New Witcher 3 PC Patch Adds Visual Upgrades

[Ragsnstitches]

So this game is damn near perfect in all other regards, and people are furious at it over graphics? I don't even...why?

If the game is damn near perfect in all other regards, then why misrepresent the graphics? Can't they stand on their own?

I honestly don't care either way; I'm never going to be buying the game. I just think the complaints have a point.

There are 2 things I hold CDPr at fault over this:

1) They continued to use old footage and screens of the game as promotional material long after the game had changed from the original design.

The reasons for the "downgrade" I can respect. Games change over the course of their development and compromises are made in order to maintain certain standards. The early footage we saw worked on a smaller scale then they had planned and when the game was expanded on and fleshed out it became an issue. Despite this the game still looks stunning on any platform.

2) They dismissed accusations of parity between the platforms. Other then enhanced features (higher rendering distance, more npcs and clutter objects on screen, better AA, a possible 60fps or unlocked framerate etc.) and "Hairworks", the game is made to console specifications first and then enhanced for PC.

The rationale for parity during development is sound. In order to have 2 different standards you would need to split the development teams (not exactly 50/50 obviously), one for consoles and one for PC. They chose to focus on one standard and bring that as far as it could, which is fine. It paid off for them from where I'm standing (if it wasn't obvious from my earlier comments, I'm on PC).

Ultimately the woes of this game are in its marketing, not the product itself. Sadly these are common issues in AAA gaming.

Some people feel burned by this more so due to feeling they "needed" to upgrade to a 970+ to squeeze the extra special PC goodness out of it, and found that all it amounted to was better performance with super realistic hair follicles. Personally I think upgrading your hardware for a single title is reckless and wasteful. The onus is on the buyer, not the developer of a game that it was packaged with and used as a promotional piece by Nvidia.

 

[Shinkicker444]

Maybe Developers shouldn't make their games look so damn pretty in a demo if they can't pull it off in the final product and give people a false sense of hope.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Gamers rush to defend their own mistreatment at the hands of publishers/developers/press faster than the consumers in any other industry, and yet we're the ones most often libeled as "entitled" by our own enthusiast media and each other. Sorta makes you wonder: would those with influence and reach to do so ever call a truly empowered consumer group entitled? Or is this something they only feel safe doing when the target is a group of consumers who seem to routinely shame each other into taking it all lying down?

Misrepresenting your product isn't a good or defensible thing. If a car manufacturer promoted a certain top speed or gas mileage that varied from the final product, they would be crucified. If a tech manufacturer lied about their specs, they would be crucified. Why is it that only gamers seem content to participate in their own manipulation? As customers, we are SUPPOSED to be entitled. Advocating for any other position makes you a dead-ringer for a corporate shill.

 

[Metalrocks]

good thing i didnt get it on day 1. i just wait until everything is really fixed and (if) a directors cut or extended version will come out as it was with part 2. this version at least should be the final and fixed version and should have no issues what so ever with it.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Some gamers have become such spoiled little twats. In that demo the game was still in very early development, the footage we saw was on a smaller scale map than they had planned, it was before the game was expanded on and fleshed out and it was built to run on one very high end system simply to show off what they were working on. The finished product has to work at acceptable framerates across a wide range of systems. Of course an early demo, showing a very small part of the game built built for a high end PC is going to look better than the finished product across 3 systems.

Even if the visuals are a little downgraded from the early demos, the game still looks fucking fantastic on PC. CD Projekt have delivered a great game, and on top of that they're giving out 16 pieces of free DLC. Yet people are bullying them into feeling like they've done wrong by the community and have to give out more. Not fucking okay.

 

[Areloch]

I think the lesson here is to never actually show gameplay until the game has gone gold, as any change, even if it's just changes to the post processing and color correction for the lighting can be deigned a downgrade.

That sounds like a good compromise that will benefit customers in the end.

 

[Strazdas]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

As of patch 1.4 I can actually use full Hairworks on Ultra settings with a 780. One caveat is I had to tweak the config files for rendering as the default Anti-Aliasing setting for Hairworks was 8xMSAA which was pretty harsh on system resources. I manually reduced that to 2 (seems to be good now), though I think you can turn it to 0 if you don't mind slightly grainy looking hair.

I heard 0/2 causes bugs in hair. can you confirm/deny this?

So this game is damn near perfect in all other regards, and people are furious at it over graphics? I don't even...why? Because a trailer was shinier? Like trailers always are? I will never understand this train of thought.

IF a game is perfect in other regards, then graphics are the only thing left to complain about as its the only imperfect thing. hence, people complain about graphics. seems self-evident, no?

2) They dismissed accusations of parity between the platforms.

