Alexander DeLarge
Member
They were using pre-downgrade footage like a month before the game released. It was pretty shitty.
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CrowbCat: Dark Souls 2 downgrade full comparison
- Thread starter Maximo
- Start date
They were using pre-downgrade footage like a month before the game released. It was pretty shitty.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Tired of his shtick. But I've grown up and have basically become tired of the gaming community in general and this antagonistic relationship between gamers and developers and reviewers.
Not gonna lie, I'm still pretty miffed about this one. Mind you, I bought both versions (vanilla and SotFS) on PC and used mods to spruce up the visuals a bit, but even then the difference between what they showed and what we got is incredibly pronounced.
I'm not gonna hold a grudge over it or anything, though. At least not for this foible in particular. (Dark Souls 3 is another matter entirely...)
Even the ENB mod doesn't bring back the shadowing present in a lot of these shots (and of course it's not compatible with SotFS due to it being DX11). There's a stark difference here that can't be reproduced with simplistic tweaks like increasing contrast or lowering brightness.
I'm not gonna hold a grudge over it or anything, though. At least not for this foible in particular. (Dark Souls 3 is another matter entirely...)
Not the same thing at all.
Even the ENB mod doesn't bring back the shadowing present in a lot of these shots (and of course it's not compatible with SotFS due to it being DX11). There's a stark difference here that can't be reproduced with simplistic tweaks like increasing contrast or lowering brightness.
Poimandres
Member
Do we actually know WHEN the changes were implemented? The old lighting was in the BETA test right? Even still, that might have been an old build and they had already made the decision that it wasn't going to work out for the final release. It really could have also had a playability impact... some places like The Gutter I can't even picture with this lighting.
Not that I'm trying to defend any of this, just looking for facts.
Said it on the last page but the Halo video really opened my eyes to the type of person he is and the kind of thought that goes into his videos.
On one hand, you have a game that had its visuals presented in a dishonest manner before release, but turned out to still be an excellent game that mostly lived up to its pedigree and has a healthy community years later.
On the other hand, you have a racist /v/-tier YouTuber whose videos are glorified shitposts.
On the other hand, you have a racist /v/-tier YouTuber whose videos are glorified shitposts.
Absolutely would have sucked which makes you wonder why they got far enough to design any game components around it. Whatever, DS2 is enh regardless.
No racist memes in this one? Such restraint.
Criticizing what From Software and Bandai Namco did in 2014 is just fine, but criticizing something Crowbcat did this year? Now that's clearly gotten tired.
You gotta love the double standard here.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Yeah I'm pretty lukewarm on Dark Souls 2 and its problems are in no way related to the lack of torch-required mechanics or the lack of dynamic lighting. The level design in general just isn't tailored for it to justify it for a few areas.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
If the game had had this mechanic I wouldn't have played it. Then I probably wouldn't have played DS3 or BB. So, I actually am really grateful for the downgrade.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
How about we criticized them both?
Still funny to think about the whole bait and switch shenanigans they pulled off back there. But I guess they had learned their lesson well since AFAIK they're not doing that kind of shit again with bloodborne and dark souls 3.
SomeRandomWeirdGuy
Member
Okay. Then why still show that old version? Why not tell people?
The only reason to act as if nothing has changed when it actually has is to get peoples' money that would be miffed by the change. Guild Wars 2 in it's release incarnation was wildly different than what was originally announced back in like 2006, but I didn't care because it was completely outlined and explained why those old ideas were dropped way the hell in advance.
Showing trailers of a version of the game using a completely different version of the lightning engine, one that was playable during the beta, when it has in fact been changed IS tricking people, whether it was intentional or not.
TrumanBurbank
Member
You thought everyone on this site should be done with him because you (one guy) over reacts to one joke?
BlitzBlake
Member
Stop stop, it's already dead.
What did this one do?
I would recommend watching Hbomb's interesting and deep exploration of Dark Souls 2 for anyone looking for an video essay on the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRTfcMeqhig
Poimandres
Member
How... does that make any sense? You wouldn't have played this game... and you also wouldn't have played the sequels?
They could probably have tweaked the dark areas if the torch mechanic wasn't working well without needing to gut the whole lighting system. This was clearly mostly a peformance issue.
Orthogonal
Member
Perhaps. There are certainly areas and elements of the game that are better without the lighting system, but some are, i think, undeniably worse off as a result. Aldias Keep is pretty rough compared to the original version.
Graphics arent everything, but in some instances they can have a huge impact the final result. Take the Mirror Knight as an example. In the preview build the lighting made it ridiculously epic and dripping with atmosphere. Post launch its a boring and garish mess. Check out this comparison.
https://youtu.be/3Qj2BkF7jh4
SoulUnison
Banned
This statement is hilarious.
