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Have We Gone Far Enough With Graphics For Now?

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I was recently thinking about something and I want to know if other people agree with me. I have been recently playing Far Cry 5 and I've been awed by the beauty of that game. It hasn't been the only game that's wowed me recently with its graphical quality, Forza Horizen 3 is also absolutely gorgeous on Ultra. But I got to thinking, have we gone far enough with graphics for a while? Here's what I mean.

 

I have a pretty beefy PC. Overclocked 4790K and 1080 ti can push some frames. But, playing at 1080p ultra, I'm not getting 144fps. I'm getting 90-120 with occasionally dips as low as 60 in super action packed scenes. I know my CPU is not the most modern thing so let's say add a few more FPS if you had an 8700K or something, but still. An overclocked 1080 ti is about as good as it gets competing up there with the Titan Xp and Titan V, there really isn't anywhere else reasonable to go. You see people keep saying that "1080p is dead." 1080p is not dead. Let's go back to 2014 when the GTX 980 came out. People then said the 980 was way overkill for 1080p gaming, to which I always laughed at. Now fast forward to 2018 and we have the GTX 1060 which is roughly the speed of the 980. And guess what, the 1060 is the 1080p gaming card. 1080p will not die because graphical intensity is moving as fast if not faster than GPU technology and speed. I for one have no issues with using a 1080 ti for 1080p gaming because there are still games that it will not push at 144fps at 1080p, like quite a few that I have tried.

 

So my question is, are you happy enough with the current state that video game graphics are in? I for one am, they are realistic enough for my liking, at least for the time being. What if we told game devs to stop increasing the graphical intensity of their games for say 3-4 years. That would allow for almost 2 new generation of GPUs to come out. That way we can kill 1080p. If say the GTX 2160 was as fast as a 1080 ti if not faster for $250 in 3-4 years time and graphics quality hadn't changed. Then yes 1080p would basically be dead. I for one would have no problem halting graphical improvement for a few years to let GPU tech push way ahead. And frankly, how much better can we get? Some games are getting scary real. And I'm sure in 20 years I will be looking back on this statement and laughing, but still they are amazing currently in my opinion.

 

So, would you be okay with halting graphical improvements for 3-4 years to allow GPU speed to push way ahead effectively killing 1080p? 

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if we halt graphical improvements then these are my guesses

  • killing 1080p making this resolution really popular for competitive games (especially those guys who play on laptops because the density of the screen). Just play at a 24 inch 1080p monitor, imo it still looks awesome.
  • We might even see 480Hz monitors at 1080p

else, i guess it would be normal for the 1080p market.

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That would be a good idea. 4K monitors are really all we need, and we aren’t able to maximise the in game graphics of those monitors. We also can’t hit 1440p at 240hz or 4K at 144hz despite monitors existing for them, albeit expensive and rare. The best thing we can do right now is bring new GPU architectures and technologies such as RTX (Real time raytracing) and more realistic movement and whatnot. The resolutions don’t need to move quicker than the graphics hardware, as that does no good.

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Yes and no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzerU6PVTV8

 

start listening at 1:50 minute, while it mainly aimed at ps4 but the point of graphic fidelity is very general to all platform.

 

while I agree with most diminishing return of graphic but the development shouldn't stop, it should be scaled.

Currently major companies tries to make a vector 3d model a standard, that way even the resolution scale up to infinity the asset will adjust it accordingly.

 

The current flaw mainly for optimization or the lack of it since we have so much variation of hardware it's quite hard to accommodate all of it.

 

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I'm fine with 1080p since I dont have anything bigger than 24". Our eyes didnt evolve at all through a couple of years (or it even got worse, when more people get glasses :p)

 

I don't mind waiting for GPU power to increase while halting graphics improvment (focus on banning cheats and improving gameplay maybe?). I mean, raytracing still takes multiple cards to work, which is completely infeasible for gaming.

