Ffxiv's Zones Looks Extremely Bad and Outdated

[Vahlnir]

Sometimes i exaggerate somethings just for the sake of the main idea.

That's usually not a good idea if you want to be taken seriously. That said, better textures would work wonders. The game has had some pretty bad textures since the beginning, though there has been slight improvements over time. But compared to other MMOs on the market they are very behind in this regard.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Bozja looks absolutely dreadful, and i’m tired of seeing excuses of “it’s a war zone.” There’s numerous ways they could make it look better/engaging. Even disregarding that, the textures on the ground look horrid, and look like a horrible ps2 game. This is seen again when you look at Exarch and then see that a piece of bread has better textures than him. This game needs a major revamp in the graphics department but it’ll never happen because “muh engine.”

[Vahlnir]

Bozja looks absolutely dreadful, and i’m tired of seeing excuses of “it’s a war zone.” There’s numerous ways they could make it look better/engaging. Even disregarding that, the textures on the ground look horrid, and look like a horrible ps2 game. This is seen again when you look at Exarch and then see that a piece of bread has better textures than him. This game needs a major revamp in the graphics department but it’ll never happen because “muh engine.”

Zadnor looks pretty good in my opinion. It has more personality, and I like how big it is. It also feels more alive with the Garlean warships flying around. I'm a fan of mountainous areas in general (bonus points if it is covered in snow!) which helps. Southern Front though...yeah, I will give you that. It is indeed a war zone. They both are. But other than some distant hills and cliffs that we can't even wander around on there's just not a lot to BSF. The most notable feature is the Castrum and that's about it. They really did miss the mark with BSF.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Zadnor looks pretty good in my opinion. It has more personality, and I like how big it is. It also feels more alive with the Garlean warships flying around. I'm a fan of mountainous areas in general (bonus points if it is covered in snow!) which helps. Southern Front though...yeah, I will give you that. It is indeed a war zone. They both are. But other than some distant hills and cliffs that we can't even wander around on there's just not a lot to BSF. The most notable feature is the Castrum and that's about it. They really did miss the mark with BSF.

Zadnor was definitely a step up from Bozja.The war ships were a very nice touch and i always wished we’d get a form of that kind of event in ShB, with random sin eaters attacks similar to the benchmark trailer. My only gripe with zadnor was the last area where it looked kind of half finished, pretty empty with only a few skirmishes(at least in my experience.) I hope if 6.0 somehow gets a continuation of it, we get a dalmasca zone as those areas are usually amazingly pretty.

[Vahlnir]

Zadnor was definitely a step up from Bozja.The war ships were a very nice touch and i always wished we’d get a form of that kind of event in ShB, with random sin eaters attacks similar to the benchmark trailer. My only gripe with zadnor was the last area where it looked kind of half finished, pretty empty with only a few skirmishes(at least in my experience.) I hope if 6.0 somehow gets a continuation of it, we get a dalmasca zone as those areas are usually amazingly pretty.

Yeah, it looked like it was going to get progressively more scenic in Zadnor. The first area looked like what I'd imagine the moon does, then there was green hills, stone bridges and caves...and the big finish was more moon-like terrain which somehow looked worse than zone 1. lol

[Canadane]

When the new engine release (they are currently working on it), it would be even better.

wut
Did you mean WoW or something because I don't recall any news about a new graphics engine in XIV.

[Vyrerus]

My main beef with newer zones is that in a lot of the SHB zones they put water into them... water that I can't swim or dive in. *gives Kholusia the stink eye* *gives the northwestern pond in Il Mheg the stinkeye*

I think that every zone looks pretty good though. I reckon they don't give them a high sheen polish due to not having a lot to actually do in the overworld other than hunts, fates, treasure maps, and gathering. All of which are transitory.

But I also will say that a lot of the zones are intended to feel like a real place, warts and all. Ala Mhigo's zones are all sandstone cliff faces and dirt because, well, that's the lay of the land in that region.

I guess my least favorite zone is Rak Tika. Instead of opting to try and make realistic looking trees or anything, they went for like... bog trees with weird root structure. It's like an ugly, overgrown bramble patch more than a lush forest in my opinion. Of course, I've lived near forests for most of my life, and when I wasn't living near forests I was living in rain forests so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Guess I've got high standards for trees. It's ok though, because hardly any games ever meet them.

I think relative to the graphics capabilities at the time, Sanctuary of Zi'tah is still the best forest I've been in, in video games. Can't have it all, I suppose. FFXIV does have some weak points.

[ReynTime]

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.

ARR areas are just objectively better designed. They're smaller but they have ten times more detail and in visuals alone they carry more lore than the 3.0+ maps. The newer areas just feel padded with nothing of interest between the tiny isolated relevant spots. They're noticeably more barren and lifeless.
Most ARR areas seem more alive with like 1/5 of the player activity the gigantic mass of nothing that Kholusia is due the care to detail they give to NPCs, house interior, and the amount of hidden lore in them is so massive that if you wander around you're going to end up finding something new even today.

I think they noticed most of the playerbase gets more easily impressed if you put a large crystal here and there and Disney Castle looming in the distance or a sea of pink trees than any small details spread all over that takes a lot more work.

[KizuyaKatogami]

ARR areas are just objectively better designed. They're smaller but they have ten times more detail and in visuals alone they carry more lore than the 3.0+ maps. The newer areas just feel padded with nothing of interest between the tiny isolated relevant spots. They're noticeably more barren and lifeless.

Going to add with the lifelessness, it wasn’t until after playing Eso that i really noticed it, but ever since it’s bugged me so much. Eso areas have outposts scattered about, they have random npc interactions that can happen anywhere and just little things like that make the world feel so much more alive and immersive. It’s a shame the devs have basically just ignored overworld content now. It’s one of my favorite things to explore in mmo’s and it just falls so flat in 14.

[Soulebreaker]

IMO, the zones look far better than WoW. WoW's newer zones look far better than their older ones. But they don't look better than the zones in this game.