Would you trade new ingame content for an engine upgrade?

[ForteNightshade]

It entirely depends on what content is being sacrificed. The game is already rather sparse on long term content to begin with. Dropping say, an entire raid tier would basically make the game not worth even looking at for six months as they'd be virtually nothing to do.

[sharknado]

It entirely depends on what content is being sacrificed. The game is already rather sparse on long term content to begin with. Dropping say, an entire raid tier would basically make the game not worth even looking at for six months as they'd be virtually nothing to do.

Depending how it looks on the backed side and they work organization/capabilities it could end up with more common X.X.X patches, like every odd week or even longer maintananced at reset day and so on. At first nothing or little would change for players but then we could see things like reworked element of the game - say new roulette implementation, new guildhest, mechanics markers unified across old and new content, or a fully new marketboard system with some new features, or then totally new glamour system. Raid encounter people or even expansion story/artists could work but they would wait with any innovation until all pieces neede would get an upgrade (so 7.0 would look as expected, but like 8.0 could innovate way more).

One of recent event Yoshi P question answers indicated there may be a squadron bigger rework in progress (which then could chain into GC reworks and/or extension).

[Jeeqbit]

There is a whole 10 years more of this game being planned at least. It's a fantasy to think they could stop making content for two years, especially at the the current height of the game's success. It would be another thing if it had the population of 1.0 and had nothing to lose by not making content, but right now it does have a lot to lose by not making content.

Square Enix has experience of maintaining content while not just making a new engine, but a new game, with 1.0. Whatever would happen on that scale, it would not be at the expense of content.

But again, there is no reason that the engine can't be slowly upgraded over time. If there is technical debt, one way that has been used to get around it is to create a duplicate of that system which functions better. The chocobo saddlebag is a way to get around the limits of the inventory. Cross-world linkshells could have been an upgrade to regular linkshells, but they weren't so I think that they are a workaround to avoid working with old code.

[HeyMcFly]

I would trade it all for a better character creator with a larger array of amazing hairstyles

[ForctyusGold]

yes and no . for me game is still looking pretty nice . after all those years i cant imagine huge graphic update but im sure theyre making something .

[Raiya]

In regards to an engine upgrade are we even sure we need an upgrade to the engine itself? Because I think the real issue here isn't so much the engine but the TEXTURES especially the older ones where the issue's are right now. (eg Ironworks set and some older gears but also theres some NPCs like Hien/Raubahn/Pixel Exarch that could do with a serious fixerupper). A good chunk of these could be actually done with AI upscaling if they didn't do the original textures in higher resolution but it's certainly the more doable option. An Engine overhaul is usually the nuclear option of development and it's something that can only be considered a last resort option.

[MidnightEquinox]

Engine upgrade for visual reasons? Doesn't seem worth it. Game looks fine as it is, lower graphics means more users are supported. Some zones could use a texture touchup and the like but that doesn't require an engine upgrade.

Engine upgrade for systems could be worthwhile. Glamour, housing, inventory management, and character customization are the big things that matter a lot for an MMO. Those are the systems newer (and some older) games can do a lot better and thus present competition.

Unfortunately, I don't know that it's viable with a game so large and with such a large population. Increasing amounts of duct tape is more likely and seems there's already quite a bit of that. Adding a new system, pseudo-grandfathering an old one into it, etc.

[Apeachs]

Yes! Would love a new graphics engine for this game.

[einschwartz]

Yes.


Enough with limitation excuse.

[MikkoAkure]

Considering the drop-off after everyone finished Endwalker, they'd be hard pressed to retain people if we had no new content for a lengthy period of time while they redid the engine.

Right now FFXIV is SE's cash cow and I don't see them doing anything to jeopardize that when the hastily done ARR spaghetti code engine is "good enough" and still draws in enough people that they had to stop selling the game because it's becoming a victim of its own success. The other problem is that the game is being held back graphically by the minimum PC specs, which as an MMO I don't see increasing that much any time soon, especially with how hard and expensive it's been to upgrade PCs the past few years.