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Well nVidia seems pretty happy about stopping GPU development on the desktop and just miking the 10 series.

For me there is always room for improvement.  For example in FFXIV I can only get about 80-100FPS at 1440p on a 1070, I wouldn't complain if I could run at 144FPS

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1 minute ago, Snipergod87 said:

Well nVidia seems pretty happy about stopping GPU development on the desktop and just miking the 10 series.

For me there is always room for improvement.  For example in FFXIV I can only get about 80-100FPS at 1440p on a 1070, I wouldn't complain if I could run at 144FPS

Nvidia has no need to make a competitor. AMD had 2 years to make a competitor and released a horrible product, Vega was such trash.

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I doubt we'll ever see a halt in graphical innovation.  These developers are inherently artists with a vision who often need to design visual tricks and techniques to permit a manifestation of their intended art style, ultimately revolutionizing what is possible..

 

With that said, I personally am more interested in seeing games take advantage of new optimizations such as Vulkan (I really hope every Bethesda game announced this year is coded with this API) to make the most of existing hardware before we see the next evolution in video game graphics.

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11 minutes ago, IrshaadH said:

I doubt we'll ever see a halt in graphical innovation.  These developers are inherently artists with a vision who often need to design visual tricks and techniques to permit a manifestation of their intended art style, ultimately revolutionizing what is possible..

 

With that said, I personally am more interested in seeing games take advantage of new optimizations such as Vulkan (I really hope every Bethesda game announced this year is coded with this API) to make the most of existing hardware before we see the next evolution in video game graphics.

Oh yeah, Vulkan is amazing. I can run Doom on ultra at the frame cap 100% of the time with like 50% GPU usage.

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I think we're at a point where polygons no longer matter and texture resolution doesn't need to increase so much since screen resolution is likely going to flat line for a while. It still needs to increase, but it's not quite a priority in my view. Lighting has finally gone towards a good direction using physically based methods.

 

My biggest complaint with graphics is the subtle details at a distance. Particularly with shadows. It distracts me to no end to see real-time shadows being rendered no further than say 20 feet in front of the camera. Especially with environments like cliffsides where the cliff is rendered with some generic environment lighting then when you get close enough, you can see the transition from environment to real-time. An example of this I saw a lot of was in Metal Gear Solid V when in Afghanistan. There'd be a case where the sun was facing away from cliff faces and so they should be shadowed and casting shadows. But that only happened up to about like 50 feet. After that, it appeared the cliff was lit as if the sun where somewhere else.

 

There's probably other view distance related things but that's the biggest one I've been seeing.

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Personally I'm okay with original Xbox graphics. Halo 3 (11 years old on 512 MB RAM xbox) looks really good to me still. I like the art styles of the early 2000s. 
 

Spoiler

Halo 2
Image titled Rule in Halo 2 or 3 on Multiplayer or Splitscreen Step 5
Image titled Rule in Halo 2 or 3 on Multiplayer or Splitscreen Step 10

Combat evolved:
Image result for halo combat evolved

Image result for halo combat evolved

Image result for halo combat evolved

 

As above spoiler shows, you can see enough detail to know what's going on. Personally I'd be okay with buying a game today that looks like Halo Combat Evolved. 

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34 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I think we're at a point where polygons no longer matter

They haven't for a while. There's a 3D modelling technique called Normal Maps. Basically you use 1 modelling program to make a model with millions of "tris" (Polygons with 3 sides) to get a super detailed model. Then you take that model and "Retopologize it" by basically tracing it but with less geometry. Then you use a program like "XNormal" and import both models. The program will automatically detect the extra detail from the "high poly" model and create a texture that stores the data of the extra detail as a texture. Then the game engine uses that to project the detail without having the extra geometry. 
If you look at Nintendo 64 Turok though, they faked normal maps with good texture work by drawing the shadows. 

 

34 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

It still needs to increase, but it's not quite a priority in my view. Lighting has finally gone towards a good direction using physically based methods.

