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Dark Souls 2 Lighting changes/Downgrade

P

Poimandres

Member
Hopefully if it's a gameplay decision, the PC version will have extra torches on walls to light up dark areas ala the castle video with the lightning going off.
 
T

TheCongressman1

Member
Valnen said:
I don't know how you can claim to love the series and not buy it at launch over graphics. Yes it's disappointing but people don't love this series for the graphics.
Click to expand...

I don't see how you can dictate whether or not I am a fan because of how I am spending my money.

It's not just because of the graphics, it's because of what I feel is dishonest business practice. I'm not going to support that if I can help it.

I do want to play it, so I'll get it eventually. Used or marked down.
 
H

HomerSimpson-Man

Member
I've been mostly in blackout mode with Dark Souls 2, so I ain't even mad.

Disappointed? Sure.

That lighting looked really nice when I finally watched videos of it, but overall I wasn't exactly expecting too much visually from Dark Souls save for the well designed and articulate aesthetics like the first game, though with proper resolution support this time. I guess maybe the devs found out it made the game "Blighttown" all over, so it doesn't sting as badly as others here, but I hope that PC still has that lighting at least.
 
S

Shinta

Banned
doofy102 said:
Time to make peace with all this I guess :( Won't be getting a PS4 til at least October and my laptop sure as heck won't run Dark Souls 2. I played Resident Evil 4 on PS2, I can deal with this... (it seems potentially worse than Resident Evil 4 on PS2 ugh)

I might even equip the torch in one hand just for the hell of it whenever I see a torch stand in front of me.
Click to expand...

I'm going to turn the brightness down a bit too. Not sure if it'll make much difference but I'll be giving it a shot.
 
M

Metroid-Squadron

Banned
steven28 said:
From the egm review.

http://www.egmnow.com/articles/reviews/egm-review-dark-souls-ii/

There’s a curious footnote to all of this, however: the game’s lighting engine.Having had access to various snippets of Dark Souls II at previous Namco Bandai events, the portions I played don’t feel as dynamically lit as they did before. This is most notable with torches, one of the major new gimmicks added. The idea—so far as I always understood it—was that some locations would be so dark that torches would be needed, and players would be at a disadvantage, given that a hand that once held an additional weapon or shield would instead be busy holding aloft a source of light. At Tokyo Game Show last year, I played a specific segment where I had to do just that; in the final build, that exact same section was now well-lit enough that doing so was no longer necessary. In fact, as they stand now in terms of their effect on gameplay, torches in Dark Souls II feel like a curious feature that was once meant to be part of some much larger gameplay concept, but now often sit as little more than a memory of what could have been.
Click to expand...

:(
 
P

Plumpman

Member
New World Event, Pitch Darkness, Lighting Enabled!

While this whole thing bugs me, I'll still enjoy the game. What pisses me off more is the removal of the funny ragdoll moments :(
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
steven28 said:
From the egm review.

http://www.egmnow.com/articles/reviews/egm-review-dark-souls-ii/

There’s a curious footnote to all of this, however: the game’s lighting engine.Having had access to various snippets of Dark Souls II at previous Namco Bandai events, the portions I played don’t feel as dynamically lit as they did before. This is most notable with torches, one of the major new gimmicks added. The idea—so far as I always understood it—was that some locations would be so dark that torches would be needed, and players would be at a disadvantage, given that a hand that once held an additional weapon or shield would instead be busy holding aloft a source of light. At Tokyo Game Show last year, I played a specific segment where I had to do just that; in the final build, that exact same section was now well-lit enough that doing so was no longer necessary. In fact, as they stand now in terms of their effect on gameplay, torches in Dark Souls II feel like a curious feature that was once meant to be part of some much larger gameplay concept, but now often sit as little more than a memory of what could have been.
Click to expand...

I'm glad some publications are bringing that to the forefront. These guys were playing a vastly different version a couple months ago.
 
