On that end, there are lighter CPU based ray tracing solutions that can be run alternative to the heavy GPU bound models that were introduced and leveraged by Nvidia. Even path tracing is viable alternative there.
The irony also remains that the alternative raster based lighting solution to large/distant lighting, is still going to be more taxing on those older rigs. It's a distinct technical bottleneck that deals with quickly multiplying object complexity and shadow map data with a raster based model.
You're not saving your performance by not evolving your rendering technology.
You won't get away with not including rasterization, though. Not enough of the playerbase can even feasibly turn ray-tracing on to limit it in this way.
So you'll still have to develop rasterization lighting for these scenes and environments, unless I'm missing something about it?
Part of why I reference there's other lighter ways of doing ray tracing than the GPU bound methods most gamers are familiar with. Things that even decade old machines can do.
Also why I mentioned path tracing (or path guiding as it's called here). People are used to seeing things like Ray Tracing, if implemented, being used heavy-handedly and often using a bit of brute force in ray count and bounces to math complexity. That is very far from the only way to do it, and even that is subject to different methods of implementation for efficiency.
What other game does it better or even offers persistent open world game play like that at all?
How does FO76 gun play feel stifled (what does that mean) and what other games don't by comparison?
For frame of reference, I have played a goodly bit of mil sim games and have a fondness for the Clancy and Ghost Recon titles too.
I could generally point to Squad, Wildlands, Breakpoint, and even debatably Arma 3 and The Division titles. I consider most those games to have a better shooting experience just in terms of feel of aim and control, response of firing, as well as within extended combat in enemy behavior and response.
All of those being large open world titles, with only two of them being limited in player count more than 76 while the others have higher (a couple considerably). I call ARMA 3 and Division titles debatable, because ARMA 3 has stability issues, and Division's gunplay, while good, can be directly hampered by it's vertical progression mechanics. Something it has in common with 76.
For me FO76 feels stifles because aiming and shooting has moments where it is very subject to server error with aiming. Additionally, because of the way they scale weapons, guns often feel weak in performance on top of their audio and animations providing minimal feedback. A fully tuned lvl 45 hunting rifle hitting a scorched or ghoul in the head and only chipping it's health is not a compelling experience. The fact that a) damage scaling for ranged guns is hampered compared to melee because they way they made stats work and b) the heavy lean into grinding legendaries and legendary crafting for endgame makes the balance skewed in a massively vertical direction that greatly alters the baseline experience for gunplay.
The AI behavior is also something has a hand in that. With limited response to being shot, and their AI behavior being rather simplistic in how they either stand and shoot, charge you, or bobble about for cover, it doesn't lend to depth of action nor strategic elements. This is extended by how stealth mechanics are treated in the game, and even how the stealth detection is even biased against in some regards (take prior daily ops as reference, or even how the later daily ops still favored running around like a madman with a hammer over actually stealthing).
This all adds up to, for me, having had a pretty sub par experience with 76's gun play.
You know that linked article doesn't actually contain many details on FO76's actual technical issues, most about how they overworked people and ignored bugs.
There were many issues of course, but that article isn't really a good source.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
As a separate comment, I would say there's really not many games, or any offhand, I can think of that offer the combination of mechanics as a shared sandbox with it's general level of quality.
That, however, is not calling it's gun play or other mechanics inherently great. It's like saying STO is the best Star Trek MMO. A semantic truth because lack of competition.
You know that linked article doesn't actually contain many details on FO76's actual technical issues, most about how they overworked people and ignored bugs.
There were many issues of course, but that article isn't really a good source.
Fair enough, it at least points out there were issues. With issues comes cutbacks and compromises.
Not that this link offers all that much depth either (also the kotaku article), but it does state the lack of design direction and engine challenges, and brings up adapting the engine was a massive technical challenge.
Edit: Just saw that you realized yourself that you should really link the Kotaku article a couple of posts above.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Sorry... I have had more than enough "pretty" games that scream NEXT-GEN!!!
You say gameplay will be gameplay and just dismiss it... but at the end of the day, IMHO.. that is the ONLY thing that matters.
This game is still really high on my list.
