Do you think they need to improve the graphics?

jedite2012 · July 2012

Especially the cut screens look awful, their mouths are out of sync, they are invisible sometimes, glitchy npc

also targeting enemies are a pain because you sometimes cant click them

championshewolf · July 2012

No, they don't need to improve the graphics, though talk animations could be better, it's not exactly the easier thing in the world to animate.

bjturner · July 2012

The cutscenes are rough, yeah. But overall, I think the graphics are just fine.

nextnametaken · July 2012

They could remove cut scenes where larger enemies only end up being
"Behold my mighty groin" with their shoulders and head and sound bubble completely cut off the screen.

Leaving it that way is so lazy.

We could just get rid of those cut scenes.
Do the voice over, do a hud overlay, do a big old 'splosion or teleport effect or bad guys all a-taunting.

Drives me nuts:
Loading screen cut scene loading screen cut scene loading screen cut scene.
If it was new and exciting cut scenes that told me some epic story, ok, but its the same damned to
hell scenes of idiot NPCs mouthing nothing worth reading over and over day after day.

cynicool · July 2012

I used to have the most hilarious .gif of Witchcraft talking. I wish I knew where it went, and it wasn't readily apparent when I tried Google searching for it.

jedite2012 · July 2012

yeah the loading screen is annoying especially when it is in the middle of patching

meedacthunist · July 2012

Improving graphics? No. Though game client as a whole could use some optimalisation.
Improving facial animations? Yes. Current ones are little more than bad joke.
Improving facial models? Yes, STO has it much, much better, from sliders to textures.
Deleting cutscenes? YES. Either this or make it skippable.

nepht · July 2012

I'd be much happier if they just improved the voice acting

agentnx5 · July 2012

meedacthunist wrote: »

Improving graphics? No. Though game client as a whole could use some optimalisation.
Improving facial animations? Yes. Current ones are little more than bad joke.
Improving facial models? Yes, STO has it much, much better, from sliders to textures.
Deleting cutscenes? YES. Either this or make it skippable.

I agree

kenpojujitsu3 · July 2012

Yes the graphics need to be improved so that the game reasonably mimics the look of the comic books it draws inspiration from...wait a minute...

angelphoenix12 · July 2012

i think they could button up a few of the graphic bugs. otherwise i dont think so.

mawayne · July 2012

I think the current graphics are fine. Two areas I'd like to see improved are: 1) facial animations and 2) more voice-overs.

elsawhitworth · July 2012

The graphics look good to me. Though I begin to think Valerian Scarlet's greatest power is that floating ribbon of hers, it's defied the devs for years now.

slowecsl4pwe · July 2012

I love the graphics for this game. At least to me, it truly captures the comic book look and feel.

megaskullmon · July 2012

They need to fix the memory dump but they also need to make it so that this game dosen't chew up video cards this game kills them easy.

secksegai · July 2012

nepht wrote: »

I'd be much happier if they just improved the voice acting

The graphics I can deal with. The voice acting....

yougan · July 2012

they need to change the whole graphic standard of the game, for now it feels like playing a temporary alpha where the textured still need to be added for finish work.
the best thing they can do is both change the textures so it looks more drawn and less filled with bumping effects and they need to make it cell-shade so the comic feeling is real.

ps. i do agree that the voice acting need some improvements, listening to a sound-box is getting really annoying.

neuraldamage · July 2012

Cutscenes, yes.

Graphics no. Probably the only thing about CO I've never felt the need to carp about.

jedite2012 · July 2012

to be honest i think they were lazy with that part, i was watching a cut scene and i couldn't see all of the speech bubble, it was cut off on top of the screen

squidheadjax · July 2012

Graphics are pretty good, honestly. I'd rather see them fix up some graphics bugs like the floating wrist ribbons though.

jedite2012 · July 2012

oh and another thing, can they at least make it so you know who is attack you, i was up on top of the building, no enemies could see me, i then start getting shot at, i looked down and there was the enemy, make the aggro more realistic please instead of enemies killing you from very far away

mystagogue · July 2012

I'm more than happy with the graphics in general. As others have mentioned some fine tuning may be needed here and there, otherwise it's fine.

As far as cut scenes go, I'm actually more of a fan of the storyboard style/non animated cut scenes. I understand that many of them are necessary (to set up NPC positions and whatnot in encounters), but I'd rather just have the comic panel/story board style (with improvement on voice acting as mentioned). And yes, whenever it can be skipped (such as the new crafting) it needs to be skip-able.

beldin · July 2012

mystagogue wrote: »

I understand that many of them are necessary (to set up NPC positions and whatnot in encounters), but I'd rather just have the comic panel/story board style (with improvement on voice acting as mentioned). And yes, whenever it can be skipped (such as the new crafting) it needs to be skip-able.

