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Dragon Quest 11's original release has been delisted in favour of new Definitive Edition

killatopak

Gold Member
This is why I’m staying physical.

There can only be one Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age. At least, that seems to be the going policy for publishers Square Enix, who have delisted the existing version of the RPG from Steam and other storefronts in favour of this week’s new definitive “S” edition. Sure, while it’s probably less confusing to only have one edition of your massive JRPG on store shelves, it’s riled up fans who don’t feel the new edition’s changes are enough to justify buying the game all over again.

As Eurogamer points out, there are a few points of contention between the two editions that might cause someone to pick the older over the newer. Due to its roots as a Switch port, there are some graphical differences that some might consider a downgrade. Owners of the old edition are also frustrated at the idea of new content being locked behind the full-price new game, rather than additions to the sprawling RPG they already own.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20...delisted-in-favour-of-new-definitive-edition/
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
What's the problem with it being digital? Capcom have been doing so since SNES with SF versions, or not?

BTW, that's bad for the existing player base, I'd just skip it or wait for it to go down in price instead of give them more money if the content is really not enough to justify purchasing it at full price, nothing too complicated
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Well, I would say S is the superior edition anyway. It has worse graphics, but not by that much when I tried the demo on PS4 Pro. In return its 60fps, has orchestrated soundtrack (the original is grating) and better QoL features alongside a slew of extra content. I don't know how expensive regular DQXI was these days, but S isn't full buck. Free on GP as well.
 
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German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
ff05e6f0-de4b-4883-839e-d7f8150b3b1d_text.gif
 

killatopak

Gold Member
What's the problem with it being digital? Capcom have been doing so since SNES with SF versions, or not?

BTW, that's bad for the existing player base, I'd just skip it or wait for it to go down in price instead of give them more money if the content is really not enough to justify purchasing it at full price, nothing too complicated
Because you can’t buy the original one. There are clear advantages to the original release that probably only PC users can fix.

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Granted it may not seem big to some but the bigger problem is that you‘re locked into what they deem best for you to buy. What if the new version of a different game literally is worse in every way or full of bugs and you can’t even buy the original release.

There are also some preference for having the original version of the game code without any updates as some bugs or glitches can only be done pre patches on a physical version. Examples like the gold bar duplication glitch that was patched out in RDR2. Digital users are locked out while I can simply play the disc version without patching it and benefit from the glitch. It may seem cheap for some but at the end of the day, it’s the fact that I have a choice is the biggest benefit.
 
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D

Deleted member 801069

Unconfirmed Member
but it’s free digitally, at least on gamepass

would ordinarily never play this game but downloaded it earlier today since the digital version is $0 for me

might give it a go in the morning

kinda need a break from Valhalla and I’m almost done with Yakuza 0 (I think)
 

killatopak

Gold Member
but it’s free digitally, at least on gamepass

would ordinarily never play this game but downloaded it earlier today since the digital version is $0 for me

might give it a go in the morning

kinda need a break from Valhalla and I’m almost done with Yakuza 0 (I think)

Unfortunately not everyone is subscribed to gamepass.

At the end of the day, it’s still a great game. I really recommend it to people. It’s a pretty chill game. I hope you’ll like it.
 
D

Deleted member 801069

Unconfirmed Member
Unfortunately not everyone is subscribed to gamepass.

At the end of the day, it’s still a great game. I really recommend it to people. It’s a pretty chill game. I hope you’ll like it.
How long is it, roughly
 

killatopak

Gold Member
How long is it, roughly
Probably 60 hours more or less. More if you decide to complete the side contents. A lot more with the new side story additions in the S version.

I’m actually not planning to play my copy yet. I have CP2077 pre ordered and I’ve already played the original. I know I’ll sideline the game in favor of CP2077 so might as well play it later when I’ll be fully invested in the game.
 
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sublimit

Banned
Probably 60 hours more or less. More if you decide to complete the side contents. A lot more with the new side story additions in the S version.
I think it's easily more than 120 hours if you include sidequests and the post game IMO (which should be considered as main game since it has the true ending).

I haven't double dipped yet but when i do double dip i will definitely get the Switch version. But i feel like i got the full experience with the PS4 version and i don't regret it one bit that i got to play it day one even if the original PS4 version didn't had all the extra stuff the Switch version had later on. I'm also glad i got the collector's edition since i enjoyed the game 100% and it's one of the few games i actually bothered to get the platinum trophy.
 
Is it really that much of a downgrade?