100&% agree. We get stuck in the weeds with the LOOKS of a game when we should be laser focused on the gameplay. I have played many games that looked gorgeous but in the end had terrible gameplay. I have played games with so-so graphics where the gameplay was some of the best I have ever played. I do not care if the graphics are "next-gen" or not. I care that the game works and is fun.
Next Gen to me is more than graphics though. (Though Bethesda always had subpar lighting I mean check out Thief Dark Shadows from 2004 -- UE2) Wait until you see some of the new uses for A.I. scripting, Pathing, Rigging coming out of certain studios using better and more modern engines. It is more than just the coat of paint new engines that can have far reaching abilities to alter the gameplay of a title in ways not used before. Franken engines are cost effective but not game play systems stretching or improving. Which is tied directly to gameplay alone not graphics.
Your perspective (just like my son's that is pretty well the same as yours) as a game developer with a more holistic view of the industry and intimate knowledge of development tools is understandable.
My son is also not a fan of Bethesda's (lack of) technical expertise. He's still re-playing Elden Ring last time I talked to him.
He's not buying what I'm selling about "good enough" and I'm not buying his "but they could do so much better" thing.
I usually get what I expect to get from Bethesda games (I did give FO76 a pass which I saw as nothing more than an FO4 multiplayer mod carved out as a stand alone GAAS game) and I won't apologise for liking their games warts and all.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Next Gen to me is more than graphics though. (Though Bethesda always had subpar lighting I mean check out Thief Dark Shadows from 2004 -- UE2) Wait until you see some of the new uses for A.I. scripting, Pathing, Rigging coming out of certain studios using better and more modern engines. It is more than just the coat of paint new engines that can have far reaching abilities to alter the gameplay of a title in ways not used before. Franken engines are cost effective but not game play systems stretching or improving. Which is tied directly to gameplay alone not graphics.
Next gen for me is having as little loading screens as possible, as short as possible, seamless transitioning between gameplay and cutscenes, massive drawing distances with no popup, rocksolid fps no matter if its 60 or 120. Next gen to me is the detail of Shenmue on the scale of The Elder Scrolls, its the insane optimization of the likes of Doom Eternal and Guilty Gear Strive.
How I have hated each ‘next gen’ focussing 90% on graphics, remember that lense flare rage around the time of the PS3? Loading times were still atrocious though. Next gen to me is immersion 100%, and yes, it can look damn pretty too while doing so.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
"As an industry, we"... who's "we"? You can't code a lick, if I had to guess.
Also, how many times has "graphics don't matter, gameplay matters" come out of your mouth? More than once? Then be quiet, you hardcore gamer you.
The article title is not correct. It's not even wrong. It's worse than that. It's meaningless. Any argument about whether Starfield is or is not next-gen is partially an argument about what a meaningless buzzword means, and partially speculation about a game that you haven't played.
Next-gen is just a buzzword, but if we wanted to be as objective as possible as to what next-gen means then next-gen has way more to do with whether or not your game is taking advantage of new technology that didn't exist last gen. For example, things like DirectStorage would be considered a next gen technology.
How a game looks, honestly has very little to do with whether or not it's a next-gen game.
Wow this article literally took what was in my mind and wrote it in a way that is just absolutely perfect. No wonder my hype level for this game dropped once gameplay was shown. There’s absolutely nothing next gen about this game and it’s very telling Bethesda didn’t think it was worth the effort to have seamless landings and takeoff. Very well done.
Next gen...peeps been saying "next gen" for the last 20 years or more...who cares...instead wait till there's a more concrete game and take a look at it when it's on the verge of coming out then decide if it's worth get worked up over.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
I do want to add that emphasis should be more placed on “technology matters” and not “graphics matter” although I do agree graphics matter a lot. I feel like as a AAA games studio and especially now a FIRST PARTY AAA games studio your games are not just about “having fun” but are also meant to push the boundaries in game design, technology, and story telling forward. Bethesda has consistently failed to upgrade their tech to match the ambitions of their games and there’s a reason this topic keeps coming up time and time again. They also seem to have a culture of half assing things. I really want MSFT to take a page from Sony and actually manage these studios instead of being so “hands off”.
