So... What Exactly ARE the PS3 Limitations

[Ametrine]

I played PS3 from the beta to Heavensward.... And everything stated about the load times is true. What can take 5 seconds on PS4 takes 20 or more on PS3. And that isn't an exaggeration, especially in areas saturated with many players.

Remember that quest in Mor Dhona where you have to find the prospective Crystal Braves hanging out around the town? It took 20 minutes without a guide since the NPCs refused to load for all the players!

I really don't care about the graphics. The aesthetic is lovely and will look great for a long time, but the SEVERE rendering lag and length of load times just put a huge damper on that console's ability to function.

[vrkosk]

I've been playing on the PS3 since patch 2.4. Loading times were really awful. Teleporting to a city state could take anything between 30 and 120 seconds. Retainers sometimes took so long to load that you received a "time out" message. I didn't do any hunts or large FATEs, because I could never get there in time, and when I did get there, the monsters didn't always appear on my screen.

Then I replaced the hard disk with an SSD. Suddenly loading times are measured in seconds, and I'm nearly always the first one to finish loading an instance. I can teleport as freely as PC players, retainers come in a couple of seconds and I've had no problems at all in FATEs. The only remaining problems are S ranks and the Odin FATE, where the PS3 hits the maximum on-screen character limit (so some players become untargetable).

Make no mistake, it is incredible what Square Enix has been able to do with the PS3. I'll upgrade to PS4 only when they drop PS3 support.

[Riardon]

PS3 can't load too many things at once. This console is archaic. It can't load UI with too many options. Low memory and very low cpu power are the limitations. It's purely cause of it's old weak hardware. So in order to make the game run there they trimmed down everything. From UI options to the graphics themselves. The limitations on character creation screen (number of faces, number of tails etc) are limited because of this. TP bar too. Zones are being made small in order for that poor thing to load. Ever wondered why dungeons despite being small areas are segmented into smaller zones as well? Towns the same. Because that poor thing can't calculate all of this. It's just too much for it. PS4 can handle an open zone games like Witcher 3 and FF XV without an issue. Despite that PC and PS4 got a trimmed down FFXIV version because of PS3. PS4 and PC's can run way larger areas and more NPC's and bigger scale battles instead we got a game with very limited options both in UI and graphics. We could have 20 faces for each race and 20-30 different tail shapes but they refuse to do it because of "memory limitations". A game with 6mil players (according to SE) have only like 4 faces for each race. We are clones to each other because of those limitations. So if you ask those limitations are the weak hardware of PS3. Once they drop support for it they will be free to do more things with the game. Both PC and PS4 can enjoy a way better FFXIV.

[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

[Chessala]

In the end, SE is only using the PS3 as an excuse to NOT advance the game. The easiest solution is to drop PS3 support once and for all. However, the problem here is that PS4 sales were sub-par in Japan and SE could potentially lose quite a chunk of the community they actually care about.

Also, as stated at the beginning, it is a convenient excuse to not do changes. They feel that they are in a comfortable place so they try to remain there as much as possible. This won't change unless the JP community complains about this.The west is just an additional market that can be milked (see CE prices being 1:1 translations).

[Eifahlwyn]

I play on a PS3 with an ssd in it and I have no issues with load times, functioning in crowded areas, doing Hunts ect... In fact my load speed is often faster than my friends playing on PC.

Which really leads to the crux of the whole "PS3 limitations issue". The people who think that the moment PS3 is dropped will result in some graphical and technical renaissance for FF14 are simply delusional. SE will not devote resources in making the game more demanding on hardware because, aside from that being an unnecessary allocation of resources, it will also hurt people on low end PCs. That's the thing vocal PC players always forget about is that lots of PC players have really, REALLY bad gaming rigs.

So if SE actually implemented something in FF14 that the PS3 can't handle it not only costs them their PS3 user-base but sections of their PC customers as well. It is simply good business to make sure your mmo runs as well as it can on as many types of hardware as possible.

Oh and of course the nanosecond PS3 support is dropped the new mantra will be PS4 limitations.

[Maero]

"Harder to develop for" is a lazy excuse.

Please pass this along to Bethesda, seriously, lol

Oh and i also played this game on PS3, played the PS4 beta and then switched to PS4.
While it was slow it's not nearly as bad as some of you made it out to be

[Derio]

The limit will always be RAM. It is the number one reason

[Musashidon]

The limit will always be RAM. It is the number one reason

that is because rem is better

[raymon]

It's unlikely they will be dropping it before 4.0 and it seems unlikely it will be dropped on 4.0. even if we assume that the PS3 is the absolute lowest and weakest system, it is still a sizable portion of the player base. even if PS3 players are (and i am completely making these numbers up) just 10% of the player base, SE will be taking a huge risk that i don't think they would want to take. that's a chance SE could "potentially" permanently get rid of 10% of its players. having less players means less subscription which means having money from the game. from a business standpoint (and video games are a buissnes so they want to make money) that's a lot of money your throwing not gonna get. i am not arguing if they should or should not or even if it is holding back on major aspects of the game. so long as players are playing on PS3, it is very likely not gonna be dropped.

TL;DR: Square Enix is a business and businesses need to make money, so they won't drop PS3 so long as it is even somewhat profitable.