Why Does Warframe Look Worse Now Than It Did Before?

[Omnimorph]

There's a thread going on in General discussion about the utilization of Nvidia Physx fx.  I don't care so much about that topic, but what does concern me and what I think is worth putting in Feedback, is the visual degredation this game seems to have suffered from its early days. 

 

In that thread, someone posted some clips from old Warframe that look ten times better in terms of lighting, mood and atmosphere than the contemporary version. 

 

Here:-

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/497801-imagine-warframe-with-nvidia-flexeyes-shine/page-3#entry5574433

 

 

and here:-

 

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/497801-imagine-warframe-with-nvidia-flexeyes-shine/page-2#entry5572397

 

DE, how can you possibly have made the game look worse - blander and more washed-out - over time?  Isn't a game supposed to improve with time?

 

I'm actually quite shocked and upset (in the context of #firstworldproblems ofc :) )

 

DE, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED????

Edited July 29, 2015 by Omnimorph

[Naqel]

If there's one good thing you can say about Warframe, is that it looks good.

 

You probably changed/reset the settings at some point.

You should mess around with your brightness and contrast settings, since once those are corrected for your display device, the game actually looks better than it did ever before.

[Dualstar]

I cannot help but notice that you have not mentioned, at all, what settings you play at.

[Towermice]

I miss physx the most, they pretty much killed it.

[Evan-0-matic]

Consoles... The vastly inferior tech of consoles is the main reason the game looks worse.

That and DE's sympathy for players with lower end PCs.

It called 'optimization' options, DE.

Don't take away options, add them!

End of my rant.

[NightmareT12]

PhysX aside, I don't think there's been any change other than PBR added, so you're most likely playing with some wrong settings.

Do you have Legacy Colors on or Color Correction, or something?

[Omnimorph]

 

If there's one good thing you can say about Warframe, is that it looks good.

 

You probably changed/reset the settings at some point.

You should mess around with your brightness and contrast settings, since once those are corrected for your display device, the game actually looks better than it did ever before.

 

 

The guy who posted those said he had all settings on and maxed on both occasions (i.e. the old video and the new ones).

 

Sure, the game still looks good in general, and in comparison to other games, but the point is, why does it look worse now than it looked originally?

Edited July 30, 2015 by Omnimorph

[(PSN)Prisma144]

There's a thread going on in General discussion about the utilization of Nvidia Physx fx.  I don't care so much about that topic, but what does concern me and what I think is worth putting in Feedback, is the visual degredation this game seems to have suffered from its early days. 

 

In that thread, someone posted some clips from old Warframe that look ten times better in terms of lighting, mood and atmosphere than the contemporary version. 

 

Here:-

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/497801-imagine-warframe-with-nvidia-flexeyes-shine/page-3#entry5574433

 

 

and here:-

 

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/497801-imagine-warframe-with-nvidia-flexeyes-shine/page-2#entry5572397

 

DE, how can you possibly have made the game look worse - blander and more washed-out - over time?  Isn't a game supposed to improve with time?

 

I'm actually quite shocked and upset (in the context of #firstworldproblems ofc :) )

 

DE, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED????

 

(Playing since the begining of Warframe PS4)

 

Yes, the old visuals wehre more realistic and detailed it was just to dark.

 

The new visuals are unrealistic but you can clearly see enemys and the tilesets dont obscure vision.

 

It is easyer to play a game (unrealistic visuals) than a docu (too realistic visuals)

Edited July 30, 2015 by (PS4)Prisma144

[PsychedelicSnake]

Aside from the PhysX, everything looks the same (and some things better) on my end.

[Draven_Luv]

By the look of the first video things looked very murky and quite dark. Which is quite strenuous for eyes...since you're trying to make out what is there. I like the way it looks now because that isn't a huge problem... Also, the color changes are for the best. They fit much, much better to the theme of the tile set and the faction/planet it is on. In that first video the person was talking about how it changed from a cool, blue tone to a much warmer yellow....That yellow suits Grineer much more since that color is associated with something that's alive/organic whereas the Corpus have a more blue toned color because they're all tech-y and mostly reside in colder areas. Also, I'd like to think that it's (in a weird realistic way) the lighting that would actually be used...so, the tone of color is similar to the color a light bulb would give off...but that's a stretch :P

And yes, as someone said above...that a lot of the stuff is now optimized in such a way that almost anyone can play this game...even someone with a low end pc! And, again, as people already mentioned there are many ways for you to change around the settings so that the game looks more to your liking...not just in game options. 

Edited July 30, 2015 by Draven_Luv

[MillbrookWest]

"Old" warfare used a lot of tricks to simulate its look and feel.

 

With new render techniques being implemented that are more 'correct' than before, the feel changes from what is once was.

 

Muzzle flashes reflecting off smoke was a new technique added, the smoke no longer needs to be in huge plumes if the light from your gun will further illuminate it.

 

 

The only thing that has changed is the general method of lighting tilesets. To that I say; the grineer actually live and eat on those ships..... bro's be needing to walk around with flashlights in old warfare ;)

[SgtFlex]

I went around the same areas and the missions throughout the level, there's about 3 things going on here

 

First off, PhysX changed drastically, and im still not sure why. I think they might've tried to optimize it since I've heard PhysX does trippy S#&$ with optimization, which is why Planetside 2 removed it entirely

 

Second off, what im seeing mostly is they decided to change the theme of the grineer along the way of development, so what the person saying "it felt like a steel mill" is exactly how they want you to feel. The grineer are a very industrious war faction, and so a lot of the theme of the lighting changed from blue to orange to give that feel, and diversify them away from the Corpus "blue" color feel.