Elden Ring isn't "next gen" either according to your standards. Everyone who's been comparing Starfield to Horizon and saying Starfield looks outdated should look at Elden Ring and think again. ER runs on the same engine as DS3 and looks slightly better and smoother. Does it make it a worse game? Last time I checked ER is considered GOTY by MANY and it is the highest rated game we've seen in a while. The faces in Elden Ring look worse than CoD Black Ops, does it matter? No. Making a whole article about Graphics and how it "matters" just screams for attention, and you got it. I read it and people express how stupid it is to fiddle with buzzwords.
From what I recall, From Software never said Elden Ring's graphics or tech was next gen. They pitched it as a culmination of their efforts, which is not exactly any kind of promise to have cutting edge visuals or gameplay, just a solid delivery of the things that studio has been honing and known for.
Which would be a reasonable platform to compare Bethesda titles on, and ask the question "Does it seem like they really honed the features they are known for?"
Next Gen to me is more than graphics though. (Though Bethesda always had subpar lighting I mean check out Thief Dark Shadows from 2004 -- UE2) Wait until you see some of the new uses for A.I. scripting, Pathing, Rigging coming out of certain studios using better and more modern engines. It is more than just the coat of paint new engines that can have far reaching abilities to alter the gameplay of a title in ways not used before. Franken engines are cost effective but not game play systems stretching or improving. Which is tied directly to gameplay alone not graphics.
Next gen for me is having as little loading screens as possible, as short as possible, seamless transitioning between gameplay and cutscenes, massive drawing distances with no popup, rocksolid fps no matter if its 60 or 120. Next gen to me is the detail of Shenmue on the scale of The Elder Scrolls, its the insane optimization of the likes of Doom Eternal and Guilty Gear Strive.
How I have hated each ‘next gen’ focussing 90% on graphics, remember that lense flare rage around the time of the PS3? Loading times were still atrocious though. Next gen to me is immersion 100%, and yes, it can look damn pretty too while doing so.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
That is all true. Next Gen in their time means many things to me and rarely if ever graphics themselves. To me, in their time...... Loading screens because of new hard drive technology is next gen. Quick resume is next gen. Wall Jumping in Ninja Gaiden was next gen The way WOW created a seamless (like) experience between zones was next gen The way radiant A.I. was used in Oblivion was next gen. Climbing on a mob like Dragon's Dogma was next gen The horde system in L4D The Max Payne matrix system was next gen The Nemesis system Shadow of Mordor and War used was next gen Thief's lighting was next gen Auto saving was next gen Procedural generation was next gen Voxels were next gen Cloud saves were next gen Physics in games like HL2 was next gen (allowing new gameplay mechanics to be introduced with the gravity gun)
and on and on and on and on
Bethesda themselves used to be a part of the next gen crowd too. Now it is just a term they use on videos.
I am not saying I will not play Starfield. I most certainly will. I mean I have Gamepass I can play without buying it. What I am saying is their stubborn insistance on sticking with their creaky engine and the iterations of it is holding them back from truly creating the game of their dreams (and yours) based completely on financial decisions.
Ohh I agree. I also don’t consider Starfield next gen in any way, shape or form. Then again, I am really not a Bethesda fan. But I also don’t consider a game like Star Citizen next gen because it might look that way graphically but their entire ‘brute force everything and the kitchen sink until hardware finally catches up’ approach makes it feel very much last gen, a quilt of features so to speak, sewn together. And it is all about the feel, the feeeeeeel. Just imagine Yakuza 0, but ten times bigger, with zero loading screens, that feeling.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
I do want to add that emphasis should be more placed on “technology matters” and not “graphics matter” although I do agree graphics matter a lot. I feel like as a AAA games studio and especially now a FIRST PARTY AAA games studio your games are not just about “having fun” but are also meant to push the boundaries in game design, technology, and story telling forward. Bethesda has consistently failed to upgrade their tech to match the ambitions of their games and there’s a reason this topic keeps coming up time and time again. They also seem to have a culture of half assing things. I really want MSFT to take a page from Sony and actually manage these studios instead of being so “hands off”.
