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[Parsnip]

I don't think it was Sculpin QA. Googling Arric Tan (one of the two programmers) results in his Linkedin page showing he worked on the port. He works at "The Studio of Secret 6".

Same for the other programmer in the screenshot, Richard Locsin, he is technical lead at Secret 6.

http://secret6.com/

But without seeing the full credits, I'll rather not jump to any conclusions.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

That probably warrants a new thread. Fuck Backbone/Other Ocean. They're also responsible for how shitty Ultra Street Fighter IV's PS4 port was at launch.

List of people who shouldn't port shit:
High Voltage Software
Backbone
The Workshop (The Evil Within)

 

[Easy_D]

List of people who shouldn't port shit:
High Voltage Software
Backbone
The Workshop (The Evil Within)

You forgot Iron Galaxy. Ultimately, the publishers deserve the biggest blame.

 

[GhostTrick]

List of people who shouldn't port shit:
High Voltage Software
Backbone
The Workshop (The Evil Within)

What was wrong with The Evil Within ?

 

[Easy_D]

What was wrong with The Evil Within ?

30 FPS lock, forced letterboxing, horrible performance in general. Have all since been fixed though, iirc.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

You forgot Iron Galaxy. Ultimately, the publishers deserve the biggest blame.

Yeah, them too. QLOC for president or something.

What was wrong with The Evil Within ?

It had bad performance but was otherwise okay, could've been so much better though.

 

[Easy_D]

Yeah, them too. QLOC for president or something.


It had bad performance but was otherwise okay, could've been so much better though.

Internal Capcom team does good job at porting too, haven't seen a Capcom port that wasn't great since DMC4

 

[ezodagrom]

This was posted on the Steam community hub, well... Other Ocean strikes again.

OK, seems Baffan (who speedruns Tales of -games) had already beaten the game on February 4th. Video in question showing Tales of Symphonia PC version's Credits:
http://www.twitch.tv/baffan/v/40431151?t=4h13m10s

DEVELOPMENT STAFF (PC Version)
Other Ocean Inc.

LEAD PROGRAMMER
Chris Larkin

PROGRAMMING
Richard Locsin
Arric Tan

PRODUCTION
Jeff Nachbaur
John Mathis

PRESIDENT
Andrew Ayre

STUDIO HEAD
Deirdre 'Beep' Ayre

CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Mike Mika

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Tom Russo

TESTING (PC Version)
Sculpin QA

TESTERS
Lois Macneill
Kiefer Richardson
Joel Macneill
Lindsay Lynch
Troy Myers
Chris Amos
Matthew Donahue

I think this is only the relevant part. I haven't compared it with the PS3 credits yet, so if I'm wrong or/and missed something, then feel free to correct me.

http://otherocean.com/about-other-ocean
http://www.sculpinqa.com/#s-about

http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292767250664/

 

[KainXVIII]

Lol, i though it was japanese port (judging from locked 720p) but it was canadian

 

[Durante]

9 people? Really?

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

9 people? Really?

Didn't Valkyria Chronicles have its port made by 3 or 4 people though?

 

[Parsnip]

This was posted on the Steam community hub, well... Other Ocean strikes again.


http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292767250664/

Considering both Locsin and Tan are Secret 6 programmers, looks like Other Ocean partnered with them again (they ported some mobile YuGiOh game with them before).

 

[Falk]

Didn't Valkyria Chronicles have its port made by 3 or 4 people though?

Maybe that's what he meant. "That many?"

 

[MUnited83]

Didn't Valkyria Chronicles have its port made by 3 or 4 people though?

That's Durante's point! 9 people should be able to do a much better job than this !

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Maybe that's what he meant. "That many?"

That's Durante's point! 9 people should be able to do a much better job than this !

Ye looks like I misread that comment as "they only put X amount of people on it".

Also Falk congrats on red status.

 

[Xenus]

That's Durante's point! 9 people should be able to do a much better job than this !

I'd probably consider it 5 as those last 4 probably didn't touch the project outside of getting the contract and looking at it before it went out the door. But still they should have been able to do a much better job than that.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

The testers didnt do a good job QAing, if obvious issues like the language issues werent found out.

