Why so Much Asset Reuse Lately?

[Poormany.4507]

Since EoD, it has felt like there is so much blatant asset reuse. Echovald felt like they just took a bunch of Maguuma and Ascalon Ruins assets and copy-pasted them together. The Dragonvoid enemies are obviously reskins of old dragon minions.  Gyala had random Orr landscapes/plants pasted in when it made no sense in that environment. Now in SotO, it feels even worse, as many of the primary exapac features feel like reused old content. Skyscale is from LWS4, Rifts are pretty much copy-paste branded rift events but red instead of purple. At least some of the Kryptis are reskinned Forged. The map with alternate versions of old maps will probably just be old assets copy-pasted together. While I have no problem with creative asset reuse where the content feels distinct and organic, the way it's being done since EoD just feels very low budget and uninspired. Why is there so much blatant asset reuse lately, given that Anet's said they have more people working on GW2?

Edited August 6, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[Pifil.5193]

10 minutes ago, Poormany.4507 said:

Why is there so much blatant asset reuse lately, given that Anet's said they have more people working on GW2?

I can't find the quote but that was then and this is now so who knows how many are actually working on GW2 right now rather than on whatever their other project(s) are. 

SotO is coming out in just over two weeks and I can't believe how little they can be bothered promoting it, the studio's attention is definitely elsewhere.

[solzuul.6294]

2 hours ago, Pifil.5193 said:

I can't find the quote but that was then and this is now so who knows how many are actually working on GW2 right now rather than on whatever their other project(s) are. 

SotO is coming out in just over two weeks and I can't believe how little they can be bothered promoting it, the studio's attention is definitely elsewhere.

"Q: Do smaller expansions mean that there are fewer developers working on Guild Wars 2?

Nope, quite the contrary. In fact, thanks to the growth that Guild Wars 2 saw in 2022, we’re increasing the size of the Guild Wars 2 development team—largely in content and systems design. We’ve already hired a bunch of new folks since January, and we’ll be opening additional roles throughout the year."

Source: Spring 2023 Update.

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, solzuul.6294 said:

"Q: Do smaller expansions mean that there are fewer developers working on Guild Wars 2?

Nope, quite the contrary. In fact, thanks to the growth that Guild Wars 2 saw in 2022, we’re increasing the size of the Guild Wars 2 development team—largely in content and systems design. We’ve already hired a bunch of new folks since January, and we’ll be opening additional roles throughout the year."

Source: Spring 2023 Update.

If that's the case, definitely don't see it in SotO.

[Mic.1897]

All the money went towards bringing back Felicia Day for an xpac

[Ashantara.8731]

5 hours ago, Poormany.4507 said:

Since EoD, it has felt like there is so much blatant asset reuse. Echovald felt like they just took a bunch of Maguuma and Ascalon Ruins assets and copy-pasted them together. The Dragonvoid enemies are obviously reskins of old dragon minions.  Gyala had random Orr landscapes/plants pasted in when it made no sense in that environment. Now in SotO, it feels even worse, as many of the primary exapac features feel like reused old content. Skyscale is from LWS4, Rifts are pretty much copy-paste branded rift events but red instead of purple. At least some of the Kryptis are reskinned Forged. The map with alternate versions of old maps will probably just be old assets copy-pasted together. While I have no problem with creative asset reuse where the content feels distinct and organic, the way it's being done since EoD just feels very low budget and uninspired. Why is there so much blatant asset reuse lately, given that Anet's said they have more people working on GW2?

And this has what exactly to do with SotO to post it in this subforum, especially since the SotO previews didn't look anything like "reused assets"? 😉

[Poormany.4507]

1 hour ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

And this has what exactly to do with SotO to post it in this subforum, especially since the SotO previews didn't look anything like "reused assets"? 😉

Plenty of reused assets can be seen in the recent Kryptis preview (The Kryptis has the same model and is using the exact same moves and attacks as a Forged Forerunner, Rifts are pretty much Branded Rifts from LWS4) and map art (directly copy-pasted assets from PoF):

https://loadinginfo.staticwars.com/uploads/2023/07/01/1688256201-Map_4.jpg

Edited August 6, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[Batalix.2873]

3 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

All the money went towards bringing back Felicia Day for an xpac

And toward making the spotlight trailer about bringing back Felicia Day for an expac.

They will spend the last bit of budget on an in-game Felicia Day mini, and the paper for her residuals.

At the end of SotO, Zojja will be put in another coma for another 8 years until they can afford Felicia Day again.

[Pifil.5193]

5 hours ago, solzuul.6294 said:

"Q: Do smaller expansions mean that there are fewer developers working on Guild Wars 2?

Nope, quite the contrary. In fact, thanks to the growth that Guild Wars 2 saw in 2022, we’re increasing the size of the Guild Wars 2 development team—largely in content and systems design. We’ve already hired a bunch of new folks since January, and we’ll be opening additional roles throughout the year."