Elden Ring isn't "next gen" either according to your standards. Everyone who's been comparing Starfield to Horizon and saying Starfield looks outdated should look at Elden Ring and think again. ER runs on the same engine as DS3 and looks slightly better and smoother. Does it make it a worse game? Last time I checked ER is considered GOTY by MANY and it is the highest rated game we've seen in a while. The faces in Elden Ring look worse than CoD Black Ops, does it matter? No. Making a whole article about Graphics and how it "matters" just screams for attention, and you got it. I read it and people express how stupid it is to fiddle with buzzwords.
Most of hfw looks nothing like your carefully chosen image. And you know it. This is definitely going in my comically bad reviews collection, great to see game hacks getting represented too these days. Oh wait, it sucks.
Comments
Also why I mentioned path tracing (or path guiding as it's called here). People are used to seeing things like Ray Tracing, if implemented, being used heavy-handedly and often using a bit of brute force in ray count and bounces to math complexity. That is very far from the only way to do it, and even that is subject to different methods of implementation for efficiency.
I could generally point to Squad, Wildlands, Breakpoint, and even debatably Arma 3 and The Division titles. I consider most those games to have a better shooting experience just in terms of feel of aim and control, response of firing, as well as within extended combat in enemy behavior and response.
All of those being large open world titles, with only two of them being limited in player count more than 76 while the others have higher (a couple considerably). I call ARMA 3 and Division titles debatable, because ARMA 3 has stability issues, and Division's gunplay, while good, can be directly hampered by it's vertical progression mechanics. Something it has in common with 76.
For me FO76 feels stifles because aiming and shooting has moments where it is very subject to server error with aiming. Additionally, because of the way they scale weapons, guns often feel weak in performance on top of their audio and animations providing minimal feedback. A fully tuned lvl 45 hunting rifle hitting a scorched or ghoul in the head and only chipping it's health is not a compelling experience. The fact that a) damage scaling for ranged guns is hampered compared to melee because they way they made stats work and b) the heavy lean into grinding legendaries and legendary crafting for endgame makes the balance skewed in a massively vertical direction that greatly alters the baseline experience for gunplay.
The AI behavior is also something has a hand in that. With limited response to being shot, and their AI behavior being rather simplistic in how they either stand and shoot, charge you, or bobble about for cover, it doesn't lend to depth of action nor strategic elements. This is extended by how stealth mechanics are treated in the game, and even how the stealth detection is even biased against in some regards (take prior daily ops as reference, or even how the later daily ops still favored running around like a madman with a hammer over actually stealthing).
This all adds up to, for me, having had a pretty sub par experience with 76's gun play.
There were many issues of course, but that article isn't really a good source.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
That, however, is not calling it's gun play or other mechanics inherently great. It's like saying STO is the best Star Trek MMO. A semantic truth because lack of competition.
Not that this link offers all that much depth either (also the kotaku article), but it does state the lack of design direction and engine challenges, and brings up adapting the engine was a massive technical challenge.
It's a good quick article about those issues but doesn't touch much on technical development issues.
Shouldn't you be linking the original Kotaku article instead?
Just helping you make your point.
Edit: Just saw that you realized yourself that you should really link the Kotaku article a couple of posts above.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
EDIT: But yeah, was a mistake on my part having not checked the first article to be certain it covered the same points.
100&% agree. We get stuck in the weeds with the LOOKS of a game when we should be laser focused on the gameplay. I have played many games that looked gorgeous but in the end had terrible gameplay. I have played games with so-so graphics where the gameplay was some of the best I have ever played. I do not care if the graphics are "next-gen" or not. I care that the game works and is fun.
Let's party like it is 1863!
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
My son is also not a fan of Bethesda's (lack of) technical expertise. He's still re-playing Elden Ring last time I talked to him.
He's not buying what I'm selling about "good enough" and I'm not buying his "but they could do so much better" thing.
I usually get what I expect to get from Bethesda games (I did give FO76 a pass which I saw as nothing more than an FO4 multiplayer mod carved out as a stand alone GAAS game) and I won't apologise for liking their games warts and all.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
How a game looks, honestly has very little to do with whether or not it's a next-gen game.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Which would be a reasonable platform to compare Bethesda titles on, and ask the question "Does it seem like they really honed the features they are known for?"
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Welcome both of you to the forums!