Halo 3 (2007) had some really good real time lighting. In the map editor, you could put lights in your map that would project light in real time properly. 

34 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

 

My biggest complaint with graphics is the subtle details at a distance. Particularly with shadows. It distracts me to no end to see real-time shadows being rendered no further than say 20 feet in front of the camera. Especially with environments like cliffsides where the cliff is rendered with some generic environment lighting then when you get close enough, you can see the transition from environment to real-time. An example of this I saw a lot of was in Metal Gear Solid V when in Afghanistan. There'd be a case where the sun was facing away from cliff faces and so they should be shadowed and casting shadows. But that only happened up to about like 50 feet. After that, it appeared the cliff was lit as if the sun where somewhere else.

 

There's probably other view distance related things but that's the biggest one I've been seeing.

Pop in is likely because the devs are focusing on the in your face detail more than the far away detail. 

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I wouldn't mind seeing a graphics quality freeze as long as the focus of it was cheaper manufacturing techniques to bring down component costs.

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5 hours ago, fpo said:

They haven't for a while. There's a 3D modelling technique called Normal Maps. Basically you use 1 modelling program to make a model with millions of "tris" (Polygons with 3 sides) to get a super detailed model. Then you take that model and "Retopologize it" by basically tracing it but with less geometry. Then you use a program like "XNormal" and import both models. The program will automatically detect the extra detail from the "high poly" model and create a texture that stores the data of the extra detail as a texture. Then the game engine uses that to project the detail without having the extra geometry. 

 

If you look at Nintendo 64 Turok though, they faked normal maps with good texture work by drawing the shadows. 

Yeah I know about normal mapping, along with parallax mapping. But tessellation basically had proven we don't really need more polygons anymore. Every demo I've used where I could play with the tessellation factor, anything beyond like 0.25 added almost no perceptible increase in the quality of the mesh

 

5 hours ago, fpo said:

Halo 3 (2007) had some really good real time lighting. In the map editor, you could put lights in your map that would project light in real time properly. 

Real-time lighting isn't really what I'm concerned about. What I'm referring to is physically based rendering which uses actual physical properties of materials to determine how something should look, rather than what an artist wants it to look like. This might be an exaggeration, but there's this image comparing traditional rendering vs. PBR

compare.jpg

 

And there's this video with EVE Online showing some PBR changes:

 

Not directed towards you, but as a jab to people who think "consoles are holding back PC game development!", Tri-Ace developed a PBR demo using the PS3 and 360

So I think it was more of a philosophy change than anything technically advanced.

5 hours ago, fpo said:

Pop in is likely because the devs are focusing on the in your face detail more than the far away detail. 

Which is dumb because "far away" in most cases is like 20 feet.

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58 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Yeah I know about normal mapping, along with parallax mapping. But tessellation basically had proven we don't really need more polygons anymore. Every demo I've used where I could play with the tessellation factor, anything beyond like 0.25 added almost no perceptible increase in the quality of the mesh

Absolutely. I saw a video showing off Counter Strike Condition Zero or 1.6 with some kind of technique to fake extra geometry & for a game that old to mock geometry that well is pretty impressive. I don't have a source though. Even things like Anti-Aliasing are pretty outdated with these high resolutions. 
Because of this I think that's why Ubisoft implemented "Checkerboard Rendering" (Rendering every other pixel and guessing the middle ones.) 

58 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Real-time lighting isn't really what I'm concerned about. What I'm referring to is physically based rendering which uses actual physical properties of materials to determine how something should look, rather than what an artist wants it to look like. This might be an exaggeration, but there's this image comparing traditional rendering vs. PBR

compare.jpg

 

And there's this video with EVE Online showing some PBR changes:

Oh yeah! That's a lot more intense lighting calculation. I don't know much about lighting nor its calculations. I don't think projected shadows were that intense. However colored lights in Halo 3 could blend colors which I doubt would be superbly complex. However the other lighting projection with shadows on its own model must be way more complex than what Bungie did in Halo 3. 

