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[apple_of_enlightenment]

He's right you know and so was Iwata

 

[SlimySnake]

Gaming hasnt evolved since the PS360 era, it's true but its not because of diminishing returns. Thats a very narrow view of the reasons why we are still playing games designed around 2005 era hardware limitations.

The real reason is due to the fact that last gen both Xbox and PS4 chose a netbook CPU that was not a real upgrade over the PS3 era CPUs. They also chose not to invest in an SSD which held back game design and traversal even more.

Those two things are no longer an issue this gen, but now the issue is lazy devs and greedy cunts running first party and third party publishers who are refusing to take advantage of the exceptional hardware in these consoles.

Hardware that are producing near photorealistic visuals. Hardware that can push physics like never before. Hardware that can completely change traversal in a video game. But hey, when you have everyone sucking off execs instead of asking for game design to no longer be constrained by PS3 era hardware then you are not going to get the leap we used to expect.

Here is whats possible this gen. The problem isnt diminishing returns. It is diminishing ambition. Diminishing talent. Diminishing courage from directors and devs like Cory Barlog and Neil Druckmann who could stand up to greedy execs and say 'fuck you, we are making our game next gen only. Fire me and see how it plays out on twitter.' But nope, they all fell in line after given promotions.

Flying​

Much of Frontiers of Pandora's reveal trailer takes place with Na'vi heroes riding their Banshee companions. As it turns out, this isn't just for show – the game will let you take to the skies and travel across them at high speed, and only new hardware allowed the team to couple that mechanic with the detailed world it wanted to present.

"[New consoles allowed] us to have much better object detail up close to you," explains Stefanove, "but also when you're flying high up in the air – to have a lovely vista and far-distance rendering, where we can even use the ray tracing to do shadows super far away, you know, three or four kilometers away from you."

It's not just that the world needs to look good as you lazily soar over it – it's that it needs to stay looking good while you travel very, very quickly, as Jansén explains: "You're flying at enormous high speeds on a Banshee over this very, very detailed landscape. It doesn't matter how much we can render, unless we can stream it in as fast when we're moving very fast from one place to another. So just this shift to these newer hard drives, it can't be underestimated because, and it really has a lot of implications."

Map Design​

One of the less visible benefits of new hardware is in changing not just how the open world looks, but how it's pieced together. Because of more limited tech, older open world games needed to balance detail with density, which can lead to large areas of relative nothingness between major points of interest (I'm looking at you Assassin's Creed: Odyssey). It seems that new-gen tech will allow Frontiers of Pandora to be built a little more organically:

"It's not just the old 'I'm taking this slow walk as I enter into the place because we have to stream everything in'," explains Jansén of the benefits to his maps, "it's little subtle things that people don't think about, which is how close together are all the places in the world. If you look at, with the old hard drives, they had to be spaced out very far [apart], because you had to stream out the old and stream in the new, so it just created a formulaic world. So, there's a ton of stuff like that."

Enemy and Creature AI​

It's not just graphical power helping Massive's designers – processing power will help them try new things, too, particularly when it comes to NPCs.

"Technology is everything," says Jansén, "it's what allows us to realize our dreams as designers. It's what allows us to tell our stories, and to create the immersion and the escapism that we want. It's not just about escapism, it's about danger as well, because Pandora is a beautiful place, but it's also a dangerous place. So, the wildlife, the AI, the way that they track you, the way that they attack you, the advances in technology and the way that we are taking advantage of the power with our in-house Snowdrop engine is allowing us [to] do amazing things that would not be possible [otherwise]."

Stefanov steps in to show us exactly what that can mean: "I can give you a specific example of something that you see in the trailer that has to do with the AI systems. For the big creatures, whenever they are calm, they would obviously walk around trees and things like that. But when they are fleeing, or attacking you, or whatever, they will just go straight through the bamboo and other vegetation and just completely destroy it. I think it's really cool to be able to see all of these effects that the NPCs have on the environment, as well as you having an effect on the environment too."

