A puddle removed from upcoming Spiderman game, graphic warriors shriek in bereavement

[TheMysteriousGX]

Is this actual outrage, or is this like most "outrage", where it's 5 people with 9 tweets?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You can make something look photoreal by using static lights with engines like Unreal. Once you make everything dynamic and create a day night cycle, it looks like shit. You can also add a lot of dynamic lights to a static scene to make it moody and not look like an uninteractible museum display case. Once you take them out, everything looks like, well, an uninteractible museum display case.

It's not genuine, they're using graphics to sell a game, and the average gamer loves graphics, taking pretty graphics over 60fps.

Average gamer sees game (keep in mind this guy voluntarily gets fooled by E3 every year), and is amazed by the spectacular scripted gameplay demo. They buy the game out of hype, and they realize it's no different from any game they played in the last 10 years.

When Microsoft or Sony shows PC footage in their conference, that sucks. When they don't mention it's on an Xbone X, which no one wants or can afford, and the Xbone version is god awful, that also sucks. These guys are trying to peddle you consoles, especially Microsoft, who will sell you a shite machine on lies and games that will never come. Then they buy out studios because they have no exclusives, and won't pull out because they don't want to abandon their share of the market. Xbone should have died in 2015, but it didn't, because they fooled a bunch of gamers.

Me neither, but I hate being lied to. It works even better when I hate these companies and the games they make.

Does the average gamer really care about graphics that much? Because COD is always one of the best selling games of the year and doesn't look as good as other shooters. Plus, the majority of gamers prefer consoles over PC, Nintendo's games always sell great when the Gamecube was the last Nintendo console that produced comparable graphics, PUBG and Fortnite are hugely successful games and aren't very impressive graphically, look how big games like LoL and CSGO are and that's on PC too. What game's scripted gameplay ever looks better than the things skilled gamers can do with the final product? You're going to see a lot cooler Youtube Spiderman vids once gamers get their hands on it compared to what the gameplay demos have shown us. What games need the PS4 Pro or Xbone X to look good? The video game industry probably lies less than probably any other industry. I don't really get what you want when they show full half-hour/hours straight of gameplay before the release (have demos or betas/alphas sometimes), it pretty simple and easy to determine the game's quality before you buy it. Stuff like Destiny and The Division had betas, they were shit and people still bought them.

Instead of creating an environment of initial hype and then disappointment where the game can't deliver the visuals advertised why not start out showing what the game ACTUALLY looks like in Alpha and then continuously build more hype every time you show it off looking and running better and better as the game gets further in development?

Sometimes games become worse looking as development goes on. Games are made with higher quality assets, which are lowered as needed, for the game to run smoothly enough. Open world games can easily look better early in development when not everything is online.

If the game turns out to be good and it's an overall fun and awesome game to play, who gives a shit how pretty it looks?

i don't care about the new Spiderman game at all. but it's you guys that don't seem to "get it". Why did you overhype the game in the first place just because of how "Pretty" it looked?. bullshots aren't a new thing at all and have literally been happening in the industry for years now. you should now this instead getting upset when yet ANOTHER publisher does it.

if you're going to hype up a game, why not hype it up because of the actual gameplay content rather than just the graphics?

Hell must be about to freeze over because I completely agree with Yoshi.

I distinctly remember quite a large tantrum when half the scenes from the Suicide Squad trailer weren't in the movie and 80% of the Joker scenes got cut, and that was for quite a mediocre movie.

Quite a large tantrum over Justice League not looking like the Zack Synder trailers after the reshoots.

A much smaller but still present tantrum over scenes from trailer of Avengers Infinity War not being present in the final cut of the movie.

Sounds like someone just hasn't been paying attention.

