Revert the post processing change -NOW- [Merged]

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

1 hour ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

Will this fix the green/red/blue outlines around small bodies of water that started to happen on the November balance patch? Also I was doing the long JP in lions arch and noticed that the white structures near the water were quite washed out and bright. This was yesterday night. I have a 3070 TI Founders Edition. Someone else who was playing with me that day was also complaining about the same thing and they also have a 3070.

I am not sure if the change is live, but what I mentioned here seems to be fixed now 😄.

[zealex.9410]

Based and post processed.

[Nazgum.4913]

After transition to DX11, can DX9 still remain an option?  Even if more hidden like just through the command line options

 

Playing on an old laptop where the game crashes on DX11, maybe the graphics card doesnt support it, but game runs well enough to still enjoy it on DX9.

[Smoky.5348]

1 hour ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

Will this fix the green/red/blue outlines around small bodies of water that started to happen on the November balance patch? Also I was doing the long JP in lions arch and noticed that the white structures near the water were quite washed out and bright. This was yesterday night. I have a 3070 TI Founders Edition. Someone else who was playing with me that day was also complaining about the same thing and they also have a 3070.

I've been seeing the same oddities and I have a GTX 1070. It only seems to happen on non-core Tyria maps, as far as l've noticed.

 

3 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I'm sorry that's happening. Hang in there a little longer--as Josh noted in his post above, we have a hotfix going out that should release later today. 

While y'all are at it, please look into making as many visual effects as possible into a toggleable in a custom section. The post-processing option alone adds in a lot of stuff and there are many reasons people would want to disable or tweak any number of visual settings. In particular, l want to get rid of that fresnel rim-lighting the High option applies.

[The Real Lacho.7652]

I personally like the idea of adding color tint on the low setting. I hate the oversaturated bloom effect on everything (too much blinding light and poor definition) and the character outlines of medium and high post-processing, I find it very unclean so I use the low setting. But I am also conflicted with missing color tint on the low setting because it adds to the different area's ambience, making them more unique and express the vision of the designers. Now that's just personal opinion, I still prefer better definition and clean graphics so I compromise.

[urieldhynne.2743]

4 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

we’re in the process of finalizing our engine upgrade to DirectX11. Completing that upgrade is going to open the door to new DX11 rendering features that will allow us to improve the graphical fidelity and performance of the game

 

Please! Fix FreeSync! Never worked on GW2.

[bthomas.3605]

Still crashing horribly post hotfix.

Edit: Nevermind, patch hadn’t been deployed yet. It’s fine now.

Edited December 14, 2022 by bthomas.3605

[otro falton.4710]

I went to this forum planing to make myself get banned because my thoughts on this change.

 

I'm glad that some people also think this is a bad change.

I don't think it is just bad though. This vomit inducing excuse of a badly misplaced developer time almost convinced myself to ragequit the game (like the last straw).

Ever since i turned that off like on HoT era, I have never played with that on again, it looks awful, even worst for reaper.

 

Rule of thumb:

If it is not broken don't fix it.

Extra:

Don't remove people's choice to do something or not/turn on or off on a whim.

[Baird.1380]

5 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

 

Thank you! Hotfix working fine

[Mae.1729]

3 hours ago, Nazgum.4913 said:

After transition to DX11, can DX9 still remain an option?  Even if more hidden like just through the command line options

 

Playing on an old laptop where the game crashes on DX11, maybe the graphics card doesnt support it, but game runs well enough to still enjoy it on DX9.

Similar issue here. That part of Grouch's statement also worried me. I'm playing on a super energy efficient system, where dx9 runs very well. First when dx11 came up it was extremely bugged, then it got fixed, ran prettier but not as super smooth as dx9 does, and then since a couple of months dx11 became simply unplayable because some parts of then UI is are simply missing, the texts are transparent and it's super shaky.

Since there is no way I gonna swap to a pc which uses more energy during this time of exploding energy costs I really hope they will keep the dx9 option in.

[Zebulous.2934]

I wonder if this was in response to the forum thread that wanted Musou black added to the game?
On the other hand, there have always been complaints about people stacking many visual infusions.
Perhaps someone wanted to show the players just how dark a black dye can look, while punishing infusion stacking. It is a pity about the snow blindness though.