58 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Not directed towards you, but as a jab to people who think "consoles are holding back PC game development!", Tri-Ace developed a PBR demo using the PS3 and 360

So I think it was more of a philosophy change than anything technically advanced.

Yeah I don't think consoles hold back developers at all. Last of Us (PS3 2014 2013) looks beautiful! I'm not a fan of the gameplay or story, but I can't argue against the graphics. 
Many developers are making things for old systems and finding many techniques to harness more power. For instance, the "8-bit guy" made a Real Time Strategy game on the Commodore 64. (Might be an arguement for the other thread as it's mostly logic that was difficult) but he was able to pull off an impressive feat. Here's a video on the making of:

Spoiler

 

58 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Which is dumb because "far away" in most cases is like 20 feet.

Absolutely. I can't argue with that. 

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I guess if it came down to a choice of do i want a game like The Witcher 4 to be on par with The Witcher 3 (from a graphical fidelity standpoint) but have enhanced mechanics and larger worlds etc or do i want to see glistening sweat on NPC's brows and individual hair animations with a smaller world and less content i'd gladly take the former over the latter.  

 

Not sure that now is the time to draw that line but its a balancing act, when you look at the cost benefit of some of the more demanding graphics settings when running ultra games on a high end PC you really start to wonder if its worth it though, gameplay and content should always come first in my mind.  I know a lot of people wont agree with this but Star Citizen seems to be a perfect example of a game that has strayed way too far in the wrong direction, absolutely gorgeous game but they're going to be at the fucking thing for 10 years and still not have a cohesive story or marketable product to sell to anyone that doesn't have a NASA supercomputer, whats the point if all you can do is look at how pretty something is? 

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On ‎13‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 2:34 AM, Max_Settings said:

 

 

So, would you be okay with halting graphical improvements for 3-4 years to allow GPU speed to push way ahead effectively killing 1080p? 

I don't think we should halt the progress of graphics I'd rather we put a stop to 4k gaming. We can still push a lot more when it comes to graphics but I feel if we make the jump to 4k we will only be slowing that process down. IMO 1080p is the sweet spot for gaming for at least another 2 years what we should be focusing on is better lighting, lighting that is more like the lighting used in animated films, obviously we are nowhere near having cards that can produce such realistic lighting but I'm sure there are ways we can emulate the effects of these lighting techniques. I'm sure you have seen Nvidia's raytracing demo imagine if we actually had cards that could do this game's would look exponentially better IMO better lighting really is the future of gaming but not if we strive for 4k. 

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On 6/14/2018 at 7:24 PM, moderategamer said:

... what we should be focusing on is better lighting, lighting that is more like the lighting used in animated films, obviously we are nowhere near having cards that can produce such realistic lighting but I'm sure there are ways we can emulate the effects of these lighting techniques.

I think we've already reached that point with physically based rendering. After seeing the Pixar worlds showcased in Kingdom Hearts 3 trailers, I'm convinced that we're convincingly close to cinematic CG quality real-time lighting. At least for the bulk of the lighting used.

 

We're also at a point where cel shading is practically indistinguishable from anime.

 

Quote

I'm sure you have seen Nvidia's raytracing demo imagine if we actually had cards that could do this game's would look exponentially better IMO better lighting really is the future of gaming but not if we strive for 4k. 

I'm not really convinced ray tracing is the end all be all of graphics at this point. The only thing I keep seeing with ray tracing demos is how good the reflections and anything shiny looks. But I don't really care that I can see a bazillion reflections off some surface. Take for example Enemy Territory: Quake Wars when it was showcased on Intel's Larabee as a real-time ray tracing demo:

 

It doesn't look any better than the original game, save for the reflections.

