17 replies to this topic

[Shivaxi]

I dont know if this has been mentioned anywhere else before...but has anyone noticed how awful the current maps look compared to before Open Beta? In the early builds and closed beta...they were all full of color and you could actually see. Then after they rebuilt all the maps with the new update to CryEngine...they're entirely gray and brown and you can't see ****.



I mean just look at Forest Colony...its bright...sandy beaches...color...and this is just one example...all the other maps look great, and the mechs arent always these dark unlit shadows. You can easily find old videos on youtube by doing a search.



and what the hell is this? sparks from lasers? what happened to those?! and no crappy blur when getting shot...no crappy HDR...hit detection on the mechs for the glow look great...the glow isnt bright white either...even the jenners running around arent lagging and teleporting everywhere...hmm...

so yeah on top of the old maps...can we just get the old MWO back plox?

[Shivaxi]

*bump*

[ltwally]

I don't think it's the maps as much as it is gimped up screen effects that have been added.

Anyone care to verify / debunk that hypothesis?

[Snib]

Pretty much every game has worse graphics after release than in pre-release marketing material. Better get used to it.

That said, if you mod the film grain effect away it already looks slightly better. But then you'll still have to deal with the silly fog, bad textures, MW2 style trees, borked LOD and all the other things that make this game graphically rather underwhelming, in particular in view of the amount of system resources it gobbles up. Good thing I don't care much about graphics as long as the game play is solid, so they better concentrate their work there.

[Terse]

And don't forget, with ECM as it is you are likely running thermal now most of the time now anyways, so....

[Garagano]

i pray to the gods, that this beta builds are just some low level graphic-gameplay-frontend builds to distract the opponent game companies.

@Terse
(agree) since ECM, i pilot all matches in thermal view ONLY! It is to much of a disadvantage to play in normal or night vision now, So graphically it makes no difference if this game is been run in the latest DX11.1 version or in DX7.
I had a great thermal view in AlienVSPredator2 and it looked the same way it is now in the WMO thermal view, why not using the same engine, too? should be much cheaper :]

Edited by Garagano, 30 December 2012 - 02:08 PM.

[Ryvucz]

I would have to blame the update to CRYengine 3.

It messed with all sorts of PGIs settings.

[Pilotasso]

Those settings would probably bring most machines to their knees, just imagine the cries if everyone tried to run those.

[Shimmering Sword]

I'd say forest colony is a bad argument. I consider it improved, particularly in that they realized that you usually don't have beach sand everywhere in a forest.
At the end of the day I'd rather have a game full of atmosphere that adds fog of war to the battle than have a crisp colorful playground to fight on. MWO should have some graphical improvements on the way, but I'm fine with where it's at right now. Pretty nice for a free game, and I'm all about good graphics.

[Fiona Marshe]

I have to agree that many of the problems were the update to CryEngine3.4 right before Open Beta started.

I was playing on a *below spec* machine on "high" settings without any major issues until the engine was updated. As soon as it updated, there were 3 weeks of bug patching, which still isn't completely resolved.

[EnigmaNL]

I agree, the maps looked way better before.

On a sidenote, what happened to the screens inside the 'mechs? In those videos it clearly shows actuators and now they just show no signal.

Overall graphic quality decreased with each new update.

[Hellgardia]

I do hope they can improve the graphical quality in the following patches.
It doesn't look ugly but they could be doing much better.

Cheers

[Koniving]

Part of the graphics issues is that most of the people that went to play MWO decided to try and use their grandmother's laptops. As such, complaints of lag, poor game performance on 2 core processors and the like have resulted in some changes in how the game handles level of detail.

New texture artists were hired, which is why we are gradually seeing improvements. Before forest colony was clearly more "sand" and borrowed textures from Crysis Engine rather than original ones. They phased over to their own. But gradually it became clear whatever quack was making them had no idea what they were doing. Hence the recent hire of one or more artists (Forest Colony Snow was a test of what he or they can do). Some sections are now better textured than others on the current maps. It shows the difference between what's been redone and what hasn't. They hid it for a while especially on frozen city with high tessellation settings. But then people cried about performance. When it was turned off in some areas, the map just looked awful where the textures weren't finished. Some even have the polygonal squares for texture artist reference.

The motion blur and fog are meant to make the game more difficult especially for snipers. A big part of the blur however is the heavy use of depth of field. For a bit Forest colony (winter) didn't have it turned on and the clarity was nice.

The current depth of field settings however is not dynamic and does not change "focus" based on what you look at. It always steadily puts your cockpit as the clearest thing, and gradually blurs things outside.

I think the game's appearance could heavily gain from a more dynamic depth of field. Point at something, and the DoF focuses that target in at crystal clarity while blurring all else. Then you can look back in your cockpit to your heatsink screen and it'll shift, blurring the outside and making your cockpit clear. I'd love to see DoF in effect when you look away from your target to the big bright blur at the corner of your screen, only for the image to clear up and you see 80 missiles coming down at you.

That would be a definite improvement.

Edited by Koniving, 07 January 2013 - 08:20 AM.

[EnigmaNL]

A bigger improvement could be gained by completely removing DoF and motion blur as it's totally unnatural and ugly. DoF in games is supposed to simulate the focusing effect of the eye but in EVERY game I have ever played in my entire life it's never been done right, I'll bet my life on it that PGI will never ever get it right either. So remove it. Same goes with motion blur, I've never seen motion blur occur the way it does in video games and I've driven some very fast things in my life.

Also using DoF and motion blur to make things harder for snipers is utter nonsense. This should be a skill based game and things like this prohibit people from using their skills. 'Mechs should use cover to defend against snipers at long range, not DoF and motion blur.

Remove the absurd HDR too while you are at it.

You should always a clear sight, the only things obstructing your sight should be smoke, weather effects such as rain or snow, being damaged or things in the environment (buildings, hills etc.).

Make the maps a little brighter and more natural looking, they all look dead and boring now.

[Shivaxi]

Do you see this PGI? The people have spoken.

Edited by Shivaxi, 15 January 2013 - 11:35 AM.

[Garagano]

Pease give us "Forest Colony - The Original >CB< Version" respectively "Forest Colony - Sunny Beach Party" back again !

The current "Gray Fungus Green - Forest Colony" is not what we players want!

[Ashnod]

Closed beta didnt look much different actually..

[Jale]

Garagano, on 15 January 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

Pease give us "Forest Colony - The Original >CB< Version" respectively "Forest Colony - Sunny Beach Party" back again !

The current "Gray Fungus Green - Forest Colony" is not what we players want!

YES!