on his home computer toying around with his hobby on the weekends.

[Berethos]

to points where it breaks immersion and "suspension of disbelief".

That's a matter of subjective perspective.

Course, I grew up getting misty eyed at moments in the original Ocarina of Time, in all its N64 blocky glory, so maybe I just have a better handle on suspending my disbelief.

[Berethos]

I’ll preface this by saying I have never designed textures for a video game so I’m just guessing, but with that said—It can’t be that hard. I’d compare it to games like Skyrim where modders who work for free and on their own time have made high definition texture packs to replace every texture in the game. Usually these are made by one person and they come in a million shapes and sizes. If hobbiest can do it, why can’t a AAA company working on what is probably their most profitable game?

I’m sure FFXIV has significantly more textures than Skyrim, but they also have significantly more resources than an amateur on his home computer toying around with his hobby on the weekends.

Ask that hobbiest - the one that does an HD overhaul of a significant amount of textures, and not the crappy "HD" versions that are just a filter run over the original (which can be achieved with things like ReShade anyway) - how much time they spent working on that.

The ones that are just toying around on the weekends, by the way, are rarely (if ever) the ones putting out the good large-scale HD overhauls in a game like Skyrim.