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Dark Souls 2 Lighting changes/Downgrade

sniperpon

Member
That shit would drive me bananas and make a hard game artificially harder.

I think this is a good theory, since I haven't heard of a lot of people complaining about framerate issues when seeing the previous "dynamic lighting" PS3 build in action. It was probably just a design decision, versus a performance-related downgrade.
 
Again, maybe its because the flickery crazy dynamic shadows interfered with concentrating on your enemy. Watch at 55 seconds in original video and see how the shadows react dynamically to the light source. That shit would drive me bananas and make a hard game artificially harder.

I can understand where you're coming from, but at least I, for one, am saddened that they decided to seemingly do away with a big portion of their dynamic lighting system. The flat, pre-baked-looking lighting now, along with far less prominent ambient occlusion (or is it completely gone? Anyway, that could still be forced from driver settings) is definitely a downer. Dark Souls II wasn't turning out to be a next-gen looker, sure, and the art style compensated for a lot, but good lighting and shadowing are just so integral to my sense of atmosphere that the drab look now seems like a big downgrade. Missing dynamic--flatly pre-baked--lighting and shadowing have actually even been some of my biggest pet peeves this gen (along with washed-out textures).
 

Servbot24

Banned
I think this is a good theory, since I haven't heard of a lot of people complaining about framerate issues when seeing the previous "dynamic lighting" PS3 build in action. It was probably just a design decision, versus a performance-related downgrade.

I think FROM is doing it just to be mean, because uh... marketing! Fucking DISGUSTING behavior! My skin is crawling right now.
 

kinggroin

Banned
I can understand where you're coming from, but at least I, for one, am saddened that they decided to seemingly do away with a big portion of their dynamic lighting system. The flat, pre-baked-looking lighting now, along with far less prominent ambient occlusion (or is it completely gone? Anyway, that could still be forced from driver settings) is definitely a downer. Dark Souls II wasn't turning out to be a next-gen looker, sure, and the art style compensated for a lot, but good lighting and shadowing are just so integral to my sense of atmosphere that the drab look now seems like a big downgrade. Missing dynamic--flatly pre-baked--lighting and shadowing have actually even been some of my biggest pet peeves this gen (along with washed-out textures).

Dynamic shadows are still there (9:30 in new video) but yeah environments are lit different and there's a drastic decrease in AO (or none at all).
 

k4n3

Banned
i know dark souls is amazing and you get trashed for talking bad about it but they did pull a bait and switch big time on this one
 

doofy102

Member
I doubt FROM schemed this up - more likely the game needed to be delayed, but Namco pushed it out the gate unfinished (?)
 
Im the first person to get in line to suck some big ol' FROM D if it means I get to play more souls content. What keeps me comming back is the gameplay and I'm sure its the same with most of us. Graphics are great but really, as long as its new content I'm all about it.
Having said that, it is still disapointing to see this kind of action from such a well respected developer and it does feel like a bait and switch. Seems to be happening quite a bit recently. Lets hope it is not a trend.
 

Varna

Member
Would be nice if the original lighting made it into the PC version but something tells me it's going to be used to drive the sales of the eventual PS4/XBOX versions.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Downgradeaton II: Bullshitting Boogaloo

It's pretty clear to anyone not blinded by dem fanboy goggles that shenanigans are afoot. It's too bad though, the dynamic lighting showcased before was the only thing keeping this game from being ugly as all fuck.

Sadly I think we're going to have to return to the days when every piece of pre-release footage needs to be opened with a standardized disclaimer about how because things can and will change over the course of development, and thus should not be taken as being representative of the final product.

I used to believe it was a redundant and pointless thing to have to do, but I guess its a sad neccessity when some folks cry "foul" at any and every opportunity.
 

erawsd

Member
If they had to tone down the graphics its probably because they just couldn't get it to run at an acceptable frame rate.

I have to imagine people would much rather a solid framerate than a whole game full of "blight town".
 

Marvel

could never
Disappointing... I'm getting the PC version so I hope it looks better than this. Though it's not the end of the world.
 

Ghazi

Member
Did the PS3 beta have the old lighting system and run at a stable frame rate? What about the builds at events?
 

neoemonk

Member
There's a review embargo until release day as well, right? Hmm, might be best to just take a step back and wait and see how it all pans out.
 
The saddest part is that the removed lighting wasn't dynamic, it was all baked :/

I noticed that in the most recent screenshots there was no AO, while it was very prominent in the initial release. That at least should be easily restored.

There's SSAO in the game but it's a different implementation than the older one and it doesn't work as good.

It's the latter. There's the same level of details in all the assets. GAF just wishes there were controversy.
Baked shadows and AO fully removed is a technical downgrade. Denial helps no one.

Did the PS3 beta have the old lighting system and run at a stable frame rate? What about the builds at events?
The PS3 beta had the old lighting effects and it seemed ro run fine except during a certain bossfight. The dips were pretty big.
 

Zaventem

Member
This lighting was also in the beta/network test. You can look it up the areas when the game comes out and compare them you'll notice. I think it's a framerate issue because the beta did suffer from those and everyone knows how bad Dark Souls 1 frame rate dropped on consoles.
 

maverickjs

Neo Member
Oh well, looks like Souls to me. Lighting may have been downgraded, but is still better than previous games. Gotta assume that it wasn't done just for the heck of it, but to improve performance on 7 year old hardware.
 
Whether it's an art choice or a performance one, we'll probably know next month. It could be the case that they've globally removed advanced dynamic lighting because it killed the framerate in areas which simply weren't present in the demos.
 