Though who knows if it was the testers fault. There was an article before where the interviewer talked to some QA-testers and even though they reported all bugs and issues, the publisher wanted to release the game asap.

 

[iavi]

Who was responsible for the Valkyria port? They did a fantastic job.

Sega always seems to have relatively decent, if not good PC ports.

 

[ezodagrom]

Who was responsible for the Valkyria port? They did a fantastic job.

Sega always seems to have relatively decent, if not good PC ports.

Little Stone Software, ex Devil's Details members, which handled the PC ports of Sonic Generations and Binary Domain.

 

[Nyoro SF]

Other Ocean is the same company that completely mucked up the USF4 PS4 port. Why am I not surprised at all.

Who was responsible for the Valkyria port? They did a fantastic job.

Sega always seems to have relatively decent, if not good PC ports.

Valkyria actually had quite a few little issues, but luckily it didn't really impact the game and you could play it just fine. Plus they patched nearly all of the problems very fast. When I looked up the Linkedin for the programmer that was contracted, he looked like a pro with a lot of experience under his belt.

 

[Mivey]

I'm guessing Bumco made back their (=<) 1000$ investment back real quick with the TOS port, so the bright side is, that these Other Ocean guys can apply all they learned from this port to the next Tales of port. I mean, it's not like it can get worse. Right? Right?!

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

I've never been comfortable shaming a dev for a poor product since we aren't privy to how much time and resources were dedicated by the publisher for this work.

what we do know is that someone over at Bamco put their eyes on this and said, "that's fine, put it out just like that." With that in mind, you can give Bamco a bunch of shit for letting the game go out in the shape that it was.

 

[ezodagrom]

so the bright side is, that these Other Ocean guys can apply all they learned from this port to the next Tales of port. I mean, it's not like it can get worse. Right? Right?!

I hope Other Ocean stays away from any other Tales game, or even from any port to PC.

 

[Datschge]

I'm guessing Bumco made back their (=<) 1000$ investment back real quick with the TOS port, so the bright side is, that these Other Ocean guys can apply all they learned from this port to the next Tales of port. I mean, it's not like it can get worse. Right? Right?!

Bamco should just leave everything PC to Europe and QLOC. Surprised this isn't what they are already doing, considering how often they contracted QLOC before (including Zestiria which by all accounts is plenty similar to Symphonia code wise).

 

[Vamphuntr]

Other Ocean... I was guessing Iron Galaxy or High Voltage. Wasn't far off the mark. It's sad for the people working there to have your company constantly ridiculed :S

Anyway that QA testing wasn't very thorough or higher people in the chain simply ignored their findings. No one bothered to change language to see what would happen? Changing resolutions?

 

[ezodagrom]

So...

So, VMProtect is a major pain in the &#9829;&#9829;&#9829;, we all know that, but... I just made a major breakthrough using Cheat Engine as a debugger.

Some extraordinarily familiar machine code is right out in the open. Two integer values, both defaulting to 0x02 and both written at the beginning of a frame. Both impossible to directly modify with Cheat Engine without disabling a certain line of code.

Bingo!

ToS uses not only the same broken framerate limiter, all of its timing is handled the same way as ToZ as well. TickScale and all that fun stuff from TZFix, it will apply here too and I can start bringing over code from TZFix it looks like.

Despite VMProtect, a 60 FPS mod is possible and if we are lucky, the polish that went into TZFix will make getting it running smoothly here a lot simpler.

So, um, in case you missed it ... 60 FPS possible and soon.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179220420

I kind of should have figured this to be completely honest. While the two games graphically look nothing alike, the underlying graphics engine in ToS and ToZ, is the same. I'll let that sink in for a minute. ToS and ToZ use the same graphics engine, yet Other Ocean couldn't even figure out how to do arbitrary resolution with it.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179250941

There is actually one nifty difference between ToS and ToZ, and it's a huge one.

In Tales of Zestiria, the tick scale was basically an integer multiple of 16.6666667 ms. This meant the framerate limit was 60, no ifs ands or buts.

Here, the meaning of this variable is flipped on its head. There is division going on. That means instead of an upper-bound like ToZ had, ToS has a lower-bound (15 FPS).

