WHM AF3 Concern

[Kosmos992k]

Let me first say I LOVE the WHM AF3 design for the most part. However. . .

The flared collar. . . thing in the back is going to clip though any long hairstyle and weapons. Not a big deal in the greater scheme of things, but this one is really going to stand out.

Devs, you might want to reconsider that one detail before everything is finalized. Personally I say remove it, but that's just my opinion. Fact is, it's really gonna stand out in all the wrong ways.

What they need to do is make it so that the flared collar can be folded down if desired, and either make it fold down for hair that will clip, or alternately, give the player a command to use that switches between flared and folded as needed. It would also work for metal armor in that you could reason that for longer hair you install a different shoulder/neck piece that lays more flatly than the many flared neck/shoulder protectors. This would resolve a lot of hair/gear clipping issues.

[Vhailor]

What they need to do is design a physics system worth a shit. I know they've said they 'don't care about clipping', but why, exactly, aren't people holding their feet to the fire on this? I can't be the only person who intentionally constructs their appearance in such a way as to minimize the embarrassing amount of clipping in this game. Now that the ancient PS3 is being deprecated, surely they can put a bit of work into the game engine so that FFXIV's clipping no longer resembles a game from the turn of the century?

[Kosmos992k]

What they need to do is design a physics system worth a shit. I know they've said they 'don't care about clipping', but why, exactly, aren't people holding their feet to the fire on this? I can't be the only person who intentionally constructs their appearance in such a way as to minimize the embarrassing amount of clipping in this game. Now that the ancient PS3 is being deprecated, surely they can put a bit of work into the game engine so that FFXIV's clipping no longer resembles a game from the turn of the century?

Physics won't help long hair that either lays over the flared neck, or pools inside it. In real life, you would fold the collar, or modify the armor to let hair hang properly - or as some already suggested, change to shorter hair. I don't prefer the shorter hair much, but until the game let's me remove the clippy collars, I am forced to use shorter styles or endure annoying clipping.

[Vhailor]

Physics won't help long hair that either lays over the flared neck, or pools inside it. In real life, you would fold the collar, or modify the armor to let hair hang properly - or as some already suggested, change to shorter hair. I don't prefer the shorter hair much, but until the game let's me remove the clippy collars, I am forced to use shorter styles or endure annoying clipping.

Physics engines are responsible for handling clipping issues. It might look wonky for other purposes, but a proper physics engine wouldn't allow the type of clipping we currently see, because the hair and armour would be considered two separate objects that collide rather than intersect. Your point is well-taken, though, in that SE also needs to take into account hairstyles and such when designing gear in the first place.

because of this
http://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/...03/photo31.jpg

nobody wants that to come back so we're okay with some clipping here and there.

I think that's a bit of a false equivalence. I can't think of a mainstream title being released in the last 5-10 years with similarly bad clipping problems. If other companies can manage it, why can't we expect the same from SE? Just because XIV 1.0 had a terribly-optimized inefficient mess of an engine doesn't mean we should all just nod our heads and accept it when they half-ass parts of the "upgraded" version.

Also, 1.0 would be an utter breeze to run on modern hardware. Hell, I had a laptop that ran it in a playable state - seven years ago. It's time to bring back the fancy shaders, high polygon counts, improved physics systems, and higher texture resolutions. The hardware can handle it.

[Belhi]

There are plenty of other games that came out in the past 10 years with clipping issues. GW2 for example.

Its kind of beside the point. Frankly overhauling the engine to have a more advanced physics engine, assuming that the existing game engine can facilitate such an upgrade, is probably far from cost effective for the benefits. Most games with equivalent physics engines launch with them as a core part of the games structure rather than trying to integrate such a system at a later date. With major engine overhauls its usually easier building from scratch than retrofitting. Too many moving parts could be thrown out of whack. Frankly I would be highly surprised if it would be worth the investment of resources and there are things for the game I would vastly prefer they spend money on.

I would also point out that while your system can handle it, other players systems might not. MMOs generally have to pander to a very wide audience so they are careful to allow a low minimum spec.

[Jetstream_Fox]

snip

They should look into retooling the engine for future expansions though, with the issues of clipping, the game could handle it a little better, with some hairstyles and chest pieces the clipping is awful, I wouldn't say game breaking, but in some regard it looks rushed. To me it sort of hinders character customization, tails bleed through and look horribly detached from the body, and long hair cuts through everything as if it were and hot knife to butter.

You're correct with system requires though, but we're in this weird time where consoles are offering upgraded versions to keep games running and looking great. If I can boldly speak, I wouldn't be surprised if by 6.0 there wouldn't be talks of dropping the ps4, in favor of the Pro, since by then the Pro would be more affordable and not to mention Sony would likely have something coming out to compete with the Scorpio. With this in mind, I wouldn't rule out them considering a physics change, and while I realize this is all hypothetical, the truth is if they don't look to jump the game up in terms of performance with each new expansion, then the game will fall flat.

[SendohJin]

What they need to do is design a physics system worth a shit. I know they've said they 'don't care about clipping', but why, exactly, aren't people holding their feet to the fire on this?

because of this
http://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/...03/photo31.jpg

nobody wants that to come back so we're okay with some clipping here and there.

Yeah, it's not a problem exclusive to just this one piece of gear. The difference however is that this is not yet released. I would imagine it's easier to change in development than it might be after it's been patched in. Making them aware of such a thing is primarily what I wanted to do.

isn't it in the benchmark? this is an item model, that means it's already been developed. this is not some function that they talked about that hasn't been designed yet.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

isn't it in the benchmark? this is an item model, that means it's already been developed. this is not some function that they talked about that hasn't been designed yet.

It IS in the benchmark, and that means it HAS been finished. But it is not fully patched in yet. Would it make more sense to say "Hey, this noticeably looks bad (for the program issue of clipping, not simply glamour so let's let that line of thought die there), let's just patch it later," or say "Hey, this noticeably looks bad. See if the modeling team can work in a quick fix on this before release"?

Were this a technical issue like a skill not activating on time or spell/skill effects missing and it were pointed out, would it be okay to just say nothing?

The topic has shifted a bit from simply noting that it has the potential to clip to justifying whether it's worth pointing out something can be potentially wrong. People point out errors that slipped through the cracks before, and maybe they have or haven't been fixed. I simply saw something that may potentially look bad, even if it's minor, and spoke up on it. Maybe it was an oversight? Maybe it got the okay from QC and it's a non issue? All I can do is say "Hey this might be a thing," and I feel that's rather valid. What they do with it from there is on them.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Like I said, it's not a big deal in the greater scheme of things (and would honestly be an easy fix besides), but for gear that's supposed to be a signature to the job it's intended for, one would think care would be taken to consider the various looks/styles possible in game. I'm no less looking forward to it besides.

[Theodric]

Sometimes all it takes to get around clipping issues is to make use of a different /changepose option. That worked for me to prevent Trey's hairstyle from clipping with the armour I used at the time. Clipping is just an unfortunate occurrence in MMO's - be it FFXIV, WoW or others. I've never played an MMO that didn't have the problem to some extent.