I say that is bull**** .. the setting up NPC argument. After all its a program and they can
do that in less than a second, the same as they place our characters in line elswhere at
the end of the City Hall alerts for example.

And a lot fo cutscenes were skipable when i started playing that no aren't anymore, like
for example Foxbattle at the Network Stars

kharma23 · July 2012

elsawhitworth wrote: »

The graphics look good to me. Though I begin to think Valerian Scarlet's greatest power is that floating ribbon of hers, it's defied the devs for years now.

Thank you! This drives me crazy. :biggrin:

I swear her ribbons were attached correctly when I first did that mission string, have they always been disembodied like that?

squidheadjax · July 2012

Oh, the LAST thing I want is them re-re-re-doing everything again. I'd like to see something new that isn't just a ****ty alert.

Unless it's making Ethnic Stereotype Land (that is, Westside) less cringe-worthy. That I could almost get behind.

jonsills · July 2012

Which do you want? Improved graphics, or your not-absolutely-top-end graphics card to survive? You only get one...

nightr0d · July 2012

jonsills wrote: »

Which do you want? Improved graphics, or your not-absolutely-top-end graphics card to survive? You only get one...

I would not mind better graphics.

Weird thing is there seems to be something wrong with the world detail distance option. I set it to max and I notice that some textures don't load completely unless i'm about 30ft from them :eek:. I have no idea what is going on

jonsills · July 2012

nightr0d wrote: »

I would not mind better graphics.

Weird thing is there seems to be something wrong with the world detail distance option. I set it to max and I notice that some textures don't load completely unless i'm about 30ft from them :eek:. I have no idea what is going on

What's going on is that you're overtaxing your computer's display capabilities. I find that setting it to about half gets me a good distance view, but still lets my system load in the graphics in a timely fashion.

nightr0d · July 2012

jonsills wrote: »

What's going on is that you're overtaxing your computer's display capabilities. I find that setting it to about half gets me a good distance view, but still lets my system load in the graphics in a timely fashion.

I highly doubt my GTX 670 DirectCU II TOP is the problem here. I doubt this game can't be run on max with a 500$ GFX card. That would be absurd :eek:

kenpojujitsu3 · July 2012

nightr0d wrote: »

I highly doubt my GTX 670 DirectCU II TOP is the problem here. I doubt this game can't be run on max with a 500$ GFX card. That would be absurd :eek:

It's likely not your card. I have 2 5870's in my machine which are on par with your single card when used together. Despite CO not being the most graphically demanding game based on how it looks it DOES make my graphics cards heat up (and relatedly makes their fans spin at a higher rate) more than any other game I have.

bdragon4co · July 2012

I would rather have the graphics more optimized than improved. This game has a good casual pull and most people that I know, even gamers, don't own a gaming PC in any form.

nightr0d · July 2012

kenpojujitsu3 wrote: »

It's likely not your card. I have 2 5870's in my machine which are on par with your single card when used together. Despite CO not being the most graphically demanding game based on how it looks it DOES make my graphics cards heat up (and relatedly makes their fans spin at a higher rate) more than any other game I have.

Yeah that's the wieird part. I know it's not my CPU either since I have a 3770k OC to 4.5Ghz so I hightly doubt it's bottlenecked. The game runs extremely smooth it's just that some of those bushes in RenCenter (only noticed on those for the time being) close to where the chairs are (on the sides all around rencenter) don't display from the distance yet once close enough they start to appear and the closer I get the higher the texture quality gets. O_o I got no clue why this is happening. Unless there is some sort of hidded invisible limitation embeded in the CO code that prevents me I can't explain it otherwise.

jedite2012 · July 2012

Yeah i had to not play this game for a year when it first came out because i did not have a good graphics card, i did play it in beta but the graphics looks so pixelated and rugged edges

r0nyn · July 2012

jedite2012 wrote: »

Especially the cut screens look awful, their mouths are out of sync, they are invisible sometimes, glitchy npc

also targeting enemies are a pain because you sometimes cant click them

Not to be a douche or anything, but most of it isn't simply weak tech or low resolution/polys. The game artists just aren't that good, relatively speaking. The still art is fair enough, but the in-game art, like textures and models are rather poor.

zenzenarimasen · July 2012

If they did improve the graphics, I would be overjoyed.

HOWEVER, I'm going to be very frank here. It would be a MONUMENTAL waste of resources if they did. It'd likely take a year or so to do it properly and thoroughly, and we're talking about a period in which they won't have time to develop new power sets, new costume sets, new environments, or new ANYTHING. The programmers would likely be caught up overhauling the renderer to be able to support it all too.

So do they need to? No, but it would be nice.
Should they? No, it would take too much time away from everything else. And this is coming from someone (formerly known as Metallurgist) who has REPEATEDLY said that the Cryptic developers are lazy.