[Silent.6137]

45 minutes ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

I wonder if this was in response to the forum thread that wanted Musou black added to the game?

Seriously? You think they'll just start coding and inserting it into the update within a couple of days? Let's burn the midnight oil and totally work on that. Who needs to test it, right?

[Taclism.2406]

8 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

As we continue to work on improving the game's graphical fidelity, we want to give players as much control as we can over their graphics settings, whether it's for aesthetic, performance, or accessibility reasons

👀 am I high on copium or does that include the ability to turn off infusions vfx? 

[Zebulous.2934]

4 minutes ago, Silent.6137 said:

Seriously? You think they'll just start coding and inserting it into the update within a couple of days? Let's burn the midnight oil and totally work on that. Who needs to test it, right?

No, not seriously. 
Though if someone "accidentally" forgot to re-apply proper color balancing for that reason, I would have been amused.  "here you go friend, now all black is Musou black!"  and "Oh I guess we 'forgot' to turn on the regular color balancing, we will get that hotfix out asap!"

[Andur.9275]

8 hours ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

Will this fix the green/red/blue outlines around small bodies of water that started to happen on the November balance patch? Someone else who was playing with me that day was also complaining about the same thing and they also have a 3070.

I can confirm having outlined edges of water since the November patch. I'm using a 3070 as well (with the newest stable drivers).

In general I'd love to have the outlines separated from post processing and I hope this will be addressed in a future update. 😊

[EagleDelta.4726]

12 hours ago, Mae.1729 said:

Similar issue here. That part of Grouch's statement also worried me. I'm playing on a super energy efficient system, where dx9 runs very well. First when dx11 came up it was extremely bugged, then it got fixed, ran prettier but not as super smooth as dx9 does, and then since a couple of months dx11 became simply unplayable because some parts of then UI is are simply missing, the texts are transparent and it's super shaky.

Since there is no way I gonna swap to a pc which uses more energy during this time of exploding energy costs I really hope they will keep the dx9 option in.

I imagine they will remove the option at some point. DX9 is 20 years old, which in "tech years" is about 90-100+ years old. It's likely that nothing on your computer, except DX9 games, is running software that old (that hasn't been modernized in some way). Adding that some newer video card drivers are removing support for DX9 entirely (they maintain compatibility by using tools like DXVK, which while it can be used with Windows, was designed for converting DX9/10/11 calls to Vulkan on Linux).

[mythical.6315]

4 hours ago, EagleDelta.4726 said:

I imagine they will remove the option at some point. DX9 is 20 years old, which in "tech years" is about 90-100+ years old. It's likely that nothing on your computer, except DX9 games, is running software that old (that hasn't been modernized in some way). Adding that some newer video card drivers are removing support for DX9 entirely (they maintain compatibility by using tools like DXVK, which while it can be used with Windows, was designed for converting DX9/10/11 calls to Vulkan on Linux).

It’ll probably be better for them to keep it until DX11 becomes more stable. 

[Rogue.8235]

22 hours ago, otro falton.4710 said:

If it is not broken don't fix it.

That's what normal people say.  Engineers say:

"If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features."

paraphrasing Scott Adams

 

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

17 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

That's what normal people say.  Engineers say:

"If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features."

paraphrasing Scott Adams

 

XD. Haha.

If I might add, the general mantra of software developers is "if it isn't broken don't fix it." Also something software developers often joke about or say "it's not a bug, it's a feature." In my personal opinion regressions are scary, especially if they reach production.

Personally I am really happy that ANET is taking care and striving towards improving the live experience for all of us. I wonder what the rolled back feature is actually supposed to look like in the end.

[DarcShriek.5829]

I don't notice much of a difference.  If I hadn't been told, I wouldn't have realized.

[Rogue.8235]

32 minutes ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

XD. Haha.

If I might add, the general mantra of software developers is "if it isn't broken don't fix it." Also something software developers often joke about or say "it's not a bug, it's a feature." In my personal opinion regressions are scary, especially if they reach production.

Personally I am really happy that ANET is taking care and striving towards improving the live experience for all of us. I wonder what the rolled back feature is actually supposed to look like in the end.

