Breaking down some of the screenshots

[Ikea]

Remember when I said in another thread (I beleive it was the "Leveling is too fast!" Thread.) That when people realize that their opinion is in a stark minority on the internet, they feel this incessant urge to try to justify their views and feelings above the others by repeatedly trolling and crying?

Right now, that's bobbygunz.

And it would be really nice if you'd all stop feeding the troll.


Graphic wise? I'll be plain - I don't care what other people think, those graphics look nice to me. I wasn't asking for photo-realism. Hell, I wasn't expecting anything after-being told the trailer wasn't going to be shown at E3.

The point of the photos was to show off the environments and UI, as well as some of the new effects. And they look good. I like the feel they're producing with the visuals of 2.0 here, and I'm anxious- no, excited to see more.

What he is saying is true, the current version of FFXIV has some aspect of the graphics that are better than WHAT IS SHOWN IN THOSE SCREENSHOTS. He wouldn't have to repeat himself if people who obviously never played the current version of FFXIV on anything but low-medium settings stopped coming in here stating "HERP DERP WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, EVERYTHING IN THOSE SCREENSHOTS ARE 10X BETTER THAN WHAT MY GAME LOOKS LIKE".

If people just admit, which many have, that the ground texture, foliage etc is worse than what the current FFXIV version delivers on MAXIMUM settings, he probably wouldn't keep posting. And even if these screenshots released are on standard settings, and they will have highres textures in the 2.0 release (Which I am starting to believe since someone was actually kind enough to post the AF screenshot which apparently SE released, which was definitely not on high settings) that doesn't change the fact that the textures in the current screenshot released are indeed worse than the ones we have ingame today.

However, I agree that the lightning, the redesign of the maps, the UI and everything else except those few things look awesome. If I had to choose between the current version and the new version I would definitely choose the new version, but that doesn't stop me from wanting the best of both worlds.

And nobody has to keep mentioning that those are probably on standard settings, they probably are, or atleast I'd like to believe so.

Edit: And I don't mind the new crystals, I think they look nice and refreshing.

[Hyrist]

Method of delivery > Point being made.

PERFORMANCE OF GRAPHICS >>>>>>>> Actual quality of texture.

If taking the textures down a noch is the price we pay for a better preforming game, then I shall eat it gladly.

Bobby's reactions to it, are at best, overblown - as the average player cannot even run the game at the highest graphic point anyways. If he is so elitist that his super-personal-build computer doesn't look 20 years above the average model. Then he's fine to go. It has long been a criticism of Square Enix that they emphasize graphics over game-play too much. Going the other way around for once is not something anyone should be complaining about

[KamikazeMan]

Why is Cure II being used? Lol

http://www.ffandmore.com/wp-content/..._Dragoon-2.png

I also noticed that a level 46 Dragoon is using a relic weapon.

[bobbygunz]

.....ROFL

ok please stop, you have to be trolling.

*Steps outside Uldah*
*Looks at the Landscape*

I have no successfully seen ALL of Thanalan as its no different from the moment you step outside the door of Uldah.

Please show me these "Interesting" places, unless you think HIGH RES ROCK TEXTURE is uber..

Here is how badly XIV is copy-pasted

Well obviously everyone's familiar with those images, and also the copy-pastedness of large segments of land in FFXIV, but it's certainly not a problem which is ever visible in screenshots. However, those badly normal-mapped ground textures and lack of aliasing is a problem which is visible even in screenshots.

And anyway, within each large segment in FFXIV you have to admit there is still variety. Thanalan is not a homogenous area, even though people like to say it is. It's pretty popular to say such things, but it's not actually correct. Thanalan is copy-pasted, but not ostensibly within an individual area. There is diversity in Thanalan, it's perhaps just spread out too far and also repeated on a large scale.

Someone mentioned that they counted 5 individual trees or something in a screenshot for 2.0. So it's not as if everything is unique in 2.0 either. There will always be repeated assets, things used over and over. Same thing is true for version 1.0, it's just that the landscapes are bigger, and their size makes them feel repetitive and boring. If for example, Thanalan was smaller and had no copy pasted chunks, what would the problem be?

All the maps in FFXIV at the moment are lcopy pasted, and it's a problem, but it's not as bad as everyone says. It's not a problem to the extent that everything about FFXIV's maps at the moment are bad. It's a large scale problem, but on a small scale (e.g., in your immediate surroundings) it's not, and the game still looks good.

From the screenshots for FFXIV 2.0, the reverse seems to be the the case. The issue is no longer copy paste, but lower quality graphics.

I guess I was just expected best of both worlds.

