EU Graphical Update Feedback - Hands and Feet

[Rolder50]

I just find it hard to take workload / storage space arguments seriously when every other modern game can have high / low graphics settings with no issues. Usually by having one set of textures/models that is upscaled/downscaled as needed based on your settings.

Edit: I also know of a mod that adds higher resolution fingers/toes for hundreds of items, so I went and checked the file size on that. It is a whopping 26.5 MB, so no it's not a storage space issue.

[MsQi]

Yep, it's called... graphics settings! Wow!

Exactly like I said! but if you look at the max vs min on this game it's not a huge difference, vs. a game like RIFT which allows you to really make it look like crap. This game could use some much lower settings. There was no reason to throw out all those beautiful models they had in the original game. Let those with high end machines see those, while others would have to use lower settings.

edit:

I just find it hard to take workload / storage space arguments seriously when every other modern game can have high / low graphics settings with no issues. Usually by having one set of textures/models that is upscaled/downscaled as needed based on your settings.

Edit: I also know of a mod that adds higher resolution fingers/toes for hundreds of items, so I went and checked the file size on that. It is a whopping 26.5 MB, so no it's not a storage space issue.

Agreed, a lot of other companies do the work. And it's also possible to have improved textures/models be an optional download. Maybe even for specific areas. Fingers and toes aren't much but an improved texture set for the whole game could be quite hefty. Maybe some player just care about characters and not the rest of the world?

[TheDustyOne]

I'm also speaking in the context of 2013 when ARR was launched. 50GB was annoying for a single game back then, at least for me, so deciding that FFXIV should somehow exceed that limit by having textures quadruple of what the base game offered, same with 3D models, was a big ask at that time. Storage is a non-issue nowadays for most of us, but it was still a consideration back in 2013.

Square still has to develop the game and subsequent patches around the minimum spec whether we like it or not. Any new feature, asset, etc. has to be QA'd for that reason, and so whether we like it or not, we're limited by that. Just because we can put in a bunch of objects in a zone for high end PCs doesn't mean a low end PC will handle it, and while we could just hide those objects in the zone, that now creates discrepancies; what happens when a player jumps on a barrel that exists on their screen, but not on yours? Does that character float on the low end PC? Does that barrel just not have collision on the high end PC for player position parity? How does this affect gameplay in any way? Does it offer an advantage to hide in the barrels so people choose the competitive advantage of low graphics? Well that sucks for those that want better graphics. Do we just make the barrels into cubes because of the low end PC? Well that still has an impact on the memory more than not having it, as an object in memory is an object in memory, so that now affects whether or not that player may even be able to play unless he adds more memory to his system.

Graphics options only go so far before we decide that it's better to just up the requirements before making the assets higher quality. Which is what the graphics update is doing.

(Yes I know hiding in barrels won't be a thing, but my point is how you handle discrepancies between different graphic options that may have other problems associated with them.)

[TheDustyOne]

Edit: I also know of a mod that adds higher resolution fingers/toes for hundreds of items, so I went and checked the file size on that. It is a whopping 26.5 MB, so no it's not a storage space issue.

Models themselves are usually pretty small, even with hundreds of thousands of polygons, it's textures that you have to be more concerned over. I know one of the body mods goes into about 3GB purely because of the texture sizes.

[MsQi]

Things that have physical presence are the same dimensionally for everyone. That does not stop it from having more or less details on different screens. Things that are considered “ground clutter” have no substance. They may be there or not depending on settings. This is not some gotcha scenario. These have been par for the course as long as there has been 3D gaming.

[TheDustyOne]

They may be there or not depending on settings.

That's what I mean though, their presence can have some impact on gameplay, but they're superfluous enough that someone could legitimately ask to not have them rendered to help with their performance. How do you reconcile that?

Again, I'm not against the addition of these things, the amount of people running the game on potatos at 15fps on the lowest settings are... practically non-existent, I'm just saying that it does affect the minimum specs, and Square can only ever really design around that minimum they've decided on. Some scalability is needed of course, and the more options the better, I'm just saying that to take advantage of all the latest bleeding edge tech requires leaving behind people who haven't upgraded in a while, and there's still concerns around workflow when it comes to asset creation if we decide on having both high and low quality assets.