Immersion
​

While this does fall somewhat under the "it looks nice" bracket of technical improvements, Massive is adamant that improving some of the more complex visuals will help players get into the idea that they're on the Pandora of James Cameron's original movie, not just another game world.

"It's a first-person game," says Jansén. "It's, to me, the most immersive way of playing. So we're really going all-in on that vision of, 'Remember the movie, remember you wanted to go to Pandora.' Now you can go to Pandora and, to do that, we needed to have the best simulation of weather, rain, animals, and the best rendering, because the more technically excellent it is, the more capable it is of taking you from where you are and into the world of Pandora."

Stefanov gives some examples of what that can mean to the game: "In terms of a new generation of consoles, the improved [hardware] just gives us so much opportunity to make sure that the game's as immersive as possible. So a couple of examples, we have a completely new lighting system that is based on ray tracing, and I think it is a dramatic step up in quality that makes you feel like it's a real place. One tiny example is that it can actually handle the translucency of the leaves [...] so it can figure out how much of the light is reflected through the leaves, how tinted it is with the colors and everything else. You get lovely reflections and sights for the water, even down to the volumetric clouds up in the sky – they actually receive the correct lighting as well."

 

[peronmls]

It did hit a peak in terms of creativity and IPs. Graphical fidelity is almost at its peak as well.

 

[Skifi28]

But it was always like this even 10 or 15 years ago when the situation was much better, gamers always has been cheap fucks and i'm sorry but if apple can sell dozens of millions of iphones for 1800 euros (yeah you heard that right), i'm sure that there is a market for premium console aswell.

People have always been cheap fucks, but it was also much easier and considerably cheaper to be on the cutting edge of gaming in say 2007-8 than it is now. GPU manufacturers keep increasing the prices for marginally better performance, of course people are going to say fuck you at some point in combination with the higher cost of living right now. No, I'm not buying a 4090 that consumes 400 watts for 2000 euros even if I could afford it. As for the iphone thing, let's not compare what is essentially a toy for nerds to a general purpose device that is also available with people's ISP mobile plans for much, much cheaper than the listed prices.

I'm all for you wanting more for your hobby, but it's quite obvious why that is not happening any time soon and blaming it on either consoles or people being cheap is just wrong when it's only one piece of the puzzle.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Enlighten us, what are the "evolutions" we have all been unaware of, microtransactions and GaaS?

RDR2, TloU2 are massive "evolutions" of it's previous versions, growing and building upon their former games. RDR2 being one of the best selling games of all time. There's more examples than time to list. You should try harder if you want to make a point.

Micro transactions and GaaS came out well before the games listed in the OP as evolutionary.

What you guys WANT is a revolution in design, which plain hasn't happened as we haven't seen the same jump in tech for consoles since going from the original Xbox/ps2 into the 360/PS3era.

 

[GymWolf]

That depends, as i said, even if we get to a point where implementing stuff like this becomes possible in real time, you still need to see if the performance costs are worth it.

You'd need to consider things like "is having this ultra realistic looking bread with advanced loafing physics really worth the 30 fps drop in this game about shooting zombies?"

Sure, but we have to start somewhere...

As of right now they can't even bother with simple physics in most games.

 

[Skifi28]

For the most part I agree with the premise - I wouldn't say it has not evolved, but naturally as you get closer to reality, each improvement gets harder to notice. However, I keep seeing this stupid image above which is horribly misleading and needs to be stop being used. It looks like crappy screenshots of crappy youtube videos that have then been blown out and oversaturated - not to mention the fact that the shot on the right from HFW isn't even from the game, it's from a prerelease demo. If you're going to show a comparison between two games, get some screenshots that actually show what those games look like, because the difference is massive:

I'm also tired of people that haven't even played the game always posting the same two fucking pictures from a pre-release trailer when they bear little resemblance to the actual game. Not to mention this thread was about destruction, then physics and AI and then suddenly art style is also somehow part of it.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Sure, but we have to start somewhere...