H

HomerSimpson-Man

Member
From the egm review.

http://www.egmnow.com/articles/revie...dark-souls-ii/

There’s a curious footnote to all of this, however: the game’s lighting engine.Having had access to various snippets of Dark Souls II at previous Namco Bandai events, the portions I played don’t feel as dynamically lit as they did before. This is most notable with torches, one of the major new gimmicks added. The idea—so far as I always understood it—was that some locations would be so dark that torches would be needed, and players would be at a disadvantage, given that a hand that once held an additional weapon or shield would instead be busy holding aloft a source of light. At Tokyo Game Show last year, I played a specific segment where I had to do just that; in the final build, that exact same section was now well-lit enough that doing so was no longer necessary. In fact, as they stand now in terms of their effect on gameplay, torches in Dark Souls II feel like a curious feature that was once meant to be part of some much larger gameplay concept, but now often sit as little more than a memory of what could have been.
Click to expand...
On one hand, that nice lighting is gone.

On the other, I don't have to use torches? Fair enough.

Multiple pitch black areas akin to Tomb of the Giants I can do without.
 
J

jim2point0

Banned
Bufbaf said:
Nothing from ENB or Vaati yet? :/
Click to expand...

Vaati: "I love all the changes they made to Dark Souls 2. The game really feels alive when you can see everything just a little bit better. The torch mechanic felt like it was causing a lot of levels to be pitch black to justify it. And the high contrast was causing eye-strain. The flat lighting makes it feel more like a Souls game. This was a good move. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Dark Souls 2. It is perfect in every way. Everyone should go buy it and enjoy my video content when I start making videos."

Or something like that.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
neoenigma said:
Vaati: "I love all the changes they made to Dark Souls 2. The game really feels alive when you can see everything just a little bit better. The torch mechanic felt like it was causing a lot of levels to be pitch black to justify it. And the high contrast was causing eye-strain. The flat lighting makes it feel more like a Souls game. This was a good move. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Dark Souls 2. It is perfect in every way. Everyone should go buy it and enjoy my video content when I start making videos."

Or something like that.
Click to expand...

I actually thought that was a direct quote for a second. Guy has gotten a bit obsessive.
 
Garcia

Garcia

Member
Taken from Fuck Yeah DARK SOULS:


(This quote only covers the shortcomings of the game. He speaks of other positive aspects in his review)

This is something I noted when the gameplay was first revealed, and was also worried about in the network beta; the animation is bad. It lacks weight, momentum, and satisfaction. Some of the creature animations look great, but just about everything humanoid looks like it moves too slowly and smoothly. Rolls, attacks, and jumps all lack the impact and oomph of Dark Souls 1. Even backstabs aren’t as visceral or impactful as the first game (the considerably toned down blood effects don’t help either). Doubling up on the animation woes is the criminal use of frame-deleting on certain moving models. If any of you have played GUN, or Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the 3DS, you’re probably familiar with this technique. Characters and enemies that are moving in the distance are animated with a fraction of the rate of everything else closer to the player character, essentially rendering a model moving at 10FPS in a game running at 30FPS. It’s distracting and looks terrible (and hopefully won’t be present for the PC release). Similarly disappointing but much more odd, is that instead of just skipping frames for models at various distances, some enemies just about stop animating altogether, bobbing and swaying around lazily like marionettes.

A minor quip, but still something present, is how the game will sometimes miss playing sound effects when it’s clearly distracted with loading an area or something like that. It doesn’t happen too often, but is a bigger problem than you’d think given how essential the atmosphere and mood is for these games. It was probably no accident that DeS and DaS featured IMPECCABLE audio visual presentations to keep the personalities of the enemies and areas in top form; it helped establish the world as a character. Even with the infamous FPS chugs of Blighttown, the sound and animation design never suffered (though some might argue that would be a worthy trade off). Dark Souls II doesn’t have any fatalistic areas of performance like Blighttown (at least not yet), but I’d still probably take that over the technical hangups offered in its sequel.
Click to expand...
 
