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Horizon Forbidden West gets a free major update - out now

allowed? what do you mean not allowed?

everyone can make claims tbh, freedom of speech no? there's no defamatory meaning behind claiming there's sharpening applied, i'd say

I mean that’s why he’s a banned source here. You can use him as a source if you want but he’s banned here due to the huge mistakes he made in the past. Even Digital Foundry called him out on them.

Just saying that claiming that it’s only sharpening might not be true. Read from others that it also could be an increase in the base resolution or an improvement of their reconstruction techniques. If it was down turning up just the sharpening that could have been done ages ago.
 

Fredrik

Member
hm ? only input I remember is Alex telling is probably not possible to have better reconstruction and 60fps on ps5
I think the keypoint is that they zoomed in and complained. Many of us did not, I was literally here defending it, making videos and shit, sorry… 😞

I need to jump back in, still playing Elden Ring like I’m possessed but maybe I can take a short break.

SlimySnake SlimySnake what’s your take, iirc you were quite harsh on how the performance mode looked, are you satisfied now?
 

Hugare

Member
It’s written like a comic book. Aloy & Horizon are very similar to Peter Parker & Spider-man.

Difference is 1 is a new IP (relatively) and the other is the most famous comic book character & world of all time.

And it might also come down to the director, leads of Horizon being Dutch. English isn’t their native tongue, so they might have slightly different feelings towards judging dialogue. Tho surely 1 of their writers probably is a fluent/native English speaker, idk. I can notice this at times with English dialogue written by Japanese native speakers, which isn’t a big deal for me. I give em props, like I could never write a game script in Dutch lol.
I thought the same thing. "Maybe because they are Dutch?"

But CDPR, Larian and many other WRPG companies are from Eastern Europe and still have excellent writting, so that shouldnt be an excuse

And yet, all the scifi in horizon is explained to the smallest detail while in witcher you just have to shrug because magic explain everything...not sure how one is more believable than the other.

But sure, dialogues are much better in witcher, i think that horizon has great lore but i would hire someone else for the characters dialogues for the third game.

They explain how you destroy mech dinossaurs with arrows made out of wood?

You have to shrug tons in order digest what Horizon throws at the player. And that's ok, it's part of what makes it a fantasy game.

The Witcher is not more realistic, but it's more believable in the way that the world and its rules are presented to you.

Seeing towns made out out of wood next to Thunderjaws makes you think "how the fuck are they still alive?"

You don't see small settlements next to big cities. The world isn't organic like TW3.

It's in the little things like that
 

kyliethicc

Member
I thought the same thing. "Maybe because they are Dutch?"

But CDPR, Larian and many other WRPG companies are from Eastern Europe and still have excellent writting, so that shouldnt be an excuse



They explain how you destroy mech dinossaurs with arrows made out of wood?

You have to shrug tons in order digest what Horizon throws at the player. And that's ok, it's part of what makes it a fantasy game.

The Witcher is not more realistic, but it's more believable in the way that the world and its rules are presented to you.

Seeing towns made out out of wood next to Thunderjaws makes you think "how the fuck are they still alive?"

You don't see small settlements next to big cities. The world isn't organic like TW3.

It's in the little things like that
I don’t think it’s an excuse.

I think they want to write games that literally anyone can enjoy. Including like 10-12 year old girls who they hope will love Aloy and want to cosplay as her, buy merch, etc.

Hard to balance that with writing in a more dramatic mature tone, while maintaining a comic book style overall. If everyone could do it, they would.

Some people just won’t like the style of writing they go for. Oh well.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I think the keypoint is that they zoomed in and complained. Many of us did not, I was literally here defending it, making videos and shit, sorry… 😞

I need to jump back in, still playing Elden Ring like I’m possessed but maybe I can take a short break.

SlimySnake SlimySnake what’s your take, iirc you were quite harsh on how the performance mode looked, are you satisfied now?
It looks fine now. Really nothing to complain about.
 

Topher

Gold Member
It looks fine now. Really nothing to complain about.

Will Ferrell Elf GIF by filmeditor
 

Hugare

Member
I don’t think it’s an excuse.

I think they want to write games that literally anyone can enjoy. Including like 10-12 year old girls who they hope will love Aloy and want to cosplay as her, buy merch, etc.

Hard to balance that with writing in a more dramatic mature tone, while maintaining a comic book style overall. If everyone could do it, they would.

Some people just won’t like the style of writing they go for. Oh well.
Forbiden West is rated M, while Spider-Man was rated T

Still, I teared up in Spider-man and Miles Morales more than a few times

Anyway, sorry for the off topic, this thread is about the patch and here I am analyzing the game
 

kyliethicc

Member
Forbiden West is rated M, while Spider-Man was rated T

Still, I teared up in Spider-man and Miles Morales more than a few times

Anyway, sorry for the off topic, this thread is about the patch and here I am analyzing the game
Nope they’re T for Teen games, both. Horizon, Spidey, and Uncharted are all T games from Sony.

