Steam should be the perfect time for a visual update.....

[Luclinraider.2317]

We haven't received a visual update in 10 years....

 

Every other MMO does visual updates usually every couple of years.

 

Everquest did it with Kunark and again with Luclin and every few expacs moving forward.

WoW has done it with multiple expansions.

BDO has done it.

SWTOR

....the list goes on.

 

In fact...I think GW2 is the only MMO I've ever seen run it's entire life without any visual update.

 

We are long overdue....and with such a large part of the community using reshaders etc....it just seems like with the steam influx it would be the perfect time for an updated look.

[Batel.9206]

Only if we get expanded options on what to do with this new look - like the ability to turn off others' skill effects, our own skill effects, turn off the forced camera zoom during world boss fights, etc.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The Devs stated they did a 'visual' update when they released Draconis Mons, or thereabouts. 

[Linken.6345]

Did not 4 world bosses get updated visualy just afew weeks ago?

[Raizel.1839]

3 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

The Devs stated they did a 'visual' update when they released Draconis Mons, or thereabouts. 

If we need a Dev's comment to realize we've had a visual update, I don't think it's a well done visual update.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Were you not around at the time?  There were many posts about the change. 

I just posted that the Devs confirmed what happened. 

[Sunchaser.9854]

Ironically Gw2 can actually have some quite beautiful reshader visuals, especially next to older mmorpgs like WoW. And the reshader can be free, but it does seem to maybe add on a bit of heat to the cpu especially in this summer weather. This person sells a crappy preset for a free software tool but it does make the game look nice. But to match BDO in graphics would require like a unreal engine rework and remaking from the ground up, while there are also cpu shortages and chip tensions over Taiwan and China where like 90% of the world's computer chips for all electronics are made that could shut down factories if a war happened. 

It can be quite a pretty game, but even on 16 gb ram i find that gw2 DRASTICALLY overuses the CPU to 100% and only 3 gb of my 16 gb ram while getting quite hot on summer heat even with a stand for ventilation and heat. Sure it might not be as pretty as bdo or 5 "races" of just Humans with animal ears FF14. But it still looks nice.

I think one of the running jokes with WoW was because it could always run on a potato, anyone could join it and that might have led to it's success especially in raiding where lag for rendering all 40 players doesn't really get noticed unless you have all visuals on. Meanwhile GW2 starts to lag on just 20-50+ people metas if you have character models on. But playing the game with generic blobs on lowest speeds up a lot of the stutters for better ability use (especially on specs where every second of reaction speed is important over autoing for 10% dps), but it's pretty anticlimatic to play a mmorpg where the game slows down unless you TURN other players off. If they did a rework, i'd like to see the game become more optimized to use less cpu and more ram honestly and optimized for both low end and high end. As well as seperate bloom from on or off. etc. 

[Swagger.1459]

1 hour ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

We haven't received a visual update in 10 years....

 

Every other MMO does visual updates usually every couple of years.

 

Everquest did it with Kunark and again with Luclin and every few expacs moving forward.

WoW has done it with multiple expansions.

BDO has done it.

SWTOR

....the list goes on.

 

In fact...I think GW2 is the only MMO I've ever seen run it's entire life without any visual update.

 

We are long overdue....and with such a large part of the community using reshaders etc....it just seems like with the steam influx it would be the perfect time for an updated look.

I’m not digging deeper than the most recent one I found…

 

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-april-2022/

[Labjax.2465]

1 minute ago, Swagger.1459 said:

I’m not digging deeper than the most recent one I found…

 

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-april-2022/

That's all well and good, but I think what people want is something they can noticeably recognize as a change. It's great they are improving stuff under the hood, but it's gotta translate to shine on the car exterior too or it means nothing to laypeople as visual updates are concerned. Texture quality updates are one contender for that. Another might be character models, tho that may be trickier as performance and artistic consistency goes. Easier to just update textures only at the highest setting, without impacting lower setting machines. Not sure that's as simple with models and models I think are more sensitive as far as maintaining a consistent look with the existing animation and such.

[lezbefriends.7516]

The main selling point of gw2 was that it’s sub-free. You think people are playing with good PCs?

[Raizel.1839]

1 hour ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Were you not around at the time?  There were many posts about the change. 

