[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Sorrior]

The MSQ contains waaaay too many hours of tedious "run from A to B to C and back to A" for me to ever want to do that again. ESP the Lv 30ish range is absolutely horrible. >.<

Wouldn't mind doing the Heavensward MSQ again though. Thought it was pretty cool.

That reminds me: I should probably hand my MSQ-Antitower quest in and wrap things up before the patch drops. :S

Omg man get ready for badassery

[SodiumChloride]

WTB

• Temporal Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing (TSSAA) - seem to be the new hip thing these days; It runs on the PS4 (and even the Xbone), how expensive can be it?
• Motion Blur - nice to have around to smooth out low FPS.
  
  
  
  
• Environmental cube maps - at least for water surfaces ... all the geometry is static anyway.
• Differed Screen Space Directional Occlusion - not sure how expensive this is; hope it isn't HBAO+ expensive.

Given that FFXIV is SE's more or less only stable cash cow at the moment ... would it kill them to have a few more programmers working on it. At least the TSSAA, this game has so much aliasing. xD

[Advent]

WTB

Given that FFXIV is SE's more or less only stable cash cow at the moment ... would it kill them to have a few more programmers working on it. At least the TSSAA, this game has so much aliasing. xD

While I would love more graphic options in the future because FXAA alone is not my preference, I think I'd rather they focus on the often cumbersome UI. Those pesky "Cannot do that while X is open" is more frustrating than the lack of video customization imo. After that's all done and polished, knock yourselves out.

[Fadewind]

I caved in and decided to make an alt since I want to go through the Heavensward quests again. It'll make a good side project in between everything else and should make me a decent amount of money given how high in demand levelling gear is on Balmung.

That's pretty much the entire reason I made an alt initially. I played through HW on my PC and it was...horrid. Mostly on my end due to awful modem-router from comcast and really out of date PC. (So double lag.) Thankfully it didn't impede my ability to tank too much. (Though I am noticing that monk initially had a REALLY hard time levelling in Sea of Clouds even being level 54 doing the level 50 quests.) It's nice to go through everything having some general knowledge of what to do in regards to levelling, exploring, and map progression. (Level 56 and just got to the Forelands! No FATE grinding this time!)

I hope SE adds more level 1 versions of certain glamour items (or update the glamour system). I don't understand why the High Allagan replicas had to be level 50. With a higher price and inability to use glamours until level 50, it seems rather odd to make that choice. I'm hoping they're just testing the waters of how much people ACTUALLY want to use higher level item looks on lower level items. (Like the level 1 coat that's from level 50/60 gear.) It'd be a metric they can use to justify reworking glamour at least.

WTB

• Temporal Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing (TSSAA) - seem to be the new hip thing these days; It runs on the PS4 (and even the Xbone), how expensive can be it?
• Motion Blur - nice to have around to smooth out low FPS.
  
  
  
  
• Environmental cube maps - at least for water surfaces ... all the geometry is static anyway.
• Differed Screen Space Directional Occlusion - not sure how expensive this is; hope it isn't HBAO+ expensive.

Given that FFXIV is SE's more or less only stable cash cow at the moment ... would it kill them to have a few more programmers working on it. At least the TSSAA, this game has so much aliasing. xD

Motion Blur I agree with.

Environmental cube maps...eeeh? Maybe. Something like that seems based around engine limitation and construction. I agree it'd probably be a LOT easier to build better environments using such a system if you're working from the ground up. IIRC, this uses the same engine as FFXIII so it might not be an engine built for something like that.

As for the other two, it actually MIGHT kill them to have a few programmers working on better graphics. Now, if they hire some who specialize in graphics, that's a different story and I agree that it'd be the best method. It really is a specialized form of programming that's extremely intense in terms of coding. I'm also of the opinion that MMO should stick to an aesthetic versus making it look as good as possible. Even on my shitty, shitty PC on the lowest settings, the aesthetic shines through admist the...horrid levels of bad I had to deal with.

