Increase of Assets on maps

[Ath192]

I would agree with this point, if it weren't for supply and demand issues. Trying to get a PS5 right now, or some of the newer PC components, isn't as easy as people seem to think because they were able to get their hands on some.

Edit: Just checked 3 different sites for PS5, and BestBuy, Walmart, and EB games have none - except for a refurbished digital one at BestBuy going for almost 1100...which is 600 more than a brand new one.

It's a gradual process. The Graphics card shortage is reportedly abating and has been documented by numerous outlets. The PS5 one will as well with time. So instead of treating this as of happening right now, treat these things as if they will take years to develop and implement. By then it is safe to assume the shortages will have also abated. Barring more global disruptions.

[KurohNeko]

Dear SE with the graphical update incoming you showed us the steps at Yedlihmad full of rich features and objects that were not there before.

Can you also please consider using these new capabilities to add life to the world. By life I mean:

1. Ships coming in and out of Limsa Lominsa and NPCs in the background loading/unloading goods or themselves.
2. Merchants/Convoys and other NPCs regularly travelling the lands going about their business.
3. Airships flying in and out of the cities with their shadows casting by the ground as they sail.

And things of this nature. The possibilities for immersion are there, and this can be a world that brings a lot of wonder and awe to the people that reside in it.

Maybe these are dreams but I can imagine every player's experience being richer for it. The devils always in the details and polish can go a looong way.

How about bigger cities that aren't one or two zones despite the outside showing a literal city. Even fucking ESO has NPC houses you can go in.

[Ath192]

How about bigger cities that aren't one or two zones despite the outside showing a literal city. Even fucking ESO has NPC houses you can go in.

I'm down =) I love this game, I've come close to giving up on it from time to time but anything to make it better.

[Ath192]

Imagine for a second the developers invented NPC routes consistent with the businesses and activities of said cities and ran them.

In this story very much regardless of your existence Limsa Lominsa is an important trade/port city and there are people who make a living in Eastern La Noscea by growing grapes for wine in Wineport. These farmers sell these goods to merchants who operate a ground based chocobo carriage business and load them up into carts to take them to Limsa Lominsa. After spending a night resting and drinking at the drowning wench these merchants finally transport the goods to Aleport where they are loading one of the big ships headed out into open ocean and you can see NPCs loading these goods onto the ship. The next day in the morning you see one of these ships undock and sail out:

[Ath192]

In fact I'd say the graphical tax of making said event happen is not that great on the hardware part. But these events happening in the world at a large scale would add incredible life to the game. It's just these things take a while to develop.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

I'd still continue to afk in the flame barracks all day. You can make the overworld absolutely stunning in appearance and it would still be largely useless as a majority of the content in this game is instanced. It would be an incredible waste of funds to spruce up the overworld without also adding longstanding content to it that is not Fate grind related. So I say no to a graphical overhaul of the overworld until they fix the fundamental problem of the overworld being near meaningless in the grand scheme of this game.

[Ath192]

I'd still continue to afk in the flame barracks all day. You can make the overworld absolutely stunning in appearance and it would still be largely useless as a majority of the content in this game is instanced. It would be an incredible waste of funds to spruce up the overworld without also adding longstanding content to it that is not Fate grind related. So I say no to a graphical overhaul of the overworld until they fix the fundamental problem of the overworld being near meaningless in the grand scheme of this game.

I don't necessarily agree that it would have no value. While I do agree they should and could add active content to the overworld to make it more meaningful this would be part of the adding content to the overworld.

After all this take is more like:
If they can't do everything they may as well do nothing and I'm going to continue to AFK in the same place I always have.

Following this logic ultimately leads to:
We may as well do nothing ever because nothing is ever going to be perfect for everyone.

And ultimately these zones are in use daily by people who still have things to do in game and presumably not AFK in the flame barracks, especially since they are part of the trial version of the game, which gets more foot traffic than any other zone. So this sprucing up could lead to more purchases and subscriptions moving forward.

Remember that the first impression is something that can only happen once and sometimes it is all the difference between whether something gets bought or not. While a priority list of things to do in game should absolutely exist, that doesn't mean things like this should never be taken into consideration even if they are less important than others.

[Packetdancer]

The devil is indeed in the details and adding so much further contributes to lag and killing any kind of immersion and playability for a lot of people.

