Should Main Characters in Guild Wars 2 Receive a Complete Texture and Polygon QA Revamp?

[Westenev.5289]

I have a lot of concerns about the game, but my characters polygon limit isn't one of them. My character looks fine.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

Alot of people want fancy graphics; nothing wrong with that.

But not recommended atm; the current stuff still needs work concerning lagg reduction in WVW and Big scale meta's, newer maps; and the thing their working with doesn't leave much room for next-gen stuff.

Those pretty pixels still need to be rendered by your pc realtime. Times this with higher polygon count for X number of other players entering your scene. If your rig had trouble handling  the old stuff then now it will be  even worse with updated gfx's. In an ARPG its kinda keen to have fluidity(your dependent on own reaction time+ input speed) for great mechanical gameplay.

Instead of starting a complete overhaul on current textures/meshes/polygons; they should focus on optimizing/polishing the existing frameworks of whats already there in the 1st place. Such next-gen things would be implemented in GW3 by default(if they ever decide to release that). They do gfx tweaks/overhauls in the background, but their just not apparent to the majority (only keen players who kept track of that would know and report on it)

Here's a thought thou... they should look into adding a form of Raytracing/realistic lighting solutions if thats possible with their custom engine. (probably not great compared to the stuff in UE5 lumen, nanite)

But atleast something for the people with Hardware capable rigs that really want a pretty picture; it would "beautify" everything without changing textures/meshes etc.

Personally i dont really pay attention to pretty gfx (camera always maxed zoomed out, so tiny i dont even see the textures/polygon details )

 

There is only 1 way to achieve maximum framerates, smooth gameplay, Optimized polygon count/meshes, and high res 8 bit textures, GOTY music+sfx.

Guildwars 2 must become....  Super Adventure Box 2.

There, i solved everyone's problems  o7

Edited June 27 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

On 6/3/2024 at 10:49 AM, frazazel.7501 said:

One problem I foresee is that some players will complain that Anet has changed what their character looks like without their consent. Even if it's an overall upgrade, it will (in some cases) change how a character feels.

They may complain but the EULA agreed to states that ANet owns  everything on your account and lease it out to you.

On 6/3/2024 at 10:50 AM, kharmin.7683 said:

I'd rather Anet spend their resources elsewhere.

Wasn't the whole team restructuring for the current expansions to allow them to cover all aspects of the game?   There wouldn't be any wasted resources here as this is something that ANet's new Feature Team could pick up on and fix up.
-
On topic,
Personally, I wouldn't mind higher res character textures.  Some norn tattoos, charr fur patterns, asura skin patterns, the glow on Sylvari and some textures on human could be updated for them to look less muddy.

[frazazel.7501]

28 minutes ago, Epsilon Indi.2031 said:

They may complain but the EULA agreed to states that ANet owns  everything on your account and lease it out to you.

Sure, so players would have no legal recourse. But that doesn't change that they would complain, and if Anet didn't do anything about it, they would have an upset playerbase. That's a headache that they'd probably rather not deal with.

[Gehenna.3625]

I would like it but not necessarily for consistency and immersion. I mean sure they're fine reasons but it's Fashion Wars 2 after all. So that's where it's at for me; particularly Norn characters basically look like stretched out humans. Also the armor/outfits look like they're basically just stretched out compared to putting them on human characters, so that's a thing I would like them to address.

But I'm not sure if they can just upgrade player characters. I would imagine that they share building blocks with NPCs and it's not necessarily a priority for me.

[Rauderi.8706]

I can hope to see a graphical update, since the game is so old, but it also still kinda holds up. If anything, I'd just like to see some retextures on norn/human chests because they look so weird, and now we're showing some more skin, lol.

[Astralporing.1957]

14 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

But not recommended atm; the current stuff still needs work concerning lagg reduction in WVW and Big scale meta's, newer maps; and the thing their working with doesn't leave much room for next-gen stuff.

I'm quite sure most of the work is very specialized, and is would not be done by people working on those other things anyway.

