Ffxiv's Zones Looks Extremely Bad and Outdated

[FrogDog]

looked up the game you referenced (Metin2):


... really?

I'm not personally a fan of most of the zones on the First.. but saying there's no detail in them and comparing it to.. that up there?

..... REALLY?

Looks like Bozja to me.

In all seriousness, I would agree that this game's "open world" zones are lacking in many ways. I'm surprised this would be controversial. Except for like, a certain undersea location, the most impressive visuals in XIV for me have all been in dungeons, raids, or cities. Even some ARR areas have felt more impressive and immersive than a lot of the expansion areas. The 6 zones for expansions generally have washed out colors, poor ground textures, lack a feeling of being lived in, and are just big bowls. I think SB was the worst in this regard, with ShB being better overall.

On that note, I see very little in EW to be interested in. Normally I would be really into Thavnair, but what we've seen of the Thavnair leveling area looks really terrible to me for a supposedly tropical setting. It looks like a sparse collection of trees planted alongside a creek which may as well be in Gyr Abania. And then Garlemald will ofc just be a ruined, snowy, dump.

WoW has an art direction and a colorful aesthetic that makes for more memorable and interesting zones. Though I haven't played WoW in many years I can very clearly remember lots of areas from it. I've also seen some areas added to the game since I quit and they were almost enough to draw me back in.

[hydralus]

Yeah I kinda see what you mean. I guess they don't expect much out of open world aside from gathering and FATE farming time to time.

[ReynTime]

Yeah the overworld design in post-ARR maps is pretty bad with few exceptions. But you're not going to get all that you're asking. The hard limit of what they can do with maps is ridiculously strict.

Their map designer needs to look for more offline games for inspiration. Specially from Monolith Soft...

[hydralus]

Yeah you also have to consider computer load. The more objects people have to load, the worse it is. Just think about hunt trains where you get 50 people in the area and some people can't even see the enemy. Now consider zones filled with grass, particles, unique NPC events/entities, shiny surfaces, etc. Part of that is the engine they're using, but not much to be done about that. In terms of colors, atmosphere, theme... yeah, I think more could be done to make places more 'interesting', at the least.

[Jeeqbit]

The zones look incredible, what are you talking about? Have you seen Lakeland, one of the most beautiful places ever? Yanxia or The Fringes? Any zone? They look stunning.

There is grass, so you must have that disabled or be too far away for it to render. There is detail, so maybe you've turned that down. In ARR, the texture quality was less because it was designed for PS3, but the textures in ARR were scaled up when flying was being added.

[LisSquid]

A lot of textures in this game, namely the foresty bits, looks extremely dated. In later zones that drifted from the more 'living world' feel of ARR it's even more obvious. It wouldn't be near as bad if they weren't afraid to use saturation, and it's a shame that I have to run a reshader (moreso for disability) just to make textures look like they weren't run through the PS2 blender.

People underestimate how much longevity good color and stylization brings.

[StriderShinryu]

Eh, some of the earliest zones definitely do look rather dated and certain things just don't look great in the FF14 engine even now (textures in particular) but "Extremely bad?" Yeah, no. Even some of the relatively early zones like La Noscea East look great, especially at night, and rival a lot of stuff that is being made in different games even now.

[ViolaLance]

While visuals staying stylized to a certain degree can help the longevity of a game, while story/plot, character development to function, control and gameplay / replay value are often the most important aspects for a game's long life.
Seen and played many games that are some of the, if not the most beautiful looking games, but had absolute trash controls and worthless play value to them. Just cause it looks pretty, doesn't mean the game is actually good.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I don't think the zones are terrible but I think they could be better for sure ^^
I do think wow zones can pull it off better thanks to their art style. Overall I much prefer the look of ff. They did mention a graphics update but that we would probably not see anything of it till after 7.0
Still good to know they plan that far ahead!

[Theodric]

I share the opinion that a lot of FFXIV's zones are looking rather dated at this point. Even some of the newer zones, whilst bigger and prettier looking, lack a certain charm compared to the original design choices. Take Aleport for example - it's a fairly small settlement but you can enter almost every building which makes it feel much larger than it is. In newer zones, we lack that luxury. Given that older MMO's have designed some pretty immersive and impressive looking settlements/cities that also serve as zones to explore...I would very much like FFXIV to up its game on many fronts.

Even though flying was added to the ARR zones...nothing was really done to build on that. There's no secret areas to discover. There's no hidden items to acquire.

Other MMO's have such features - as do many single player games - so I hope we get a more meaningful open world someday.