Maybe the vocal minority. I can't even tell you what scenes are usually not in the movie that were in the trailer. Suicide Squad looked pretty bad no matter the footage. The Joker was horrible in the movie, good thing they cut most of the scenes. I'm pretty sure it wasn't advertised as a Joker/Harley Quinn movie just that there would be some Joker in it and that's what we got. There were actually people that thought Justice League was going to be good at any point in time? And for Infinity War, god forbid the directors care enough to keep spoilers out of the trailer and even purposefully doing a misdirect, remember when doing stuff like that was fun because I do. I've never had a single friend be mad after seeing a movie that a scene from the trailer didn't make the cut.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

If the game turns out to be good and it's an overall fun and awesome game to play, who gives a shit how pretty it looks?

Why do you think i didn't give a shit when Zelda Breath of the Wild didn't end up looking EXACTLY like it did in its initial reveal video? because its still a great game. so great that the video game industry even awarded it the official GOTY award last year ( i don't think it came close to deserving GOTY but alot of other people and the media do apparently).


i don't care about the new Spiderman game at all. but it's you guys that don't seem to "get it". Why did you overhype the game in the first place just because of how "Pretty" it looked?. bullshots aren't a new thing at all and have literally been happening in the industry for years now. you should now this instead getting upset when yet ANOTHER publisher does it.

if you're going to hype up a game, why not hype it up because of the actual gameplay content rather than just the graphics?

Because they lied and are being deceitful, even if the game turns out to be good that doesn't change. Does a game/developer only deserve to be shit on because of bullshots if the game also turns out to be average/bad? Doesn't make much sense to me. Lying to your consumers shouldn't be normalized, just because someone else did it doesn't make it any more okay.

If I was a Zelda fan I'd be pretty mad about it, they basically pulled a Watch Dogs but since the game was good it was alright that they lied about this.

I find it fascinating that in every other industry, doctored photos and videos is standard marketing practice. It's considered on the consumer to treat it with skepticism and expect to see the actual product cant measure up to idealized marketing promos. But videogames? In videogames its a scandal!

One time I ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut because the commercial made their pizza look good. Then when I got it, the toppings were slightly uneven, the cheese didn't go all the way to the edge, there was this big bubble in the crust, and it was cut imperfectly. It didn't look exactly like the commercial said it would!

So I got on the internet and said the owners of Pizza Hut were dirty whores and told them to die in a fire.

I mean sure, if you hold the same standards for video games as you do for pizza that analogy makes sense.

Does the average gamer really care about graphics that much? Because COD is always one of the best selling games of the year and doesn't look as good as other shooters.

COD still looks pretty good, just because someone cares about graphics doesn't mean they'll play another game just because it looks better graphically.

 

[Yoshi178]

I find it fascinating that in every other industry, doctored photos and videos is standard marketing practice. It's considered on the consumer to treat it with skepticism and expect to see the actual product cant measure up to idealized marketing promos. But videogames? In videogames its a scandal!

Maybe the issue is that people have normalized false marketing in other industries? If something doesn't function as it was advertised, that seems like it should be a problem to me.

of course the practice is normalised in other industries.

whenever you go to Mcdonalds, your big mac will literally NEVER look like the picture. the burger in the pictures is more than likely glued together with the picture taken at JUST the right angle to make the Big Mac burger seem as attractive as possible.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Does the average gamer really care about graphics that much? Because COD is always one of the best selling games of the year and doesn't look as good as other shooters.

COD still looks pretty good, just because someone cares about graphics doesn't mean they'll play another game just because it looks better graphically.

Exactly my point. Being able to do what Spiderman can do in the Spiderman game is why someone will buy the game, not because it had more puddles.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Does the average gamer really care about graphics that much? Because COD is always one of the best selling games of the year and doesn't look as good as other shooters.

COD still looks pretty good, just because someone cares about graphics doesn't mean they'll play another game just because it looks better graphically.

Exactly my point. Being able to do what Spiderman can do in the Spiderman game is why someone will buy the game, not because it had more puddles.