14 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

Those pretty pixels still need to be rendered by your pc realtime. Times this with higher polygon count for X number of other players entering your scene. If your rig had trouble handling  the old stuff then now it will be  even worse with updated gfx's. In an ARPG its kinda keen to have fluidity(your dependent on own reaction time+ input speed) for great mechanical gameplay.

As we've heard from devs more than once, the slowdowns are mostly caused by bottlenecks outside of the rendering thread. Besides, there's nothing preventing them as including it as just another graphics level settings. Or limit it to the highest graphic settings - after all, if someone was already on hardware old enough to have trouble with handling the old stuff, they likely weren't running highest settings anyway.

14 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

Instead of starting a complete overhaul on current textures/meshes/polygons; they should focus on optimizing/polishing the existing frameworks of whats already there in the 1st place. Such next-gen things would be implemented in GW3 by default(if they ever decide to release that). They do gfx tweaks/overhauls in the background, but their just not apparent to the majority (only keen players who kept track of that would know and report on it)

That's the best thing: there's no need for complete overhaul. It can be done slowly and gradually over time, piece after piece, area after area. And, again, it would be mostly separate from  "polishing the framework" and those gfx tweaks/overhauls. And as for GW3, i'd prefer they wouldn't work on it at all, so...

14 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

Here's a thought thou... they should look into adding a form of Raytracing/realistic lighting solutions if thats possible with their custom engine. (probably not great compared to the stuff in UE5 lumen, nanite)

But atleast something for the people with Hardware capable rigs that really want a pretty picture; it would "beautify" everything without changing textures/meshes etc.

That would do nothing about what we're talking about. Also, again, there's nothing preventing them from working on both (as, like i said already, texture/mesh overhaul would likely be done by different people anyway).

14 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

Personally i dont really pay attention to pretty gfx (camera always maxed zoomed out, so tiny i dont even see the textures/polygon details )

You don't, but thre are players that put a lot more emphasis on graphics quality. Also, veterans might be used to how this game looked like for the last 11 years, but newer players would not have their opinions affected by nostalgia factor.

Granted, this probably would not have as much of an impact as some claim, but it still would have an impact.

[Obnoxa.6702]

Nope - it's a waste of resources that are already reasonably thin and a complete money-sink since it wont bring in enough new players to justify the budget to make a team for it.
 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

On 6/27/2024 at 12:55 PM, frazazel.7501 said:

Sure, so players would have no legal recourse. But that doesn't change that they would complain, and if Anet didn't do anything about it, they would have an upset playerbase. That's a headache that they'd probably rather not deal with.

I really hate this line of argument.
"Players would complain / be upset"
Oh well? Players will be upset over the most innocuous of things.  This should never be the sole reason something is never done.

7 hours ago, Obnoxa.6702 said:

Nope - it's a waste of resources that are already reasonably thin and a complete money-sink since it wont bring in enough new players to justify the budget to make a team for it.
 

They already have a team dedicated to quality of life updates.  https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-our-latest-quality-of-life-feature-cosmetic-inspection/
Directly from the blog post:

Quote

Life Gets Better

The cosmetic inspection feature is the latest quality-of-life improvement from the Guild Wars 2 Live Team. Their mandate over the past few years has been to address player problems and introduce improvements to areas of the game, such as the new-player experience, crafting, and group encounters. Here are some of their accomplishments in service of that goal:

• The Legendary Armory
• The Wizard’s Vault
• Reintroduction of Living World Season 1
• New and refreshed Bonus Week events
• Allied player visual-effect toggle
• Granular postprocessing options
• Character selection-screen background customization
• Progress bars for meta-achievements
• Guild hall game-mode options
• Filtering options in the Trading Post for skins you have unlocked
• Recent rework of gobbler items

Sometimes our work on this front is less obvious or impacts the community in a roundabout way—like the work we’re doing to improve our development pipeline and tools and the work we’re doing to improve the technology that underlies Guild Wars 2, such as our engine.