My issue with high tech graphics in an MMO stems from RIFT. The lowest setting looks like absolute shite. There's no style, there's no substance. (ANd don't get me started on the stiff animations.) Does it look amazing when I can see someone else play it on ultra? Absolutely. Does it feel like they put their graphics programmers into creating more flash than style in their art design? Definitely. Even if PCs and PS4s can handle something, it doesn't mean it's worth investing in it. Little improvements here and there every expansion as technology expands and experience is gained is a good thing. But I don't want too much effort going into flash that they ahve to take some out of substance.

[SodiumChloride]

While I would love more graphic options in the future because FXAA alone is not my preference, I think I'd rather they focus on the often cumbersome UI. Those pesky "Cannot do that while X is open" is more frustrating than the lack of video customization imo. After that's all done and polished, knock yourselves out.

That would be nice.

Wonder if it's just a hold over from 1.0 or SE having release relatively few PC games don't have much experience in PC UI design.

At least it's usable. Could be worse I suppose.

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Motion Blur I agree with.

Environmental cube maps...eeeh? Maybe. Something like that seems based around engine limitation and construction. I agree it'd probably be a LOT easier to build better environments using such a system if you're working from the ground up. IIRC, this uses the same engine as FFXIII so it might not be an engine built for something like that.

As for the other two, it actually MIGHT kill them to have a few programmers working on better graphics. Now, if they hire some who specialize in graphics, that's a different story and I agree that it'd be the best method. It really is a specialized form of programming that's extremely intense in terms of coding. I'm also of the opinion that MMO should stick to an aesthetic versus making it look as good as possible. Even on my shitty, shitty PC on the lowest settings, the aesthetic shines through admist the...horrid levels of bad I had to deal with.

My issue with high tech graphics in an MMO stems from RIFT. The lowest setting looks like absolute shite. There's no style, there's no substance. (ANd don't get me started on the stiff animations.) Does it look amazing when I can see someone else play it on ultra? Absolutely. Does it feel like they put their graphics programmers into creating more flash than style in their art design? Definitely. Even if PCs and PS4s can handle something, it doesn't mean it's worth investing in it. Little improvements here and there every expansion as technology expands and experience is gained is a good thing. But I don't want too much effort going into flash that they ahve to take some out of substance.

Right now the standard way to do reflections is screen space reflection + environmental cube maps. FFXIV only does screen space reflections.

Cube maps are really old ass technology, even Quake 3 used low res cube maps for their reflections - most of the time they actually reflect the wrong thing; but no one really pays attention.

The technology is already in the game I believe. If you look closely at the orb on weapons like the Astrolabe you will see that it reflects the surroundings!! (A imitation of the surroundings anyway.)

Having the reflection crap out because no screen space data exist is kind of lame,



They shouldn't even be using screen space reflections here. The scene is static thus ideal for a cube map.

[Granyala]

Motion Blur - nice to have around to smooth out low FPS.

As long as I can turn it off.
Motion blur makes me nauseous and I detest it.

While I would love more graphic options in the future because FXAA alone is not my preference, I think I'd rather they focus on the often cumbersome UI. Those pesky "Cannot do that while X is open" is more frustrating than the lack of video customization imo. After that's all done and polished, knock yourselves out.

Completely agreed. Though that's probably a controller limit. My guess is that having 99 windows open would get awkward to navigate without a mouse.

They shouldn't even be using screen space reflections here. The scene is static thus ideal for a cube map.

Apart from the weird floating cable, what exactly am I looking for in the screenshot?

[SodiumChloride]

Apart from the weird floating cable, what exactly am I looking for in the screenshot?

The water going "dark" at the arrow. The cliff it's reflecting is much taller and the part pointed to by the arrow is suppose to reflect the higher parts of the said cliff.

The reason it doesn't is because the higher parts of the cliff are off screen. The game engine doesn't know what it looks like - it can find out but that would mean rendering it; the reflection in the water above the arrow is actually just the part of cliff as you see in the screenshot "reflected and warpped", i.e. it grap pixels from the screen as it's displayed to form the reflection.

