After almost seven years, are the graphics in ED starting to look "aged"?

[Templar01]

First, despite all Odyssey bashing - I haven't purchased it primarily because I'm not much on FPS gaming - This remains my go-to game. I tried elite back in December 2015 when it was gifted to me with an XBOX One on XMAS 2015. I probably put in about 250 hours and got so frustrated with the hard to see small font and horrible controls that I walked away even though I thought highly of the game. I returned less than a year later in 2017 when someone suggested moving to the PC platform. I've been loving it ever since including multiple systems upgrades over that time with over $2,500 in various enhancements like 4K monitor, HOTAS, 2 VR headsets, 3 graphics cards etc.

The graphics are what really set this game apart for me personally. The procedurally generated landscapes and seemingly endless variety just kept me going. I didn't even try combat or join this forum till about two years ago. Exploration was more than enough to keep me going for almost three years.

Having said all that, I just tried a demo copy of a new space shooter game "Chorus" on Steam released just a couple of weeks ago in a totally stealth marketing way. Truth be told, Chorus will never be Elite dangerous but seems like their developers are going more for the "Everspace 2" or XBox, PS4 crowd. Based on what I see so far, the gameplay is shallow and it's design for the PC platform is wanting especially in the controls department. However, the graphics are stunning or at least the first five minutes are stunning and when I returned to Horizons, I sort of felt a little flat by comparison.

Which leads me to point out where Elite has not kept pace. While the planetary landscapes continue to remain contemporary looking, here are just a few areas that I believe developers have sat on their laurels and not updated that contribute to "aging" feel of the game.

1. Space Station textures have not kept up with 4K.
2. At one point I heard a rumor that there were a lot more "combat scars" exhibited on the ships during combat play. If it did exists, that feature disappeared after the initial launch and I never experienced this but it sure is another area that makes the game feel 2010ish.
3. Planetary textures when doing planetary missions in Horizons. Surely there should be some dust kicking up during takeoff, landings and when one is driving around in an SRV. I'd probably get tired of dust in the SRV driving but it would be a nice option. However, takeoff and landings could use a more updated look.
4. Particle debris in space. I fully realize this is very taxing on the GPU but with the newer RTX 30 series, it now makes it more practical and would add to the game. Like, wouldn't it be cool if your canopy blows out and a bunch of space flotsam and jetsam fly out with it.
5. Cockpit textures. They really do need updating. They were great for 1080p but now look dated by today's standards.
6. Instrumentation panels? How many times has this been criticized? The orange has got to go!!! LOL but thankfully, there are 3rd party tools to remedy that.
7. VR - I fully realize that FDev has abandoned VR so I'm not expecting anything here, the launch screen was clearly the minimum that could be put into service. However, the deck plating looks more worthy of a 1990s version of DOOM and is so out of place with the rest of Elite.
8. The menu controls in general really need color and updating in a bad way. Let's start with the controller bindings screen, these really need a lot of rehabilitation from both a visual as well as GUI interface point of view.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Deleted member 110222]

All games will look "aged" eventually.

It's just a fact of life. And also why I think it is better to pursue a slightly artistic flair as opposed to "as close to a photo as possible".

There's not much that can be done for it and it's best to appreciate that the game's visuals for what they.

Most importantly, don't compare them to other games. At that point one is going out of their way to look for flaws.

 

[ebbrell]

Nah, still looks amazing

 

[Stealthie]

Thoughts anyone?

I totally bought into the ED universe, as depicted on a BBC micro, back in 1984.

I absolutely DO want to see more of the Elite universe but I have absolutely no complaints about the quality of the stuff I can see.

 

[Gromit240]

Elite has got this weird thing going on where some things look pretty great, and others look like they came from a mid 2000s game. Overall I think the look of Elite holds up. Definitely dated, but not so badly that it detracts from the game in any way.

The ships and lighting that were improved for Odyssey were pretty key for helping the game keep pace somewhat. But the old flat planets and gas giants are some of the worst offenders at this point. To be fair the fact that we now have atmospheric worlds that looks absolutely amazing in comparison to the original 2d planets from launch is pretty impressive.

But I was thinking recently - one of the weakest points in the game at the moment is the textures used on stars. It always bothered me that supergiant stars have exactly the same texture scale as dwarf stars, without any frame of reference you can't tell them apart. I'd love to see them updated as honestly I feel they were a bit weak even for their time, and they kinda let the exploration side down a little bit. Still waiting for the day exploration gets a dedicated update to overhaul the whole experience, but for now some upgraded textures would go a long way.

 

[Stealthie]

Oh, there IS one thing I want to mention...

It's not so much that this aspect of ED looks "dated".
It's just that it's never quite worked, ever.

People, and their faces.
Given that I'm not a plant or a planet, I can't really vouch for how authentic those procedurally generated items are but, as a human being, I'd like to think I'm capable of recognising a representation of another human being when I see one... aaand I don't think I've seen one in ED.