As of right now they can't even bother with simple physics in most games.

That really depends on the game. We still have tons of games with destructible enviroment, most of them aren't red-faction levels but thats usually because the intent is mostly the visual spectacle, not to mention going too overboard with it can end up affecting game design or continuity.

Sure you can point out stuff like Far Cry 5 vs 2, but thats mostly Ubisoft being shitty.

"Maybe developers should design games around interactive enviroments?"
Very true, but this is more a problem with creativity bankruptcy, it would require devs to actually think about game design. Not to mention vast majority of players only care about this stuff because they want to see lots of pretty fireworks, but for the game itself they still want their old fashioned linear games with tons of cutscenes. Two things that don't go well together.

Doubt OP ever bothered playing stuff like Teardown, Beamng, or Deep Rock Galactic. Or maybe he did but considers them "shitty games" despite the fact they're doing exactly what he wants. Because, you know, they're not good for taking pretty photos and sharing on social media?

 

[MagnesD3]

Yeah sure. Gaming hasn't changed since 2007.

Twilight Princess -> BOTW
GTA 4 -> RDR2
God of War 2 -> God of War (2018)
Persona 3 FES -> Persona 5 Royal

We've not advanced at all.

Twilight Princess is way better than Breath of the Wild..

 

[Skifi28]

Twilight Princess is way better than Breath of the Wild..

From a technical standpoint? Not even close.

 

[Rudius]

I'll wait for the cross generation period to die to see if 8 zen 2 cores + fast SSDs makes a difference.

 

[TGO]

What you on about?
Nothing has evolved since 2007

 

[TheGodfather07]

I don't think we've seen shit yet. I think you'll change your mind by 2025. Once cross gen is truly behind us, we're gonna see some good shit... I hope so anyway. Every gen is always a massive leap by the end. Just look at horizon 2 on a fucking og PS4. Now compare that to uncharted 2 on PS3. It's a gigantic leap. There will be current gen games that will be way better than what we got last gen.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Sometimes I wish it would devolve instead of evolve, going back to older design philosophies which focused more on pure fun rather than storytelling or graphical showcases.

 

[TheBROgamer]

From a technical standpoint? Not even close.

BoTW runs on PS360 tier hardware (Wii U/Switch).

Nothing about it is on the level of GTA V, a PS360 era game.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Sometimes I wish it would devolve instead of evolve, going back to older design philosophies which focused more on pure fun rather than storytelling or graphical showcases.

Better yet, they should try design around fun storytelling. So much interesting stuff can be done by mixing gameplay mechanics with narrative. Games like Undertale and Nier Automata nail it.

 

[bender]

OP is right.

Tempest 2000 (1994)

Tempest 4000 (2018)

 

[tmlDan]

is this the i am blind and dumb thread?

Thanks T TheBROgamer

 

[Fbh]

Yup, ever since the Ps3/360 era AAA games have shifted from innovation to refinement.
The graphics get better, the worlds get bigger and there's a couple of cool new mechanics, but the core game design is still mostly unchanged.

People who say you should wait until the cross gen period is over are just kidding themselves. Once we only get current gen games it's still going to be the same Ps3/360 type of games, just with even nicer graphics.

For the most part I agree with the premise - I wouldn't say it has not evolved, but naturally as you get closer to reality, each improvement gets harder to notice. However, I keep seeing this stupid image above which is horribly misleading and needs to be stop being used. It looks like crappy screenshots of crappy youtube videos that have then been blown out and oversaturated - not to mention the fact that the shot on the right from HFW isn't even from the game, it's from a prerelease demo. If you're going to show a comparison between two games, get some screenshots that actually show what those games look like, because the difference is massive:

NPCs in Forbidden West look better than the main characters in most games:

This whole thing with people spamming the same 2-3 youtube screenshots from a pre release cinematic as some sort of proof that "it looks the same as the first" is so dumb.
Same with the "omg look at this cherry picked screenshot from a specific frame, from a pre release cutscene, from a first person perspective of another character that makes Aloy look so fat!!!"