No one's saying they won't be buying the game because the game looks worse than it did a year ago, the developers just caused a distrust with their consumers who actually don't like being lied to. People might still buy the game and think it's very good but from now on they won't trust Insomniac being honest in the future.

 

[I can't enter my old name]

Does the average gamer really care about graphics that much?

People are expecting newer and shinier every E3. A game that looks better than the rest with decent scripted gameplay is going to make people freak out. On the other hand a game that looks like it was from 2007 is going to go ignored, unless it has some unique gameplay. If you downgrade the visuals even further, I guarantee everyone will be laughing at your game.

What game's scripted gameplay ever looks better than the things skilled gamers can do with the final product?

There are trailers that have a lot of BS, which include Bethesda games, and multiplayer games where you will probably never experience what is happening in the trailer.

Then there are the ones where you can do everything in the trailer, but the trailers are designed to tease you so you imagine doing even more. They're like the pictures and words on the back of the box. Watch the Skyrim gameplay trailer, or the GTAV gameplay trailer, and your imagination runs wild. Play the game, and you realize how meaningless these new features are. It turns out the game wasn't designed around X amazing innovative feature. It's more like an afterthought. It makes for good marketing material, but what you are doing is the same thing as the last game.

What games need the PS4 Pro or Xbone X to look good?

PUBG

 

[Yoshi178]

Because gameplay content doesn't come across very well in video game trailers. You can't feel how the game plays, or figure out game balance, or understand any of the other nuanced things that make certain games play better than certain other games in the same genre. The main thing that you can get from trailers is how the game will look, everything else requires getting an actual hands on experience with the game.

So yeah, the look of the game is really important when the only promotional material you have to work with is trailers and there's no demo available to you, something that has become increasingly more and more common in the industry. Bullshots undermine this to the point where none of us are able to trust these trailers either, so what's left?

what's not to get about Spiderman's Gameplay in the trailers?

it's basically just Arkham Asylum style combat, just with Spidey instead of Bats.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Let me get this straight, there's a collective of morons freaking out over a puddle? Well that's a new level of petty.

Could be, or it could also be another group reading misrepresentative headlines and failing to research the issue at all before forming their opinions and concluding that the complaints are as utterly baseless and petty and the people making them are idiots. Hard to say.

Even if the visuals have been slightly reduced in the 2018 shot they still look good to me, so this backlash still seems awfully petty to me. Then again I'm not a graphics whore. I still like what was said near the end of the Kotaku article about every stage of development is on display and under scrutiny and gamers feel a misplaced sense of ownership of it because of pre-orders and shit. I remember seeing an alpha trailer for Ocarina of Time way back when and it looked almost nothing like the finished game. I don't know how many people saw it, but I don't think anyone cared. I think the only thing that resulted from it was the rumour that you could get the complete triforce in OoT.

I find it fascinating that in every other industry, doctored photos and videos is standard marketing practice. It's considered on the consumer to treat it with skepticism and expect to see the actual product cant measure up to idealized marketing promos. But videogames? In videogames its a scandal!

Maybe the issue is that people have normalized false marketing in other industries? If something doesn't function as it was advertised, that seems like it should be a problem to me.

That's actually a very good point. Like if an ad for most cold medicine was to be believed it would actually be a frikin' cure, but we all know it isn't and we accept that.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The most recent footage still looks fine to me, even though it may not be as graphically advanced as 2017. This looks fuckin' dope:

 

[sXeth]

Is this actual outrage, or is this like most "outrage", where it's 5 people with 9 tweets?

There's also always that circuit of a dozen or so youtubers who just report on the outrage/hype in incredibly vague terms.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Because gameplay content doesn't come across very well in video game trailers. You can't feel how the game plays, or figure out game balance, or understand any of the other nuanced things that make certain games play better than certain other games in the same genre. The main thing that you can get from trailers is how the game will look, everything else requires getting an actual hands on experience with the game.

