17 replies to this topic

[LordBraxton]

The direwolf prancing threads have come and gone, but I want to take us back much farther.

It would be... over a year ago now... closer to two...

Remember when they greatly increased the gait speed on all mechs?

Well, I hated that change. I still do.
Now we have the new Grasshopper, with it's lovely long legs, babystepping around like her feet are bound by a jealous Liao husband.



PGI needs to start talking to us about getting the game back to the quality it was at when it started.

I don't think any of us whales imagined the graphical quality of this product steadily declining over its lifespan.

Bring back all the old features, sharpen up the effects, and slow down the walking animations.

(I will give PGI the hellbringer and panther as examples of animations done right, the rest are passable to terrible.)

Edited by LordBraxton, 18 March 2015 - 11:39 AM.

[Corbenik]

Grasshoppers love Twinkletoes

[Rhaythe]

LordBraxton, on 18 March 2015 - 11:32 AM, said:

I don't think any of us 'investors' imagined the graphical quality of this product steadily declining over its lifespan.

I know your point, and I agree. But geez, it urks me hearing fellow founders use this word.

[cSand]

Agree big time

I've never seen a game where the visual quality declined throughout its life


But, FYI, nobody here is an investor OK

edit TO be fair though I will say the game still looks great, I mostly miss those old style effects from the weapons, they were awesome

Edited by cSand, 19 March 2015 - 06:23 PM.

[LordBraxton]

Rhaythe, on 18 March 2015 - 11:35 AM, said:

I know your point, and I agree. But geez, it urks me hearing fellow founders use this word.

fair and edited. I was using it in an action oriented sense, rather than a legal or business sense.

I invested large amounts of capitol~~~

I am not an investor.~~~

Even the f2p players deserve consistency at least, anything but steady devolution

[Accused]

Rhaythe, on 18 March 2015 - 11:35 AM, said:

I know your point, and I agree. But geez, it urks me hearing fellow founders use this word.

Understandable, still though, not sure I would have helped "funded" this game if I knew CW was going to be years late, graphic fidelity get worse, heavy handed balancing to the clans, etc.

Someone around here used to talk about the fourth pillar being Community (as in us). Then PGI banned the General Forums and it wasn't until recently we get VOIP.

[MATRAKA14]

The graphics of this game are lose teck.

Russ was asked about the old graphics looking better in closed beta. he answered something like: i have no idea about better graphics in close beta, they were better? im going to make an investigation about this.
And not a single comment was given about the matter anymore. I mean he is working in this game he should know this things?

[Tennex]

cSand, on 18 March 2015 - 11:35 AM, said:

Agree big time

I've never seen a game where the visual quality declined throughout its life


But, FYI, nobody here is an investor OK

you have now

Theyre trying to increase profits by Increaseing amount of mechs made. While keeping the amount of artists the same.

Problem with that is the artists get overworked and do a **** job

[dimachaerus]

Should see the Highlander bounce around now, looks like it's tip-toeing in fast forward, instead of taking big long strides like it should.

The Grasshopper is literally an up-scaled Firestarter in terms of movement, just watch it carefully, it's especially obvious from a distance. I like the arm movement and the torso sway, but it just takes such tiny steps when it's supposedly "running".

[Clint Steel]

Direwolf and Stormcrow are the worst offenders (no weight, floaty) , but I wouldn't be against several other animations getting a work over.

Contrary to many peoples opinions I feel the King Crab's animation is pretty good, seems very robotic to me.

[dimachaerus]

Clint Steel, on 18 March 2015 - 02:16 PM, said:

Direwolf and Stormcrow are the worst offenders (no weight, floaty) , but I wouldn't be against several other animations getting a work over.

Contrary to many peoples opinions I feel the King Crab's animation is pretty good, seems very robotic to me.

My only gripe with the crab is that it too takes too short of steps, and that means it has to walk really really really fast, therefor shaking around like a maniac. It also Sashays, but that's not so bad, I like seeing some good hip wiggling now and then.