Source: Spring 2023 Update.

Thanks, that's more vague than I remember though. We're missing the context too, we don't know what size the gw2 team is, what its size is like compared to, say, the HoT into PoF era and so on. All we know is that they're expanding it. 

[Batalix.2873]

Just now, Pifil.5193 said:

Thanks, that's more vague than I remember though. We're missing the context too, we don't know what size the gw2 team is, what its size is like compared to, say, the HoT into PoF era and so on. All we know is that they're expanding it. 

Well yeah 10 people is more than 8 people. Note, we don't know what "a bunch" means, and that sentence is deliberately split off from the parts about GW2, so it could still be true even if most of the new hires were not for GW2. Meanwhile, they could have technically hired *one* new content and systems design team member and it would have counted as "expansion" of the teams.

I really wish it hadn't come to splitting hairs with ANet's words, but so much of their press for years has been this mealymouthed veneer hiding massive developmental problems. I don't trust anything they say anymore and judge them purely by their product, and how fairly that aligns with the expectations they are creating.

[Pifil.5193]

The

7 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Well yeah 10 people is more than 8 people. Note, we don't know what "a bunch" means, and that sentence is deliberately split off from the parts about GW2, so it could still be true even if most of the new hires were not for GW2. Meanwhile, they could have technically hired *one* new content and systems design team member and it would have counted as "expansion" of the teams.

I really wish it hadn't come to splitting hairs with ANet's words, but so much of their press for years has been this mealymouthed veneer hiding massive developmental problems. I don't trust anything they say anymore and judge them purely by their product, and how fairly that aligns with the expectations they are creating.

I'm the same way, what they've delivered in the past few years is pretty underwhelming. I hope they get it together and SotO amazes me with it's quality and interesting gameplay but I can't see it. I was looking back on the GW2 YouTube channel at the videos they produced before the launch of HoT or PoF or even EoD. So much effort went into promoting those, with SotO it's just missing. I feel like they're not that pushed about it.

[Parasite.5389]

it's fairly common for a live service game to reuse game assets, models, and rigs.
If they were to make new custom model files for everything then the game updates would become bloated, taking longer and longer to download each update; and for an online game, faster downloads means more players

[Kozumi.5816]

Asset re-use is good and every MMO developer should do it constantly. I don't need to fight a completely new mob with completely new animations every time I fight an enemy.

It makes content take longer to make just for a "prettier" factor - pointless. Use the same models/animations, palette swap it, and add new mechanics/affixes. Change the gameplay, which is cheap, not the animation/art, which is expensive and time consuming.

In conclusion, stop asking for slower content releases in a game by a company that historically(10 years) has been extremely slow at releasing content at a proper speed.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Kozumi.5816

[Randulf.7614]

Assets are designed for reuse. It’s a cost effective solution for longing running games like mmos and are extremely common. New assets take considerable time and add to costs and prob patch sizes, for not a great deal of gain. After 11 years, it should be expected that asset rescue from an extensive library should be occurring.

Its happening more since HoT because deliberately designed a range of assets to be reused, although HoT reused plenty itself

Asset reuse is simply a normal thing and only looks like a problem when a game lives as long as this one had. This is not exactly a AAA title either with a matching budget

[Poormany.4507]

4 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Assets are designed for reuse. It’s a cost effective solution for longing running games like mmos and are extremely common. New assets take considerable time and add to costs and prob patch sizes, for not a great deal of gain. After 11 years, it should be expected that asset rescue from an extensive library should be occurring.

Its happening more since HoT because deliberately designed a range of assets to be reused, although HoT reused plenty itself

Asset reuse is simply a normal thing and only looks like a problem when a game lives as long as this one had. This is not exactly a AAA title either with a matching budget

The difference is that in HoT and PoF, the asset reuse was much more subtle and better integrated into the game. I barely noticed very little, if any, in either expac, or even up through LWS4/early IBS. Then it just suddenly became extremely blatant with different colored enemies and 2012 destroyers in IBS (I get it, it was mostly made during/right after Covid and right before the unexpected EoD expac).

Then there was the reskinned Dragonvoid enemies and copy-pasted Echovald Wilds landscapes in EoD, which were some of the weakest parts of the expac imo. Gyala did not feel that unique either and had a ton of copy-pasted content within itself. Neither of these had Covid or desperately rushed expacs right afterwards to justify their significant reuse of assets.

SotO just feels like 1/3 of the content is copy-pasted and reskinned old content from the previews we've seen so far, which should be far from the case, especially for what they're selling as an expac with supposedly more devs working on.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[Dawdler.8521]

90% of Anets time is spent working on fixing the invisible cornerstone on 2 out of the 3 stages of the DBL wall upgrades.

In the meantime you cant expect them to give you roughly 8 or so years so far of expansions and PvE content in the remaining 10% time without taking shortcuts, can you?