 

Lastly, the guy was right, there's odd things going on where there should be shadows, but reflections seem to be giving off entirely too much light.

As you can see here, the only light source is at the end of the room, but somehow there's this mysterious reflection of a light off to the right next to the locker 

 

PBR was not the cause of most of this, infact this was around before the PBR changes, and most of the level assets (Grineer Galleon for example) still haven't been PBR'd because I can find a lot of instances of weird reflection and plastic feeling

Edited July 30, 2015 by SgtFlex

[S.T.M.P.D]

Folks that don't have AMD drivers are a market, you know, even if they once postponed 16.5 or something like that when AMD didn't even bother to test their new driver and it screwed up Warframe on those computers big-time.

I know, I know, it's hard! Life's hard, but one of the things the devs stress a lot is making sure Warframe can run even on toasters from 2003 to make sure their market is broad. I know one game that kept its settings high - Planetside 2 - drew me away at first before I got around to updating to a rad new computer.

[AxelTKat]

Simply put, performance issues between a PC and what the consoles can handle as well as what some lower model PCs can handle.

[(PSN)wonderwoman814]

im gonna go with blame consoles -_-.

[Omnimorph]

In response to some of the comments, I don't think the old Grineer set looks "blue", it just looks ... better.

 

As to "too dark" - well, that's a gameplay thing, it depends on whether you want semi-realistic gameplay or gameplay that's designed more like a shooting gallery, me I prefer realistic, it's actually an element of gameplay if you sometimes can't see things and they shoot you or surprise you.  It's also an element of gameplay if they're all lit up and it's a shooting gallery, but that's not such good gameplay, to my preference.  Of course de gustibus and all that.  But I really don't see how anyone can think the new look (in those comparison videos) is "better" in any sense other than making it more of a shooting gallery.

 

Frankly, the new look looks like an un-shadered 90s game like Quake II by comparison (I exaggerate of course, just trying to get the point across) - just plain textures, washed-out, no depth.

 

Simply put, I do smell console shenanigans, and that annoys me.

 

But yeah, whatever - the game still looks good relative to other contemporary games.  As I said, I'm just pissed off that it doesn't look as good as its former self.

[fatpig84]

Grineer dark ?

You should have seen how dark old infested maps are.

[Monolake]

Cuase they made a mess out of materials (in grineer tilesets in particular) some materials are lacking a dirt layer now, some got excessive shine inconsistent with the rest of environment.  Been reported numerous times.

There are still many lighting problems too where some parts are not lit properly (like doors).

 

Some new map lighting is very flat too, but that's not  a bug.

 

Considering blue/red and darker/brighter - don't forget there is random colorcorrection post-processing that makes level lighting look a bit different each time

Edited July 30, 2015 by Monolake

[K0bra]

I really really miss the old look.In my eyes it was way better and not so "Anime shiny shiny candy mandy justin bieber"

Am i the only one who dont like the new anime candy look?It killed some of the atmosphere from warframe.

Now everyone looks like a rainbow ,the maps are very bright and all the dark dangerous feeling is gone.

Edited July 30, 2015 by K0bra

[MillbrookWest]

I really really miss the old look.In my eyes it was way better and not so "Anime shiny shiny candy mandy justin bieber"

Am i the only one who dont like the new anime candy look?It killed some of the atmosphere from warframe.

Now everyone looks like a rainbow ,the maps are very bright and all the dark dangerous feeling is gone.

I don't particularly recall the old aesthetic with too much fondness, myself. It was kinda boring tbh.

 

We've gone from this:

 

To this:

[DoomFruit]

Another fan of the old look here. It's just so much more atmospheric with the lights off. We're supposed to be ninjas prowling around in the dark, not an army storming in through the front gates at noon.

[InoxMaximus]

wow if i played Warframe like this and changed to the current now, i would rage quit.

[ivlr3vil]

I noticed the downgrade from WoF, right before consoles hit basically and the update patches mentioned "optimization."

 

 

Pretty much it's dumbed down so that more people can play it. Other games have done this too, like Primal Carnage, Tomb Raider and even things like Dark Souls 2. As for Tomb Raider, the "Definitive Edition," most of the game was re-coded from the ground with lower quality textures and a gamma coloration that was bumped up to give the aesthetic of looking better, with a new face lift to boot. But for actual graphic fidelity, it was dumbed down just for consoles too.

 

 

I hate to say it, but consoles is really the blame for the most part.

Edited July 30, 2015 by ivlr3vil

[Fifield]

Looks far better now.  Screw realism.  Video games are escapism and kids are depressed enough as it is.

[MillbrookWest]

-snip-

Console vs PC debates get old pretty quickly. But i'll just say this; Embers powers have been redone at least twice before any console even got announced. 

 

An inefficient render technique, no matter how pretty, is still an inefficient render technique. No matter the platform it runs on.

 

Multiple embers running the old WoF was effectively the mirage of her time; ie. performance tanked the lower end your system.