To digress slightly, everybody's heard the phrase "uncanny valley" but not as many people seem to understand what it really is.
The basic idea is that we find more realistic representations of humans as more acceptable up to a point where, although the representation might be pretty good, it makes any anomalies stand out MORE and so we see the result as less acceptable.
That's the "uncanny valley" - the sudden dip in acceptance as realism increases to a certain point.
To climb out the other side of it, whatever is creating the representation of a human needs to improve realism further before humans see the representation as acceptable again.

ED doesn't have an "uncanny valley".
It has an "uncanny Grand Canyon" or, perhaps, an "uncanny Mariana Trench".

Unless FDev plan to put the effort ino perfecting their procedural face-generation, I'd suggest they forget about attempting to overcome the "uncanny valley" and, instead, attempt to "back out of it" by generating simpler, less realistic, NPCs which, although they might not look as "realistic" won't get our attention as jarringly as a result of plumbing the depths of the uncanny Mariana Trench.

I mean, take, say, a hundred pre-defined NPC faces (which could be probably be obtained easily after contacting any half-decent modder for a game like Skyrim), provide the ability to add a dozen hair-styles to each, different makeup and facial features (beards, mustaches etc) and tattoo options, accesories such as earrings, piercings, scars, glasses, eye-patches etc and you can easily generate thousands of inoffensive looking NPCs which won't look like a gargoyle wearing a wig.

 

[LeoBartlet]

It's a subjective opinion but no not for me.

 

[Manticore]

It's a subjective opinion but no not for me.

Too true.... I'm good with what I've got.

 

[gorankar]

Oh, there IS one thing I want to mention...

It's not so much that this aspect of ED looks "dated".
It's just that it's never quite worked, ever.

People, and their faces.
Given that I'm not a plant or a planet, I can't really vouch for how authentic those procedurally generated items are but, as a human being, I'd like to think I'm capable of recognising a representation of another human being when I see one... aaand I don't think I've seen one in ED.

To digress slightly, everybody's heard the phrase "uncanny valley" but not as many people seem to understand what it really is.
The basic idea is that we find more realistic representations of humans as more acceptable up to a point where, although the representation might be pretty good, it makes any anomalies stand out MORE and so we see the result as less acceptable.
That's the "uncanny valley" - the sudden dip in acceptance as realism increases to a certain point.
To climb out the other side of it, whatever is creating the representation of a human needs to improve realism further before humans see the representation as acceptable again.

ED doesn't have an "uncanny valley".
It has an "uncanny Grand Canyon" or, perhaps, an "uncanny Mariana Trench".

Unless FDev plan to put the effort ino perfecting their procedural face-generation, I'd suggest they forget about attempting to overcome the "uncanny valley" and, instead, attempt to "back out of it" by generating simpler, less realistic, NPCs which, although they might not look as "realistic" won't get our attention as jarringly as a result of plumbing the depths of the uncanny Mariana Trench.

I mean, take, say, a hundred pre-defined NPC faces (which could be probably be obtained easily after contacting any half-decent modder for a game like Skyrim), provide the ability to add a dozen hair-styles to each, different makeup and facial features (beards, mustaches etc) and tattoo options, accesories such as earrings, piercings, scars, glasses, eye-patches etc and you can easily generate thousands of inoffensive looking NPCs which won't look like a gargoyle wearing a wig.

They need to narrow the min/max slider values on auto generated NPC faces. Just use the center 60% or so of each value. It would help keep down the number of NPC mutants running around in game. Unless that was by design. The crew of my FC make it seem like it was lost for 50 generations somewhere and all the crew are horribly inbred.

 

[Riverside]

There are some areas where the textures are not that great up close (station exteriors for example, as the OP indicates) but overwhelming what the game looks like and how it represents things are very good, and Odyssey improves on that (albeit at a heavy performance cost for the apparent benefit)

I did expect there to have been a lot more added to flesh out the game by now though, and I would like to see more of a focus on aspects like thicker atmospheres and more vehicles (ships mostly).

No complaints about the look or style of the game at all really, and more time spent developing extra content and less on reinventing the wheel would be most welcome.

 

[Stealthie]

They need to narrow the min/max slider values on auto generated NPC faces. Just use the center 60% or so of each value. It would help keep down the number of NPC mutants running around in game. Unless that was by design. The crew of my FC make it seem like it was lost for 50 generations somewhere and all the crew are horribly inbred.

I really, really, don't want to get into all that "woke" stuff, but I have a feeling FDev are deliberately attempting to be "diverse" with their NPC generator (which is great) but it just doesn't have the finesse to generate the required diversity of realistic faces.

If they wanted to, FDev could, literally, fire off an email to a modder on nexus.com (Bijin, who does Skyrim NPC overhauls would get my vote) tomorrow, ask him to provide a hundred face-meshes and provide different versions of a bunch of them, with different weights, skin colours etc, then add a bunch of hair-styles and accessories and they could be probably be in-game by the end of next January.

+EDIT+

Course, if they could tame their procedural face-generator while still providing the same diversity of NPCs, that'd be fine too.