I do however thinkt hey should overhaul the faces for characters in the game. The faces just do not work. If I could make my character's faces look more like the kind you get on Star Trek Online, I'd be a very happy grouch. My main problem is the lips on female characters look entirely too much like wax lips. It's impossible to get the mouth to look right. The eyes are a bit wonky too.

r0nyn wrote: »

Not to be a douche or anything, but most of it isn't simply weak tech or low resolution/polys. The game artists just aren't that good, relatively speaking. The still art is fair enough, but the in-game art, like textures and models are rather poor.

Oh come on, Tumerboy's art rocks and we ran him off by grouching all the time. Now he's over on STO making awesome stuff there. Mind you what he's done on STO does look a hell of a lot better than what we have here. I'm blaming the art style, not the artists.

r0nyn · July 2012

I don't think it's simply the style. The clothes are often very flat and lacking detail (they have no cloth-like texture, for example, and are instead a smooth surface), the faces have awkward proportions and also lack definition (looking more like plastic action figures than people), the hair is again lacking definition but also has a very solid and blocky appearance more like a helmet, many of the animations look strange and unnatural, the environment transitions very poorly and is riddled with hard and unnatural lines (a cliff coming from the ground, for example), and so on.

craybestt · July 2012

I think the character models are pretty good, but the textures are not, I agree with r0nyn.
Specially with the hair, some hair models have completely flat textures, just 1 color. and with better textures the game would look much much better.

zahinder · July 2012

I've been playing The Secret World.

The graphics are WAY better, and I'm finding it hard to imagine playing CO more.

itsbrou · July 2012

I think the graphics are fine for what it was advertised to be.

It never wanted to be anything else but simple 4-color with halftones.

bioshrike · July 2012

zahinder wrote: »

I've been playing The Secret World.

The graphics are WAY better, and I'm finding it hard to imagine playing CO more.

How much character customization does that game offer? Do *you* dictate how you look, or does your gear? Does it have body and face sliders to the extent that CO has?

If the answer is "less than CO" or "no", then keep in mind that the stuff in CO has to accommodate all different possible combinations of pieces and body scaling. It is much easier to make a character look good if their relative proportions and appearances are limited. Also keep in mind that CO is more than 3 years older than The Secret World, and that it is intentionally going for a simpler, more "4-color comic" look.

IMO, if you disable the comic style outlining and use the /renderscale command, CO can look even better and more realistic...

As for a graphics update, I'd simply like to see the existing costume pieces/sets get a review so they can use all the material types, (metal, leather, cloth), and to have existing clipping and other issues addressed. For instance, many female tops with skin have an issue where the front and back half of the pattern don't match up at the part that goes under the arm (along the sides of the torso). I'd also like to see patterns that only have a top or bottom part get the missing matching part...

illuminia87 · July 2012

r0nyn wrote: »

I don't think it's simply the style. The clothes are often very flat and lacking detail (they have no cloth-like texture, for example, and are instead a smooth surface), the faces have awkward proportions and also lack definition (looking more like plastic action figures than people), the hair is again lacking definition but also has a very solid and blocky appearance more like a helmet, many of the animations look strange and unnatural, the environment transitions very poorly and is riddled with hard and unnatural lines (a cliff coming from the ground, for example), and so on.

Not to be a royal-B or anything, but I hate comments like this. Honestly I can understand if the art style is not to your liking, but CO is designed to look and feel more like a comic book, and not so much on the realism side. As far as proportions, well you have dozens of sliders at your disposal, so how "awkward" they look is quite frankly all on you.

If you can provide screenshots of 3D models/environments that look better then CO, while staying true to the art style, please, by all means do share. Otherwise I do think anyone is in a position to say Cryptic's 3D modelers are bad or whatever.

I imho love CO's graphics and think they are vastly superior to essentially every other superhero MMO. I will say however we need new talking animations, I understand it was probably meant to look retarded, but the joke has gone on long enough. No more seizure of the mouth please! :biggrin:

jedite2012 · July 2012

seizer of the mouth lol

i always thought they are eating lol

bacardiserralles · July 2012

Meh. This game needs a lot of things. It's not getting any of them. Accept it and live in peace.

But if I could choose one - well, let's make it two . . .it would be . . .

WALL CLIMBING

and

BLACK AND WHITE POWER TINTING

Make it so!

unkomanplus · July 2012

I gotta say, the reason I've stuck to CO is, in part, the graphics, the style, and the amount of things you can do with character customization.

I played CoH for a bit and... my god that game was always ugly. Now that it's free I tried it again, but it made me want to stab my eyes out. It also didn't run nearly as well.

