A wavy floor is a small problem with small tile and a visible one with large tile. The floor has to be flat before anything gets set.
Before any floor tile goes down, the substrate has to be checked and, almost always, flattened. A subfloor that looks fine underfoot can still be out of plane by more than a tile installation can absorb, and the bigger the tile, the less that gap can hide. A twelve-inch tile can ride out a modest dip. A twenty-four or thirty-six inch tile spans the same dip and telegraphs it as a visible edge at every seam — which is why large-format tile has become far less forgiving as it has become more popular, and why flattening work that used to be skippable no longer is.
Layout matters almost as much as flatness. Where the pattern starts, how cuts fall at walls and transitions, and how expansion joints are placed all get planned before the first tile is set, not worked out on the fly. Get the layout right and a floor reads as intentional. Get it wrong and every cut tile at the wall reminds you it was an afterthought.
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