The Last of Us, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima are their M rated games.
 
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GymWolf

Member
I thought the same thing. "Maybe because they are Dutch?"

But CDPR, Larian and many other WRPG companies are from Eastern Europe and still have excellent writting, so that shouldnt be an excuse



They explain how you destroy mech dinossaurs with arrows made out of wood?

You have to shrug tons in order digest what Horizon throws at the player. And that's ok, it's part of what makes it a fantasy game.

The Witcher is not more realistic, but it's more believable in the way that the world and its rules are presented to you.

Seeing towns made out out of wood next to Thunderjaws makes you think "how the fuck are they still alive?"

You don't see small settlements next to big cities. The world isn't organic like TW3.

It's in the little things like that
It is kinda explained if you know the lore.

You do almost zero damage to armoured parts, and those are not normal bows, they are enhanced with machine parts and special projectiles with different damaging elements or just downright scifi stuff like the tearblaster or the plasma ones.

Also the majority of dinobots were not specifically created for war\combat scenarios, so they are not created without weak points or delicate parts that can't be hit by arrows, and the ones that are made for war are the more armoured ones and if you try to take them just by spamming simple arrows the fight last hours, especially at high difficulty.
Of course if you play on easy\normal it can looks silly because they have a way smaller life bar but that is a sacrifice to make for the gameplay, not everyone has the patience to hit weakpoints etc.

Dinobots never attacks villages directly, they only defend theirselfs or other weaker dinobot, that's why they can build wood villages, so once again, the lore explain everything.

Look, if there is one single thing that horizon does well, is trying to explain literally every fucking thing in his world in the most believable way, in witcher you just have to accept illogical stuff because of magic\traditions.
To me, scifi that explain everything is gonna be always more realistic\believable than just pure fantasy where you can make everything with little to no explanation.

This channel cover all the lore of horizon in deep details, you are gonna notice how there is more lore than majority of open world rpgs.
 
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CJ_75

Member
Bought it on day one, played for an hour or so, and stopped playing due to schimmering issues. Finally I can fully enjoy the game.
Or, should I just wait for the Raytracing patch?
 

sachos

Member
What?! 😳

You"re just joking, right? Please tell me you're joking.

Edit----

Oh, shit! You weren't joking... 🤦‍♂️

dp9R9zi.jpeg
I think you should have linked the image comparison he was looking at to judge how right or wrong he is. Based on the image comparison another user posted here, this one https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzI5 and this one https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzMz the sharpenning is quite obvious, you can see it particularly on tree trunks and the leaves, everything has a white halo around it. Now, im not saying thats the only thing they did in this patch because i don't know, but i agree with Alex in that the sharpenning is quite strong.
 

DeepSpace5D

Member
Looks like a good time to jump back in. I’m gonna personally hold out a little longer for that 40fps fidelity mode since it was so good in Rift Apart.
 

Vick

Gold Member
They explain how you destroy mech dinossaurs with arrows made out of wood?

You have to shrug tons in order digest what Horizon throws at the player. And that's ok, it's part of what makes it a fantasy game.
It's not a fantasy game at all, it's sci-fi. And belive it or not, very believable at that, also.
And the more you dig the more plausible it becomes.
The Witcher is not more realistic, but it's more believable in the way that the world and its rules are presented to you.

Seeing towns made out out of wood next to Thunderjaws makes you think "how the fuck are they still alive?"

You don't see small settlements next to big cities. The world isn't organic like TW3.

It's in the little things like that
Little things, exactly, tons and tons of them, well present in every corner of ZD and FW.

I would suggest you to at the very least play the first game in order to understand what those machines are and what their purpose is.. was. Not asking you to read the thousands of data, talk to every person or uncover every secret, just the main story.
 

yamaci17

Member
I think you should have linked the image comparison he was looking at to judge how right or wrong he is. Based on the image comparison another user posted here, this one https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzI5 and this one https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzMz the sharpenning is quite obvious, you can see it particularly on tree trunks and the leaves, everything has a white halo around it. Now, im not saying thats the only thing they did in this patch because i don't know, but i agree with Alex in that the sharpenning is quite strong.
ugh second comparison is horrendous
 

kyliethicc

Member
It's not a fantasy game at all, it's sci-fi.
Same thing really.

Famous fantasy & sci-fi author George RR Martin has a great bit on this:
William Faulkner said much the same thing while accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, when he spoke of “the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” The “human heart in conflict with itself,” Faulkner said, “alone can make good writing, because only that is worth writing about.”

