EU Graphical Update Feedback - Hands and Feet

[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]

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.

[Neoyoshi]

Isn't this still a work-in-progress? I'm sure the whole entire model is set to be redone over time, that's what they've implied is that eventually everything is intended to have this treatment.

The hands and the fingers will absolutely require an increased polygon count to match up to the standards they are aiming for, unless they have some type of different method in mind to give the fingers this treatment. They are probably starting with stuff that would be immediately noticeable in a MSQ cutscene, so eventually i'm sure hands will be treated, my thinking though leans towards that they are probably assuming most players will be wearing gloves or gear that covers the fingers.

My own thoughts on it aside, did they ever actually talk about hands/fingers during the london developer panels? (i couldn't stay awake long enough to watch it past the opening keynote)

[Lusarae]

They just need to drop PS4 support, it is holding us back.

[Larirawiel]

They just need to drop PS4 support, it is holding us back.

I guess, the FF14 assets are still made for the PS3. The PS4-GPU is roughly equivalent to a RTX 1060 or Radeon RX 590. And those GPUs have no problems with highres textures.


Cheers

[Sebazy]

I guess, the FF14 assets are still made for the PS3.

This is the key thing.

For people saying that the PS4 needs to be dropped, remember that these assets come from a time when the game was on a platform that was so extremely resource constrained that they had to remove UI elements just to be able to fit blank unlabelled TP bars into memory.

Moving beyond what the PS4 (Which is mainly expensive shader/effect/post processing workloads that stretch it's memory bandwidth) can offer is a bad long term decision IMO as it rules out the potential for an eventual Switch/Switch 2 port (The current Switch is likely too bandwidth constrained to ever be a viable platform, but the Switch 2 should hopefully address that).

[Aco505]

The entire body of our characters should be upgraded. It would be very strange for them to work so hard on the environment and then keep character bodies the way they are now. If there has to be some kind of priority, it should always start with the latter.

[Tysilio]

While I hope it's not the case, I have a feeling that they won't touch body/gear meshes so that there's less discrepancy between upgraded and non-upgraded gear. There's also much less work to do on existing models as well. After all, there's a full hand mesh for each glove gear (same goes for every gear part except head gear).

A Hyur Midlander's body mesh (torso, hands, legs, feet, without the head or hair) is about 2000 triangles, which is quite low complexity compared to other games (please don't ask how I know this, just assume I'm a magician or something ok?)

A good chunk of this polygon budget goes into the hands and torso as it should, but it's still not enough for big closeups, especially for hands. The feet however... Saying PS2 level graphics is appropriate. It's a good thing that we don't get to see them really often.

More recent gearsets have clearly increased polygon budgets, though. For example, the Far Northern Felted Gloves (obtainable from the Mog Station since Endwalker) has a nicer-looking polycount of 1096 triangles. A Hyur's bare hands is 600 triangles. That's a 80% increase in polycount for the hands since ARR.

[MsMisato]

what you all don't like having sausages for fingers and blocks for feet?

[Tysilio]

what you all don't like having sausages for fingers and blocks for feet?

For some reason, I'm fine with sausage fingers on Lalafells lol. I find that it fits them.