ToS cannot run slower than 15 FPS, but it can run faster than 60 FPS. This is an altogether easier pill for a lot of PC gamers to swallow Who knows what will go wrong at 120 FPS, but it'll be fun to find out.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179302907

 

[texhnolyze]

So...

http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179220420


http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179250941


http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179302907

I'm glad I haven't given up on the port yet.
With TSFix 60fps and Gedosato 4k, Symphonia PC will become the definitive version of all, finally.

 

[Sinatar]

So...

http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179220420


http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179250941


http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412447524179302907

Excellent. Ridiculous that we are relying on the community to fix something Namco is selling. But excellent.

 

[Marow]

Symphonia and Zestiria runs on the same engine? Am I reading this correctly?

 

[Ryne]

tsfix has made numerous strides over the past few days for Symphonia. You don't really need gedosato anymore (although I still want to give Durante thanks soon). Tsfix does the outlines now (and fixed the slime glitch with them), along with taking Durante's 720p unlock and introducing that as well. Also added MSAA.

It's a really good looking old game now at 4K, and only getting better.

Edit: Some images:

 

[Inuhanyou]

Symphonia and Zestiria runs on the same engine? Am I reading this correctly?

Would not be suprised at all at this point..

 

[PfantzyPantz]

Amazing news, modders continue to surprise and be awesome.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Would not be suprised at all at this point..

I mean Gamebryo powers Catherine, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 4.

The graphical quality and look is quite different between all of them so it's not much of a surprise that a substantial portion of the Tales codebase is shared between all the 3d titles.

 

[BONKERS]

Apparently things get worse.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412448158149544920

Incidentally, it appears Other Ocean didn't compensate for differences in texture coordinate rules between the PS3 and D3D9. I am noticing textures wrapping around where they should not be if the coordinates were correctly centered. It's most jarring on certain bits of text, occasionally you'll see the bottom of other letters hanging above the top of another.

Other Ocean needs to shift the entire font texture a half pixel in order to fix that...

----

I'm going to stop poking around with textures now. That's a rabbit hole I don't want to fall down. I just scratched the surface and there are way too many broken things under the hood. I'm going to look the other way and go back to framerate

 

[CertifiedFP]

Apparently things get worse.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412448158149544920

 

[Ascheroth]

Apparently things get worse.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/372360/discussions/0/412446292759260120/#c412448158149544920

Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Apparently they improved texture management with the latest patch but also broke a dozen things at the same time, not to mention all the other broken things Kaldaien is slowly uncovering while working on things.

 

[BONKERS]

Then there's this
https://github.com/Kaldaien/TSF/releases/tag/tsfix_060

Stupid Blur Filter Removal

The awful blur filter that was added in the 2/22/16 patch can be removed now!
[TSFix.Render] RemoveBlur=true
Press Ctrl + Shift + B to toggle

For future reference, Namco et al., do not blur the UI! :hand:

It is bad enough that you added this filter on regular render passes with no option to disable it, but to apply it one final time before the entire frame is presented is just icing on the cake. Between that, a 512x256 rendertarget I constantly have to fix in your games and your insistence on using 1 to 3 mipmap LODs for everything, you are exceptionally good at ruining image quality.

To that end, simple arithmetic will tell you not to use 1 LOD on a 1024x1024 texture.

log21024 &#8800; 1 Stop with this craziness. :hourglass_flowing_sand: :bomb:

You actually tried this in Tales of Zestiria, and the shimmering grass it creates is visible within 5 seconds of starting the game. :warning:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/37236...59260120/?tscn=1456564354#c412448158147200640

TSFix 0.6.0 Released

This removes the new blur filter that was added on 2/22/16. At first I was convinced this was FXAA, but it does not appear to be. It is a simple convolution filter applied way too many times (in fact it is even applied AFTER the UI is rendered).

I am beginning to question the hiring process Namco uses, this is the stupidest mistake I have seen so far and this is something that happened after the game was released. This makes the audio crashes Namco added (and never fixed) after Zestiria's launch look tame.

Unbelievable...

 

[GaimeGuy]

I assume other ocean is doing the labor for the patches, too?

Jesus christ.

There is absolutely no reason for Symphonia to get this treatment. Thanks to Nintendo's efforts back in the day, it was a million seller in the west. I'm pretty sure Symphonia has outsold all other Tales games combined outside of japan. I can't believe Namco dropped the ball so badly.