Edited August 8, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Randulf.7614]

4 hours ago, Poormany.4507 said:

The difference is that in HoT and PoF, the asset reuse was much more subtle and better integrated into the game. I barely noticed very little, if any, in either expac, or even up through LWS4/early IBS. Then it just suddenly became extremely blatant with different colored enemies and 2012 destroyers in IBS (I get it, it was mostly made during/right after Covid and right before the unexpected EoD expac).

Then there was the reskinned Dragonvoid enemies and copy-pasted Echovald Wilds landscapes in EoD, which were some of the weakest parts of the expac imo. Gyala did not feel that unique either and had a ton of copy-pasted content within itself. Neither of these had Covid or desperately rushed expacs right afterwards to justify their significant reuse of assets.

SotO just feels like 1/3 of the content is copy-pasted and reskinned old content from the previews we've seen so far, which should be far from the case, especially for what they're selling as an expac with supposedly more devs working on.

Impossible to review the assets of an expansion until they are out. In any case, it is expected and standard for a dlc at this stage of a games life to be doing this. To expect many new assets for a small dlc in an ageing mmo towards the end of its lifespan (maybe) is an expectation that should be adjusted. It’s clear not everything is being shown as well, so we can’t say new mobs aren't coming at this stage.

There are not more devs working on the game, but not necs the expac—or at least this one. Remember they did say they downsized the expac to work on other things. That means system overhauls, other game modes etc. They are also apparently focused on something else as well.

[Danikat.8537]

I was coming here to ask if I'm the only one who doesn't think this is a big deal, and I'm glad that's not the case. I do like some enemy variety, I enjoy areas like HoT where different groups need different tactics and part of the challenge is learning how to deal with each one, but even for players like me it's a balancing act because if every single enemy is completely unique it's difficult to remember them all (especially in a game this big) and can end up being tedious to figure out each time. Although if the similarity is that they use the same underlying skeleton and so have the same number and placement of limbs and some similar movements but everything else is different then I don't think it's worth the trouble to compare them. (Also there's other people who get angry if they can't use the same 'rotation' of skills on everything.) As other people have mentioned it also creates unnecessary work for the developers if they have to start from scratch each time.

Also it's not unrealistic. I was having a semi-serious conversation yesterday about whether horses are basically scaled up dogs with some cosmetic changes. (And I mean real-life dogs and horses, not video game ones.) The conclusion we came to is many dogs probably do think horses are basically giant dogs, but many horses think dogs are weirder than small horses, and for humans it varies but with some dogs and some horses there's not much difference. 😄

Also the rifts being like the branded rifts from Season 4 might be intentional. There's been complaints previously about Anet dumping a whole load of new lore into the game with no foreshadowing, which apparently shows they don't care about the lore, story or continuity and that new writers have no understanding of what came before. This time they've made a point of telling us they're not doing that and we have seen some kryptids before and since we know they come from the Mists previous breaches from the Mists are a likely place to have seen them.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I didn't really notice the asset reuse so much in Eod.

[Gibson.4036]

Asset reuse isn’t the problem. The fact that it is becoming increasingly obvious is.

It’s one thing to pull something off the digital shelf and tweak it because it fits new parts of the game. It’s another thing when the animations and models don’t seem to fit, and the metaphorical seams become glaringly obvious.

[Therac.6431]

The worst fact is they refusing new elite specs but new weapons incoming for each class... looks like a pirate version of elites

[Ashantara.8731]

On 8/6/2023 at 11:48 PM, Poormany.4507 said:

and map art (directly copy-pasted assets from PoF):

https://loadinginfo.staticwars.com/uploads/2023/07/01/1688256201-Map_4.jpg

That's because we will revisit PoF territory (and other known locations) in SotO.

[Astralporing.1957]

Lack of resources leads to shortcuts being taken.

[Kozumi.5816]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Lack of resources leads to shortcuts being taken.

1. Reports highest player numbers since Vanilla
2. Invests less into the game.

REALLY wants to be EXACTLY like FFXIV.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Kozumi.5816

[Kalavier.1097]

On 8/8/2023 at 5:56 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

Also the rifts being like the branded rifts from Season 4 might be intentional. There's been complaints previously about Anet dumping a whole load of new lore into the game with no foreshadowing, which apparently shows they don't care about the lore, story or continuity and that new writers have no understanding of what came before. This time they've made a point of telling us they're not doing that and we have seen some kryptids before and since we know they come from the Mists previous breaches from the Mists are a likely place to have seen them.

I've theorized that the Branded riftstalkers (explicitly creatures not native to Tyria at all, and were branded in the mists by Kralkatorrik) may be related to the Kryptis, if not actually Kryptis creatures then used by Kralk to creature the rifts.

15 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

1. Reports highest player numbers since Vanilla
2. Invests less into the game.

REALLY wants to be EXACTLY like FFXIV.

Oh do please provide the source you totally have of investing less into the game that isn't just speculation or a few players being unhappy. Hard evidence.