So... What Exactly ARE the PS3 Limitations

[MugenMugetsu]

Hmmm. Well first and foremost we can start with High Definition textures. These will take up more RAM for the game to process visually along with character models etc. The amount of objects (player characters, NPC, terrain objects, decorations, etc.) in any given area could be limited by the low amount of RAM available in the PS3 as SE wants everyone to have an equal experience when playing the game. The amount of items available to be visible on a character model would be limited by the small amount of RAM, character creation options which if more options were added would cause each character to take up more RAM, just anything that you can think of that's going to take memory for the game to display is going to be limited by the 512MB of RAM available in the PS3.

Again, with SE wanting everyone to have the same, or nearly the same, experience while playing the game, SE will not add things that people with more RAM can benefit from to the point that it gives a PC or PS4 player an advantage or a much better gameplay experience compared to a PS3 player.

[StrejdaTom]

UI - as SE wants the UI across PC and PS3/4 to show the same informations, they had to hide party bonus (INT/STR/etc.) in order to show TP bars, TP bars even don´t show numbers. PS3 is the reason.

Cities are divided into separate zones, it is the same for all locations and dungeons while you can see that the zones are clearly modeled even behind the transition wall.
The game could easily be one huge open world + dungeons could be 1 zone with no loading screens (I had a friend back in 2.X who used to bug behind the transition balls and wander around for hours and make screenshots. With a bit of adding some details the game is imo ready for open world, I mean world design wide).

RAM basically influences how much stuff you can have in inventory, in each UI window etc.

Most probably dyes? It is really weird that we can only put one dye into each gear piece while it could handle even 4 different colours.

EDIT: And yeah.. size of locations.

We as a players can only guess what are the real reasons behind devs decisions. Plenty of stuff was probably done because they only wanted to save some time, resources etc., but there definitely is plenty of other stuff that is plain impossible without ditching the PS3 too (UI, open world for example).

[AsteriaStarfall]

Cities are divided into separate zones, it is the same for all locations and dungeons while you can see that the zones are clearly modeled even behind the transition wall.

Not entirely, only what can be viewed from anywhere in your current zone is modeled, everything else is left blank.

[Reynhart]

UI - as SE wants the UI across PC and PS3/4 to show the same informations, they had to hide party bonus (INT/STR/etc.) in order to show TP bars, TP bars even don´t show numbers. PS3 is the reason.

Wrong.
There were already differences between the PC and PS3 UI.

• On PS3, if you activate Focus Target, gils disappear.
• You can't have hotbars displayed on top of cross-hotbar.

So, it would have been easy to remove the party bonus only for PS3 without touching the PC version. And we don't need numbers for TP since everyone one has the same max TP. It's easy to see if someone is around 50% TP left or 20%.

As for the size, why would we need larger areas than we already have with HW ? They are already fairly empty to justify such size. And one big open world doesn't really offer anything more, apart from required more power, which is also an issue on average PCs.

Inventory limitation is not because of the PS3, it's because of the server stress. Servers refresh at a very fast rate to prevent any information loss in case of a crash. Adding more space to the inventory would suddenly requires a lot more date to save, since you have to multiply this by the numbers of characters.

[Niwashi]

There were already differences between the PC and PS3 UI.

• On PS3, if you activate Focus Target, gils disappear.
• You can't have hotbars displayed on top of cross-hotbar.

There's a few more differences, too. PS3 doesn't get the miniature dot-matrix view of how full your inventory is like the PS4 and PC versions do. PS3 doesn't allow the expanded inventory window like the others. On PS3, duty and FATE objectives replace quest objectives in the duty tracker rather than be shown in addition to them like on PS4 and PC. Along with the hotbars you mentioned, those are the differences I can think of, though there could still be more. (I hadn't even noticed the Focus Target one you mentioned.)

SE's rule in this regard isn't that the different versions need the same UI, it's that any differences in the UI shouldn't make different systems a marked advantage or disadvantage in combat. (Actually, the loss of quest objectives when a FATE appears over your quest target is kind of pushing the issue there, at least when a quest requires use of a key item. Selecting the item from your quest tracker can be a lot easier than navigating to your key items inventory while in the midst of combat and selecting the right item from there.)

I agree, that party bonus could easily have been among the differences SE allows between systems, though simply removing it was probably a better choice. (It's not like it really added anything useful when it was there.)

[Tint]

(I hadn't even noticed the Focus Target one you mentioned.)

when 2.0 was released there wasn't even focus target on PS3 at all. they implemented it in 2.1, and had to remove the clock, server status and exp bar from the UI, everytime you activate focus target.

playing a healer on PS3 got sooo much easier after that xD

[Kurogaea]

...

What the PS3 does to treat their limitations:

Lowered Frame Rate

Lowered Textures

Decreased Shadow Quality

Removed Specific Physics (boobs, clothes, etc)

Lowered Viewing Distance (PS3 players see less far away objects and beings than PS4)

Lowered Resolution

Less player clutter in populated areas (reducing memory usage and prioritizing things like monsters and bosses)

and more that I can't think of atm.

These are PS3 limitations, but these do NOT effect the game as a whole, or PS4 or PC players. For one, the devs create content for this game. With what they have now, saying limitations on PS3 is because how things are going now is hilarious. Diadem? Nah, totally PS3 limitations. Airships being un-drivable, yep, dem limitations. Every dungeon after 3.0 being a blatent tribute to FF13, WOOOT, limitations. BS, double BS.

Its a crap excuse for lack of content when players request things on the forums because others have no other excuse for it to not be in the game. Someone says PS3 limitations? Ask them why SE added Lord of Verminion which is probably the most boring minigame to date, as well as tidbits of other useless crap such as Diadem, Airships which are giant retainers that you send out, and we alllll know what squadrons will be, because PS3 LIMITATIONS. Get real.

SE can't come up with innovative content due to cowardly players too afraid to jump over ropes, have ideas taken from forum threads that are not official, or anything that (god forbid) messes with their immersion. Right, they need to Let it Go, like the Shiva achievement. Pfft