 

[TheBROgamer]

is this the i am blind and dumb thread?

Thanks T TheBROgamer

What ways has gaming substantially advanced since 2007, or the last decade even?

Same shit, just a new coat of a paint, slightly expanded "scope", and more filler content.

 

[Skifi28]

BoTW runs on PS360 tier hardware (Wii U/Switch).

Nothing about it is on the level of GTA V, a PS360 era game.

How does GTA V fit into the post you quoted? You're all over the place.

 

[TheBROgamer]

How does GTA V fit into the post you quoted? You're all over the place.

I'll dumb it down, everything BoTW does from a technical standpoint would run fine and likely better on a PS360.

Cel-shaded graphics were the easy way out, less resource intensive and is why Nintendo chose them for the visual style of the game.

Mmmkay?

 

[tmlDan]

What ways has gaming substantially advanced since 2007, or the last decade even?

Same shit, just a new coat of a paint, slightly expanded "scope", and more filler content.

seriously, its not just scope.

Game stories have greatly advanced, most games back then had no story at all or were poorly done.

Opens worlds feel more alive, wildlife, NPC interactions, RP servers like GTA are above and beyond what we used to have.

On top of that, the MP aspect of gaming has improved tremendously, cross play, cross progression, gaming everywhere, cloud gaming, sub services.

You really undervalue what these advances have added to gaming overall.

 

[Robb]

Sure, it’s definitely slowed down. Although that Horizon comparison is pretty disingenuous imo since the Ps5 version is basically a improved Ps4 game, not really a next gen game.

The Matrix UE5 demo looked super impressive imo, when devs get familiar with the tools and start to pump out UE5 games I definitely think we’ll see a bigger jump.

 

[Skifi28]

I'll dumb it down, everything BoTW does from a technical standpoint would run fine and likely better on a PS360.

Cel-shaded graphics were the easy way out, less resource intensive and is why Nintendo chose them for the visual style of the game.

Mmmkay?

Let me dumb it down too.

You quoted the above post talking about Twilight princess vs Breath of the Wild and you start talking about GTA. You don't make any sense whatsoever.

 

[GymWolf]

People have always been cheap fucks, but it was also much easier and considerably cheaper to be on the cutting edge of gaming in say 2007-8 than it is now. GPU manufacturers keep increasing the prices for marginally better performance, of course people are going to say fuck you at some point in combination with the higher cost of living right now. No, I'm not buying a 4090 that consumes 400 watts for 2000 euros even if I could afford it. As for the iphone thing, let's not compare what is essentially a toy for nerds to a general purpose device that is also available with people's ISP mobile plans for much, much cheaper than the listed prices.

I'm all for you wanting more for your hobby, but it's quite obvious why that is not happening any time soon and blaming it on either consoles or people being cheap is just wrong when it's only one piece of the puzzle.

Dude, an iphone is not a general purpose device, it is a nerd\fashion toy like a console, let's be real here, you can call and send messages with a 20 dollars phone, everything else is just fat, exactly like you can play on a 300 dollars pc or a series S instead of series x or a 2000 dollars pc.
I get that people work with their phones but you can probably do the same things with a way cheaper phone with worse performances, wasting 5 sec more to open an app is not gonna kill anyone.
You can write your succesful novel inside a starbucks with something different than a macbook.

And you don't need to pay full price for a console neither, you can just pay a fixed amount a month like when you buy a tv or a phone, it's not like even a guy who is not exactly rich can't buy a 1000 dollars console that way, i saw people doing shitty payed jobs walking around with iphone and big tv in their home.

But sure, gpus today are absurd, both prices and wattage requested, we can only hope that the leaks are wrong.

