Grass

[Stephen]

Just before we get into beta because I'm probably going to bring it up there too lol I wanted to show people what I was talking about with flora (depending on the experience after testing beta first of course)



(Just look at the flora, fauna, this is what the thread is about)



ARR detail in a cinematic (from here: A New Beginning )

*disclaimer/comment: for those who read the OP before posting.. this is a prerendered scene so of course the game wont look exactly like that, but it shows like the other photos of grass blending - something I was asking for (density option / quality option).


Turn the up the graphics to see the grass better, not all of the game looks better mind you, like ARR character models are way better


In the first image, ARR, the grass is more like a cluster of random plants that make a very in-cohesive image. Also the level of detail on those plants is low.

In the third and following images, Archeage (its in closed beta at the moment), the grass is cohesive to the ground and is also of better detail.

Archeage has a lot of bugs still and parts of graphics that are inferior (flickers worse then a candle on a windy day) but I hope people can see the graphic differences I'm talking about.

They are some what present in GW2, and commonly in FPS and S(FP)RPGs like skyrim.


I hope people can both see and agree with me that ARR could use some better flora.

Unless its something in beta thats changed since alpha screen shots, I'll be bringing it up - hopefully I'm not alone when I ask Yoshida to put it on the to do list of graphic updates. That can be in the future like the graphic mile stone coming with DX11, but I hope they upgrade it because its not good, its 2005 good.

TL;DR, ARR grass still looks bad.

Pics are alpha/beta and are passable anyway imo - we have to remember we're being limited by the PS3. This is also an MMO, with a lot of character models and huge landscape to load up etc etc

If it looked like sh@t then I'd understand but ....

[Shougun]

Pics are alpha/beta and are passable anyway imo - we have to remember we're being limited by the PS3. This is also an MMO, with a lot of character models and huge landscape to load up etc etc

If it looked like sh@t then I'd understand but ....

PS3 excuse is not going to fly with me, at least visually. I can understand if the ps3 just cant handle the data as a sheer calculation (like network things) but visually there is no reason PC players should be limited to the ps3 (though they are not already (at least for the most part), and that's great news).


And the grass does look like sh@t (well not that bad, but it doesn't look good), in my opinion. The game is full of beautiful models, very crisp lines, everything flowing to the environment and all a sudden we've got retro 16bit attack on the ground. For the systems that can make the experience consistent, it should happen.

For many peoples computers "visual dot" pixels are becoming a stylistic option and not a technicality of hardware, specially as people upgrade this will ever be more true - I think that is why while this is low priority compared to polishing the game in a whole it is something they can address when someone is not doing something (which can happen). Like when they address their graphic milestone update that is scheduled a few months after release... this would be an awesome thing to address with it.

Also those with non-recent / non-gaming computers can still enjoy this benefit by tweaking the grass density down and increasing grass quality (to have better nearby grass at the same frame rate - or decreasing quality but increasing density if they want to cover the ground (would be very pixely but w.e user's choice)).

[Radacci]

If you care for environmental physics, then FarCry 3 is a great game to play.

90% (yep I made that percentage up, come at me) don't really give a rats about grass & its physics in an MMO.

This is a really stupid comment that a lot of people seem to make.
We obviously don't play FFXIV for the grass, it's just one element, that would make the game look better.
Or we could say to everyone that likes fishing: omg go fish in real life instead, or play bla bla fish game. well OMG stop playing games, and become designer in real life if you enjoy crafting. Go play monster hunter instead, if you like killing bosses. Go play GW2 instead, if you like fate system! Go play Mario 64 if you like jumping, instead!
It's pathetic.

It is good. This is an MMO. Not Flower. The grass is passable considering it's not at all the main focus of the game.

Well crafting and gathering isn't main focus of the game either, neither is fishing, or cooking, or riding chocobos, housing, Behests, Caravans; trees, rocks, rivers or anything else like that, still it's a part of the game. Every bit improves the game somehow.
Look at this MMO, and tell me XIV shouldn't improve, because it's passable already....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNFSw107MQs
No game would ever improve, if no one tried to make something better, because it's already passable.
FF shouldn't be just passable or good, it should be awesome.