 

As another point, if this is actually a ray-traced demonstration, then to me, it doesn't look appreciably better than what currently exists already:

 

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18 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I think we've already reached that point with physically based rendering. After seeing the Pixar worlds showcased in Kingdom Hearts 3 trailers, I'm convinced that we're convincingly close to cinematic CG quality real-time lighting. At least for the bulk of the lighting used.

That is impressive but there is a huge difference between what raytracing can do for graphics over what PBR can. especially when it comes to rendering realistic environments and surfaces. This was the demo I had in mind showcases raytracing much better. Of course this is only a hypothetical improvement in graphics for the time being as single frames can take many minutes to render given our current computing power. As for the other demo's you linked they are just examples of poorly implemented raytracing obviously it's not going to magically change what are IMO bad graphics to begin with.

 

 

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7 hours ago, moderategamer said:

That is impressive but there is a huge difference between what raytracing can do for graphics over what PBR can. especially when it comes to rendering realistic environments and surfaces. This was the demo I had in mind showcases raytracing much better. Of course this is only a hypothetical improvement in graphics for the time being as single frames can take many minutes to render given our current computing power. As for the other demo's you linked they are just examples of poorly implemented raytracing obviously it's not going to magically change what are IMO bad graphics to begin with.

 

 

But again, what's really being shown is how good the reflections off surfaces are. And a common theme among all of the ray tracing demos I've seen prominently feature reflective objects. Even the examples on Wikipedia are just showing reflective objects.

 

I need an example of something ray-traced that isn't primarily showing reflective objects.

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If you take Horizon Zero Dawn for example; absolutely stunning game in terms of graphics, better than 90% of PC games, but suffers from shallow gameplay. And this is my main gripe with amazing graphics in games; they seem to sacrifice being able to make deep gameplay as it is just too taxing for modern day consoles and takes too long to program for and it could be a feature that may never work anyway, so they'd just be wasting valuable development time to implement more depth; I completely get it.

Animations are all predetermined. Like climbing up a ladder, onto a specific object, it prompts that specific animation, which is far easier to program than dynamic animations that react to your movement commands; you're never truly in control of what you're doing other than when aiming a bow. But the FoV is all wrong so you can't traverse the environment properly or make it look natural. Whilst the animations look incredible individually, you can quickly make them look much less fluid just by trying to play the game. Every single fight turns into a mess, bumping into objects, awkward jumping, you end up just having to permanently roll so to not get hit, and when you do have your small window of attack, you have to use slow motion to make it work properly and half the time when you're in slo-mo you spend it aiming at the glowing objects and if you miss, it is all wasted and you have to wait for a regen of the little slo-mo bar. Not only that, you'll have wasted the precious ammunition too. I spend longer gathering resources for the ammo than I do using it which is wrong, the balance between the types of gameplay in HZD is quite poor. I spend more time looking at the ground gathering objects than I do at the glorious graphics or watching the enemies animations trying to figure out what I'm going to do next.

The developers are so aware that the gameplay is shallow and not fluid that they added features like slow motion to make it easier just to aim your bow, and on-screen prompts to do critical strikes/etc... Not that there is anything particularly wrong with this, but it makes fighting quite the chore sometimes, all they need is a more intuitive camera system, that you can control every aspect of, when you're running away, they could pan out a bit, show her looking backwards at the pursuing enemy. 

Now, I love HZD, but it is games with this level of graphics that are so difficult to program good gameplay for. As it requires way more calculations per second to make it have a bit more depth, so rather than having a specific tall grass to hide in, or a specific ledge to climb, why not be able to climb all ledges and inclines... be able to hide behind any object and actually be hidden, not just tall grass; because the code would be so long to make the enemies recognise objects in that way, and the graphics are that good to execute it without performance drops would require much more development time and may not even be possible on a console.