And nobody has to keep mentioning that those are probably on standard settings, they probably are, or atleast I'd like to believe so.

Edit: And I don't mind the new crystals, I think they look nice and refreshing.

Hopefully. If high settings fixes the bad textures and suchlike, I definitely wouldn't complain anymore.

[Firon]

They don't look "amazing". They look average now. They're still good enough for today's MMO landscape, but they're definitely not the best anymore. FFXIV used to have the best graphics, now it looks just like Blade and Soul and TERA. That desert landscape looks like something copy-pasted out of Red Dead Redemption. Current Thanalan is much more original and interesting. It's not just a generic desert landscape ripped straight from Red Dead Redemption or someplace. So hopefully there is still a place in 2.0 for an area that looks like present-day Thanalan.

And I think you're over-estimating the degree of copy-paste in FFXIV if you think copy-paste is visible in Screenshots. I've never seen a screenshot of current FFXIV and thought "copy paste!".

Obviously a compromise was needed to allow us to have dynamic shadows, and also to avoid copy-paste during zones. However, I had been expecting that the smaller zone size would be that compromise, and in 2.0 we'd still maintain everything else we have in 1.0 (i.e., high res textures, superior normal mapping, polygon count). Obviously not!

I thought more people would notice all this.

This here is why only 1 good game per year now cuz of graphic whores.

[bobbygunz]

This here is why only 1 good game per year now cuz of graphic whores.

When someone says they are "optimizing" the engine, then it suggests they are making it better. But actually they just took a shortcut and lowered all the texture resolutions and terrain mapping instead. I guess it just comes down to a clash of expectations. I had expected we'd still have the same quality of graphics as we do now, but with the ability to have dynamic shadows, and less copy-paste. Guess not!

In reality, there was no optimization. Just a shuffling around of features.

[Starlord]

When someone says they are "optimizing" the engine, then it suggests they are making it better. But actually they just took a shortcut and lowered all the texture resolutions and terrain mapping instead. I guess it just comes down to a clash of expectations. I had expected we'd still have the same quality of graphics as we do now, but with the ability to have dynamic shadows, and less copy-paste. Guess not!

In reality, there was no optimization. Just a shuffling around of features.

Optimizing the engine, to make it "run" better not "look" better major difference and they used Optimizing and Low-end computers in the same sentence mind you.

[KiriA500]

When someone says they are "optimizing" the engine, then it suggests they are making it better. But actually they just took a shortcut and lowered all the texture resolutions and terrain mapping instead. I guess it just comes down to a clash of expectations. I had expected we'd still have the same quality of graphics as we do now, but with the ability to have dynamic shadows, and less copy-paste. Guess not!

In reality, there was no optimization. Just a shuffling around of features.

[Citation needed]

[viion]

Man you dont even know everything yet, i am usually hastey and I want to point out the plant copy/paste but I decided this time I am going to wait until we have more.

AA is turned off, that is obvious. Also its running on a Laptop as far as interviews show (not sure if they were taken on Laptop but we dont know). Its also Alpha lol or even Pre-Alpha if you want that to be a thing. In a lot of games now you can turn off High Res textures, could just be that.

I dont think they will dumb it down, but more allow it to work differently.

It was same case with Job AF weapons, was pixelated all over cuse low AA + print screen looks awful.

[bobbygunz]

Optimizing the engine, to make it "run" better not "look" better major difference and they used Optimizing and Low-end computers in the same sentence mind you.

If it ran better, then logic should dictate that means you could run it at higher settings for the same computing power. Lowering all the graphical detail seems like a pretty cheap shortcut to get it to run on lower end machines. I know Yoshi said the game would look different, I thought he meant different-better. Hopefully there is an option to increase certain graphical aspects of the game to get it to look more similar to FFXIV we have now if possible.

Man you dont even know everything yet, i am usually hastey and I want to point out the plant copy/paste but I decided this time I am going to wait until we have more.

AA is turned off, that is obvious. Also its running on a Laptop as far as interviews show (not sure if they were taken on Laptop but we dont know). Its also Alpha lol or even Pre-Alpha if you want that to be a thing. In a lot of games now you can turn off High Res textures, could just be that.

I dont think they will dumb it down, but more allow it to work differently.

It was same case with Job AF weapons, was pixelated all over cuse low AA + print screen looks awful.

I suppose I am going to wait until we have more information too, but Im just saying, from those screenshots it looks like graphics took a hit.

My advice too is that people shouldn't make the same mistakes they made pre-launch and excuse every little thing hoping it will magically resolve itself on release, though. Because we already learnt that the hard way.