That really depends on the game. We still have tons of games with destructible enviroment, most of them aren't red-faction levels but thats usually because the intent is mostly the visual spectacle, not to mention going too overboard with it can end up affecting game design or continuity.

Sure you can point out stuff like Far Cry 5 vs 2, but thats mostly Ubisoft being shitty.

I really fail to think at what modern games do more than old games physics wise, even stuff like control doesn't really do much more than stranglehold on ps2 and no open world go close to what mercenaries does on ps3.

If tlou remake and his destructible book shelfs are the pinnacle of today physics, we are royally fucked.

And the game who actually have nice destruction like deep rock galactic, minecraft or that one in voxel on pc all look like turds and far from realistic.

 

[Uiki]

Yeah sure. Gaming hasn't changed since 2007.

Twilight Princess -> BOTW
GTA 4 -> RDR2
God of War 2 -> God of War (2018)
Persona 3 FES -> Persona 5 Royal

We've not advanced at all.

You are not helping your argument here LOL

 

[levyjl1988]

For the most part I agree with the premise - I wouldn't say it has not evolved, but naturally as you get closer to reality, each improvement gets harder to notice. However, I keep seeing this stupid image above which is horribly misleading and needs to be stop being used. It looks like crappy screenshots of crappy youtube videos that have then been blown out and oversaturated - not to mention the fact that the shot on the right from HFW isn't even from the game, it's from a prerelease demo. If you're going to show a comparison between two games, get some screenshots that actually show what those games look like, because the difference is massive:

But the left is more attractive than the right though.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Gaming hasnt evolved since the PS360 era, it's true but its not because of diminishing returns. Thats a very narrow view of the reasons why we are still playing games designed around 2005 era hardware limitations.

The real reason is due to the fact that last gen both Xbox and PS4 chose a netbook CPU that was not a real upgrade over the PS3 era CPUs. They also chose not to invest in an SSD which held back game design and traversal even more.

Those two things are no longer an issue this gen, but now the issue is lazy devs and greedy cunts running first party and third party publishers who are refusing to take advantage of the exceptional hardware in these consoles.

Hardware that are producing near photorealistic visuals. Hardware that can push physics like never before. Hardware that can completely change traversal in a video game. But hey, when you have everyone sucking off execs instead of asking for game design to no longer be constrained by PS3 era hardware then you are not going to get the leap we used to expect.

Here is whats possible this gen. The problem isnt diminishing returns. It is diminishing ambition. Diminishing talent. Diminishing courage from directors and devs like Cory Barlog and Neil Druckmann who could stand up to greedy execs and say 'fuck you, we are making our game next gen only. Fire me and see how it plays out on twitter.' But nope, they all fell in line after given promotions.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. It’s like companies are too afraid or even lack the talent to deviate from familiar formulas and don’t want to ever take risks.

 

[TheBROgamer]

Dude, an iphone is not a general purpose device, it is a nerd\fashion toy like a console, let's be real here, you can call and send messages with a 20 dollars phone, everything else is just fat, exactly like you can play on a 300 dollars pc or a series S instead of series x or a 2000 dollars pc.
I get that people work with their phones but you can probably do the same things with a way cheaper phone with worse performances, wasting 5 sec more to open an app is not gonna kill anyone.
You can write your succesful novel inside a starbucks with something different than a macbook.

And you don't need to pay full price for a console neither, you can just pay a fixed amount a month like when you buy a tv or a phone, it's not like even a guy who is not exactly rich can't buy a 1000 dollars console that way, i saw people doing shitty payed jobs walking around with iphone and big tv in their home.

But sure, gpus today are absurd, both prices and wattage requested, we can only hope that the leaks are wrong.

I really fail to think at what modern games do more than old games physics wise, even stuff like control doesn't really do much more than stranglehold on ps2 and no open world go close to what mercenaries does on ps3.