They could have implemented a more robust melee system, with blocking, parrying & riposte or a shield like the crab-robots have, and instead of "roll spamming", have a hybrid snap on target system, where it keeps the focus on the enemy whilst giving you enough FoV to traverse the environment, and instead of just rolling there could be side stepping, and an upgrade system to be able to do some kind of acrobatics, flips and slow-mo aiming the bow would be wicked. But again, this would require so much programming it would  have delayed the game even more and may never have even worked.
 

It would be nice to see developers come back to their games and add things like this, that would change the flow of the game so much. It would make it actually enjoyable just fighting the little things. I remember doing a mission where I had to take out like an entire village of humans, they were all deadly accurate and just rushed you straight away; and there's no way to counter it other than to roll around and spam bombs at them. You go into a panic mode where you just spam at them and it is really really awkward, then to see your spear come out of nowhere as you perform a melee attack is just bad. I'd have loved to see all the equipment you have stored somewhere on Aloy's person, not just appear in her hands too. It completely breaks immersion to me having to bring up a damn menu just to cycle through weapons.

But again, I digress. The graphics, animations and huge open world in this game seemed to be the main focus in terms of development rather than the little intricacies that add depth. But that's the same with most open world games really.

I'd just like to see more gameplay features in games, every year there seems to be less and less.


 

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2 hours ago, Roxborough said:

If you take Horizon Zero Dawn for example; absolutely stunning game in terms of graphics, better than 90% of PC games, but suffers from shallow gameplay. And this is my main gripe with amazing graphics in games; they seem to sacrifice being able to make deep gameplay as it is just too taxing for modern day consoles and takes too long to program for and it could be a feature that may never work anyway, so they'd just be wasting valuable development time to implement more depth; I completely get it.

What is "deep gameplay"? What makes one game have more "deep gameplay" than another?

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IMHO, it depends on what you're aiming for when it comes to graphics.

 

Do you want a game with good artistic design that ages well? Or do you want a game that looks as real as possible?

 

If the former, then I'd say we've been at that level of graphics for a while. Look at ZOE 2nd Runner for a moment. ZOE 2nd Runner has aged phenomenally well for a 15 year old game. The only thing that held it back on release was its rendering resolution and textures.

 

Okami is another example, as well as Nintendo's plethora of first party titles from the early to mid 2000's.

 

But in regards to realistic graphics? No, we have not come far enough, and we probably won't for at least another coupe decades. We're rapidly reaching the uncanny valley, which takes a LOT to hurdle. But I find that to be ok. Not all games need to be realistic, and there's nothing wrong with taking a stylistic approach to game design.

 

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Something I've wondered about is "Have we pushed the limits of Z-buffering rendering?"

I know ray-tracing is expensive as fuck, but at this point, we've gotten to the point where polygon count and texture resolution is at a pretty good spot. At this point, our biggest focuses are lighting, shading and post-processing, and potentially combining ray-tracing and Z-buffering together, if it's plausible.

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20 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

What is "deep gameplay"? What makes one game have more "deep gameplay" than another?

In my opinion (using HZD as an example) deep gameplay consists of: 

- Intelligent AI that can 1. Detect features in the environment 2. Correctly path-find without looking clunky and unrealistic 3. React to the environment and character position so you can't just hide behind the same object for 15 minutes popping your head out and taking pot shots without it pursuing you 4. Reactive to specific damage, if their weakness is fire, maybe have a new animation to show them going "ouch I REALLY don't like this", if you shoot them in the leg, they could falter and stumble a little bit, instead of just constantly pursuing you regardless.

- Non-specific traversing of the environment, so not a yellow notch or piece of rope on a rockface/cliff/building that you can jump up, you should be able to jump up and climb over any surface that looks climbable, and on the bigger monsters you fight, maybe be able to climb onto them too! Same goes for the stealth mechanics, no tall grass is better than other tall grass for hiding (I mention most of this in my other post)

- A good balance between combat and non-combat gameplay, puzzle solving/platforming/story/crafting/gathering broken up with periods of combat that change the pace so you're not stuck doing one thing for extended periods of time. Maybe a hunted system, where the humans catch wind that you're in a specific area and send out parties to take you down.