A

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
So yeah, definitely a shame that they've put out false footage and made a demo that is better than the final version, but the visual downgrade seems to be just bringing it down to "still fairly better than dark souls 1" from all the release footage I've seen now.
 
B

B-Genius

Unconfirmed Member
doomquake said:
what does japanese internet say? i want the juiciest
Click to expand...

This interested me as well, so here are some choice quotes from this site (which originally picked up on the "news" from the western site Game Zone.

ＰＳ４なら大丈夫
It'll be fine on PS4.

ダー糞
Dark Shit. (This is actually cleverer than it looks...)

きれいな方のやつは見る分にはいいんだけど
実際プレイすると暗すぎて見づらいせいで不満しかわかないので
あの手のゲームはPCでは設定でガンマガン上げ＋影OFFしてるわ
The pretty shots are nice in places, but when actually playing there'd be complaints about it being too dark and hard to see. For this type of game you could change PC settings to pump up the gamma and turn shadows off.

コントラスト浅いけど一番下は新しい方が綺麗な気もする
The contrast is a little weak, but I feel like the very bottom new shot looks a lot better.

それだけじゃなく、腐れ谷や病み村の様な
処理落ちエリアがま～た、あるんだろうな・・・
I bet we're STILL gonna have frame rate drops like in Blighttown as well as this...

またPCの一人勝ちか
敗北を知りたい
Another win for the PC. I want to know defeat...

PS3版買うけど最終的にPC版も買うから問題ない
I'm getting the PS3 version, but will buy for PC as well in the end so it's no problem.

松明使わないと暗すぎてゲームどころじゃなかったから
使わなくても多少は見える明るさに変えただけだと思うけどね
ネットワークテストでもそういう変更があったし
If you didn't use a torch it was too dark and not fit for a game, so they changed the brightness in order so you don't need one. There was a similar change in the network test.

PS3の性能察しろよ
多少ライティング落ちても快適に動作する方がいいんじゃねぇの
Think about the PS3 performance. Better to have it working comfortably even if it means losing a bit of lighting, no?

海外の連中はフロムを知らないのか？
この会社は何時もこんな感じだ。トレーラー>デモ>製品なんだよ、そういう悪習のある会社なんだ。PC版もPS3と全く同じグラになると思う。なぜならコンソールで走らないモデリングをPCで金かけてやる会社なんて存在しないから。
Don't those foreigners know anything about From? It's always the same with this company. The same bad habit from Trailer -> Demo -> Release. The PC version will probably have exactly the same graphics, because no company would spend money on modeling for PC when it didn't work on consoles.

まるでPS2の限界当時だな。
This is like the limits of the PS2 days.

でも、1枚目と2枚目なら最新版の方がリアルに感じるけどね。
It seems to me like the 1st and 2nd recent shots are more realistic.
Click to expand...

Basically... gaming forums/comment sections are the same the world over.
Who knew!
 
Sanctuary

Sanctuary

Member
So far from my hour and a half:

-animations and combat in general are a MAJOR downgrade from the first two games. There's absolutely no feeling of weight or impact, which was one of the things this series did better than anyone else. That's gone. So far anyway.

-atmosphere is just not doing it for me yet. It's not so bad that I want to stop playing (I mean come on, it's not even been two hours), but the areas around the beginning just are not flattering at all. It's dreary and oppressive, but not in a good way. It just looks so unfinished.

-audio seems to have been shifted way too much in the upper treble range, and isn't balanced like the previous two.

The PC version will probably have exactly the same graphics, because no company would spend money on modeling for PC when it didn't work on consoles.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I've been saying for weeks now. A lot of people assume the PC version is just going to fix everything regarding the graphics, and it's not going to. Enhancing the resolution of low polygons isn't really going to do much for the aesthetics. They might actually include some high res textures like they claimed, but it's still not going to change that much of the way it (so far) looks really flat.
 