Griss

Member
This is now another game I have to seriously consider waiting and hoping for a next-gen version.

If it's coming out on PC, surely it shouldn't be that hard to port it to the PS4? Does the game look much better on PC (other than being higher res/higher framerate). Does the 'new' lighting system survive?

And as for whether visuals matter - for me a huge part of my enjoyment of the Souls games is atmosphere, and good visuals almost always have a positive effect on atmosphere.
 
I doubt FROM schemed this up - more likely the game needed to be delayed, but Namco pushed it out the gate unfinished (?)

Agreed. I doubt there's a controversy or any marketing bait-n-switch going on here.

The game was probably just rushed towards the end of development to meet deadlines and this lighting change was a sudden last-minute decision to improve performance.

Hopefully the PC version won't have these problems, as that's the version I cared about from the start.
 

UnrealEck

Member
God forbid they decide the game wasn't performing well on the consoles and they decided the graphics had to be scaled back.
 

RK9039

Member
If it really is a downgrade then it makes sense. Anyone who played in the network test will tell you the game ran like crap at times (PS3). It did look great though, and after watching a few streams of the PS3 version it still looks good.
 

Birathen

Member
Heh, those pictures remind me of the crushed black discussions. I couldnt tell the difference between Ass Creed on Ps4 and WiiU and I didnt participate in the network test so I wont invest to much energy into this. The bliss of being graphically impaired. Game is out in two days and that is all that matters right now. Bring it.
 

RyudBoy

Member
Holy Cow, the difference isn't subtle. That's freaking huge! Not gonna stop me from canceling my preorder, though. Hopefully, the 360 version fares better (doubt it).
 

Kiant

Member
Another thing I've noticed from the people who got the game early, the 360 version has screen tearing all over the place, the PS3 version looked a lot more stable in that regard.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Another thing I've noticed from the people who got the game early, the 360 version has screen tearing all over the place, the PS3 version looked a lot more stable in that regard.

The usual 360 vs PS3 situation. I've always wondered what it is about the PS3 architecture that makes turning off v-synch not worth it for performance gains. V-synch is usually the first thing to go on 360 it seems.
 

Kiant

Member
The usual 360 vs PS3 situation. I've always wondered what it is about the PS3 architecture that makes turning off v-synch not worth it for performance gains. V-synch is usually the first thing to go on 360 it seems.

Yeah is a weird one, it could just be a specific area problem, ala blight town in the first game but honestly the screen tearing looked really severe but in the PS3 version the textures looked slightly worse imo.
 

UnrealEck

Member
If it really is a downgrade then it makes sense. Anyone who played in the network test will tell you the game ran like crap at times (PS3). It did look great though, and after watching a few streams of the PS3 version it still looks good.

This is what I'm thinking. I never played the beta, but I am under the impression that they had to optimise the game's graphics to improve performance and that's obviously what they've done.
 

Midou

Member
Art direction still great, will get on PS3 for that community and to be able to play at launch, and I grabbed GMG version for $40 to play with another community in prettier graphics. PS3 is on its way out, so I don't think its a huge deal.

If they had to pick graphics or performance, I think they made the right choice.
 

deeTyrant

Member
So correct me if I'm wrong but the possible scenarios here are;
1) It was a marketing bait and switch. Which is shitty.
2) It was a technical decision because it effected performance to a significant degree. In which case its unfortunate, but in the case of this game I'd rather performance be there.
3) It was a design decision, either it didn't look right or was distracting in certain situation, in which case I'll decide when I play the game I suppose.
 
So correct me if I'm wrong but the possible scenarios here are;
1) It was a marketing bait and switch. Which is shitty.
2) It was a technical decision because it effected performance to a significant degree. In which case its unfortunate, but in the case of this game I'd rather performance be there.
3) It was a design decision, either it didn't look right or was distracting in certain situation, in which case I'll decide when I play the game I suppose.

4) It was PC footage
 

Servbot24

Banned
Baked shadows and AO fully removed is a technical downgrade. Denial helps no one.

Why would baked shadows being removed count as a downgrade... baked shadows are part of the texture maps. They don't have an effect on performance. If they were removed it was due to a stylistic choice.
 

Duxxy3

Member
I have yet to finish dark souls 1, so I don't have a problem waiting for the next gen port of dark souls 2.
 
It is odd to completely remove/gimp the lighting system.

The whole initial reveal centered around how you would need a torch to traverse areas due to how little lighting there was, showing really great shadows and all that stuff when in combat.

Although it was really distracting when I watched it my first time, maybe it was too intrusive on gameplay? Or maybe it simply wasn't feasible to get the whole game on a steady framerate and they wanted to avoid Blighttown 2.0.
 

Gbraga

Member
Possible, but I think people have said they played builds of the game on PS3 with this lighting present.

Wasn't the PC version supposed to be the base this time though? They could've ported it to the PS3 version and then removed the lighting later cause it caused too much framerate issues in other parts of the game.

It is odd to completely remove/gimp the lighting system.

The whole initial reveal centered around how you would need a torch to traverse areas due to how little lighting there was, showing really great shadows and all that stuff when in combat.

Although it was really distracting when I watched it my first time, maybe it was too intrusive on gameplay? Or maybe it simply wasn't feasible to get the whole game on a steady framerate and they wanted to avoid Blighttown 2.0.

The torch lighting is still there, and it looks incredible.
 

UnrealEck

Member
"God this game runs so crap! I would have been happy if they toned down the graphics for better frame rate."

"OMG this game looks horrible. It used to look better. What's with all these downgrades!?"

Want both? Buy a PC. This goes for the new generation too.
 
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