So yeah, the look of the game is really important when the only promotional material you have to work with is trailers and there's no demo available to you, something that has become increasingly more and more common in the industry. Bullshots undermine this to the point where none of us are able to trust these trailers either, so what's left?

what's not to get about Spiderman's Gameplay in the trailers?

it's basically just Arkham Asylum style combat, just with Spidey instead of Bats.

Except it isn't an Arkham Asylum style combat system. It's more of a character action game, there's launchers, juggles, air combos, etc.

So I guess you just proved my point since the trailers didn't get the gameplay across to you.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

I don't understand why people bring this argument up as soon there's talk about graphics, no one here is saying that the game now looks bad and therefore the game is bad. The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

No one's saying they won't be buying the game because the game looks worse than it did a year ago, the developers just caused a distrust with their consumers who actually don't like being lied to. People might still buy the game and think it's very good but from now on they won't trust Insomniac being honest in the future...

The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

Games look different as development progresses, games can get better and worse looking. Where's your proof that Insomniac intentionally deceived their audience? Why don't linear games look so much better at reveals than final products then their open world counterparts? Perhaps, it's just normal development that linear games get better looking as development goes on and open world games get worse looking due to inherent differences in the types of development. It's just like people claiming EssJayDubyas ruined something, where's their proof that some conspiracy agenda pushing group somehow convinced a major company's CEO and board of directors to make less money?

People are expecting newer and shinier every E3. A game that looks better than the rest with decent scripted gameplay is going to make people freak out. On the other hand a game that looks like it was from 2007 is going to go ignored, unless it has some unique gameplay. If you downgrade the visuals even further, I guarantee everyone will be laughing at your game.

There are trailers that have a lot of BS, which include Bethesda games, and multiplayer games where you will probably never experience what is happening in the trailer.

Then there are the ones where you can do everything in the trailer, but the trailers are designed to tease you so you imagine doing even more. They're like the pictures and words on the back of the box. Watch the Skyrim gameplay trailer, or the GTAV gameplay trailer, and your imagination runs wild. Play the game, and you realize how meaningless these new features are. It turns out the game wasn't designed around X amazing innovative feature. It's more like an afterthought. It makes for good marketing material, but what you are doing is the same thing as the last game.

PUBG

A fucking logo makes people freak out at E3. You saying editing together a bunch of short clips of cool stuff happening is deception advertising? How dare they show all the stuff you can do in a game in the course of a couple minutes vs hours of unedited gameplay. Is a pop or beer commercial showing a party deceptive advertising too? It's just standard advertising. I checked out a Skyrim and GTAV official gameplay trailer, they just look like standard a standard Rockstar and Bethesda games. I'm pretty sure most people buying these games have bought at least a couple Rockstar/Bethesda games in the past, they know how they play. People being comfortable with said product is why people buy them as well (like Bethesda, Rockstar, or Pepsi). Rockstar is still making the same game since PS2, and people were jizzing over RDR2 before there was any footage. The RDR2 official gameplay trailer didn't show anything that wasn't in RDR1 besides a super general dialogue system for NPCs.

According to Digital Foundry, PUBG doesn't even reach 30fps on Xbone X and is only 2 fps better than base Xbone.

it's basically just Arkham Asylum style combat, just with Spidey instead of Bats.

Except it isn't an Arkham Asylum style combat system. It's more of a character action game, there's launchers, juggles, air combos, etc.

So I guess you just proved my point since the trailers didn't get the gameplay across to you.

I can tell from gameplay footage that's Spiderman is basically Arkham combat (which was sorta copied from Spiderman previously) with aerial combat and more environment interactivity.

