Consoles are holding this game back (graphically)

[MetatronPrime]

I feel like because of the consoles graphical fidelity is being stymied as not to make PC too superior to consoles which they are easily capable of. For obvious reasons, if PC was unhindered console players would feel like they'd be buying a lesser version, which they are anyways in terms of graphical fidelity. By doing that though, SE has compromised the PC version. There's well documented facts and statements by the dev team that graphics overall were "adjusted" for 2.0 compared to 1.0.

[Iris_BP]

Btw, 1.0 lagged even on top PCs at the time. But right now I'd definitely support transition to the old shaders and triangle densities. They are dropping the ps3 support soon tho, so there is that.

[Canadane]

They are dropping the ps3 support soon tho, so there is that.

Uh, you got a link to back that up?

[Kuwagami]

Uh, you got a link to back that up?

It has been said since the beta of 2.0 that PS3 would be dropped at some point.

Though "soon" might be overestimating it, I remember (no source found for now, that was before 3.0 comes) that Yoshida said PS3 would probably not see 4.0 (as in, 4.0 won't be available for PS3), and then the support would be dropped a while later, to let people transition.

Anyway, PS3 has still more than a year left on FFxiv, prolly more than 2 years even.

[Serilda]

1. Many of the limitations of the type you are worrying about are not because of the client machine so much as the server/networking technology. They discussed some of the graphic adjustments made for ARR previously and this was made clear. For example, 1.0 often cheated by copy/pasting a lot of visuals to make large areas without putting so much strain on the technology. Do we really want to go there again?

2. Some people use the PC version with bad PCs. The entire benefit of PCs over consoles is that they are scalable, and the game is already scalable across platforms (the PS4 version looks considerably better than the PS3 version, for example). What kind of graphical upgrades are you thinking about that would be so significant that it would require dropping all support for even the PS4? The PS4 is a better PC than the kind of PC I would buy to replace mine if you forced me to switch platforms, so I would still be holding you back with my lack of budget either way.

3. Consoles are more inclusive and easier for the developers to troubleshoot without factoring in unique customisations. For example, the teething issues with DX11 are not being caused by any limitations on the console side. It would be more productive to push for improvements for PC users without trying to alienate people with smaller technology budgets than yourself. Console gamers were already left out throughout the entirety of 1.0; why are we always the scapegoats for everything in this community?

4. Personally I would rather have more responsive gameplay and fixes for all of the things which need fixing instead of more detailed textures at this point.

[Azazua_azura]

dude did you even follow the FF14 ARR prelaunch?

Consoles are not the reason for the graphical change, yoshida wanted this game played by many people as possible. Also the graphics in ff14 1.0 was tooo dam good that a nasa grade pc was needed to play. They even made a funny joke about it showcasing a tiny flower pot fropm 1.0, stating it was the most beautiful flower pot in any game. It also had the graphical data = to a player character now picture roughly 40 of those in 1 area, on top of 300 players. It just wasn't happening.

nothing in ARR relaunch are the resukt of consoles but design choices of yoshida and the dev trying to make a great game accessible to a good portion of players, amd this game still looks pretty good (even on ps3)

[MetatronPrime]

"Accessible" is a PR word. In this case, changes were made and limitations were put in place to make it accessible to more players, those being console players. Graphical fidelity was compromised for this. Poor performance and optimization was at fault for 1.0. For those that have the money, the optional sliders should be able to reach higher.

[DracotheDragon]

"Accessible" is a PR word. In this case, changes were made and limitations were put in place to make it accessible to more players, those being console players. Graphical fidelity was compromised for this. Poor performance and optimization was at fault for 1.0. For those that have the money, the optional sliders should be able to reach higher.

not really, for 1.0 even on good and high grade PC's of the time, (aka 2011 and 2012.) this game ran poorly, to the point where most wouldn't consider doing any of the end game content.
it started to clean up with more simplified instances that started to take up the final games zones, look at any video of the 1.0 game now, and you can see it runs below 30 FPS, players were derenderd in order to save space, but all the plants you saw in ul;dah do not de render until you are out of the city, each plant has the same if not more polygons then the player causing lag and performance issues, Not only this but the lack of jumping was due to limitations in 1.0, as well as having different mounts.
scripting bugs ran rampant and a lot of players have rose coloured glasses, some animations looked better and others you could see all the key framing from miles is off putting. By making this game 'accessible' they focused on the lowest common denominator, which is low grade PC's and the PS3, which are being dropped by 4.0, when they are dropped the lowest common denominator is Middle ground PC's before PS4s and High middle PC's, this game was tailored to use a more simplified art style for a more consistent frame rate.

along side this, but they also wanted the player base to expand with PC being stable at around, 30 frames solid, the only time you can see any performance lag on the PS4 or even a high grade PC is in the trial 'a relic reborn Dhrome chimera' due to a rendering bug because of it's unique storm weather effects when you look in a direction the whole map is rendering with this pattern.

yes they focused on optimisation but they didn't gut the game to bare bones, if anything they have now added far more to it then what was in 1.0

if you truly want to blame someone blame computers made before 2010, that can struggle with this game (the ps3 falls into this sadly.), because that is what happens with most MMO's as they evolve, as with any game the PS4 (and Xbone if that deal goes though) are capable of sustaining this game for a while due to there processing power and graphic cards, which most high middle PC's ship with when purchased.

[Iris_BP]

Consoles are not the reason for the graphical change

Oh, it is tho. It broadens the audience. Granted, 1.0 was a mess with copypasta locations (especially noticeable in the Black Shroud due to it's tunnel type landscapes), they never optimized (or had the time to optimize, because they were rushed hard) triangle counts, the UI was terribad to the point that if you didn't have a controller you'd have pretty hard time playing (in a game that didn't have a console version!!). But the handling of shaders in the first version of FFXIV crystal engine was amazingly good, to the point PS3 just couldn't handle it, lol. What I also blame on consoles (namely PS3 of course) is the lack of varying animations in cutscenes (although it might be the lack of time in developing ARR). 1.0 had very good animations overall.

[Serilda]

1.0 was great, I remember logging on and being unable to participate in combat because my framerate dropped too much. But I could walk around town if I didn't mind the performance problems. I'm not sure I'd subscribe to a game which was a Square-Enix version of PlayStation Home.

The lifeblood of an MMORPG is its community, so I'm strongly against dropping support for a significant number of people just to improve the visuals for a small minority with superb hardware. Improvements to graphics will come naturally as they're a marketing tool for Square-Enix; even FFXI had significant graphics boosts over time for the PC crowd (some of which directly affected gameplay, grumble grumble).