Using a cube map would involve pre-rendering the scene to a cube texture (maybe with depth information even) that surrounds the reflective surface (i.e. the water) so when it comes to drawing the reflection you can just grap pixels from that cube map - sometimes the cube map is inaccurate but most people don't notice.

[Gutler]

so got the dungeon part of my anima quest done last night and started on the item collection one luckily the crafted items on my server are pretty cheap got all 16 for around 1.6 mil the token items are gonna take awhile though.

[Granyala]

The water going "dark" at the arrow. The cliff it's reflecting is much taller and the part pointed to by the arrow is suppose to reflect the higher parts of the said cliff.

The reason it doesn't is because the higher parts of the cliff are off screen.

So the reflection abruptly changes when you tilt the camera up?

[Aruhen]

Temporal Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing (TSSAA) - seem to be the new hip thing these days; It runs on the PS4 (and even the Xbone), how expensive can be it?

I'd love TSSAA myself. Blizzard did a pretty decent job with offering more AA options with WoD for varying system specs and I'd love SE to do something similar.

Anyways some nice stuff coming in 3.3. The Treasure Dungeon system doesn't seem like anything groundbreaking but there's probably some fun to be had there with friends occasionally.

Only one primal though? I swear I remember reading somewhere that there will be two extreme primals in 3.3...

[Sorrior]

so got the dungeon part of my anima quest done last night and started on the item collection one luckily the crafted items on my server are pretty cheap got all 16 for around 1.6 mil the token items are gonna take awhile though.

Damn that is the price for two sets on my server these days abd tbat is IF you go duscount

[Gutler]

Damn that is the price for two sets on my server these days abd tbat is IF you go duscount

Ehh small price to pay i got a lesser panda during the dungeon part that will pretty much pay back what i spent on the items.

[Deleted]

It's caster all the way for me. In every RPG, whenever possible I always played caster.

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I doubt you could handle a spear one handed effectively in close combat.
Wearing a shield and throwing a spear is one thing. Actually fighting with that thing ...

Spartans? :P
They did historically sport both a sword/shield and a spear/shield combo.

[Scufflegrit]

Damn that is the price for two sets on my server these days abd tbat is IF you go duscount

That's STILL about the price for each set of 4 HQ items you need on Coeurl. Total around 6m for all the crafted items right now.

[Gutler]

That's STILL about the price for each set of 4 HQ items you need on Coeurl. Total around 6m for all the crafted items right now.

Ouch thats gotta sting.

[SodiumChloride]

So the reflection abruptly changes when you tilt the camera up?

Long story short, the reflection is missing. All we got is "black".

This is the limitation of "screen space reflections", it can only reflect things that are on screen.

Another example,





Picture 1 shows the full reflection of the rock.

Picture 2 is of the same rock, but the camera is facing downwards more, notice how the reflection for the top half of the rock disappears (it's just "black") although you should have been able to see it based on how light bounces.

[Kuntantee]

What would you rate this game? How is it compared to WoW? Looking for a legion alternative.

[Cthulhu 2020]

So for as much as people said they were absolutely CERTAIN that the unidentifiable part of the anima weapon quest would get nerfed, the only part receiving any kind of easing is that luminous crystals are receiving a buffed drop rate, unidentified step remains unchanged.

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Damn that is the price for two sets on my server these days abd tbat is IF you go duscount

I'm one of the main crafters/sellers of these items on Jenova, I can tell you this much: Blame the price of pterodactyls and dawnborne aethersand. I also have to make a profit on top of that.

[SodiumChloride]

What would you rate this game? How is it compared to WoW? Looking for a legion alternative.

It's pretty much WoW with better graphics, story and a somewhat more open minded developers - they are willing to add stuff that isn't raiding.

Combat is chunkier. Less raid difficulties levels. PVP ... not sure the state of that. xD

Really depends on what you are looking for.

[Aruhen]

I'd say the best comparison is the Wrath era of WoW. Little bit of everything and a similar difficulty level at the lower and higher end.