How good is the game engine of FFXIV?

[Dyvid]

Okay, I think you are still confusing cutscene using in game assets opposed to fully rendered cutscenes by themselves.

Take a look at FFXV Cutscene, note that some scene look better render than others. That's because SE used pains taken animated techniques those scenes to provide greater depth.

FFXIV uses mostly in game assets to do it cut scene because it requires less time for animating scene and allow them to focus on more important matters. As for the actually game it self, the devs have to consider optimize graphics rather than to focus on the high end builds. This is where the problems of 1.0 came into play, focusing solely on high end computers graphics to the point it ruined their game. Now if SE chose to drop console support (bad idea by the way) then yes they could improve polygon counts and make the game look even better than it does. But you also alienate your consumer base.

[TheVigilant]

Now if SE chose to drop console support (bad idea by the way) then yes they could improve polygon counts and make the game look even better than it does. But you also alienate your consumer base.

Doesn't the PC version already have settings that the PS4 doesn't? So why can't the PC settings have options such as those possible with the mods in it?

[Dyvid]

Doesn't the PC version already have settings that the PS4 doesn't? So why can't the PC settings have options such as those possible with the mods in it?

Well to be honest, those mods are snake oil (been playing RDR2 alot). The "HD" photos are just shade tricks to make it look better. All it did was darker the lines to make it look more pronounce, not a actually polygon improvement. Here is good example of what I mean, FFXIV PS3 vs PS4. You can actually see the detail changes because the console is rendering more polygons faster giving it a cleaner, clearer look.

[TheVigilant]

Well to be honest, those mods are snake oil (been playing RDR2 alot). The "HD" photos are just shade tricks to make it look better. All it did was darker the lines to make it look more pronounce, not a actually polygon improvement. Here is good example of what I mean, FFXIV PS3 vs PS4. You can actually see the detail changes because the console is rendering more polygons faster giving it a cleaner, clearer look.

Whether it is snake oil or cooking oil, I'd prefer to have those options in settings if the dev don't mind just because I'd like the options to be easily accessible to all even if I get what I want through mods I discover elsewhere. The game currently really needs lighting, shade, texture and polygon improvement regardless of whatever, considering how all the new and upcoming MMOs are beginning to look, I'm hoping FFXIV will have competent graphics vs games like Ascent: Infinite Realm which is also a game that is interesting to me due to the steampunk art, story and environment. There are many people who play games for how they look, I am one of them.

but that would require more money and effort which would result in them having less resources for other aspects of the game.

...Unless SE starts taking care of FFXIV more and stop spending their money elsewhere. In Warlords of Draenor, Blizz said the WoW dev team was doubled and they were training the new staff, and we saw how much the development had increased for the game starting by Legion. Maybe FFXIV deserves the same?

[Jollyy5]

The best we can hope for in the unforeseen future is texture improvements, but I doubt we'll be getting more polygons anytime soon.

As for the animations, they have the technology to give cut-scenes various and complex animations, but that would require more money and effort which would result in them having less resources for other aspects of the game.

[Jollyy5]

But if they start funding FFXIV better, how will they condemn more big titles to a ten year development hell and release underwhelming gaming experiences?

[TheVigilant]

Anyone can explain this part of the interview?



What did he mean by graphical trends?
What did he mean by their research being quite deep?
What's the difference between technology base and specs?

[Astarotha]

graphical trends theyre talking about things like ray tracing and better shadows, super hd textures, which you cant really do in an mmo because the more assets your computer has to keep up with the bigger your bus bottleneck gets and the less ram you have to work with (for instance the 1gb limit on 32bit os as opposed to ps4s 4gb)
i dont know how deep they mean but any mmo is gonna have some people looking to see if theres any new graphical tricks they can incorporate like how horizon was able to push a shit ton of detail into its world through VERY aggressive culling methods (basically if you cant see it on the screen its not rendered)
your tech base is what people are running the game on, the big problem 1.0 had is while everything was technically within the specs of computers they used a lot of higher definition (ie bigger) textures than they needed to and had far too many items with too many shaders and polygons that it would bog peoples computers down to nothing due to running them out of ram very quickly or getting caught on a bus bottleneck (for instance, flowerpots had the same amount of shaders and polygons as a player character, which adds up quickly in a game where you could have 10 flowerpots and 20 characters all runing around in the same room)

i hate to compare to this but look at wow or ff14 and look at fo76, 76 is able to get that amount of 'detail' and physics and object density because one its a single player game originally but it also limits the number of players on a server to 24 (and even then it still has massive issues sometimes pulling that off), the more max potential players you can have in a server or single area takes resources like ram away from graphics and allocates it toward keeping track of things, and they have to balance that very carefully

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Keep in mind that art style DOES matter. WoW's art style is more cartoony, lower polygon, and less realistic which is easier to render than the FFXIV's more realistic and higher polygon graphics. FFXIV's graphics blow WoW's out of the water in my opinion but that's not to say that WoW's graphics are bad because they aren't, just that their art styles are different and that difference affects how much rendering power is needed for them.