If tlou remake and his destructible book shelfs are the pinnacle of today physics, we are royally fucked.

And the game who actually have nice destruction like deep rock galactic, minecraft or that one in voxel on pc all look like turds and far from realistic.

 

[GymWolf]

 

[thebigmanjosh]

Building platforms around jaguar CPUs was one of the biggest issues with physics last gen. And using Saints Row to prove your point? This can’t be a serious post.

Why not use something like control?

 

[Syphon Filter]

I would say the FPS genre hasn't but they also don't match the quality of the 2007 games either. If they were as good in terms of quality from 2007 then I wouldn't care if they didn't evolve.

 

[bentanchorbolt]

But you can blame consoles. Around that time was when consoles became really popular, and that made devs develop more games focused on consoles, limiting their potential.

This. The lowest common denominator for the last decade were anemic Jaguar CPUs. I firmly believe that design choice from AMD that Sony and MS went with is largely to blame for certain limitations in gaming.

 

[iQuasarLV]

Gaming hasnt evolved since the PS360 era, it's true but its not because of diminishing returns. Thats a very narrow view of the reasons why we are still playing games designed around 2005 era hardware limitations.

The real reason is due to the fact that last gen both Xbox and PS4 chose a netbook CPU that was not a real upgrade over the PS3 era CPUs. They also chose not to invest in an SSD which held back game design and traversal even more.

Those two things are no longer an issue this gen, but now the issue is lazy devs and greedy cunts running first party and third party publishers who are refusing to take advantage of the exceptional hardware in these consoles.

Hardware that are producing near photorealistic visuals. Hardware that can push physics like never before. Hardware that can completely change traversal in a video game. But hey, when you have everyone sucking off execs instead of asking for game design to no longer be constrained by PS3 era hardware then you are not going to get the leap we used to expect.

Here is whats possible this gen. The problem isnt diminishing returns. It is diminishing ambition. Diminishing talent. Diminishing courage from directors and devs like Cory Barlog and Neil Druckmann who could stand up to greedy execs and say 'fuck you, we are making our game next gen only. Fire me and see how it plays out on twitter.' But nope, they all fell in line after given promotions.

Jesus, someone said it finally. I was going to settle on a youtube video essay explaining this. BUUUT in short summarized context this is about as close as we have gotten in this thread to the real issues at hand.

I personally began noticing this back in 2007 when microsoft released DX 10 and DX 11. Yet, no one used it for games because Unreal and DX9 were the go to platforms for game development FOR. FUCKING. YEARS. There have to be a lot of younglings in here because when you are in something heart and soul long enough (33 years for me) you start to see repeated trends and mentalities. I now empathize artists in Hollywood and the music industry who feel this same way when discussing the business side of the art.

Laziness, greed, and choosing money over art. /thread

 

[A Most Virtuous Cat]

Aw hell naw, that fat alloy cracked me up!

 

[NinjaBoiX]

So, I guess Ray Tracing is nothing?

It’s certainly not “nothing”, but I do think it has too big a performance penalty for current gen consoles, especially how advanced/convincing the alternatives have gotten this last couple of years.

It often tanks the frame rate for too hard for simply more accurate reflections, I don’t think it’s a good trade off until it either gets more efficient of we get more powerful systems.

 

[mckmas8808]

This is a really really bad thread and worse OP.

 

[HL3.exe]

RDR2, TloU2 are massive "evolutions" of it's previous versions, growing and building upon their former games.

Sure, but also no. Visually absolutely. But from a design standpoint, no. The jumps aren't that 'massive' when it comes to systemic complexity or reactivity. It's still pretty much the same foundation. It's not a problem, but both games specifically disappointed me in how little the systemic and world simulations has evolved.

TLOU2 still has distinct splits between combat zones and exploration zones, nerfing all tension. Both are split up with 'never able to return: barriers. Meaning that it doesn't matter how you solved the zone, the next section it's going to respond to how you've handled the situation. Even in games like Crysis (2007) they solved this. When a camp miles away notices you, they'll send a small patrol looking for you, making the who thing way more systemically consistent and immersive.