Actually, They have agreed to that a long time ago [http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=51]

I think the lesson here is to never actually show gameplay until the game has gone gold, as any change, even if it's just changes to the post processing and color correction for the lighting can be deigned a downgrade.

But since this wasnt just post processing and colour correction but instead was changes in texture, draw distance, effect particles and even the design of world fauna....

 

[TT Kairen]

Some gamers have become such spoiled little twats. In that demo the game was still in very early development, the footage we saw was on a smaller scale map than they had planned, it was before the game was expanded on and fleshed out and it was built to run on one very high end system simply to show off what they were working on. The finished product has to work at acceptable framerates across a wide range of systems. Of course an early demo, showing a very small part of the game built built for a high end PC is going to look better than the finished product across 3 systems.

Even if the visuals are a little downgraded from the early demos, the game still looks fucking fantastic on PC. CD Projekt have delivered a great game, and on top of that they're giving out 16 pieces of free DLC. Yet people are bullying them into feeling like they've done wrong by the community and have to give out more. Not fucking okay.

This. CD Projekt is the most consumer-friendly, passionate AAA dev out there, and yet because of continuous burns they've received from other publishers, gamers feel the the need to crucify CDPR over the most minor of transgressions. Are you so blinded by cynicism that you cannot forgive a completely insignificant change, even in the face of a game that is a 10/10 in pretty much every respect (including graphics, DESPITE a tiny downgrade).

Bloody hell, get over yourselves.

 

[Amaror]

So this game is damn near perfect in all other regards, and people are furious at it over graphics? I don't even...why? Because a trailer was shinier? Like trailers always are? I will never understand this train of thought.

Most people i personally talked to about it are less angry about the graphics themselves and more angry about the way CDPR handled the issue. Instead of just saying: "Yes, we had to worsen the graphics a bit and here's why." CDPR denied that the graphics would be worse than the trailers over and over again. And since CDPR was the developer that was supposed to be the shining example of NOT lying to its customers and treating its customers well people got really pissed about the whole thing. I personally think that the Witcher 3 is one of the most amazing games i have ever played and i love every thing about it including the graphics. I am a bit pissed that CDPR lied though.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

As of patch 1.4 I can actually use full Hairworks on Ultra settings with a 780. One caveat is I had to tweak the config files for rendering as the default Anti-Aliasing setting for Hairworks was 8xMSAA which was pretty harsh on system resources. I manually reduced that to 2 (seems to be good now), though I think you can turn it to 0 if you don't mind slightly grainy looking hair.

I heard 0/2 causes bugs in hair. can you confirm/deny this?

Haven't noticed anything yet. I heard on Radeon cards that 1x or 2x tesselation causes pretty unsightly hair quality and it's better off.

2) They dismissed accusations of parity between the platforms.

Actually, They have agreed to that a long time ago [http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=51]

I forgot to address that in my post, I actually had read that article. CDPr did eventually address it, but the claims of parity were floating around for longer (I recall seeing those claims in 2014, but I can't remember where I saw them... probably in forums). I'm not bitter or even upset about, I expect it really... CDPR isn't a huge studio with the resources to split development.

snip.

Very valid points.

Just wanted to correct you - Witcher 3 is not a AAA game. With a budget of 15 million dollars, it is almost indie-level.

Eh, just because the likes of EA or Ubi bloat their budgets something fierce does not make CDPr any less AAA. Also short of very few and rare exceptions (like a couple of Kickstarter games) 15 million is at least 15 million dollars over the standard Indie title.

Indies are made on budgets as low as nothing. The vast majority of indies will not break the million barrier. 200,000-400,000 would be considered a big budget indie.

I would argue that The Witcher 3 brings CDPr out of middle tier development into full fledged AAA development, but considering how far EA and Ubi push the boat out on budgets and cost I'm not surprised that people get the impression that it's not to their "standard" (which is a terrible standard).

 

[elvor0]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

 

[Areloch]

I think the lesson here is to never actually show gameplay until the game has gone gold, as any change, even if it's just changes to the post processing and color correction for the lighting can be deigned a downgrade.

But since this wasnt just post processing and colour correction but instead was changes in texture, draw distance, effect particles and even the design of world fauna....

Is it?

I haven't seen any kind of comprehensive breakdown of the changes, so all I've seen of it is a few videos(I don't own the game currently).

From the videos, it looks like it's largely the changes I mentioned. If there's some kind of comprehensive comparison I would love to see it.

 

[Strazdas]

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

This is only true with static hardware (consoles) and not true with ability to increase hardware power (as are PCs) where increase of graphical fidelity is much cheaper considering that very few new assets actually need creation since developers work with higher fidelity assets than end up in the final release in almost every studio. So one could even argue that you have to spend LESS money on optimizing and downgrading assets in such a case.