Our commitment to not just maintaining but enhancing Guild Wars 2 is rooted in our belief that for a game to remain vibrant and engaging, it must evolve. The shift to DirectX11 was a milestone that marked just the beginning of our journey toward technological enhancement. This move was not simply about keeping up with the times; it was a declaration of our dedication to providing our players with an experience that continuously improves.

 

[b k.1648]

On 6/28/2024 at 3:25 AM, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

Those pretty pixels still need to be rendered by your pc realtime. Times this with higher polygon count for X number of other players entering your scene. If your rig had trouble handling  the old stuff then now it will be  even worse with updated gfx's.

That's what LoD is for. You can use lower-detail meshes and textures for other characters until you get close to see the difference (or not at all, if you choose).

To have the player's own character rendering at highest detail all the time is not a significant hardware burden.

[Zok.4956]

On 6/3/2024 at 4:42 PM, Rethex.3248 said:

I believe that a complete texture and polygon QA revamp for the main characters is essential to maintain the game's visual consistency and appeal.

About 8-10 years ago, an Anet community manager once said that there were internal discussions about replacing the not so good character model with a better character model, and that this was already on a to-do list.  Because with the old character model, the many clipping errors in clothing etc. could not be corrected - including the errors that caused certain clothing items to stick out strangely. However, no progress was made on this topic. But nothing was said about the reasons why it was not progressing.

If the artistic appeal of the wardrobe/skins and the look and feel are retained and only enhanced, and as a result many stupid errors, such as clipping errors, can finally be fixed, I would be in favor of it. And from then on, new skins could then use all the features of the new character model in better quality.

I think it would be good for the game and Anet could then sell more skins based on a better character model thanks to better skins. So it could also be financially worthwhile for Anet.

[Zok.4956]

On 6/27/2024 at 7:55 PM, frazazel.7501 said:

But that doesn't change that they would complain, and if Anet didn't do anything about it, they would have an upset playerbase. That's a headache that they'd probably rather not deal with.

Of course, it is always wise for a company not to alienate a large portion of its customers. However, if you make a change well and to the benefit of (most) customers, you as a company will receive overwhelming approval - even if it is normal that not all customers/players will like it.

[Zok.4956]

On 6/27/2024 at 2:05 PM, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

Veterans do not want changes, because they are in a comfortable spot. Changes are scary.

That is a prejudice. I think this is unnecessary and detrimental to a reasonable discussion.

[Obnoxa.6702]

49 minutes ago, Epsilon Indi.2031 said:

They already have a team dedicated to quality of life updates.  https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-our-latest-quality-of-life-feature-cosmetic-inspection/
Directly from the blog post:

Be that as it may, it took 12 years to get a box to uncheck our water breather visual - if I were you, I'd take a really, really big breath in before you start holding it for entire character models.

[Sweetbread.3678]

As long as it's optional I don't see the harm, but it should definitely wait until after they're finished with the rest of the system/graphical updates to help with the optimization and visual clutter issues they've been working on. Like the absolute last thing I can think of that this game needs right now is everyone in a 50+ man meta having twice the polygons on their model.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

10 hours ago, Obnoxa.6702 said:

Be that as it may, it took 12 years to get a box to uncheck our water breather visual - if I were you, I'd take a really, really big breath in before you start holding it for entire character models.

Dunno why I'd need to do that.
They've already remade the post processing feature and split it up quite well.  Remaking base body textures (Even just upscaling them properly) shouldn't actually be a huge undertaking.
The reason it took so long for stuff listed in the post I was quoting is due to ANet hard focusing on Living World releases over anything else. They (ANet) didn't have a team dedicated to anything outside of Living World updates.  This is something they claim that they have fixed and is part of the reason the new homestead feature is so robust and why we're getting content for everything in Janthir Wilds.

7 hours ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

As long as it's optional I don't see the harm, but it should definitely wait until after they're finished with the rest of the system/graphical updates to help with the optimization and visual clutter issues they've been working on. Like the absolute last thing I can think of that this game needs right now is everyone in a 50+ man meta having twice the polygons on their model.