A

AJLma

Member
Sanctuary said:
So far from my hour and a half:

-animations and combat in general are a MAJOR downgrade from the first two games.
Click to expand...

lol.

This isn't a statement you can make in a game like this. Where the combat doesn't even really open up until well over 30 hours in.

Play with a few different builds, adjust adaptability, strength, dex, etc across different weapons, then come back and judge the combat.
 
C

Curious_George

Neo Member
Sanctuary said:
So far from my hour and a half:

-animations and combat in general are a MAJOR downgrade from the first two games. There's absolutely no feeling of weight or impact, which was one of the things this series did better than anyone else. That's gone. So far anyway.
Click to expand...

Now that actually worries me more than any graphics downgrade. I thought the network test felt a little off myself but was hoping they'd nail the old feel by release.
 
Garcia

Garcia

Member
IGN misleading their audience (as usual):

Oh, and remember how awful the frame rate got back in the original when you entered Blighttown? Dark Souls II runs at a steady 30 frames per second throughout the entire campaign without a hiccup. Even in areas brimming with enemies and environmental interactions, the game never slows down, meaning that you’ll never have anyone to blame for a “You Died” screen other than yourself.
Click to expand...

It's been stated multiple times by many players that the framerate is unstable on the PS3 version. Seems like they only played the 360.
 
F

Forceatowulf

G***n S**n*bi
As someone who has been looking forward to this game ever since I beat Demon Souls and Dark Souls in 2013, I am extremely disheartened right now. Not like this, FROM, not like this....

Let me preface the rest of this post by saying I am not some random who came in here to talk shit about a game they really had no intentions of buying any way. I was hyped for this game, I couldn't wait. With all that all said, I am not buying this game.

Let me elaborate as to why in a few points:

1. As a consumer, I do not like to be fucking lied to and deceived. Period. The idea that a company thinks they can try and sell me one thing and then give me something else and I'll buy it any way is a complete slap in the face. I will not abide that shit.

2. I don't give a fuck about dark Souls having sub-par graphics or just being graphically mid-tier like DS1. I genuinely don't care. But don't try and sell me one thing and then give me something else. If DSII looked the way it does now at all those E3 events and media promotions I would still be ready and willing to drop dollars on this bad boy, no questions asked. But... if you're selling me a steak with a side of cut fries through your advertising, and I order that off the menu, then I expect to receive steak and fries. Don't come out of that kitchen with a ham sandwich on wheat-bread and a fun size bag of chips. I LIKE ham on wheat and a bag of chips. I'm totally content with that as a meal. However, that isn't what you advertised to me on that menu and it isn't what I was ready and willing to pay for.

3. I don't like having my fandom being taken advantage of. Through Demon/darksouls1 I have become a genuine fan. Every time I get a chance to talk about Dark Souls in any video game related conversation in my personal life it's always a great feeling. The more people know about this series the better is how I see it. It's especially great when you meet a fellow DS fan and geek out together.

What FROM has done here is take advantage of people who they know will buy their shit no matter what they do (just look at this thread) because they love this series so much, such as pretending their game looks a certain way for a very long time and then revealing to people at the last minute that it was all horseshit, knowing full well it will sell regardless because of the good will and word of mouth they have garnered over the years. That's just fucked.

4. Giving FROM a pass or purchasing this game means you're OK with companies stringing you along with bullshit false advertising. You're living proof that this type of tactic is an affective marketing strategy. It's your money, sure, but supporting it only gives companies more incentive to do it again.

I want to make this crystal fucking clear to the people who will defend FROM and this series to the death no matter what they do, this is NOT about graphical quality, this is about me as a consumer being lied to and a company trying to take advantage of my fandom. It's wrong. I will not stand for it.

