Asteroids and Ring Systems. Is there any hope?
- Thread starter Obsidian Ant
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This looks hideous! 
did you tweak something? it does not look like that on my machine.This looks hideous!
Ouch. Just ouch.
So it is not just me noticing that. It is like they have some auto ambient lighting on at all times... It completely kills the dark sides atmosphere. I preferred the proper darkness
Some planets are pitch black, others have that strange ambient light. It seems to depend on the composition of the planet itself I think. Ice ones are the worst offenders for the ambient light.
This ! I have reported this issue once every update from gamma all the way to 2.0 I have given up hope to be honest.
If we have to live with low poly , no shadows low draw distance astroids -fine. but lets at least have them have a lod that matches the colour
Yup. Not only that, but they are pitch black from high up, but as you descend they magically light up. On some of them I don't even need the lights to drive around.
It is not the first time that people notice that FD has sneaked some changes/fixes/...without noticing the community. Their patch note are never accurate.
From a graphic perspective, you can see some difference in some station also.
More than lack of the content, it s their communication that will failed them.
FD forum defense squad in 3..2..1...
From a graphic perspective, you can see some difference in some station also.
More than lack of the content, it s their communication that will failed them.
FD forum defense squad in 3..2..1...
Yes. That's the dumbing-down part of conspiracy.
"Let¨s make planets illumnated at nights, so players can see better and don't have to use lights"
"Let's make surfaces smoother, seo they can drive more recklessly and don't have to worry about killing themselves or getting stuck"
"Let's auto-level their ship if they point down for too long"
...those are all valid issues, but this is a planetary rings' whining thread, so let's stay on topic.
Maybe you just haven't been this high above the ring?
And btw. on the day side, the LOD does look even worse. You basically see a square of asteroids under you.
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I want to bring up the issue of asteroids and ring systems again, as they seem to still be getting worse, patch by patch. Mods; I have made a new post - because I don't want this issue to be mixed up and confused with other general graphic issues and just want this to focus on the asteroids. Please don't move or merge.
I have made a video on this subject which I will add to the bottom of this post, the following text is a modified transcript of the video for those that don't want to watch it. If you want to watch the video feel free to not read the post (as they both say exactly the same thing almost word-for-word).
From my first day in Elite: Dangerous - one of the things that impressed me the most has been the asteroids ring systems around gas giants. Introduced in Alpha 4, they were the first true environment that wasn't a station, or pure empty space. But not only that these ring systems looked so stunning, to the point, that in gaming, I hadn't really seen anything quite like them. Whilst I am sure similar environments existed, they almost certainly didn't allow you to free fly ships through them to any distance you wanted, as well as offer some amazing combat opportunities. And all of this with the option of doing so in VR as well!
From their inception asteroid belts were to be important locations, both in terms of their visuals as well as the gameplay they offered.
Although not the focus of what I am actually talking about in this post, here are some asteroid based outposts and stations. Now David Braben has said that he would still like these to appear at some point, but we still don't have anything concrete on this. But they offer up amazing environments, and some potentially great gameplay opportunities
http://i.imgur.com/z5tsVxB.jpg
Focusing on the asteroid systems themselves though, here are some early concepts of the various types of asteroids Frontier wanted to include in the game (thanks Kiobi for finding this image and posting in in your thread). Although these images are not that highly detailed, nonetheless you can still see the distinct differences in the makeup of each asteroid type. Again, such variation would offer fantastic environments as well as some good game play oppertunities.
http://i.imgur.com/62sTW8x.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DjH4p3b.jpg
The early implementations of ring systems in Alpha appeared to be carrying the game in this direction, and we did indeed see quite a few improvements over the months after alpha, including the introduction of Ice Asteroids, along with some fantastic fog effects.
http://i.imgur.com/3fN9dTo.jpg
But since then, the ring systems have continued to decline in terms of visual variation and quality. I raised a question about this on the forums last year, and did receieve a few replies from Frontier, for the most part Frontier appeared to be saying that 'Yes, the visuals have changed - and this has occured due to optimisation. However not all the quality reductions are intended and may be the results of a bug.', but they didn't commit to ever fixing these bugs. That said, I did appreciate that they took the time to reply - and I am sure many other people also appreciated it.
As of now, many of the ring systems are in a sorry state indeed. There are of course some spectacular exceptions, the Hyadum is an awesome example of how good they can still look. These areas manage to look great dispute the fact that there are obviously issues here such as the reduced fog quality, color mismatched asteroids etc.
But the real kicker is what - in my experience at least - seems to be massive and indeed terrible drops in quality. In the current release of Horizons, there is a tremendous amount of pop-in and exceptionally low draw distance. In this clip you can see the extremely bad pop-in, the low draw distance and the absence of fog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dh4Nk8iLY
Now, again - I want to state that I understand the need for optimization, and I also understand that some of these issues can be the results of bugs or driver issues. But also, lets be clear here, there is what appears to be a distinct linear path of declination here. A slow reduction of quality in both assets as well as environments, and to me at least that would suggest these are all deliberate changes to the ring systems (perhaps with or without unintended consequences such as the pop-in).
Bottom line though, is how does this affect game play? Well for those of us, that like to explorer and slowly travel the galaxy looking for amazing environments and spectacular sights, these changes are a complete killer. They not only cut the bottom out of the awe and wonder of ring systems, but effectively render them pointless to even visit. In terms of gameplay such as Resource Extraction Sites and Mining? Well if these changes do indeed increase performance - and please note, I have never, ever experienced performance issues in ring systems, even in VR (but that's not to say other people haven't), but yes, if there is a performance increase - then that will be of huge benefit to the people experiencing such problems. But the cost of that is such gameplay is now occurring in dramatically lower quality environments.
Another point is that the repeating 2D assets in the distance didn't used to so obviously repeat themselves as they do now:
http://i.imgur.com/PH933qk.jpg
Now don't get me wrong - I realise Frontier work very hard on this game...and that they are constantly improving it. History has shown that, at times Frontier reduce the quality of an assets before updating it to much higher standards in a subsequent patch. However these issues with asteroids and ring systems have a long history, and have been going on for perhaps over a year now. At this point I really have to question whether the ring systems will ever actually improve or return to their former glory in any reasonable time frame.
Personally, I would love to hear from Frontier on this issue. Frontier, are you guys committed to improving the visual quality of the asteroids again? Is what we are seeing a part of a optimization process that will eventually see the asteroids brought up to a high standard again? If not, could you perhaps let us know the nature of the situation, even if it is to let us know there are problems with ring systems and they may never achieve their former quality.
Now this isn't a demand, I'm not stamping my feet over the issue. But I know I am not alone in being disappointed over this issue. and I want to make this request in the most respectful way I can.
For those that want to watch the full video, here it is. It contains some good footage on asteroids showing both the great looking ring systems as well as the poor ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V743rC758Rc
Just remembered one of my favorite screenshots from Beta:
http://i.imgur.com/dQBEDUe.jpg
So true.
Well Devs read threads and make an appearance when they feel they can answer, so if they don't reply, maybe we have an answer, of sorts....?
It's more than a little bit sad to see ED going backwards in terms of graphical fidelity. I don't buy the 'we did it to improve poor performance on some systems' line; it's far more likely to be because of the XBone version. I mean, an advert before the new Star Wars movie has to be paid for somehow, doesn't it.
Well Devs read threads and make an appearance when they feel they can answer, so if they don't reply, maybe we have an answer, of sorts....?
Yes, they always grow awfully quiet when we are pointing out an issue they don't want to fix..
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That s the issue ! New content but no fixes !
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