FFXIV: Do you think Square Enix will put more money and resources into it?

[Awha]

Sorry presentation matters and graphics are part of said presentation, FFXIV textures are a mix bag which makes it far more noticeable.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I don’t disagree with your general point (as a DNC main my lack of primal weapons makes me sad) bu NieR raids are Alliance, do those ever have voice acting? I know there was a little voice acting for bosses in Return to Ivalice, am I forgetting something?

HW wasn’t. SB had voice acting for the final boss of Rabanastre, Final boss of Ridorana, and then every boss in Orbonne is voiced. 3 trials have always been voiced(minus Sephirot), but for some reason they aren’t in ShB.

[Lauront]

*snip*

While I think you're perfectly right and worded this well, in the end the devs themselves already see the potential value in upgrading the engine and textures and so are mostly looking at ways to handle the costs and implementation. As such, anyone claiming it doesn't matter is fighting a losing battle and one I can't really say I sympathise with as a player of the game. Sure, I don't want the gameplay experience to degrade, but as we keep being reminded, the gameplay is designed by different teams to the graphics. And they keep saying it's not financial resources they lack for, but the labour to do it. So the tradeoff doesn't really seem to be at play here in the first place (they have mentioned in the past it would be in terms of graphical assets in any case), especially as the game grows increasingly popular.

The game is competing with ever more visually impressive competitors (not just MMOs as any other game can compete for player time and money as an alternative use of both, except for those who absolutely must play an MMO), and has graphics which were held down by the PS3 and legacy issues related to that and various design decisions (especially regarding the textures). They're not even talking about making this have graphics like a game like 7R or Ghost of Tsushima, but just a matter of improving on the grainy pixels and allowing more flexibility in character design given the severe limitations their engine poses. This was something Ayumi Namae also brought up during the art panel for the lead up to SHB at the EU fanfest, that they'd like a less restrictive engine. So I am fairly confident that, provided that they can justify the costs, given the lifespan they now aspire towards for the game, it will come at some point. Maybe 7.0.

[Shougun]

Sorry presentation matters and graphics are part of said presentation, FFXIV textures are a mix bag which makes it far more noticeable.

One would hope it's obvious, but having had a few recently where people clearly partially skim read and formed an opinion from that, this is not addressing me right? lol

While I think you're perfectly right and worded this well, in the end the devs themselves already see the potential value in upgrading the engine and textures and so are mostly looking at ways to handle the costs and implementation. As such, anyone claiming it doesn't matter is fighting a losing battle and one I can't really say I sympathise with as a player of the game. Sure, I don't want the gameplay experience to degrade, but as we keep being reminded, the gameplay is designed by different teams to the graphics. And they keep saying it's not financial resources they lack for, but the labour to do it. So the tradeoff doesn't really seem to be at play here in the first place (they have mentioned in the past it would be in terms of graphical assets in any case), especially as the game grows increasingly popular.

The game is competing with ever more visually impressive competitors (not just MMOs as any other game can compete for player time and money as an alternative use of both, except for those who absolutely must play an MMO), and has graphics which were held down by the PS3 and legacy issues related to that and various design decisions (especially regarding the textures). They're not even talking about making this have graphics like a game like 7R or Ghosts of Tsushima, but just a matter of improving on the grainy pixels and allowing more flexibility in character design given the severe limitations their engine poses. This was something Ayumi Namae also brought up during the art panel for the lead up to SHB at the EU fanfest, that they'd like a less restrictive engine. So I am fairly confident that, provided that they can justify the costs, given the lifespan they now aspire towards for the game, it will come at some point. Maybe 7.0.

Oh yeah, the devs have said it's a thing to be done but just not high on their priority list (yet). Which in and of itself addresses a concept of value. I'm certain it will have to be (or a new MMO), given time; although, currently it's not that the game couldn't gain value from it.. just that they don't need to because the playerbase isn't going to leave for it and there isn't another mmo (yet) with enough pull to be like "I'm equally if not more fun, and better looking". Which is the magic of healthy competition certainly.

Also thank you for sharing the thoughts from the art team itself. I've always liked the terrain design, and concept art, and listening to them talk about pushing the engine hard to make some of the zones (like Khoulsia) was personally like "yes, thank you, thank you for your effort"- but I can feel.. there are restrictions in place that hold them down a little. It's not something I blame them for but just wish someone took a little off the leash lol (and I know that leash isn't made randomly, not to suggest it's a snap the fingers, pass a post-it note and it's fixed sort of thing).

But yeah, graphics matter. I always find it interesting when people have convinced themselves that graphics (read as "presentation") isn't relevant to the broader landscape of games. Of course someone may have a personal bias of "it really doesn't matter, I play roblox for the plot", but sometimes there are some arguments that are like "this can't possibly be even sort of true". Millions of dollars for something that has no relevance? That's just no... just a solid no. lol. But I do believe that 'part' of that is just people are using the same words to discuss different things, like some mention graphics as if it may mean texture size only (and of course there are games that don't use big budget textures yet still look gorgeous, in such a scenario one might say it doesn't matter). On a personal level one may really like MUD games, but clearly that's not the average user (so it may be a personal opinion but obviously couldn't be a global truth).