Bloated budgets that you see from Square Enix (that likes to call 6 million targets) is not graphics budget. when 3/4 of your budget is marketing this is the result you get. CDPR spent far less on marketing because of its awesome word-of-mouth marketing being in place. It was made on 15 million and still even after downgrade looks BETTER than those "must sell 6 million units" games. Square Enix is detached from reality and really shouldnt be considered an example of standard developer.

Also an interesting dichotomy arrises when you look at games that are used as benchmarks and touted as graphical giants - they are mostly the "midrange 10-50 million budget" games. not the 200 million budget ubisoft blunder. turns out in real world graphics arent that expensive after all.

 

[elvor0]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

Whilst you are somewhat correct, graphics DO NOT cost that much.

Witcher 3 looks incredible. And it was cheap as all hell.
Metro Last Light was and still is one of the best looking video games ever made. At a budget of around 10 million, it managed to equal and even beat Crysis 3 in many areas (technological).

STALKER looked incredible. Some of its effects are still world class. No one has matched its AI. Again, around 15 million dollar budget IRC.

Ahh that was a bit badly worded. I should've proabablly said /misplaced/ budget; bloating your graphics budget at the cost of other elements. However CDR and...whoever developed Metro, (I forget ><) have a lot smaller teams than the teams of Ubisoft/Activision/EA, increasing your graphics output equals much more payout, than it would for the relatively small team CPR have. For example 7 more hours for CPR is 70 more dollars for each of their 12 guys, which is only $840. 7 more hours for Activisions team of 70 men is $5000 dollars. You get a bit more bang for your buck per man on a small team than you do on a massive team.

Marketing budget could do with a hit too. Didn't Destinys marketing budget cost at least twice the amount the game cost to actally fucking produce or something?

 

[Las7]

So if I buy this game in, say, half a year, I might get a semi-close version to the as-advertised product. And here I thought it was only MMOs that improved games so drastically with patches.

I think you should quit gaming - it appears you have no clue how PC Gaming has worked for the last decade.

 

[Remus]

So if I buy this game in, say, half a year, I might get a semi-close version to the as-advertised product. And here I thought it was only MMOs that improved games so drastically with patches.

I think you should quit gaming - it appears you have no clue how PC Gaming has worked for the last decade.

Let me put this as delicately as possible......THIS IS NOT NEOGAF, nor is it Reddit, LoL or DotA. Replying to the first post in a thread, some 19 hours later, when that post has been discussed ad nauseum, and acting like a jerk, will get you nowhere here. While I'm sure you value your own opinion, it is in desperate need of a filter. If you do not use a filter, I guarantee one will be provided for you. This is not a threat, simply how things work here. A little politeness or actual discussion can carry you a long way. [link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct[/link]

On a side note, am I not the only one to wait until a game gets a few patches before I purchase, especially if it's on PC? Somehow people are finding this offensive and I have no idea why.

 

[Areloch]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

Whilst you are somewhat correct, graphics DO NOT cost that much.

Witcher 3 looks incredible. And it was cheap as all hell.
Metro Last Light was and still is one of the best looking video games ever made. At a budget of around 10 million, it managed to equal and even beat Crysis 3 in many areas (technological).

STALKER looked incredible. Some of its effects are still world class. No one has matched its AI. Again, around 15 million dollar budget IRC.

Ahh that was a bit badly worded. I should've proabablly said /misplaced/ budget; bloating your graphics budget at the cost of other elements. However CDR and...whoever developed Metro, (I forget ><) have a lot smaller teams than the teams of Ubisoft/Activision/EA, increasing your graphics output equals much more payout, than it would for the relatively small team CPR have. For example 7 more hours for CPR is 70 more dollars for each of their 12 guys, which is only $840. 7 more hours for Activisions team of 70 men is $5000 dollars. You get a bit more bang for your buck per man on a small team than you do on a massive team.

Marketing budget could do with a hit too. Didn't Destinys marketing budget cost at least twice the amount the game cost to actally fucking produce or something?

Yeah, Western AAA absolutely suffers from rediculous marketing budgets. It makes me wonder how much CD Project has spent on marketing for Witcher.

Another thing that helps cut back on development costs in regards to graphics are newer and better tools. The larger the studio, the harder it is for them to drop everything and invest in an entirely new pipeline. Smaller teams are much more free to go 'our current stuff is stupid and this new tool drastically helps iteration time' and have everyone jump over. Getting your 10 artists trained on a new pipeline is a much easier notion than getting 1-200 artists.