I just downloaded the demo on steam, wasnt aware the definitive edition made any unsavoury changes.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
Is it really that much of a downgrade?

I just downloaded the demo on steam, wasnt aware the definitive edition made any unsavoury changes.
Well there are some pics I provided as well as some youtube videos.

Steam or PC in general, I trust to fix this. It’s not gonna be fast like how they added the orchestra version in the original game but I assume they’ll mod it or fix some config files to restore it.

The downgrade stems from this version of the game being based on the Switch release which obviously have some things changed to properly run it there. It’s probably also the reason why they can’t just make the side content DLC for the original version. I remember there were some rumors about how they had to rehaul the whole game and the engine for the Switch version making it essentially a different game technically.
 

Fake

Member
For those who don't know, they removed the native version of the game and replaced with a port of a port with more content.
 
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I played the demo and was really taken aback by how much worse it looked than the original.

Shit like this is why Square Enix management is completely fucking bonkers.
 

Soodanim

Member
  1. You can probably still get keys on other sites like Humble Bundle if you really want the original
  2. Fans will probably fix the graphics if SE don’t
 

Saber

Gold Member
Never though they would be that low. Don't get me wrong, I love DQ series and DQ11 is fantastic. But this doesn't give them immunity to criticism. And this was a low move.
Thank god I have my physical version of the original.
 

Fbh

Member
Is it really that much of a downgrade?

It's a pretty substantial graphical downgrade. Not sure where the "slight" comments are comming from. There's reduced geometry, massively reduced foliage density, reduced texture quality, worse lighting, etc

OG PC release:
9qqpRu1k.png


Definitive Edition PC:

PJ7HHZAo.png




There's a lot of perks though which make the tradeoff worth it:
- Orchestrated music and japanese voice acting
- QoL improvements
- New content
- The whole 2D mode
- 60fps on Ps4 Pro and X1X (Ps5 and SX too, obviously) as well as lower hardware requirements on PC
- Included in Gamepass


But the graphical downgrade is a shame. It has made the game go from looking amazing to just "nice".
Here's hoping that maybe modders will be able to restore at least some of the downgraded stuff on PC
 
What's the problem with it being digital? Capcom have been doing so since SNES with SF versions, or not?

BTW, that's bad for the existing player base, I'd just skip it or wait for it to go down in price instead of give them more money if the content is really not enough to justify purchasing it at full price, nothing too complicated
Lots of problems with digital over physical but it's because it restricts our options.
 

MagnesG

Banned
It has fast battle mode literally the game-changer for long JRPGs. You could cut long hours of playtime just from those.
 
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Irvana

Member
Well the game launched everywhere else with voice acting.
Yeah, with english voices acting at first. Japanese 's is a late addition, japanese players apparently didn't care about voice acting for a Dragon Quest.
You can read a very intersting paper about that here:
 
You’re right, I’ll prob complete 6 games on gamepass this month which costs me $3 per month, so this comes out to roughly 50 cents

I don't even pay for gamepass with rewards being a thing and dals like 3 months ultimate for 1€ like they have going atm.
 
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Kuranghi

Member
It's a pretty substantial graphical downgrade. Not sure where the "slight" comments are comming from. There's reduced geometry, massively reduced foliage density, reduced texture quality, worse lighting, etc

OG PC release:
9qqpRu1k.png


Definitive Edition PC:

PJ7HHZAo.png




There's a lot of perks though which make the tradeoff worth it:
- Orchestrated music and japanese voice acting
- QoL improvements
- New content
- The whole 2D mode
- 60fps on Ps4 Pro and X1X (Ps5 and SX too, obviously) as well as lower hardware requirements on PC
- Included in Gamepass


But the graphical downgrade is a shame. It has made the game go from looking amazing to just "nice".
Here's hoping that maybe modders will be able to restore at least some of the downgraded stuff on PC

If anyone wants it here are my edits for engine.ini for the DQXI Steam PC demo, it should work with the full release as the saves carry over, worst case you may have to copy it over to the ini's for the full game:

[SystemSettings]
r.DefaultFeature.AntiAliasing=2
r.PostProcessAAQuality=6
r.TemporalAACurrentFrameWeight=0.2
r.TemporalAASamples=8
r.TemporalAASharpness=0.8
r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=1
r.Tonemapper.Quality=5
r.SkeletalMeshLODBias=-2
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.25
r.ViewDistanceScale=10
r.MotionBlurQuality=4
r.MotionBlur.Amount=0.3
r.MotionBlur.Max=1
r.MotionBlur.Scale=1
r.MotionBlurSeparable=1
r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.01
r.Shadow.CSM.MaxCascades=16
r.Shadow.TexelsPerPixel=10
foliage.DensityScale=7
grass.DensityScale=7
foliage.LODDistanceScale=15

Add these at the end of the file for better... lots of stuff. If you don't like a sharp image then remove or reduce the value for "r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=1", I'd keep "r.TemporalAASharpness=0.8" as is though since the temporal AA does blur the image and that counters it.