 

[varonica]

I get the feeling sometimes that there's a deliberate retro look to the game, think Flash Gordon, and that probably comes from the era when the original game was, like it myself. If you are talking about the quality of the graphics, sure they are going to age, either that or they have a full time team going through all the time and updating them to the current tech level, that's just not going to happen, but a dated look can be deliberate to lend a certain atmosphere to a game.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

Graphics are not bad, the only thing that bugs me is ship level of detail popping.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Dunno about the FPS bit, but each to their own!

EDO graphics have had pretty much a 'facelift' for many assets, although, as noted above there are still lesser textures in use - but not too dreadful in my opinion. As an expansion, EDO has added some good stuff to the game, but performance, still, is inconsistent in occupied settlements.

Yes, other games have much more 'realistic' graphics, without doubt, but the ones we have in-game work ok for me, I still have plenty of fun playing, that is all that really matters, as we have reminders constantly on TV... "When the fun stops, stop" - which I will

 

[Ian Skippy]

EDO looks less aged now than Horizons did in 2015. There will always be games with a smaller scope that look better.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

From a distance, Elite (regardless of Horizons or Odyssey) is still an attractive game. It's only when you start looking at things close up you can see its age showing - low poly-count assets, low res textures, animations, that kind of stuff.

And while Odyssey has brought some improvements here and there, it would be a lot better if they were applied more consistently. For example some of the textures from EDO POI assets could be straight out of a Playstation 2 game, while "legacy" assets didn't get a facelift at all by the looks of things.

 

[Gibbon]

Interesting you mention 'combat scarring', as this feature is in game, but only half developed and in true FD fashion, they couldn't be bothered to finish it. Only the Anaconda has persistent damage modelling on it. After an encounter, your ship looks like it's about to fall apart with full damage modelling, smoke pouring out of damaged hull panels, looks great.

On all the other ships that i've flown, and i have most of them, full damage modelling is there, but disappears as soon as you change instance, ie: go into supercruise or jump into another system. I mean that is just a joke. Why do full damage modelling on one ship, and only have it half working on the other ships? Makes no sense. Very sloppy programming imho. I've attached an image of the Mamba which highlights the problem.

 

[Rainbro]

Why do full damage modelling on one ship, and only have it half working on the other ships? Makes no sense.

Because if I remember rightly, they said that feature was interconnected with ship interiors, to have the interior and exterior of a ship be damaged as one. Exposing interior corridors, depressurizing areas, cargo floating off etc etc. Maybe it'll be finished as part of the Newer Era

 

[Astaran]

From a distance, Elite (regardless of Horizons or Odyssey) is still an attractive game. It's only when you start looking at things close up you can see its age showing - low poly-count assets, low res textures, animations, that kind of stuff.

And while Odyssey has brought some improvements here and there, it would be a lot better if they were applied more consistently. For example some of the textures from EDO POI assets could be straight out of a Playstation 2 game, while "legacy" assets didn't get a facelift at all by the looks of things.

I mean, considering ED has to run on an (by now) outdated console generation, those "legacy" assets are not at all surprising. Imagine if EVE Online had tried that PC+Console nonsense 20 years ago. Could you see today's EVE Online still running on consoles from 20 years ago? It's one thing if your game series has a new title each year (CoD, FIFA etc.), so it doesn't really matter if you drop support for outdated console generations and move on to the next generation with the next title. A title with a long lifespan like Elite shouldn't have been tied to the stagnation of consoles in the first place.

--
That being said, the visuals of ED can be great, but graphics are not everything in a game. I very much prefer playing games like Valheim or 7Days2Die that don't have the greatest graphics, but offer a hell of a lot more content than some (most?) Triple-A titles these days. The graphics of ED are more than good enough for me, especially in combination with the proc-gen universe. The star systems and planets of Star Citizen might look absolutely amazing (best in the genre, imo), but they are (afaik) all hand crafted which limits the number of systems/planets available to "explore" compared to the 400 billion in Elite.

 

[Stealthie]

Dunno about the FPS bit, but each to their own!

EDO graphics have had pretty much a 'facelift' for many assets, although, as noted above there are still lesser textures in use - but not too dreadful in my opinion. As an expansion, EDO has added some good stuff to the game, but performance, still, is inconsistent in occupied settlements.

Yes, other games have much more 'realistic' graphics, without doubt, but the ones we have in-game work ok for me, I still have plenty of fun playing, that is all that really matters, as we have reminders constantly on TV... "When the fun stops, stop" - which I will

See, that's the main thing for me.

It doesn't really matter how "good" a game looks so much as how well the graphics convey whatever the game is trying to tell you.

By way of example, somebody could create a tech-demo of the interior of a coriolis station that had obvious civilian, commercial, industrial and recreational districts, had sidewalks filled with people and road filled with vehicles and it would, undeniably, look amazing but would it do a better job of conveying the idea of a gigantic orbital city?
For me, I don't think it would.
It would definitely be terrific eye-candy but what we have perfectly conveys the idea that you're docking in a living city in space so I don't need that to be improved.


Having said that, I wonder if anybody has ever thought to themselves "I really enjoy this game but I'm going to stop playing it cos it looks so dated now"?
Top quality graphics are a nice "advertisement" for a game, but I doubt they're actually very imprtant to people who already play that game.