Red Dead 2 also has these legacy design flaws that really bothered me while playing. Rdr2 still doesn't have world persistence. Meaning: that there's still a streaming bubble around the player, and everything far enough away just despawns. This caused me some trouble in some situation where I had to drop stuff, to ride off and sell stuff a couple of miles away, just te come back and finding that everything is reset (just like Red Dead 1)

Also, why have this incredible police system (with police getting off there horse and checking the area) and body decompose system, when the game is still limited by this persistence issues. As a player, i'll just ride off again just for the game to despawns all the body, nerfing any tension and systemically interesting gameplay options like: "ow man, I can't let the cops find these bodies. I'll have to hide them". Breaking my immersion left and right when I notice these inconsistencies and missed opportunities constantly. It would've been amazing if 'talking yourself out of a confrontation with the police' was actually triggered by events you've caused in the past.

So TLDR: no, they're not 'massive evolutions' from a design standpoint as pointed out by my examples.

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

I completely disagree with your premise, but I do think it's sad that destructible environments are so underutilized. Red Faction Guerilla was a hoot. Hopefully we get more of them with the huge upgrade in console CPU power, but it is of course also the case that unless you carefully design your game around destructibility, it will cause a lot of game design issues that need to be solved.

Yeah I'm really hoping the competent CPU's in modern consoles lead to true advancement in things like physics, destruction, and AI. Those areas have remained largely unchanged as every other facet of gaming has advanced. And with regards to destruction like I don't even need like Bad Company style where "everything" can be destroyed, but it would be nice if I fired a rocket launcher into a building or drove a semi into a house that it would at least look damaged or have some effect like a hole in the wall or something. We definitely need focus on the more CPU intensive mechanics like AI/Physics to evolve gaming further than just bigger and better graphics

 

[01011001]

This is a really really bad thread and worse OP.

it's not and the OP is 100% correct.

the jump from Crysis to modern games is almost imperceptible.

it's small improvements here and there, and nothing more, and there are games releasing today that look worse than Crysis from 2007.
can you remember a game from 2007 that looked worse than a game from 10 years prior?

 

[Krappadizzle]

Sure, but also no. Visually absolutely. But from a design standpoint, no. The jumps aren't that 'massive' when it comes to systemic complexity or reactivity. It's still pretty much the same foundation. It's not a problem, but both games specifically disappointed me in how little the systemic and world simulations has evolved.

TLOU2 still has distinct splits between combat zones and exploration zones, nerfing all tension. Both are split up with 'never able to return: barriers. Meaning that it doesn't matter how you solved the zone, the next section it's going to respond to how you've handled the situation. Even in games like Crysis (2007) they solved this. When a camp miles away notices you, they'll send a small patrol looking for you, making the who thing way more systemically consistent and immersive.

Red Dead 2 also has these legacy design flaws that really bothered me while playing. Rdr2 still doesn't have world persistence. Meaning: that there's still a streaming bubble around the player, and everything far enough away just despawns. This caused me some trouble in some situation where I had to drop stuff, to ride off and sell stuff a couple of miles away, just te come back and finding that everything is reset (just like Red Dead 1)

Also, why have this incredible police system (with police getting off there horse and checking the area) and body decompose system, when the game is still limited by this persistence issues. As a player, i'll just ride off again just for the game to despawns all the body, nerfing any tension and systemically interesting gameplay options like: "ow man, I can't let the cops find these bodies. I'll have to hide them". Breaking my immersion left and right when I notice these inconsistencies and missed opportunities constantly. It would've been amazing if 'talking yourself out of a confrontation with the police' was actually triggered by events you've caused in the past.

So TLDR: no, they're not 'massive evolutions' from a design standpoint as pointed out by my examples.