[MoonUnitBeta]

For a game being basically 100% about mechs... it's kind of disheartening to see some mechs implemented so poorly. I mean, standing still some look great. But some look bad. While some look bad, they look great moving, while some look awful.
Not to mention walking animations are a big part of a mech's appearance/demeanor. In fact, walking animations play a huge part in the mech’s personality/character.
Not to mention a lot of the cool things being slowly removed.
And then standardized visuals breaking the look of many of mechs…

I'm big on things looking good (as in, i can't bring myself to pilot the ice ferret or gargoyle). Especially when they have said creating a AAA game with superb fidelity was a goal of theirs. It's certainly gone down even though hardware technology has significantly improved.

The funny thing is though, even though we've lost all that, I haven't seen a big boost in FPS until they recently did those optimisations.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 18 March 2015 - 03:06 PM.

[Reitrix]

You know what i miss the most about the early days?

The duration of a fight.
None of this nonsense we have now, where you can lose your most of your CT armor to a single shot.
Half the time i feel like we should have general respawns for how fast we die.

/sigh.

[aniviron]

MATRAKA14, on 18 March 2015 - 01:50 PM, said:

The graphics of this game are lose teck.

Russ was asked about the old graphics looking better in closed beta. he answered something like: i have no idea about better graphics in close beta, they were better? im going to make an investigation about this.
And not a single comment was given about the matter anymore. I mean he is working in this game he should know this things?

For those wondering, here is the thread MATRAKA14 is referencing. It contains a long but not exhaustive list of decreases in graphical quality along with videos and screenshots.

This is Russ' answer:

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

Some really good thoughts in here - its likely true that some of the optimizations removed stuff that should still be present on High or Very high settings.

People are looking into that now.

But Vassago lets not show screen shots of CryEngine with a solo player in view, its similar to those screen shots that were floating around with one mech standing amongst trees. That is one thing but then put 24 of them in the same scene all firing lasers, missiles and so on with player connected from Australia to Germany.

I have not doubt there is plenty of room for both optimization/performance increases and making things a lot prettier. We will let you know what we find in our investigation.

The new damage texture for the mechs was much more about time to develop. Basically the old method added entire days and days to the modeling process for results that in most cases were fairly poor and nowhere near worth the time and effort.

I think we need to put more time into model swapping destroyed components like we do with the arms. The code supports that for the legs, torsos etc. Just need the models.

In the intervening six months, we haven't seen or heard any other news about this.

[Deathlike]

aniviron, on 18 March 2015 - 05:59 PM, said:

For those wondering, here is the thread MATRAKA14 is referencing. It contains a long but not exhaustive list of decreases in graphical quality along with videos and screenshots.

This is Russ' answer:



In the intervening six months, we haven't seen or heard any other news about this.

They'll get to it... in 2016.

[Kaeb Odellas]

I like the Grasshoper's walk.

[aniviron]

Reitrix, on 18 March 2015 - 04:58 PM, said:

You know what i miss the most about the early days?

The duration of a fight.
None of this nonsense we have now, where you can lose your most of your CT armor to a single shot.
Half the time i feel like we should have general respawns for how fast we die.

/sigh.

When people talk about how crazy TTK is now, some people just don't understand; I guess they're the newer players that weren't around in beta. I feel like that video should be mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to have an informed discussion about the game.

I will admit that part of what changed is the player knowledge and the builds. In the video, you can see the Awesome has 1000 SRMs which is, um, a bit overkill, and the Hunchback comments that he was trying to shoot the arms off the Atlas, which you would just never hear a play do now.

Even with those things taken into consideration though, that was a long, long fight. Assume the players get smarter and it halves the duration of the battle, that's still longer than what we have now.

I wish there were a way to just go back to that game, but with all the mechs, maps, and CW mode we have now.

[Burktross]

Reitrix, on 18 March 2015 - 04:58 PM, said:

You know what i miss the most about the early days?

The duration of a fight.
None of this nonsense we have now, where you can lose your most of your CT armor to a single shot.
Half the time i feel like we should have general respawns for how fast we die.

/sigh.

Single heatsinks 4 lief