So... What Exactly ARE the PS3 Limitations

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Guys ... Do NOT equate "dropping PS3 support" with " removing PS3 as an option to play the game".

When they decide to not provide expansions for PS3, they will still continue to have PS3 players playing content prior to that/those expansions. IE - if they "drop" it with 5.0, PS3 players will still be able to play 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 content. If they maintain PS3 through 7.0, then 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, etc. content will be PC/PS4 only, but 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0 content will still be available for PS3 players.

Removing PS3 as a client for previously-existing content will not come for YEARS after they stop bringing the new content to PS3 - if it even comes before they shut FFXIV down.

[WhiteArchmage]

Wasn't it just very recently that SE shut down FFXI service for the PS2? Literally more than a decade after launch and several years after XI was relevant. What I'm not sure about is if XI continued to release expansions for the PS2 through all of its life or if they stopped at some point. That means that it could be around 10 years before XIV is a PC/PS4 exclusive and by that point we may just have the PS6 making the PS4 irrelevant.

[Istaru]

Wasn't it just very recently that SE shut down FFXI service for the PS2? Literally more than a decade after launch and several years after XI was relevant. What I'm not sure about is if XI continued to release expansions for the PS2 through all of its life or if they stopped at some point. That means that it could be around 10 years before XIV is a PC/PS4 exclusive and by that point we may just have the PS6 making the PS4 irrelevant.

Somewhat, their last expansion in 2013, Seekers of Adoulin, was released for PS2 but only in Japan.

[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.)

[Annah]

That is not a PS3 limitation, that is an SE decision. It's pretty well false to call this a PS3 limitation.

That's still a PS3 Limitation.

The question wasn't: "why hasn't SE upgraded the graphics in this game?" It was based on PS3 limitations. It's def a PS3 limitation

[Niwashi]

That's still a PS3 Limitation.

The question wasn't: "why hasn't SE upgraded the graphics in this game?" It was based on PS3 limitations. It's def a PS3 limitation

Though it's limited on PS3, it's equally limited on a lot of PCs. Not all PCs are high-end gaming rigs that can handle all the high-def extras. So even if it were to be added, it would have to be an optional feature, where you could run either PC with high def or PC without high def. That definitely falls into the category of features they could leave out of the PS3 version without affecting PS4 or PC.

It's a PS3 limitation only in the sense that the option wouldn't be available on that system (or other low-end systems, either). But it's not a PS3 limitation in the sense that it makes PS3 hold the rest of the game back, because it doesn't.

[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

[Kosmos992k]

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

I wish I could, Bethesda makes a lot of excuses when basic functions like game saves are botched. Heaven help us when they are excusing the lack of optimization....

[The_Last_Dragoon]

I played on the PS3 and I get where people are coming from on both sides of the issue. The game does "run" on the PS3 at low settings with a pretty stable frame rate, but it definitely has the lowest specs for the intended platforms. I personally expected them to drop PS3 support for the next expansion since we're talking about technology that's 10 years old, and that would lock in those limitations for another 2 years for new content. This doesn't mean that they won't let you play 2.X and 3.X content on PS3, but they won't allow you to access any new areas or continue the game without upgrading.

In terms of limitations, I personally noticed three major issues when playing:

• Any dungeon with a large number of cutscenes would pretty much add 2-3 minutes of wait time, which meant you'd always be behind others or that you'd always force the group to wait for you. These wait times also became much worse on high population servers when trying to teleport to Mor Dhona.
• It was pretty much impossible to do the Hunts when they came out or participate in Odin. You can't even deal damage with aoe if they aren't rendered on your screen, and their massive popularity in 2.X meant that anything more than 20 people meant you weren't going to see anything.
• Due to it's networking limitations, the PS3 version always had exraneous lag on enemy aoe, meaning that people on the PS3 pretty much had to either predict when these attacks would happen and already be mid-dodge or react immediately with no hesitation in order to dodge even the longest charge times on avoidable aoes.

If you notice, the first two issues prevent SE from putting in an event where you either get cutscenes or transition in the middle of a fight, or from putting too much emphasis on Hunts and anything they might implement as non-instanced content. So yes, the PS3 is and always has held back content in the game, even if it is stable in regular instanced content.