So... What Exactly ARE the PS3 Limitations

[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.

[Reynhart]

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.

No, it doesn't. You don't put cutscene in the middle of the fight, because you're not sure that people will play those at the same rate. Some will skip, some will read the dialog in a flash, some will take screenshots of everything that happen...like what often happend in T4 once you activate the elevator.
It you talk about putting a cutscene in between two fights in the same instance, we have that at the end of Aetherochemical Research Facility.

As for hunts and large FATEs, it's also false, since they made a great comeback in HW, and it doesn't really restrict PS3 players' progress in the long run anyway.

These options not being available IS a limitation of the console as it was not designed for people to customize their graphic settings.

But it's not limiting what PC and PS4 players can do. The graphic setting are made to be flexible, especially to provide adequate gameplay for higher and lower specs. After all, DirectX12 offered a graphical upgrade while PS3 stayed the same.

There was no confirmed issue with PS3 support when it comes to how the game runs on PC and PS4.