Beyond perhaps missing on the word use creating a situation that appears to be in disagreement when not really, I think some are using opinion but wording it as a general statement. Though some of it reminds me of the travel discussion in the other wish thread (concepts that fold in and out of journey/exploration), where some consider it as not a gameplay element (in a factual sense, not an opinion sense)- which clearly can't be true given all the effort many devs (of both sRPG and MMORPGs) have given such a concept (and that, some, players keep enjoying games that do that). Statements that don't hold up if you remove the idea outside the vacuum. Though I like to imagine most people are just misunderstood (either by the reader's fault or their own accidental wording), and usually I'm pleasantly surprised with the back and forth (though sometimes... .. not.. lol).

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

We need a game engine upgrade, with better graphics and way less technical limitations. New mmos coming out like pso2 new genesis and new world, ashes of creation are looking a lot more updated. We gotta keep up.

Being quite frank, if they ever decide to overhaul the engine, they're just going to start working on the next MMO instead.

Reworking a game engine isn't a small commitment; it is a massive undertaking and an expensive one. Time that will detract from the development of the content pipeline, if not grind it to a halt until the game engine upgrade is finished. Good luck convincing the shareholders & CEOs how a game engine update will bring in giant swathes of new players when not only is the game experiencing unprecedented popularity without it, while also giving hard facts at the expected number of players such an investment would bring in when they can chuck that money into marketing instead and get 20x better results.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Being quite frank, if they ever decide to overhaul the engine, they're just going to start working on the next MMO instead.

Reworking a game engine isn't a small commitment; it is a massive undertaking and an expensive one. Time that will detract from the development of the content pipeline, if not grind it to a halt until the game engine upgrade is finished. Good luck convincing the shareholders & CEOs how a game engine update will bring in giant swathes of new players when not only is the game experiencing unprecedented popularity without it, while also giving hard facts at the expected number of players such an investment would bring in when they can chuck that money into marketing instead and get 20x better results.

Agree. Engine overhaul isnt likely to happen at this point since their FF MMO entries have taken a slot within the main franchise series as 11 and 14. 11 I believe is still going and pretty sure has only gotten visual polish with no changes to the actual engine or gameplay. The closest thing to an engine overhaul for this game would have been the relaunch for 2.0. Dropping PS3 support just let them use higher settings essentially within the current engine. Also SE in the past with other single player titles released them using an engine they'd built for a previous generation game console which resulted in some gameplay issues and complaints from people. So I have very low expectations of them breaking that trend for this title. They are still commiting monetary resources to this game in the form of our upcoming expansion, addition of new worlds/data centers, and additional housing wards. A popular streamer or 2 playing the game isnt likely to make them suddenly gush more money than already planned towards this title.

[van_arn]

They won't have an option but to increase resources if Endwalker explodes. We might have another 2.0 launch on our hands if this keeps going.

I'm not sure if the game itself will get an overhaul, but the systems side of things are certainly going to get upgraded out of necessity.

[Raiya]

The Graphics in the game arent bad to be fair the main issue is that the game engine will need some retuning though to better support textures at 4k resolution. Some of the older stuff in the game is badly pixelated as well like Hien or Raubahns armor and could do with some upresing. Hell theres already some mods out there that essentially upscale the likes of hair and faces on PCs for example so its definately doable.

[Crowzer]

...

WoW is almost 17 years old. And you clearly see that the visual upgrade trough expansions.
In FF14, I feel like there are no upgrades and even a downgrade. ARR zones were far superior for me.

Furthermore, and speaking about BDO, the game released just one year after FFXIV ARR.

But as I said, 100% agree with you for a downloadable texture pack for PC/PS5.


The game can be beautiful :




And sometimes, I don't know what ground textures meant to be :




>>> https://i.imgur.com/P6Cp3Vb.jpg

[TeraRamis]

Honest question. With FFXIV popularity booming as of late, do you think Square Enix will actually put more money into it? Give Yoshi P and team more resources, staff and the like. I would really hope so. Just think of what they could do with more teams, resources and time! Improve Viera and Hrothgar, improve animations (Elezen run anyone?), be able to create more content easier, due to having more people to work on it. Improve textures maybe (HDTexture pack perhaps?).

What do you guys think? Will Square Enix actually do this, or do you think they'll just keep things the way they are? I really do hope they give the FFXIV team more people and resources and the like. They deserve it for all they've done.

No. I don't. I think they'll farm this wave just like they always have FFXIV's previous profitability to pay for their desperately long development cycles for other games.