DC Online is fancy looking but... it's a bit dull. It doesn't have the same quirky style as Champs. That's the drawing point. I have serious heroes. I have goofy heroes. Many of them I've created years before this game even exists. Champions Online, through massive creation options and fantastic sliders allows me to realize them in the same way I've been drawing them for so long.

They could use a bit of an update on some bump maps (like, how come some costume patterns are links to some maps but others are not? None should be linked, if you ask me), but other than that I think the art style as a whole is pretty darn swell.

xvii013 · July 2012

For me, CO's graphics are fine as well. They even improved right? The textures (locations) are now much much better :biggrin:

meedacthunist · July 2012

I can go with reworked facial animations, textures and sliders - by simply copying these features form STO - as it's an area where CO is seriously lacking. Same goes for hair - as hair models in STO are much, much better than in CO. In general heads for humanoid characters could use improvements.
But the rest?

Environmental art in CO is ok. Sure, landscape sometimes looks unnatural. Well, like in any other mmo, honestly. It's a nature of the beast. Mmo zones are rarely realistic because of limited space and number of features which has to be included on the map.
MC looks just fine and indoor maps are well detailed. VB is superb.

Character animations? Also are fine. Not worse than other mmos, EXCEPT facial animation.
Character proportions? Yes, default models for humanoid NPC have really ugly proportions - heads are too small, bodies are stretched, hands and feets are too large.
But they are only NPC models and I could't care less about NPC dolls.
Player characters can be easily customised to the proper eight or seven and half tall proportions. It won't be a really anatomic model but it will be better than in many other games.

Also, game engine needs optimalisation because it's really resource consuming. Though I don't know if any optimalisation is possible - my guess is that CO problems are because of number of active bumpmaps on displayed models, also because maps in big parts aren't baked as a one thing. A lot of things, including buildings, looks like made from separate objects.
Not to mention characters and creatures models, as these are for sure made from separate objects - it's a price paid for customisation.

But graphics as a whole aren't that bad. Can't really complain about nothing except or performance or character heads.

chaelk · July 2012

I have no problems, with the graphics. I'd like the extra sliders that male characters have.

Fixes- talismans telporting trousers problem. when you teleport or reappear, I've noticed sometimes, the underwear pops up then the trousers/tights/skirts. with talisman, her tights go then her in her underwear goes

klitty · July 2012

chaelk wrote: »

I have no problems, with the graphics. I'd like the extra sliders that male characters have.

Fixes- talismans telporting trousers problem. when you teleport or reappear, I've noticed sometimes, the underwear pops up then the trousers/tights/skirts. with talisman, her tights go then her in her underwear goes

Teleporting panties... Bug or fan service??

chaelk · July 2012

female player, T& A on a female, no thanks. Now if we could get some of the male npc's....

*sounds of vomitting from male players* ahhh sweet revenge

nightr0d · July 2012

bioshrike wrote: »

How much character customization does that game offer? Do *you* dictate how you look, or does your gear? Does it have body and face sliders to the extent that CO has?

If the answer is "less than CO" or "no", then keep in mind that the stuff in CO has to accommodate all different possible combinations of pieces and body scaling. It is much easier to make a character look good if their relative proportions and appearances are limited. Also keep in mind that CO is more than 3 years older than The Secret World, and that it is intentionally going for a simpler, more "4-color comic" look.

IMO, if you disable the comic style outlining and use the /renderscale command, CO can look even better and more realistic...

As for a graphics update, I'd simply like to see the existing costume pieces/sets get a review so they can use all the material types, (metal, leather, cloth), and to have existing clipping and other issues addressed. For instance, many female tops with skin have an issue where the front and back half of the pattern don't match up at the part that goes under the arm (along the sides of the torso). I'd also like to see patterns that only have a top or bottom part get the missing matching part...

I have not personally used this command but how exactly would this improve graphics? And what is the range/default values for it? (if you know of course).

Oh and since we are taling a bout graphics and such does anyone know the /command to increase the world draw distance beyond the max displayed in the video options menu?

squidheadjax · July 2012

chaelk wrote: »

I have no problems, with the graphics. I'd like the extra sliders that male characters have.

Fixes- talismans telporting trousers problem. when you teleport or reappear, I've noticed sometimes, the underwear pops up then the trousers/tights/skirts. with talisman, her tights go then her in her underwear goes

It's a thing with how transparency works. When a whole character becomes transparent, all parts of the model become visible, so the parts with the most contrast (panties vs. skin, for example) are still there. Idunno how hard it is to implement overall transparency but maintain LoS blocking within a certain set of objects, but I haven't seen it accomplished in Cryptic's engine.

chaelk wrote: »

female player, T& A on a female, no thanks. Now if we could get some of the male npc's....

*sounds of vomitting from male players* ahhh sweet revenge

Hey, I approve of cheesecake and beefcake for everyone!

Do you think they need to improve the graphics?

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