That's actually not entirely true. Background details (like ships coming and going) do not require you to be able to interact with them. And anything that does not affect actual interaction with anything else can be handled entirely client-side. This means it won't contribute to network traffic, thus no effect on latency or network lag. Moreover, in many cases the necessary assets are already loaded, so you're not appreciably adding to zone load times; to use the ships-in-the-distance example for Limsa, it already loads appropriate ships in to use as details in the distance, parked at the docks you cannot get to.

(I grant the ships in question are, in this case, seemingly used as static world geometry and thus stored in the map directly, which does make a small but non-zero performance difference.)

Now, if you're running FFXIV on a potato (obligatory Portal 2 GLaDOS "How are you? Because I'm a potato." quote here), adding extra background details could definitely slow down client performance, but you can deal with that by just... not showing ships sailing around dynamically in the background if graphics are set to lower detail, etc. And as others have said, the unfortunate reality is that sooner or later -- especially with a graphical update -- FFXIV is going to stop being potato-friendly. (Though one assumes it will always remain popoto-friendly, so lalafells need not panic.)

However, whether or not it's practical, you could easily argue that the time necessary to add those things to older zones is better spent on newer stuff.

(That said, as soon as any of the extra details are something that players can potentially interact with in any manner, it does have to be server-side and have state replicated from the server to all clients... and in those cases, you're absolutely 100% correct that it could contribute further towards this game's already not-always-ideal network performance.)

[Packetdancer]

Imagine for a second the developers invented NPC routes consistent with the businesses and activities of said cities and ran them.

While this is cool, I will note it often ends up being a ton of work to do by hand. Having a couple of ships sailing by in the distance is no different than the schools of non-interactable fish (and notable random large shark) you encounter underwater in the Ruby Sea; isolated background elements which can happen whenever, and which are very easy for a map designer to add.

Having NPCs going about their lives in long sequences like that is a great deal more work. Especially as it requires coordination across multiple maps; your example would have NPCs scripted across Eastern La Noscea near Wineport, from Eastern La Noscea either to Lower or Middle La Noscea to Limsa Lominsa itself, on the Upper Decks at the Drowning Wench, then back into Middle La Noscea, up to Western La Noscea, and into Aleport.

That's four different zones -- one of them with two separate scripts -- which you now need to make custom scripted NPC paths and dialogue for. Moreover, you almost certainly need to sync it with the Eorzean time clock, both so that they show up at the Drowning Wench at night rather than midday, and so that if you tried to follow them from map-to-map, they didn't vanish between maps.

Technologically, that's easy. Time-budget wise, it's often far harder to justify, especially when the environment designers could be working on some new environment for current content instead.

[Deveryn]

That's actually not entirely true. Background details (like ships coming and going) do not require you to be able to interact with them. And anything that does not affect actual interaction with anything else can be handled entirely client-side. This means it won't contribute to network traffic, thus no effect on latency or network lag. Moreover, in many cases the necessary assets are already loaded, so you're not appreciably adding to zone load times; to use the ships-in-the-distance example for Limsa, it already loads appropriate ships in to use as details in the distance, parked at the docks you cannot get to.

(I grant the ships in question are, in this case, seemingly used as static world geometry and thus stored in the map directly, which does make a small but non-zero performance difference.)

Now, if you're running FFXIV on a potato (obligatory Portal 2 GLaDOS "How are you? Because I'm a potato." quote here), adding extra background details could definitely slow down client performance, but you can deal with that by just... not showing ships sailing around dynamically in the background if graphics are set to lower detail, etc. And as others have said, the unfortunate reality is that sooner or later -- especially with a graphical update -- FFXIV is going to stop being potato-friendly. (Though one assumes it will always remain popoto-friendly, so lalafells need not panic.)

However, whether or not it's practical, you could easily argue that the time necessary to add those things to older zones is better spent on newer stuff.

(That said, as soon as any of the extra details are something that players can potentially interact with in any manner, it does have to be server-side and have state replicated from the server to all clients... and in those cases, you're absolutely 100% correct that it could contribute further towards this game's already not-always-ideal network performance.)

I was speaking more from a graphical perspective with regard to lag. Interaction doesn't matter. The more there is to process, the more it's going to be a problem for a fair number of people. There's a reason there are so many barriers in various zones and so many are.

Limsa is frankly the worst place to even try this with all that already goes on. I avoid the aetheryte like the plague because if anything actually ruins immersion, it's whatever it is those degenerates do down there.