Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[Abriael]

The water in FFXIV usually looks pretty decent, but I have found it a bit odd that it can't receive shadows or reflections. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it would be worth looking into sometime in the future.

Some effects have to be deactivated in order to save hardware resources. The crystal tools engine is perfectly able to render those effects, as single player games made with it demonstrate (Final Fantasy XIII for instance), this doesn't mean that it's advisable to use them in games that require the rendering of scenes with a much higher number of characters. Put a whole linkshell of people on water with a fully reflective effect and shadows, and any pc would be ground to a halt.

[Rhianu]

Some effects have to be deactivated in order to save hardware resources.

Sure, but don't you think it should be up to the player to choose which effects those are? I mean, considering how vastly different individual PCs can be, I think it would make more sense to make it so that the game can render any effects, and then give players the choice of which ones to enable or not.