Your examples are pretty sparse and a bit of a stretch at best.

If you don't see the evolution from RDR1 to RDR2 and your biggest complaint is "persistence" than I don't think anyone could convince you otherwise. RDR2 is a great example of "evolution."

What the OP seems to be talking about is revolution. New, never before seen or done things in tech. Which, to a degree has stagnated a bit in certain areas. I've said for a long time that A.I. has been massively ignored these last 2 generations because people only pretend to want to be challenged, until they are and then chalk up their deficiencies to "lol, bad game design" and then move on.

We've had massive jumps in tech in the last 5 years that will evolve and become more common in the next few years. The fact that we have games with real-time global illumination is being massively ignore because it just doesn't give that initial fizz-bang-pop that people think they want.

 

[TheBROgamer]

Sure, but also no. Visually absolutely. But from a design standpoint, no. The jumps aren't that 'massive' when it comes to systemic complexity or reactivity. It's still pretty much the same foundation. It's not a problem, but both games specifically disappointed me in how little the systemic and world simulations has evolved.

TLOU2 still has distinct splits between combat zones and exploration zones, nerfing all tension. Both are split up with 'never able to return: barriers. Meaning that it doesn't matter how you solved the zone, the next section it's going to respond to how you've handled the situation. Even in games like Crysis (2007) they solved this. When a camp miles away notices you, they'll send a small patrol looking for you, making the who thing way more systemically consistent and immersive.

Red Dead 2 also has these legacy design flaws that really bothered me while playing. Rdr2 still doesn't have world persistence. Meaning: that there's still a streaming bubble around the player, and everything far enough away just despawns. This caused me some trouble in some situation where I had to drop stuff, to ride off and sell stuff a couple of miles away, just te come back and finding that everything is reset (just like Red Dead 1)

Also, why have this incredible police system (with police getting off there horse and checking the area) and body decompose system, when the game is still limited by this persistence issues. As a player, i'll just ride off again just for the game to despawns all the body, nerfing any tension and systemically interesting gameplay options like: "ow man, I can't let the cops find these bodies. I'll have to hide them". Breaking my immersion left and right when I notice these inconsistencies and missed opportunities constantly. It would've been amazing if 'talking yourself out of a confrontation with the police' was actually triggered by events you've caused in the past.

So TLDR: no, they're not 'massive evolutions' from a design standpoint as pointed out by my examples.

 

[Fart Knight]

Yeah sure. Gaming hasn't changed since 2007.

Twilight Princess -> BOTW
GTA 4 -> RDR2
God of War 2 -> God of War (2018)
Persona 3 FES -> Persona 5 Royal

We've not advanced at all.

You forgot Pokemon

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Try VR and see the real silent revolution of gaming.

/thread

 

[Krappadizzle]

You applauding a game design system that is years old, designed and implemented in many games years before Crysis even came out.

I love Crysis, I'd put it in my top 5 shooters of all time, it did so many things right, but other than it's graphics, and maybe some of it's A.I. principles, it wasn't exactly the most mind-blowing thing in regards to design, it just took what other games already did and packaged them up in a nice little box for everyone. It's full of amazing details, the fact that the A.I. will speak different languages based on difficulty choice, I thought was a nice, cool little touch.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. It’s like companies are too afraid or even lack the talent to deviate from familiar formulas and are afraid to take risks.

They are afraid and possibly lacking talent, which would explain the lack of taking risks and progression in game design.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

 

[TheBROgamer]

it's not and the OP is 100% correct.

the jump from Crysis to modern games is almost imperceptible.

it's small improvements here and there, and nothing more, and there are games releasing today that look worse than Crysis from 2007.
can you remember a game from 2007 that looked worse than a game from 10 years prior?

 

[Lady Jane]

So, I guess Ray Tracing is nothing?

Graphics have been perfectly fine and suitable since 7th gen. Everything else after has been useless so yes, ray tracing is nothing