Elite: Odyssey
17 Aug 2022, 1:50pm
Yuna SakashiroSheehyWow - I have never seen 'bait and switch' so clearly demonstrated!
So - back to the accusations at hand Odyssey has no mono-colour boring planets and I never played horizons. Both are clearly untrue as demonstrated.
What's clearly untrue is your claim that Horizons is "mono-colour" and Odyssey is not. In fact Alex just posted several photos of mono-colour planet surfaces in Odyssey. You posted one picture of a planet in Horizons that is illuminated by the red light of a nearby star. The textures of that planet are neither red nor mono-colour; they are merely (correctly) tinted by ambient light. In other words, you are using a cheap trick to create the impression that your claim is supported by facts, which it isn't. To demonstrate this, I picked a screenshot from Odyssey where the planet surface is also tinted by red ambient light. As you can see, the result is the same. You're not fooling anyone.
The problem with Odyssey's terrain is the low-resolution texture used to blend detail textures into each other. This can be seen on every planet, and it's most pronounced if the detail textures are different in color. Here's an example:
This is a close-up view of Ch'i Lin 1. At this distance the surface looks nice; there is variation in color and a normal map to create the illusion of roughness, pebbles etc. It all looks very natural.
Zoom out a little, and it looks like this:
Still OK, but after you zoom out a little further...
... you may notice that something is off.
A pattern starts emerging, and suddenly you realize...
... that you're actually playing Minecraft!
Once you've seen this, you can't unsee it, because it's EVERYWHERE. I can see it even in the screenshots that Alex posted. The game keeps showing you how the sausage is made, and there is no option in the graphics settings to make those pixels go away.
Go and find me a planet in Horizons where this happened. I bet you can't.
So... what you are saying is that picture does not represent Horizons planets as a whole. ::wink::
Strange that!
This planet also covered in the light filtered through an atmosphere and casting a red light, but you can get right down to the ground with the level of detail on it. In Horizons it's pancake day with a few rock scatter and some decals that look good-ish from the cockpit of an SRV travelling at breakneck speed - which was what Horizons planets were built for.
In this picture I'm looking for my ball. It's a Titleist Pro V1. The low gravity and light atmosphere meant the ball carried for a bit longer than anticipated. It's the only use I get from that thing on my back, since there was no one to shoot at on that journey.
17 Aug 2022, 3:39pm
SheehyIn Horizons it's pancake day with a few rock scatter and some decals that look good-ish from the cockpit of an SRV travelling at breakneck speed - which was what Horizons planets were built for.
Exactly backwards. Horizons terrain was built to look good in VR. Pancake day is what you get when you disembark in Odyssey. With checkerboard rendering, upscaling and all the other little hacks it takes to keep the frame rate from tanking.
I predict that Horizons 4.0 will be a hard sell. It's basically one big downgrade with no benefits in return. There will be no pretty skies to distract from the pixelated garbage on the ground, the absence of detail, and the mountains that look like melting ice cream.
17 Aug 2022, 3:59pm
Yuna SakashiroI predict that Horizons 4.0 will be a hard sell. It's basically one big downgrade with no benefits in return. There will be no pretty skies to distract from the pixelated garbage on the ground, the absence of detail, and the mountains that look like melting ice cream.
Could not be said better...
17 Aug 2022, 4:02pm
Yuna SakashiroSheehyIn Horizons it's pancake day with a few rock scatter and some decals that look good-ish from the cockpit of an SRV travelling at breakneck speed - which was what Horizons planets were built for.
Exactly backwards. Horizons terrain was built to look good in VR. Pancake day is what you get when you disembark in Odyssey. With checkerboard rendering, upscaling and all the other little hacks it takes to keep the frame rate from tanking.
I predict that Horizons 4.0 will be a hard sell. It's basically one big downgrade with no benefits in return. There will be no pretty skies to distract from the pixelated garbage on the ground, the absence of detail, and the mountains that look like melting ice cream.
VR is lacking in Odyssey and it's obvious that's where the hate is. It was either that or hooning. Of course, it might be both.
No, sorry, not spending money on VR - no interest. For you, Horizons is where it's at and it's on a slow dark goodnight, whether you love it (which you clearly do) or not (which I clearly do not.)
Odyssey is where the future is. So at some point either you're in or your out. Trying to convince happy Odyssey players that we are somehow weird, strange, playing a shit game, or not playing, as has been some of the comments, just makes us look at you weird. We're having fun and your trying to tell us how much fun we're not having. See? Weird!
