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Witcher 3 downgrade arguments in here and nowhere else

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ss_lemonade

Member
The first game arguably had minor downgrades.
The 2nd and 3rd though? I'd need to be convinced.

Wasn't there quite a big difference with the old trailers compared to the new ones/final build? I remember being really impressed by how the jungle looked and that rainy night scene with the alien thingy screaming at you
 

viveks86

Member
My stance based on everything I've seen lately is that foliage and per object motion blur have been changed/removed but many of the differences people have chalked up to lighting are due to the change in color grading. I myself have made that mistake a few times since I personally liked the older look a bit more but that's an artistic change, not a technical one.

Hmmm… I've got a long list of things to verify that goes beyond aesthetics and color. But I'm keeping quiet till I get my hands on it. There's too much insanity around the topic as is… :D
 

cripterion

Member
Guess they were kidding when they said all versions have the same LOD, view distance :/

Character models look great though, faces are well done, and love all the details in the armor but that's the only thing I found impressive.
Oh and hearing the French VA definitely confirms I'll play it in English.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Hmmm… I've got a long list of things to verify that goes beyond aesthetics and color. But I'm keeping quiet till I get my hands on it. There's too much insanity around the topic as is… :D

I'll admit that I didn't follow the game too closely before the past few months anyway so there very well may be stuff I'm missing.
 

Lunar15

Member
Guess they were kidding when they said all versions have the same LOD, view distance :/

Character models look great though, faces are well done, and love all the details in the armor but that's the only thing I found impressive.
Oh and hearing the French VA definitely confirms I'll play it in English.

And it's not impressive compared to...
 

mephixto

Banned
If i learned something of watching streams on twitch is that you should not judge the graphics or texture quality from there, grass and foliage tend do look horrible due to compression and bitrate used to stream.
 

cripterion

Member
And it's not impressive compared to...

The rest of the game, the environments don't wow me. I know it has a great scale so that factors in but I played DA : Inquisition this year and some scenery looked better than what I'm seeing.
Once again, I'm just judging from what I'm seeing. It seems this game is quite inconsistent in terms of quality when you can get shots to look like this (on PS4) :

453065654.jpg

453080380.jpg


and then get this

453094295.jpg

453069460.jpg
 
The rest of the game, the environments don't wow me. I know it has a great scale so that factors in but I played DA : Inquisition this year and some scenery looked better than what I'm seeing.
Once again, I'm just judging from what I'm seeing. It seems this game is quite inconsistent in terms of quality when you can get shots to look like this (on PS4) :

453065654.jpg

453080380.jpg


and then get this

453094295.jpg

453069460.jpg

You are correct, but I guarantee you I can easily find some ass-ugly shots from DA:I.
 
Reposting:

2013

nwqnoy.gif


2014

boevir3vu4urr.png


2015

cwf3didhej8b.png


Compression, time of day, weather, seasons and all that, but I think it's safe to say there are a lot of details that have been removed/reduced.

I still think it looks great and I think they did a great job. While it still isn't entirely impossible the PC-version will look like the gameplay from 2013 (like CDPR are saying), it's very unlikely.
 

cripterion

Member
You are correct, but I guarantee you I can easily find some ass-ugly shots from DA:I.

Oh no doubt.

I'm just saying, the characters, the armor and its details, the faces (It puts DA :I to shame) are really well done, the rest is pretty much what I would expect from a fantasy open world in terms of graphics. Or could be that the first area really is kinda drab.

Switching to the IGN stream now.
 
Yikes at those ps4 shots, looks like a fuckin og xbox game. I realize that's one area and have seen plenty of nice looking screenies and videos elsewhere, but didn't expect to see that kind of inconsistent quality just the same :/
 

thebloo

Member
Ubi and EA games employ absolutely massive studios or groups of studios to develop their games. The commonly quoted figure for AC:U is that 1000 people worked on that game. The number of developers that worked on the Witcher 3 is 250-300 (at most).

1000 people versus 300 developers. We'll have to wait and see Witcher 3's credits.
 

Skyzard

Banned
Well even without the latest type, it looks like it does a bang up job replicating a bunch of different hair/fur types in the Wild Hunt.

Bear Fur
Armor Fur
Geralts Hair
Horse Mane/tail
Griffin Hair
Red Headed beast hair
Wolf Fur

all look very distinct from one another and very natural. Very impressive stuff, and actually one of the main reasons I decided to go with the PC version.

Far Cry 4's performance with the fur stuff enabled and the difference in appearance had me lose faith in the tech completely.
 
Oh no doubt.

I'm just saying, the characters, the armor and its details, the faces (It puts DA :I to shame) are really well done, the rest is pretty much what I would expect from a fantasy open world in terms of graphics. Or could be that the first area really is kinda drab.

Switching to the IGN stream now.

I recall a comment from someone saying the opening area is indeed bland compared to the other ones, something along the lines of other regions feel like actual places you're exploring rather than the cookie cutter nature of the starting zone. I certainly hope that's the case.
 
I honestly can't believe people are saying the environments in Dragon Age look as good or better than this. I am playing it right now. It looks like a great looking cross gen game. The geometry is nowhere near this. W3 looks so much more convincing.
 