Posted by me on June 12, 2018 on from the The BIG E3 Round-up [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.1055560-The-BIG-E3-Round-up] thread:

Spiderman... I realize the game really isn't new and we got major info/gameplay a bit ago but at least it's coming out in a few months. The web-slinging should be a unique gameplay feeling over similar games. And it seems like the game will finally add to what we know of as Arkham combat with much more aerial dynamics to it and more environmental/object integration. Last time Arkham combat "evolved" was Arkham City with the beatdowns and quick-use gadgets and even the next best Arkham combat system, Middle-earth games, are basically reskinned Batman games with the same freaking moves (like the beatdowns and specials). I feel Spiderman is going to hinge on mission quality and how well Insomniac can basically pull a Rocksteady in regards to fully developing/integrating the world and characters in a meaningful way. Basically, the gameplay and elements seem to be spot-on for a good Spiderman game but the quality of the glue holding everything together will determine whether the game is special or just a fun Spidey game.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

I don't understand why people bring this argument up as soon there's talk about graphics, no one here is saying that the game now looks bad and therefore the game is bad. The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

Gee, it's almost like games are WIP until release and thus optimization might change some things in order to provide a worthwhile experience. Seriously, pick your fights, this is the Boy Who Cried Wolf Effect

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

I don't understand why people bring this argument up as soon there's talk about graphics, no one here is saying that the game now looks bad and therefore the game is bad. The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

The reason this is brought up is because this is still an technical issue. The better the graphics, the less people who will be able to play it due to the spec requirements to be able to run the game. If hardly anyone will be able to run the game, they have always had to reduce the graphics to make it playable. While it is just tweaks here and there to make it run smooth, they add up in the end and what you end up with will always look a bit different than where they started from in the demo.

This is how it has been from the beginning when they started trying to improve graphics for games, and it still remains a problem even now. Yes, they have improved, but the problem never ceases to exist. I am more irritated that due to people complaining about graphics that developers have continued to reduce other content in an attempt to cater to this nonsense. I would much rather be able to have smooth large scale combat ( hundreds of players fighting at once in the same area) than shadows or weather any day. I want more to do in games rather than something that just looks pretty.

It was not a matter of the developers trying to intentionally deceive anyone, if they could have made the game run like that, that is what you would receive. Reality hits and it is just not workable. That is not an attempt to " bait and switch" it is how game development works. They start out trying to do it that way and try to get as close to that as possible. The demo is an idea of what they want it to look like, but not the finished product. It is good they set their bar high, that is why the game looks as good as it does for release.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

I don't understand why people bring this argument up as soon there's talk about graphics, no one here is saying that the game now looks bad and therefore the game is bad. The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

The reason this is brought up is because this is still an technical issue. The better the graphics, the less people who will be able to play it due to the spec requirements to be able to run the game. If hardly anyone will be able to run the game, they have always had to reduce the graphics to make it playable. While it is just tweaks here and there to make it run smooth, they add up in the end and what you end up with will always look a bit different than where they started from in the demo.

This is how it has been from the beginning when they started trying to improve graphics for games, and it still remains a problem even now. Yes, they have improved, but the problem never ceases to exist. I am more irritated that due to people complaining about graphics that developers have continued to reduce other content in an attempt to cater to this nonsense. I would much rather be able to have smooth large scale combat ( hundreds of players fighting at once in the same area) than shadows or weather any day. I want more to do in games rather than something that just looks pretty.

It was not a matter of the developers trying to intentionally deceive anyone, if they could have made the game run like that, that is what you would receive. Reality hits and it is just not workable. That is not an attempt to " bait and switch" it is how game development works. They start out trying to do it that way and try to get as close to that as possible. The demo is an idea of what they want it to look like, but not the finished product. It is good they set their bar high, that is why the game looks as good as it does for release.

It's a ps4 exclusive, it's a console game, everyone has LITERALLY THE SAME specs.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

I don't understand why people bring this argument up as soon there's talk about graphics, no one here is saying that the game now looks bad and therefore the game is bad. The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

The reason this is brought up is because this is still an technical issue. The better the graphics, the less people who will be able to play it due to the spec requirements to be able to run the game. If hardly anyone will be able to run the game, they have always had to reduce the graphics to make it playable. While it is just tweaks here and there to make it run smooth, they add up in the end and what you end up with will always look a bit different than where they started from in the demo.