"r.ViewDistanceScale=10" is one of the biggest changes you can make, it will add enemies to the field basically as far as you can see which I thought really made it feel a lot better, no more 10m away fading in Bongo Drongos. This setting mostly affects the CPU I've read so avoid if you have a banger. Most people can fire this right up to 10 though if they have a high end CPU I'd reckon. I'm on a 3770K@4.3 and its gravy.

I am sharpening a lot because I'm playing with a 4K native output that being supersampled from 6K internally, you can do this by changing "ScreenPercentage=100.000000" within GameUserSettings.ini to something higher, I don't really understand how it multiplies the axis because I use a value of "125" and that seems to be about 6K going by the size of the steam overlay toast in the bottom right corner. Thats on 4K native remember so if you are on 1080p and horsepower to spare then you can go higher probably. Just don't set it to like 200 if you can't actually play with those settings (due to unplayable fps) because you get a taste of something you can't have. A value of 150 appeared to be 8K and it was simply glorious but I can't maintain even 15 fps at that IQ level.

The motion blur is a personal choice ofc but I'd really recommend it if you are capping to 30. Even if you are running at 60 I think its adds a lovely animated film quality to the animations because they are so fast at points even 60 isn't enough frames to really see whats happening, similar to glory kills in Doom.

The two variables with "mesh" in them will give you back the nice models from the original version, when they are seen at a distance. In the DE it changes to the non-shaded versions of the models when they are a very short distance from the camera. Apart from just dropping the mesh quality for cutscenes in general, I think sometimes its a double whammy of crapness because the camera is much further away from the chars than you think it is (they are decreasing the FoV and zooming in to create a certain visual style). which introduces another drop in model quality on top of the general cutbacks they made.

Here is a link to where you can find the config files depending on platform/store:


TL;DR - These settings will make it look ace beans, use 'em if you have left over GPU usage or don't mind capping to 30. Which is what I've done to get 6K + big tweaks on my GTX 1080. If you want me to explain any of the other settings just ask, I've spent a bit too much time tweaking this game (and most other UE4 games really) to be honest...

Bonus UE4 Temporal AA tweaking advice: Even though a lot of people on t'internet (PCGamingWiki included, but they just aggregate forum posts kind of, so not their fault) will say use 16 samples, don't do that, use 8 or even 4. As it will reduce ghosting massively with only a miniscule loss of stability in areas that are hard to anti-alias even at 8K, so don't lose sleep over them.

They also say to set "r.TemporalAACurrentFrameWeight" to "0.45" instead of my value of 0.2, which is because it "almost totally gets ride of ghosting at the loss of some temporal stability", well the reaosn you use Temporal AA is to get a super clean, non-vibrating image imo so I went with 0.2 and reduced the sample count to 8 instead. Simply reducing the sample count to 8 from 16 will remove more ghosting than changing the CurrentFrameWeight value and won't lose you stability in the process.

If you are using motion blur these things are even less of an issue because it will make the ghosting only visible when you are rotating the camera at full speed and looking for the black outline trails off of your character, mostly over grass. Ie, its not a problem in any way.

edit - Did anyone get this working for them? Any problems with it? I only use these settings at 4K/6K so would like to know how it looks at 1080p/1440p as well. If the settings don't seem to engage for you (someone further down thread said it didnt work for them) then replace "[SystemSettings]" with "[/script/engine.renderersettings]" as the line above the tweaks in engine.ini.
 
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Kuranghi

Member
Hopefully next year they release the Remaster of the Definitive Edition, so the graphics get fixed.

Coming from Square-Enix, I wouldn't be surprised.

I think you'll need to wait for the PS6 version for it to look like PC can. Just because you can tweak so much that doesn't add a lot of strain on your GPU, especially at 1080p.
 

LordCBH

Member
Doesnt the new release have shittier graphics?

I love how I bought the game at launch and was very quickly told by square To fuck myself though.
 
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