Compression, time of day, weather, seasons and all that, but I think it's safe to say there are a lot of details that have been removed/reduced.

I still think it looks great and I think they did a great job. While it still isn't entirely impossible the PC-version will look like the gameplay from 2013 like they are saying, it's very unlikely.

Yes, it has been posted, and it's a really stupid comparison. Not just for all the reasons you mentioned, but because it's comparing PC vs PS4.

There was a definite downgrade, but all that series of pics does is make people freak out when they shouldn't.

Oh no doubt.

I'm just saying, the characters, the armor and its details, the faces (It puts DA :I to shame) are really well done, the rest is pretty much what I would expect from a fantasy open world in terms of graphics. Or could be that the first area really is kinda drab.

Switching to the IGN stream now.

For sure--there are some areas (and lighting choices--some of the sunrise/sunset stuff is just a little too much) that look a lot worse than others.
 

Lunar15

Member
Yes, it has been posted, and it's a really stupid comparison. Not just for all the reasons you mentioned, but because it's comparing PC vs PS4.

There was a definite downgrade, but all that series of pics does is make people freak out when they shouldn't.

There's not going to be a big difference between PC and PS4.
 

cripterion

Member
I honestly can't believe people are saying the environments in Dragon Age look as good or better than this. I am playing it right now. It looks like a great looking cross gen game. The geometry is nowhere near this. W3 looks so much more convincing.

Inquisition is wildly inconsistent but some environments looked good.

Glad I switched to the IGN stream, the people on the twitch one were way to annoying and could barely control Geralt.

Wow....this Troll is actually called Trollolol xD

Lol yeah. The troll looked good luck too
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I don't know if it's been posted here, but some Arab YouTuber has been playing the PS4 version with a decent capture card, and posted some videos that look clean as fuck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mDR3osVfQ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzxsWVcUI04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bieqvO1Kg-k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZKHRBRQmw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G6pEaTDeEg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9hcctt8qus

There's more in his profile.


If this article is legit, it's basically an admission that the reason CDPR had to go for parity was lack of manpower. After all is said and done, it is still a relatively small Eastern European dev and doesn't have the same resources as an EA or Ubisoft to devote full-size teams to each individual version.
 
Inquisition is wildly inconsistent but some environments looked good.

Glad I switched to the IGN stream, the people on the twitch one were way to annoying and could barely control Geralt.

Sure they look good, but Witcher environments easily look more impressive to me. For one, the scale is off in Dragon Age, it is nowhere near 1 to 1. It is much closer in the Witcher I would say. Landscape geometry and the variety and density of vegetation is better. There are also actual cities in the game, rather than the small villages in Dragon Age.
 
Not sure if this has been posted.

2013

2504401-6535952199-ip9VU.gif


2014

boevir3vu4urr.png


2015

cWf3DID.png


Compression, time of day, weather, seasons and all that, but I think it's safe to say there are a lot of details that have been removed/reduced.

I still think it looks great and I think they did a great job. While it still isn't entirely impossible the PC-version will look like the gameplay from 2013 like they are saying, it's very unlikely.

wow they completely ruined the color palette. That 2013 "footage" looks way better than anything I've seen of the current version. Part of that is the camera angle used and part of that is the overall level of detail, density, and richness of the world in the 2013 build.
 

rashbeep

Banned
I am here with you on this adventure viveks!

I was going to do this too, specifically do a 1:1 comparison of the 35 minute demo and the final build, completing the same "Johnny" quest.

Don't think it's necessary for me now if you two are on it, so I look forward to seeing the results :)
 
There's not going to be a big difference between PC and PS4.

Unless the ONLY tech you're criticizing is color design/temperature and geometry/assets, the comparison is useless.

2013 gif: high-end dev PC using CDPR's sharpening filter
2014/2015: poorly shrunken (did they use Paint?) compressed JPEGs from PS4 footage

Like I said, it's obvious a downgrade occurred, but using these specific pics to judge it is foolish. There are also massive differences in capture quality (compare Playstation Access's crappy bitrate vids vs this random Youtuber) for the PS4.
 

Shredderi

Member
The game looks good but I think the jumping animation looks a little funny. Like he jumps a little too high. Obviously made for gameplay purposes in order to actually reach places.
 

codhand

Member
Not sure if this has been posted.

2013

2504401-6535952199-ip9VU.gif


2014

boevir3vu4urr.png


2015

cWf3DID.png



Compression, time of day, weather, seasons and all that, but I think it's safe to say there are a lot of details that have been removed/reduced.

I still think it looks great and I think they did a great job. While it still isn't entirely impossible the PC-version will look like the gameplay from 2013 like they are saying, it's very unlikely.


Nope. 71 pages in, and you're the first.
 
One thing that bothers in all Witchers which is out of place is that you have a village with citizens having normal life and next to it few meters away a lake or a forest filled with monsters and everything seems to be fine for them. Witcher logic?
 
One thing that bothers in all Witchers which is out of place is that you have a village with citizens having normal life and next to it few meters away a lake or a forest filled with monsters and everything seems to be fine for them. Witcher logic?


That was life for people back then man. They were just used to it.
 
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