Enjoy Horizons while they keep 3.8 open for you, but there's no way you are going to convince me that Odyssey isn't far better. As I said previously, it's not that Odyssey doesn't have the problems you point it, it's just that 99 times out of a hundred, I don't have those problems and it's fantastic. Post all you want about how bad it seems to you (who doesn't have it installed by all accounts - I might be confused,) it won't change my perspective, and I'm more than happy to share that perspective. I'll post all the more lovely screenshots of dazzling views of my beautiful T10 and all the planets I visit where I have no problems with the graphics at all.
o7 CMDR
17 Aug 2022, 10:13pm
Yuna SakashiroI swear, Elite's white knights are the worst I've ever seen. This reminds me of a discussion I had over at Frontier's forum recently, about EDO's pixelated terrain.
Oh, right.
17 Aug 2022, 11:30pm
You love to see it! LOL.
Meanwhile, I wonder if PowerWash simulator can beat the average number of players for Odyssey for another month for 3 months straight.
18 Aug 2022, 9:49pm
18 Aug 2022, 10:36pm
EnderbyThe disappearing/reappearing planet 'dot-of-light' (as you fly towards a planet in SC) bug is really grinding my gears.
Yeah I see that all the time. The other supercruise ships' light is also really dim. I find it amusing when a planet is far enough away from the star and the "daytime" side is just as dark as the "nighttime" side. It may be more realistic but it does not help the gameplay any.
18 Aug 2022, 10:56pm
KurakilEnderbyThe disappearing/reappearing planet 'dot-of-light' (as you fly towards a planet in SC) bug is really grinding my gears.
Yeah I see that all the time. The other supercruise ships' light is also really dim. I find it amusing when a planet is far enough away from the star and the "daytime" side is just as dark as the "nighttime" side. It may be more realistic but it does not help the gameplay any.
You can see the body/planet 'light-dot', I'll call it, as you SC towards it but, then, as you get nearer, it disappears
Only to reappear later as you close in on it.
It's a real buzz kill when you're out exploring
A reminder, each and every time, that you're not really 'in space', you're just in a bugged game.
Really hope that FD fix this. It's fucking annoying.
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/48765
Last edit: 18 Aug 2022, 11:10pm
19 Aug 2022, 9:32am
Enderby
A reminder, each and every time, that you're not really 'in space', you're just in a bugged game.
That's pretty much my sentiment with Odyssey for the past year, for various reasons; I really struggle to 'get into and immerse myself within' the game in the same way as I used to be able to in the past. Due to all the various little glitches and weird visual issues it introduced to the (still) strong point of the game, the Stellar Forge.
But when I, for example, approach the dark side of a body, and the sunlit side of a nearby gas giant suddenly switches to 'dark mode' right in front of me once my ship is in the shadow of the body I'm approaching, I can't even take the 'Milky Way Simulator' aspect of the game seriously anymore. Or when everything turns to 'shadow state' when planetside nearby the star, when the star's centre (and only that) is covered by an object. It's quite tragic really. But "lighting is fixed" apparently so am not holding my breath that this is even on FDev's radar at this point. Paintjobs are another whole can of worms, specifically FC ones are still as broken as on day 1, but nobody seems to care or notice.
Same applies to the other strong point of the game, the sound. (Temporarily) missing sounds, messed up balancing (like the Python engine noise is right of centre now, amongst other things), different volume levels between different sound effects. With each update things get worse for some reason.
It seems most of its visuals have centered around the on-foot experience to make that as pretty as can be, to the detriment of the space ship experience (the ground textures/LOD transitions planetside are a good example of this, another one is the complete uselessness of ship lights in asteroid belts in Odyssey).
I'm rather curious about the feedback from Horizons players who will for the first time experience 4.0, without being distracted by the novelty of pretty skybox shaders and on-foot stuff. Particularly those who are on the bleeding edge hardware wise, because the (still) poorly performing areas are limited to Odyssey specific content, in case they find Horizons 4.0 rather playable and end up buying the DLC.
Last edit: 19 Aug 2022, 9:42am
20 Aug 2022, 3:18am
-Night Vision
-Increased Sprint Duration
-Faster Shield Regen
-________
I know I like these three but I don't know what I want as a fourth. I've tried Damage Reduction and Improved Jump Assist in the past, but I didn't feel like they did much for me. I was also considering Combat Movement Speed or Increased Ammo Capacity but nothing really jumps out at me. I don't "need" a fourth but I would at least like something that makes a difference rather than just a convenience. Suggestions?