I just posted that the Devs confirmed what happened. 

I was around but my memory for this game's history is very bad, so I based my guess only by reading your first post, assuming people didn't notice. Sorry, my bad.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Raizel.1839

[Luclinraider.2317]

2 hours ago, Sunchaser.9854 said:

Ironically Gw2 can actually have some quite beautiful reshader visuals, especially next to older mmorpgs like WoW. And the reshader can be free, but it does seem to maybe add on a bit of heat to the cpu especially in this summer weather. This person sells a crappy preset for a free software tool but it does make the game look nice. But to match BDO in graphics would require like a unreal engine rework and remaking from the ground up, while there are also cpu shortages and chip tensions over Taiwan and China where like 90% of the world's computer chips for all electronics are made that could shut down factories if a war happened. 

It can be quite a pretty game, but even on 16 gb ram i find that gw2 DRASTICALLY overuses the CPU to 100% and only 3 gb of my 16 gb ram while getting quite hot on summer heat even with a stand for ventilation and heat. Sure it might not be as pretty as bdo or 5 "races" of just Humans with animal ears FF14. But it still looks nice.

I think one of the running jokes with WoW was because it could always run on a potato, anyone could join it and that might have led to it's success especially in raiding where lag for rendering all 40 players doesn't really get noticed unless you have all visuals on. Meanwhile GW2 starts to lag on just 20-50+ people metas if you have character models on. But playing the game with generic blobs on lowest speeds up a lot of the stutters for better ability use (especially on specs where every second of reaction speed is important over autoing for 10% dps), but it's pretty anticlimatic to play a mmorpg where the game slows down unless you TURN other players off. If they did a rework, i'd like to see the game become more optimized to use less cpu and more ram honestly and optimized for both low end and high end. As well as seperate bloom from on or off. etc. 

Has anyone actually paid the money for this guys reshade and compared it to the free ones?

 

Just wondering how it compares side by side.

[Endaris.1452]

It's great enough that DX11 is far enough to be the default option. Anet should first fix up their internal graphics to be more efficient, otherwise a visual update is just going to cause what various fancy backpacks etc. have been causing - lag, crashes etc.

[Sunchaser.9854]

Reshade is usually just free presets, i have no idea if the person actually did like any custom shader work or just sells his personal preset, but the software is still free to use and one standard thing some people do is just enable like the first 7 zones, and it makes a pretty game. but reshade tends to increase computer heat. So since im in a hot summer zone, i got beautiful visuals but tone it down with the 110F weather. 

I don't actually know but the basic idea is you can get the stuff for free and customize your reshade stuff, it's a free software that edits renderers, but just a fair heads up. since it DOES mess with renderer files, it will trigger a alert saying it will modify files. a very good thing to be cautious about. However i think this is just changing the game shaders and just has the antivirus label it a false alarm and disable it sometimes, but it's still good to be properly wary and only install it from the right source. 

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

That's all well and good, but I think what people want is something they can noticeably recognize as a change. It's great they are improving stuff under the hood, but it's gotta translate to shine on the car exterior too or it means nothing to laypeople as visual updates are concerned. Texture quality updates are one contender for that. Another might be character models, tho that may be trickier as performance and artistic consistency goes. Easier to just update textures only at the highest setting, without impacting lower setting machines. Not sure that's as simple with models and models I think are more sensitive as far as maintaining a consistent look with the existing animation and such.

The OP is suggesting this in time for Steam, as if nothing else is in the scheduled production queue already. I think that's ridiculous since they want to release on Steam by the end of the year. Clearly planning and producing a graphic update people will notice (and plenty of people notice when they do them anyway) is way beyond the scope of what they can do in six months.

[Labjax.2465]

10 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The OP is suggesting this in time for Steam, as if nothing else is in the scheduled production queue already. I think that's ridiculous since they want to release on Steam by the end of the year. Clearly planning and producing a graphic update people will notice (and plenty of people notice when they do them anyway) is way beyond the scope of what they can do in six months.

Oh yeah, in that way I agree, but at this point that's probably the case for most requests in relation to steam. I'm in favor of the spirit of the request, but I have no expectations on timetable, if it were to happen at all.