There, I said my peace on the matter.
Don't bring up the PC version. My comp can't run it and I'm not upgrading.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Oof.
That whole "npcs move at a different frame-rate/don't animate when they're far away" really bothers me.

It sounds like straight out of un-modded Morrowind.
 
D

doofy102

Member
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Oof.
That whole "npcs move at a different frame-rate/don't animate when they're far away" really bothers me.

It sounds like straight out of un-modded Morrowind.
Click to expand...

I played Dark Souls 1 a few days ago on PS3 and saw this exact same thing happening to a couple enemies only a few feet away. Which is odd seeing as I don't think I've seen that before.
 
J

JoeFenix

Member
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Oof.
That whole "npcs move at a different frame-rate/don't animate when they're far away" really bothers me.

It sounds like straight out of un-modded Morrowind.
Click to expand...

I've noticed it in Demon's Souls at times too, it's minor though, doesn't happen too often.

I don't know if I can get over this torch/lighting business though, I really want to play the game but I think I'm going to hold out until the PC version at this point.

It's just such a frustrating situation all around :(
 
D

derwalde

Member
AJLma said:
lol.

This isn't a statement you can make in a game like this. Where the combat doesn't even really open up until well over 30 hours in.

Play with a few different builds, adjust adaptability, strength, dex, etc across different weapons, then come back and judge the combat.
Click to expand...

yeah, no way you can judge animations 90 minutes in the game (lol).
 
N

Necromanti

Member
Garcia said:
IGN misleading their audience (as usual):



It's been stated multiple times by many players that the framerate is unstable on the PS3 version. Seems like they only played the 360.
Click to expand...
So it's either constant tearing (360) or an unstable framerate (PS3) to choose between, then?
AJLma said:
lol.

This isn't a statement you can make in a game like this. Where the combat doesn't even really open up until well over 30 hours in.

Play with a few different builds, adjust adaptability, strength, dex, etc across different weapons, then come back and judge the combat.
Click to expand...
Be that as it may...the animations and the weight behind the combat were one of the first things I noticed in the previous titles within the first hour.
 
K

koryuken

Member
B-Genius said:
海外の連中はフロムを知らないのか？
この会社は何時もこんな感じだ。トレーラー>デモ>製品なんだよ、そういう悪習のある会社なんだ。PC版もPS3と全く同じグラになると思う。なぜならコンソー ルで走らないモデリングをPCで金かけてやる会社なんて存在しないから。
Don't those foreigners know anything about From? It's always the same with this company. The same bad habit from Trailer -> Demo -> Release. The PC version will probably have exactly the same graphics, because no company would spend money on modeling for PC when it didn't work on consoles.
Click to expand...

This does not sound promising at all for the PC version...
 
A

AJ_Wings

Member
While I haven't encountered any egregious framerate dips like Blighttown, saying it's "steady" and "without a hiccup" is stretching it a bit.

Edit: I'm on PS3, btw.
 
gamerforever

gamerforever

Banned
Looks like this game will need a few patches to sort out the lock on and boss pattern issues.

How the hell can these things be downgraded from the original game?

Lighting is one thing, but making the game unfair because of sheer programming is much worse.

Hope the day one patch sorts these issues out for release day!
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Oof.
That whole "npcs move at a different frame-rate/don't animate when they're far away" really bothers me.

It sounds like straight out of un-modded Morrowind.
Click to expand...

I hope it ain't as bad as it was in RE: Mercenaries 3D / Revelations. Animations looked stop motion quality when the enemies were far away.

stfuppercut said:
Why would anyone listen to random Japanese forum poster D?
Click to expand...

He's obviously an expert on japanese development culture.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Antiwhippy said:
I've seen the mantas in demon's souls do the same thing.
Click to expand...

Yeah when I made that post I was digging through my memories of the other two DS games for instances when it happened.

I guess it's not a big deal if it isn't too noticeable. I can't hate too much on From for their lack of cutting edge tech.
 
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