Anyway, I'll bow out of this debate. It isn't that I believe you guys wrong, you are right in the extra options, I'm in favour of extra options as you guys, my initial response was moreso playing devils advocate in regards to Squares situation in 2013. They wanted a game that was more accessible than 1.0, and in a much tighter schedule, lower quality assets was one of those compromises. We're now in a situation 10 years later where those limitations can be lifted and we can have higher quality assets than the ones from 2010.

[MsQi]

That's what I mean though, their presence can have some impact on gameplay, but they're superfluous enough that someone could legitimately ask to not have them rendered to help with their performance. How do you reconcile that?

uummmmm. You give them the option to not render them, like you currently can. Like you can in tons of other games. I was talking about ground clutter there. That is usually just grass and flowers. I was making the point that it is different from things like barrels that people can jump on, which will be there for everyone, unless it is far in the distance where it wouldn't matter.

Your only argument seems to be that the devs don't want to work on things that everyone else in the industry does.

[TheDustyOne]

Sorry, I'll do one last reply, I can't help myself.

But still, if it's for gameplay that it has to be there (remember that the graphics update is including new clutter to areas, Thavnair was shown ages ago to have new boxes and barrels strewn about the place, they wouldn't make those without any collision on them), then that inherently means they can't not render it, which requires raising the minimum specs needed to load that area.

We could decide to have the option for the old low res assets if we want, but that's still a raising of the minimum requirements, because we're still rendering extra clutter that wasn't there before. That's my point here, scalability for assets didn't necessarily mean that the lower end player could play, that asset has to load now on his end regardless of his opinion on the matter. The scalability is still good, it means there's more of a spectrum between the really high end and the minimum, but it doesn't change the fact there's now a new minimum from before. Whatever minimum spec Square decides is what they design around.

It isn't that I don't want them to make things scalable, but that I also don't expect a game that's supposed to pump out assets every 4 months to suddenly increase the amount of assets needed in those 4 months. Besides, my initial point was to explain why Square chose what they chose back in 2013, not that I agreed with it or thought it good, just that it involved a large amount of compromise that we're only now getting past.

[Rolder50]

Agreed, a lot of other companies do the work. And it's also possible to have improved textures/models be an optional download. Maybe even for specific areas. Fingers and toes aren't much but an improved texture set for the whole game could be quite hefty. Maybe some player just care about characters and not the rest of the world?

I was limiting my thoughts to hands and feet cause that was the original topic of the thread

[Lusarae]

Just a reminder on top the hands posted above this is a current foot in the game. Some Ps2 level stuff right here:

Yeah this is bad. Though I wouldn't insult the PS2 by comparing it to that level of detail. Looks more like an N64 game. Plus having permanent sandals on that you can never take off is a bit strange.

Look at it this way:

8 races, 14 unique heads once we factor in genders (sorry Hrothgars!), 4 base variants of each head, that gives us a worst case of 56 head models to update if we assume the worst case of them not being able to use morphs to transfer the updates across all variants at once in their development tools.

Now compare that to the hand and foot models alone. How many sandals, open toed shoes and glove models does this game have? Now multiply that for racial and gender variants. It's going to be in the 1000s. It'll be way more than an entire expansion's worth of new gear.

It is a lot. But once you make the "base" hand/feet for each race the hard part is done. All you do from that point on is just copy/paste it into the gloves/shoe models and click and drag to move any armor that clips so it fits the new form. In reality you're going to keep the overall shape of things the same, the only thing that really needs changing are adding toes and rounding out the fingertips and giving them nails. Any armor that exposes these parts conveniently don't have anything covering them up either. Probably takes 2 minutes at most per item. One person could do this tedious but simple workload in a week. Its already been done... for free by some random person on the internet if your google fu wants to verify this supposedly "tremendous" task that a AAA studio can't accomplish on their own.