 

[Mivey]

Maybe it was "Take Your Kids To Work Day" day at Other Ocean and the little ones wanted to get some hands on experience?

 

[Dusk Golem]

The future Namco ports will be interesting. A surprisingly good port with Zestiria, then a cringely bad one with Symphonia. I know one big key here might be budget they put into it, and different studios that handled the porting, but I be interesting how they handle PC ports in the future after these two cases.

 

[Tizoc]

The future Namco ports will be interesting. A surprisingly good port with Zestiria, then a cringely bad one with Symphonia. I know one big key here might be budget they put into it, and different studios that handled the porting, but I be interesting how they handle PC ports in the future after these two cases.

IMHO the God Eater and One Piece games will be as good as Zestiria.
I shall take the fall for my fellow SteamGAFfers!

 

[Durante]

The future Namco ports will be interesting. A surprisingly good port with Zestiria, then a cringely bad one with Symphonia. I know one big key here might be budget they put into it, and different studios that handled the porting, but I be interesting how they handle PC ports in the future after these two cases.

I'd hope they learn from this and simply give their ports to competent porting studios.

It's not like there aren't tons of those around. E.g. I had never heard of the people who made the Danganronpa PC port until very recently and it's a very competent product.

 

[BONKERS]

The future Namco ports will be interesting. A surprisingly good port with Zestiria, then a cringely bad one with Symphonia. I know one big key here might be budget they put into it, and different studios that handled the porting, but I be interesting how they handle PC ports in the future after these two cases.

Without TZfix though, ToZ to me is near unplayable. Vanilla ToZ can't handle maintaining 30FPS. Making it a stuttering nightmare.

There are a number of other things wrong with it too along with non-support, but even then it's still miles above ToS as sad as that is.

I don't get how you can go from excellent ports like Ace Combat, Dark Souls II,Xenoverse etc to all this. I guess those were just flukes when Pirate Warriors 3 is thrown in the mix.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Without TZfix though, ToZ to me is near unplayable. Vanilla ToZ can't handle maintaining 30FPS. Making it a stuttering nightmare.

There are a number of other things wrong with it too along with non-support, but even then it's still miles above ToS as sad as that is.

I don't get how you can go from excellent ports like Ace Combat, Dark Souls II,Xenoverse etc to all this. I guess those were just flukes when Pirate Warriors 3 is thrown in the mix.

I don't use TZfix at all, and it has never stuttered in the ever so slightest for me, and I only have a medium-powerful rig.

 

[Ascheroth]

Maybe you've heard that the ToS port crashed frequently on devices with touch-input. Well, the most recent patch 'fixed' this. In a hilariously stupid way.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/37236...59260120/?tscn=1456746330#c412448158161154896

Speaking of which, it appears the 2/22/16 patch broke touchpads. After running TOS I cannot use multi-touch gestures on my laptop (e.g. two-finger scrolling) until I reboot my computer.

So yeah, apparently their solution was to disable everything touch related on startup and enable it again on exit, but it appears that the latter is not really reliable or they just forgot about it.

But the second part of that quote is even more hilarious(ly sad).

This is not altogether unexpected considering their solution to hiding the mouse cursor was to move and forcefully keep the cursor in the top-left corner of the screen, making it impossible to interact with other software.

I can't.

 

[Nabs]

Welp.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Maybe you've heard that the ToS port crashed frequently on devices with touch-input. Well, the most recent patch 'fixed' this. In a hilariously stupid way.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/37236...59260120/?tscn=1456746330#c412448158161154896


So yeah, apparently their solution was to disable everything touch related on startup and enable it again on exit, but it appears that the latter is not really reliable or they just forgot about it.

But the second part of that quote is even more hilarious(ly sad).


I can't.

Holy shit.

 

[Trojita]

Originally Posted by Kaldaien

This is not altogether unexpected considering their solution to hiding the mouse cursor was to move and forcefully keep the cursor in the top-left corner of the screen, making it impossible to interact with other software.

OMG.

 

[Parsnip]

Amazing.

 

[LordAmused]

Are they trolling or what? This is completely stupid!