Edit: Like if such a thing were going to happen as part of steam release, they prob would have had to have been working on it for a long time now and have just not been saying thing. Which doesn't seem likely, since it'd be a great thing for marketing to call attention to if it was in progress.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Vayne.8563]

53 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Oh yeah, in that way I agree, but at this point that's probably the case for most requests in relation to steam. I'm in favor of the spirit of the request, but I have no expectations on timetable, if it were to happen at all.

Edit: Like if such a thing were going to happen as part of steam release, they prob would have had to have been working on it for a long time now and have just not been saying thing. Which doesn't seem likely, since it'd be a great thing for marketing to call attention to if it was in progress.

I don't see a major upgrade to the graphics across the board, but I do see upgrades to graphics piecemail. Models for the four world bosses in start zones were updated with the last update, as an example.  I would like to see the oldest stuff upgraded as we go along, for sure, but I doubt they're going to do a major upgrade of everything at once. It would be prohibitively costly in time and man hours.

[kharmin.7683]

6 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

 It would be prohibitively costly in time and man hours.

Many around here either fail or refuse to understand this point in so many QoL request threads.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

The graphics updates in GW2 are funny because they are map specific. You look very different in ascalon compared to grothmor.

I don't see many games work like that. I assume that means every map is functioning as it's own game engine. Which might explain all the odd copy and paste style errors we've seen over the years. Like how Jade bot control changes based on map.

[Randulf.7614]

It’s had at least one significant and noticeable upgrade during the latter part of S3 and especially Path of Fire where it was every noticeable and resulted in a min/rec spec increase. Heart of Thorns also saw upgrades and there have been stylistic changes in style and palette for EoD. So it has upgraded throughout the life of the game. 

GW2 hasn’t had anything else because it doesn’t need it, it still looks great. Sure it’s not new age gfx, but it certainly doesn’t need that and at cost of knock on performance issues.

What is does need is to stop piling on the light show of effects with such reckless glee year on year. It ruins the aesthetic and causes issues in bigger fights. That is a vastly bigger priority imo

[Randulf.7614]

4 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

The graphics updates in GW2 are funny because they are map specific. You look very different in ascalon compared to grothmor.

I don't see many games work like that. I assume that means every map is functioning as it's own game engine. Which might explain all the odd copy and paste style errors we've seen over the years. Like how Jade bot control changes based on map.

It’s not map specific, but based on when the maps were made. Draconis Mons onwards showed a distinct update which is very noticeable in PoF and ls4. Grothmar is the only Ascalonian map designed in the PoF upgrade. The core maps use the original graphics and have never been changed to match (far too much work for zero gain I suspect).

There is also some early assets use. For example Sunquua Fractal uses what became EoD assets and colour palette.

 

[Donari.5237]

17 hours ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

Has anyone actually paid the money for this guys reshade and compared it to the free ones?

 

Just wondering how it compares side by side.

If you read through the YouTube comments for a few minutes, you'll find a few people commenting on some issues with it (in rational ways, not angrily).

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

If you compare Queensdale to Seitung Province the difference is like night and day. Starting with around Heart of Thorns, the visuals have improved immensely, although even Dry Top and Silverwastes were a cut above Central Tyria. I don't know why players seem to think nothing has changed.

 

Should they overhaul the Central Tyria and older PvP and WvW maps to be more similar to other, more modern areas of the game? I think the answer to that question is yes.

 

Do we need more modern graphics elsewhere? I think no, though as we can see with ReShade and vkBasalt, some perceptual sharpening filters go along way to improving it, and the devs should probably integrate something like that into the main graphics postprocessing pipeline.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[JayMadIV.8721]

All I want is native controller support. Steam launch is the perfect time to do it, because of SteamDeck.

 

I currently use GW2 in Steam as a "non-steam game" in order to use my Controller. It works well. But native support would be much better.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

3 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

It’s not map specific, but based on when the maps were made. Draconis Mons onwards showed a distinct update which is very noticeable in PoF and ls4. Grothmar is the only Ascalonian map designed in the PoF upgrade. The core maps use the original graphics and have never been changed to match (far too much work for zero gain I suspect).

There is also some early assets use. For example Sunquua Fractal uses what became EoD assets and colour palette.

 

"It's not map specific, it just only affects certain maps"

 

Lol