- Combat is always the main gameplay component of every game, and if one area is particularly weak, it feels incomplete to me. Melee in HZD is awful. Period. I get that it is supposed to be a predominantly ranged based game but I don't feel fully in control of Aloy in most scenarios, it just turns into a mess. Even if you meticulously plan out your battlefield with traps, it never goes to plan and feels shallow and disconnected. I'd have liked to see more acrobatics rather than just rolling, maybe a faster sprint, or a dive out of the way, or side stepping at the last minute to avoid an attack, or performing a parry, so if a giant tail swipes your way, you could pull out the spear and counter-attack, or take out your bow and fire a tear arrow at the tail to knock it off, rather than literally JUST a dodge mechanic. There just isn't enough to the combat for me, personally. I'm constantly trying to figure out ways to outsmart the machines, and it just turns into spam because there's not much else you can actually do other than the aforementioned.

- Get rid of RNG, if you knock a component off a beast, or find some loot in the game, have it not be a random amount, or random piece. Have it actually be the specific piece you knocked off, and when you loot a machine or human, if you've damaged something it will say "damaged X" and maybe each human's gear is available to loot too to give depth to the looting system; this is DEPTH, which HZD doesn't have much of. I had to kill 100's of rabbits for a specific part as it is a low drop rate, why not increase the amount of X you need to get so it isn't just random, there is a finite duration of time you can spend doing something so you feel like you're making progress rather than let's spend an hour hunting rabbits and not even get anywhere.

Depth is all about what happens during and after a specific scenario, how the player goes from one aspect of the game to the next and whether a cause and effect is defined in a relatively realistic manner. Shallow games often have RNG systems to imitate depth and drag out content, whether it be linked with damage to imitate a critical hit, oh you did a crit, that is because you have 5% more crit chance, rather than hitting a vital part of the enemy you're fighting to do critical damage. Which is fine in MMORPG's, but this isn't an MMORPG.

RNG is tied into the loot too, as mentioned before, if loot is random it ruins how you see your targets, can I go and kill that person and take his weapon? Can I kill that beast and get X component, guaranteed? If the answer is no, then it is shallow and they're just another kill. It's fine in MMORPG's where the core mechanics of the game are fighting 100's if not 1000's of mobs, but not open world single player games like HZD.

Shallow games have predetermined paths with some kind of signal to show you where you can climb up something, rather than you being able to forge your own path like a true open world game. Figuring out what you can do with your environment is fun and I feel like HZD doesn't explore that enough.

The cities in HZD, whilst stunning, are shallow because there's not much you can do there, there's no trading system between the tribes that you can get involved in, or any player housing where you can store stuff, or a stable where you can store your mounts or any machines you take over. You have NOTHING to show for your accomplishments. There's no random attacks from bandits that you could get involved in. Or people going about their daily business. It is just shallow. And when you pair that with a really slow paced main story line riddled with side quests, you don't feel like you're experiencing a coherent story.

 

Shallow games have a progression system linked to what should be CORE GAMEPLAY FEATURES; like in HZD being able to long or short roll, or shoot a bow from a rope (which never happens anyway), that should be something you can just do....Not spend 20-30+ levels grinding to get for such a small gameplay feature. I don't mind the likes of "multi-arrow shots" being something you learn, because that is a damage buff and not a core mechanic. It's the same with these take-down attacks, take-down's from ledges or a high position; these should be core mechanics and not linked to progression. Therefore that aspect of HZD is a bit shallow too.

Now, HZD has a fairly decent balance of depth if you look at the overall scope of the game. But if you focus on individual aspects, you start to see the immersion break and you're left feeling a bit hollow after certain encounters, rather than empowered. You don't feel rewarded for your efforts, it's not engaging enough and the story doesn't progress fast enough to warrant the playtime required.
 

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