Seriously, how old are you? Were these your first consoles, or something?
Not even trying to "gatekeep" or condescend here, or anything, I just can't wrap my head around this statement if it's from someone who had ever experienced even just one prior console generation.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
How does it not make sense? I guess I'm going on the assumption that they would've carried the mechanic onward, if that helps.
Icyflamez96
Member
i mean it's called dark souls
KaoteK
Member
Make that two guys. He's been on my shit list ever since that awful "joke".
Hey that's pretty condescending, at least explain why you think he is wrong.
Back in my day when you had no light you couldn't see. That was the single feature i was hoping for the most out of DS2, actually dark enviroments with amazing lighting.
So, no, it's a design choice I wish was used more often. Dragon's Dogma did it and did it fucking well. I was able to mod it into skyrim in a similar fashion. The DS2 that was released can piss off with it's awful washed out faux lightning and textures straight out of a launch ps3 game.
Tinfoilhatsron
Banned
Whynotboth.gif
The GTA video is one of his worst examples of cherrypicking.
Salty Rice
Member
This is no double standard.
There is a difference between looking back at a games development for people to watch (be it informative or for entertainment) and just come in threads to tell people how you dont want to watch the video the thread is about.
I didn't know not finding racism funny was overreacting.
Why the fuck did I even post on gaming side
AzureFlame
Member
God damn.
Poimandres
Member
Yes, that makes all the difference! I was thinking DS3 and Bloodborne would be exactly as is.
KaoteK
Member
QFT
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
He made a completely opposite video praising DOOM upgrading after it's reveal.
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
The horror aspect could've really used that darker look, but I'm upset they "had to" change so many physical objects and go with several plain textures on flat surfaces.
paperspace
Member
⁣
Defense posts for everything lmao
Youre tired of people not being happy with companies misrepresenting their product? Ok.
What did he mean by this?
Member
Whats wrong with downgrades? Game development is hard and stuff changes. Maybe because I never preorder anything I dont really care what previews show
AzureFlame
Member
whatever you call it, it definitely became uglier
Copper
Member
the ENBs make it close to the lighting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRt8CqAJ99Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRt8CqAJ99Q
The engine upgrades were phenomenal. Interesting to realize that Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 both use the new engine they introduced with Dark Souls 2.
They were marketing the game up to release using the old footage. They pulled a similar stunt with Bloodborne where none of the pre-release footage has that dog shit chromatic aberration.
They were marketing the game up to release using the old footage. They pulled a similar stunt with Bloodborne where none of the pre-release footage has that dog shit chromatic aberration.
Imperfected
Member
I feel like their intention was to use the rendering solution they showed, but they got ahead of themselves demonstrating it when it wasn't nearly ready. I'd like to believe the reason the final build looked so dreadful is that they kept hopelessly banging their heads against the wall trying to make the dynamic shadows work, and never really put any meaningful effort into re-optimizing on the build they had to go with.
SoulUnison
Banned
Look at the statement. Look how blanketing it is.
Particles and lighting are impossible?
Makes it sound like the PS360 generation was the Genesis/SNES generation.
It's not that i'm disparaging him for possibly being young, I'm asking if the PS360 era was literally his first experience with gaming hardware and if he has weird notions of their abilities because of it.
Downgrades happen. But rarely is anyone transparent about it. Like if you have to scale back and its going look different upon release fine but be honest about it. But don't use pre-downgrade footage up until the final couple of months before release without letting people know.
It's interesting seeing this footage side-by-side again. One thing I noticed this time is that in the demo, the torch was positioned in the UI as a spell, not an item. I guess that implies that the torch timer used to reset at bonfires, which makes sense if the torch was meant to be in constant use throughout the game. "Running out" of torch time--with no way to get it back--was such a weird thing to be possible in the final game.
In the end I'm kind of glad that dark areas weren't more prevalent in the final game, but it's still disappointing how flat the lighting ended up being overall. I have to wonder whether the dull look of the final game is only due to engine problems or whether From also decided that too much torch was not fun. The final engine can obviously do dark areas, though they don't look as good as the demo footage.
In the end I'm kind of glad that dark areas weren't more prevalent in the final game, but it's still disappointing how flat the lighting ended up being overall. I have to wonder whether the dull look of the final game is only due to engine problems or whether From also decided that too much torch was not fun. The final engine can obviously do dark areas, though they don't look as good as the demo footage.
I mean, correct us if wrong, but didn't AAA PS360 games mostly used pre-baked lighting for the environments?
I'm sure by "impossible" he meant in the context of needing to also have AAA graphics so there may not be enough horsepower left for dynamic lighting.