Usually is optional and it'd likely come with a new graphical setting for character models.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i think i already had maybe 5 fps at tyria pride with character model limit set to highest, so this is maybe not such a good idea. it seems to me like the character models are already the biggest drain on resources in the game, if you don't have them hidden, and we don't really need that to get any worse?

 

that said, a modern re-texturing would probably be welcome, as long as it doesn't change the look of the characters too much!

Edited June 29 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Mic.1897]

kitten the OP tried so hard in his poll question to get people to vote yes lol

 

It's just not needed though

[Obnoxa.6702]

3 hours ago, Epsilon Indi.2031 said:

Dunno why I'd need to do that.
They've already remade the post processing feature and split it up quite well.  Remaking base body textures (Even just upscaling them properly) shouldn't actually be a huge undertaking.
The reason it took so long for stuff listed in the post I was quoting is due to ANet hard focusing on Living World releases over anything else. They (ANet) didn't have a team dedicated to anything outside of Living World updates.  This is something they claim that they have fixed and is part of the reason the new homestead feature is so robust and why we're getting content for everything in Janthir Wilds.

Usually is optional and it'd likely come with a new graphical setting for character models.

I'll be honest with you - if they do it? Great.
If they don't? That's fine too.
I look at the back of my character's head because I play for the content; I don't RP and I'm an elder millennial (it's the young ones who started having weird fetishes and real emotions to cartoons and kitten) so I'm just not that invested in the back of a digital head.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

2 hours ago, Obnoxa.6702 said:

I'll be honest with you - if they do it? Great.
If they don't? That's fine too.
I look at the back of my character's head because I play for the content; I don't RP and I'm an elder millennial (it's the young ones who started having weird fetishes and real emotions to cartoons and kitten) so I'm just not that invested in the back of a digital head.

Don't know what the rest has to do with your personal preference (Why are you casually insulting younger millennials?) But that's a discussion for another time (As in never).
Anyways, I, personally, find it jarring to have these high res armor skins that then show the low res character body.  It just looks awful to me.

[Obnoxa.6702]

29 minutes ago, Epsilon Indi.2031 said:

Don't know what the rest has to do with your personal preference (Why are you casually insulting younger millennials?) But that's a discussion for another time (As in never).
Anyways, I, personally, find it jarring to have these high res armor skins that then show the low res character body.  It just looks awful to me.

ok.

[Lion.6590]

I want a texture upgrade, as a Charr player that is what I really wish for years because the texture of our bodies was never great to begin with.

[Doggie.3184]

Faren probably needs updated speedos and tribal loincloths so sure.

If you mean the player characters what I'd want most in Sylvari skin colors fixed such as being able to get rid of the green and purple face-shadings that are permanently attached to most skin colors. It's the reason I chose gray for most of my Sylvari. Like I'd enjoy a light tan/orange one but it forces green marks that I can't edit. And I want armor to fit them better.  Most of it is stretched out and oversized on Treebro's.

For humans, they look fine, skinnier/sharper asian faces for males would be nice tho. And haven't had new hairstyles in ages.

Charr need a hide shoes toggle more than anyone. Every shoe and sandal is a deformed horror to look upon. And would still like an upright shaman posture option.

Norn males aren't ripped enough like they appear in art. Braham looks cool af in that picture but a melted waffle in-game. It's the only model that needs redone imo.

Edited June 29 by Doggie.3184

[Obfuscate.6430]

I think the fidelity of the character appearances is still quite good though the hair  textures leave much to be desired in terms of consistency.  

I mean, moving forward it would be nice if they gave us body sliders, and more consistent face sliders (some newer faces on asura and sylvari especially do not seem attached to the sliders at all.) but I wouldn't necessarily ask that they update the textures. 
 

[Lyssia.4637]

I'd much rather see more new hairstyles and faces, myself.  Maybe really go out on a limb and add more tattoo/glow patterns.