 

To add further to software engineers, my brother is a software engineer.  Apparently, there is only one action that ever needs to be taken to fix stuff: Turn it off, turn it back on.  If it didn't work, try turning it off, then turn it back on again.  Still not working?  Okay, try ....

you get the idea.

 

So I guess this is my question for the ArenaNet Developers:

Did you guys try turning it off then turning it back on?

 

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

15 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

To add further to software engineers, my brother is a software engineer.  Apparently, there is only one action that ever needs to be taken to fix stuff: Turn it off, turn it back on.  If it didn't work, try turning it off, then turn it back on again.  Still not working?  Okay, try ....

you get the idea.

 

So I guess this is my question for the ArenaNet Developers:

Did you guys try turning it off then turning it back on?

 

I used to say stuff like this when I worked IT support way before what I do now 😅. If you've ever seen the 'IT Crowd' it's a common phrase. Without derailing the convo I just want to say it's a very funny show if you are into tech imo.

[EagleDelta.4726]

14 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

To add further to software engineers, my brother is a software engineer.  Apparently, there is only one action that ever needs to be taken to fix stuff: Turn it off, turn it back on.  If it didn't work, try turning it off, then turn it back on again.  Still not working?  Okay, try ....

you get the idea.

 

So I guess this is my question for the ArenaNet Developers:

Did you guys try turning it off then turning it back on?

 

 

I am also a Software Engineer and most of the software I work on can't just be "Turn it off, turn it back on." Additionally, the reality is on the backend, we aren't looking for the "next new thing" most of the time. In most cases, it comes down to "Customers have requested X problem be fixed, so we will task you with finding the solution." 

That is exactly part of the problem here. Players have complained for years about performance and the upgrading the engine from a 20-year old GFX API to a newer one like DX11, DX12, or Vulkan would help. ANet finally does that, but it has caveats/requirements for being able to complete that work.

There are realities that go beyond just ANET.

 

1. Software companies are bound by Hardware companies' decisions. If GFX vendors are starting to remove or simply not include DX9 support, then it's probably better for games to start migrating away if they are still in development. Sure, DXVK works, but it wasn't designed for Windows.
2. Older software always has very real security and stability risks. Many of these are not usually visible to a user of the software and tend to HAVE to be fixed. Sometimes, especially in older software (like games using a 20-year old GFX API), the likelihood of those fixes breaking something goes up dramatically. It's also why in many newer tech companies, the design is to move much faster, with smaller changes, "fail fast", and so many other simple techniques. To try and balance the need for staying ahead of bugs and vulnerabilities while limiting impact of new bugs and issues in the process.
3. They are also bound by any vendor they use for their tooling. For example, if Microsoft takes their IIS product to End of Life, then ANET would eventually have to replace it with something else, like NGINX or Apache2. That doesn't just apply to corporation-maintained software either, Open Source projects regularly take versions of their software to End of Life and end support for anything running on it. All of these come in the form of what we call "Risk" and it has to be managed or risk something really bad happening to the company or to the customer.

 

I do understand the tongue-in-cheek mention of "Turn it off and back on again", but I'll also note that generally works best for issues related to Operating System problems that mess with the ability to launch/run/manage running applications. Rarely does "Turn it off and back on again" work for my apps, dev environment, services, etc. It's usually a core problem with something interacting with the OS or with the system's hardware (or some combination of both), be it in "User Space" or at the Kernel level (not going to get into my rant about how bad and dangerous Kernel-level anti-cheat is).

My point is that most Software Engineers I've worked with over the last 15 years have not tried moving to new things just for the sake of moving or chasing something "shiny", but to solve very real problems. And most of the time that means tradeoffs that will make some users happy and others really angry.
 

13 hours ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

I used to say stuff like this when I worked IT support way before what I do now 😅. If you've ever seen the 'IT Crowd' it's a common phrase. Without derailing the convo I just want to say it's a very funny show if you are into tech imo.

IT Crowd is a hilarious show!

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

1 hour ago, EagleDelta.4726 said:

 

I am also a Software Engineer and most of the software I work on can't just be "Turn it off, turn it back on." Additionally, the reality is on the backend, we aren't looking for the "next new thing" most of the time. In most cases, it comes down to "Customers have requested X problem be fixed, so we will task you with finding the solution." 