[Vilhem]

This is a really stupid comment that a lot of people seem to make.
We obviously don't play FFXIV for the grass, it's just one element, that would make the game look better.
Or we could say to everyone that likes fishing: omg go fish in real life instead, or play bla bla fish game. well OMG stop playing games, and become designer in real life if you enjoy crafting. Go play monster hunter instead, if you like killing bosses. Go play GW2 instead, if you like fate system! Go play Mario 64 if you like jumping, instead!
It's pathetic.



Well crafting and gathering isn't main focus of the game either, neither is fishing, or cooking, or riding chocobos, housing, Behests, Caravans; trees, rocks, rivers or anything else like that, still it's a part of the game. Every bit improves the game somehow.
Look at this MMO, and tell me XIV shouldn't improve, because it's passable already....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNFSw107MQs
No game would ever improve, if no one tried to make something better, because it's already passable.
FF shouldn't be just passable or good, it should be awesome.

You can't really compare aesthetics to activities man...they're not the same thing.

Your rebuttal uses activities such as fishing crafting, raiding etc, when trying to defend your position about grass being an element. You're trying to compare apples and oranges.

Grass, terrains, skies with clouds...they all exist for aesthetic purposes. Do they enhance the experience? Sure. Are they interactive? No. they exist purely as eye candy.

That is not the same as fishing, crafting, or other things you've mentioned. You are right in that these activities alone aren't the main focus of the game, but these activities TOGETHER balance the gameplay and offer a different level of experience (interactivity), than just staring at grass as you run by somewhere.

[Radacci]

You can't really compare aesthetics to activities man...they're not the same thing.

Your rebuttal uses activities such as fishing crafting, raiding etc, when trying to defend your position about grass being an element. You're trying to compare apples and oranges.

Grass, terrains, skies with clouds...they all exist for aesthetic purposes. Do they enhance the experience? Sure. Are they interactive? No. they exist purely as eye candy.

That is not the same as fishing, crafting, or other things you've mentioned. You are right in that these activities alone aren't the main focus of the game, but these activities TOGETHER balance the gameplay and offer a different level of experience (interactivity), than just staring at grass as you run by somewhere.

I was simply pointing out the stupidity of pointing people to other games, if you mention that you want this or that to be better. such as *grass is good as it is, if you like grass so much, go play flower, XIV might not be for you* seriously? Just cause we want grass to improve, doesn't mean we play for the grass; we're here cause we wanna play XIV. Whatever examples i use doesn't really matter, it's the same principal; i heard the same argument in jump threads too, or with auto attacks, and with other suggestions; you get people saying: well if you don't like it, go play WoW instead!
And you could make grass, landscape, clouds interactive too you could have high grass, where mobs can hide, and ambush you. you may need to climb a mountain, to reach that cave,,,that is hidden in a sea of clouds.

That is a really "stupid" analogy about fishing. You reply with spite, and you will get spite back.

I was just pointing out a game that does environmental physics really well. If you decide to play it, it is up to you.

Although since you like using fish as an analogy..
Someone cooks you a fairly nicely cooked fish that is much better then the last time they cooked it for you.
Do you return the plate and say "Could you cook it a little longer next time round?"
Because this is essentially what you are doing.

The grass is perfectly fine. I have played games with "better" grass, and I have played games with worse. I would rather see the resources going into content that actually matters to most people. SE do a pretty good job of attention to detail in regards to graphics.

that's odd analogy...you can overcook fish, then it won't be good anymore. there's no such thing as making grass look to good But sure if someone makes a better dish, what's wrong with pointing out it was better, and making suggestions to make it better still? i'm not gonna say no thank you, take this back, and make it better; Or in case of XIV bleh crappy game can't make grass right, im going to flower, until you fix it.
and grass looks like lego, i don't know how that's an improvement?

Well, as has been pointed out several times before, there's different teams for different things.
Adding grass is the same process as adding trees, rocks, rivers, buildings, or anything else with environment. It does NOT affect other things like adding new classes, housing, raid mechanics or whatever.
Since they made the whole meteor thing, to justify a remake of the maps and such; and the fact that they have remade all the maps, to not be copy-paste; then obviously the landscape IS important! otherwise they wouldn't have bothered!
If they wanna make trees look nice, and cool looking environmental stuff, then why sell yourself short on grass? if everything else looks great, and grass is ugly, it's gonna be like a crack in your monitor, that is distracting.
Why have real flowers at home, when you can have lego flowers?