This is how it has been from the beginning when they started trying to improve graphics for games, and it still remains a problem even now. Yes, they have improved, but the problem never ceases to exist. I am more irritated that due to people complaining about graphics that developers have continued to reduce other content in an attempt to cater to this nonsense. I would much rather be able to have smooth large scale combat ( hundreds of players fighting at once in the same area) than shadows or weather any day. I want more to do in games rather than something that just looks pretty.

It was not a matter of the developers trying to intentionally deceive anyone, if they could have made the game run like that, that is what you would receive. Reality hits and it is just not workable. That is not an attempt to " bait and switch" it is how game development works. They start out trying to do it that way and try to get as close to that as possible. The demo is an idea of what they want it to look like, but not the finished product. It is good they set their bar high, that is why the game looks as good as it does for release.

It's a ps4 exclusive, it's a console game, everyone has LITERALLY THE SAME specs.

I think you missed the point. To be able to run the game with the demo settings, it very well likely caused it to not run well on the PS4 so they had to reduce them to make the game actually play. Sure, they could make a game that uses the demo settings, but it sure isn't going to play on the PS4, it will only run on high end machines so then what is the point of that? Developers usually develop the game on a high end computer then run it on the PS4 later once they worked out the kinks, even when it is an exclusive.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Gameplay > graphics. This argument has been going on forever. Having a playable game at release is far more important than keeping some demo graphics that only work on an extremely expensive rig and not anything else. If you make it only so a few people can even play the game due to the specs being too much for the average gamer to afford then why bother making the game at all? The point of making these games is so people can actually play them. Besides, it looks like their end product still looks great, if it is playable and less glitchy while still looking good, they did it right. The extra graphics at that point are not worth compromising playability for.

I don't understand why people bring this argument up as soon there's talk about graphics, no one here is saying that the game now looks bad and therefore the game is bad. The game still looks good but the developers still deceived its audience by showing a better-looking product a year before it was released.

The reason this is brought up is because this is still an technical issue. The better the graphics, the less people who will be able to play it due to the spec requirements to be able to run the game. If hardly anyone will be able to run the game, they have always had to reduce the graphics to make it playable. While it is just tweaks here and there to make it run smooth, they add up in the end and what you end up with will always look a bit different than where they started from in the demo.

This is how it has been from the beginning when they started trying to improve graphics for games, and it still remains a problem even now. Yes, they have improved, but the problem never ceases to exist. I am more irritated that due to people complaining about graphics that developers have continued to reduce other content in an attempt to cater to this nonsense. I would much rather be able to have smooth large scale combat ( hundreds of players fighting at once in the same area) than shadows or weather any day. I want more to do in games rather than something that just looks pretty.

It was not a matter of the developers trying to intentionally deceive anyone, if they could have made the game run like that, that is what you would receive. Reality hits and it is just not workable. That is not an attempt to " bait and switch" it is how game development works. They start out trying to do it that way and try to get as close to that as possible. The demo is an idea of what they want it to look like, but not the finished product. It is good they set their bar high, that is why the game looks as good as it does for release.

It's a ps4 exclusive, it's a console game, everyone has LITERALLY THE SAME specs.

I think you missed the point. To be able to run the game with the demo settings, it very well likely caused it to not run well on the PS4 so they had to reduce them to make the game actually play. Sure, they could make a game that uses the demo settings, but it sure isn't going to play on the PS4, it will only run on high end machines so then what is the point of that? Developers usually develop the game on a high end computer then run it on the PS4 later once they worked out the kinks, even when it is an exclusive.

Except that's stupid because the PS4 has fixed specs, so there's no point in developing the game on a different machine and then downgrading. It's not going to be cross platform, there won't be a PC version, so that's a terrible excuse. Don't put out promo material with specs YOU KNOW YOU WILL NOT HAVE.