That is exactly part of the problem here. Players have complained for years about performance and the upgrading the engine from a 20-year old GFX API to a newer one like DX11, DX12, or Vulkan would help. ANet finally does that, but it has caveats/requirements for being able to complete that work.

There are realities that go beyond just ANET.

 

1. Software companies are bound by Hardware companies' decisions. If GFX vendors are starting to remove or simply not include DX9 support, then it's probably better for games to start migrating away if they are still in development. Sure, DXVK works, but it wasn't designed for Windows.
2. Older software always has very real security and stability risks. Many of these are not usually visible to a user of the software and tend to HAVE to be fixed. Sometimes, especially in older software (like games using a 20-year old GFX API), the likelihood of those fixes breaking something goes up dramatically. It's also why in many newer tech companies, the design is to move much faster, with smaller changes, "fail fast", and so many other simple techniques. To try and balance the need for staying ahead of bugs and vulnerabilities while limiting impact of new bugs and issues in the process.
3. They are also bound by any vendor they use for their tooling. For example, if Microsoft takes their IIS product to End of Life, then ANET would eventually have to replace it with something else, like NGINX or Apache2. That doesn't just apply to corporation-maintained software either, Open Source projects regularly take versions of their software to End of Life and end support for anything running on it. All of these come in the form of what we call "Risk" and it has to be managed or risk something really bad happening to the company or to the customer.

 

I do understand the tongue-in-cheek mention of "Turn it off and back on again", but I'll also note that generally works best for issues related to Operating System problems that mess with the ability to launch/run/manage running applications. Rarely does "Turn it off and back on again" work for my apps, dev environment, services, etc. It's usually a core problem with something interacting with the OS or with the system's hardware (or some combination of both), be it in "User Space" or at the Kernel level (not going to get into my rant about how bad and dangerous Kernel-level anti-cheat is).

My point is that most Software Engineers I've worked with over the last 15 years have not tried moving to new things just for the sake of moving or chasing something "shiny", but to solve very real problems. And most of the time that means tradeoffs that will make some users happy and others really angry.
 

IT Crowd is a hilarious show!

Haha, yes it is.

Well worded. Also I was going to type something like this, but I resisted XD. That's why I referenced saying it in my previous IT support experience. I have not said anything similar for my DevOps / Software Developer jobs I have had since then....well, unless it's a windows pc.

Edited December 15, 2022 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Vegeta.2563]

On 12/13/2022 at 3:52 PM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Hi all,

Quick update. We're working on a hotfix now that will revert the postprocessing changes and return things to how they functioned prior to today's update. This should release later today.

Some added context on how today’s change came to be. As I mentioned in my earlier post, we’re in the process of finalizing our engine upgrade to DirectX11. Completing that upgrade is going to open the door to new DX11 rendering features that will allow us to improve the graphical fidelity and performance of the game.

In preparation for that transition and as part of our overall graphics upgrade initiative, today's change enabled color grading by default, which allows our environment artists to leverage color look-up tables to create distinct moods for different environments. This will ensure that art quality across different graphics settings profiles is more consistent with our standards. However, color grading isn't the main culprit behind the issues that have been raised today—it's because of graphics features and effects like light bloom that are being forced on for all players in the revised postprocessing settings.

When we set out to make these changes, we recognized that we'd need to give players control over settings like light bloom by separating it out from postprocessing. That change didn't make it into today's build, so we're reverting the color grading and postprocessing changes and will ship them all together once that is ready.

We recognize that our players have a wide variety of hardware configurations and graphics preferences. As we continue to work on improving the game's graphical fidelity, we want to give players as much control as we can over their graphics settings, whether it's for aesthetic, performance, or accessibility reasons.

Thank you for your patience today,

Josh Davis
Game Director
 

Still wondering when these updated postprocessing options are coming.  Being able to turn on postprocessing, but shut off bloom would be a huge impact.  Especially special effects like Necromancer Shade or Aviator mode (the brown screen), or like how death screen turns it black and white.. being able to shut those off individually would be huge, while enjoying the vivid colors you get from postprocessing.