[Altena]

This is a really stupid comment that a lot of people seem to make.
We obviously don't play FFXIV for the grass, it's just one element, that would make the game look better.
Or we could say to everyone that likes fishing: omg go fish in real life instead, or play bla bla fish game. well OMG stop playing games, and become designer in real life if you enjoy crafting. Go play monster hunter instead, if you like killing bosses. Go play GW2 instead, if you like fate system! Go play Mario 64 if you like jumping, instead!
It's pathetic.

That is a really "stupid" analogy about fishing. You reply with spite, and you will get spite back.

I was just pointing out a game that does environmental physics really well. If you decide to play it, it is up to you.

Although since you like using fish as an analogy..
Someone cooks you a fairly nicely cooked fish that is much better then the last time they cooked it for you.
Do you return the plate and say "Could you cook it a little longer next time round?"
Because this is essentially what you are doing.

The grass is perfectly fine. I have played games with "better" grass, and I have played games with worse. I would rather see the resources going into content that actually matters to most people. SE do a pretty good job of attention to detail in regards to graphics.

[Linkurrra]

Pics are alpha/beta and are passable anyway imo - we have to remember we're being limited by the PS3. This is also an MMO, with a lot of character models and huge landscape to load up etc etc

If it looked like sh@t then I'd understand but ....

*sigh* another person that believes this game is limited by the PS3. However it is NOT.
The game was developed for the PC first for a reason. So that they could make a PS3 version and 2 separate clients that will work and display the environment differently according to the hardware that they will be playing on.

PS3 version will not have adjustable visual settings but the LoD will be scaled back so that you will probably have the environment pop onto the screen unless they do the object fading. Where instead of objects in the environment popping up into view they fade in and out as they go outside your range of LoD. It will also show less players on the screen at once. Probably closer to what you saw in XI when you couldn't see your friend for awhile until you stood in one place long enough in Jueno.

PC will have adjustable visual details, and be able to see the max range you can view the environment.

The whole reason SE developed for the PC instead PS3 first is to avoid the issues that XI had. XI was developed for PS2 first and had to undo a lot of programming to get it to work on PC. PS2 XI build was integral to making the PC version and had to be converted every time changes to PC client were to be made. Because of this separate versions could not be created for PC and PS2. Everything had to be the same otherwise they would run into issues with not being able to get the game to run on the PS2!

This is no longer the case. The nice thing about the PS3 is it is capable of rendering what we see on the PC version of the game. It just can't show as much of it without running out of memory. So there is probably lot's of texture compression going on. They of course will try to share as many art assets as they can between PC and PS3 because it's just easier to manage and program for. However, it's not necessary. There can be 2 different versions of the game PC and PS3. With different lower poly models, reduced texture resolutions and limited field of view for the PS3 while the PC has all the high fidelity stuff.

So, PS3 limiting the PC version is not an issue!

[Hestern_Nestern]

[Linkurra, Goddess of Hope]

This is true!? You have given me so much hope right now...sniffle...thank you.

[Radacci]

good stuff

ya, mostly it's just nr of people shown on screen. PS3 has games that look fine, it's just that in MMO setting, there'd be way to much objects on screen at any one time. so i don't think PS3 version gonna look crap or anything, you just not gonna see more than 10 people or something on screen...which might be problematic in large scale pvp, and maybe raids too...

[Laraul]

ya, mostly it's just nr of people shown on screen. PS3 has games that look fine, it's just that in MMO setting, there'd be way to much objects on screen at any one time. so i don't think PS3 version gonna look crap or anything, you just not gonna see more than 10 people or something on screen...which might be problematic in large scale pvp, and maybe raids too...

Playstation Home is able to display many many individual PCs at once. Each with unique "outfits" and such. When it hasn't downloaded the textures necessary to display specific PCs it draws a silhouette instead.

Large scale PVP will likely take place in specific areas that consist few or no NPCs, and will likely be more than capable of displaying many players at once without penalty. Raids are instanced and I can't see how you'd have problems here.