We can make up all the definitions of science fiction and fantasy and horror that we want. We can draw our boundaries and make our labels, but in the end it’s still the same old story, the one about the human heart in conflict with itself.

The rest, my friends, is furniture.

The House of Fantasy is built of stone and wood and furnished in High Medieval. Its people travel by horse and galley, fight with sword and spell and battle-axe, communicate by palantir or raven, and break bread with elves and dragons.

The House of Science Fiction is built of duralloy and plastic and furnished in Faux Future. Its people travel by starship and aircar, fight with nukes and tailored germs, communicate by ansible and laser, and break protein bars with aliens.

The House of Horror is built of bone and cobwebs and furnished in Ghastly Gothick. Its people travel only by night, fight with anything that will kill messily, communicate in screams and shrieks and gibbers, and sip blood with vampires and werewolves.

The Furniture Rule, I call it.

Forget the definitions. Furniture Rules.

Ask Phyllis Eisenstein, who has written a series of fine stories about a minstrel named Alaric, traveling through a medieval realm she never names … but if you corner her at a con she may whisper the name of this far kingdom. “Germany.” The only fantastic element in the Alaric stories is teleportation, a psi ability generally classed as a trope of SF. Ah, but Alaric carries a lute, and sleeps in castles, and around him are lords with swords, so ninety-nine readers out of every hundred, and most publishers as well, see the series as fantasy. The Furniture Rules.

Ask Walter Jon Williams. In Metropolitan and City on Fire he gives us a secondary world as fully imagined as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, a world powered entirely by magic, which Walter calls “plasm.” But because the world is a single huge decaying city, rife with corrupt politics and racial tensions, and the plasm is piped and metered by the plasm authority, and the sorcerers live in high-rises instead of castles, critics and reviewers and readers alike keep calling the books science fiction. The Furniture Rules.

Peter Nicholls writes, “… SF and fantasy, if genres at all, are impure genres … their fruit may be SF, but the roots are fantasy, and the flowers and leaves perhaps something else again.” If anything, Nicholls does not go far enough, for westerns and mysteries and romances and historicals and all the rest are impure as well. What we really have, when we get right down to the nitty-gritty, are stories. Just stories.

 

GymWolf

Member
Same thing really.

Famous fantasy & sci-fi author George RR Martin has a great bit on this:


Well no.

Monsters and dragons and witchers are never gonna exist.

Robots and IA and microchips inside our brains are gonna exist in the future, so yeah scifi is always more believable, i fully believe that in the future, companies are gonna build robots to fight war or to (try to) fix the planet, similarly to what happen in horizon.

There is a difference between something completely made out and something that can exist in the future.
 
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I think you should have linked the image comparison he was looking at to judge how right or wrong he is. Based on the image comparison another user posted here, this one https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzI5 and this one https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzMz the sharpenning is quite obvious, you can see it particularly on tree trunks and the leaves, everything has a white halo around it. Now, im not saying thats the only thing they did in this patch because i don't know, but i agree with Alex in that the sharpenning is quite strong.

Seems like the base resolution also increased. Either that or they are using a much better reconstruction technique. That could explain why it took a while to patch it. Any idiot can just slide up the sharpening settings.
 

Hugare

Member
It's not a fantasy game at all, it's sci-fi. And belive it or not, very believable at that, also.
And the more you dig the more plausible it becomes.

Little things, exactly, tons and tons of them, well present in every corner of ZD and FW.

I would suggest you to at the very least play the first game in order to understand what those machines are and what their purpose is.. was. Not asking you to read the thousands of data, talk to every person or uncover every secret, just the main story.
Didnt want to keep derailing the thread, but: I have finished the first game. Two times.

"The Thunderjaws are created by Hephaestus to protect other machines and with weapons specifically created for war so it fits the Combat Class"

They also attack you on sight, like any other machine. Not only when disturbed.

I know about the machines purposes, but GAIA subroutines splintered off and became self aware, making them agressive. As explained during the main story.

So my point about "how the hell those towns are still ok?" still stands

I'm working right now on the second one (first had better pacing so far, imo)
 

kyliethicc

Member
Well no.

Monsters and dragons and witchers are never gonna exist.

Robots and IA and microchips inside our brains are gonna exist in the future, so yeah scifi is always more believable, i fully believe that in the future, companies are gonna build robots to fight war or to (try to) fix the planet, similarly to what happen in horizon.

There is a difference between something completely made out and something that can exist in the future.
Horizon has silly made up (fantasy) tech, as does every sci-fi IP.

Like, lightsabers don’t make any sense. Nor does arrows killing Thunderjaws lol
 
I thought the same thing. "Maybe because they are Dutch?"

But CDPR, Larian and many other WRPG companies are from Eastern Europe and still have excellent writting, so that shouldnt be an excuse



They explain how you destroy mech dinossaurs with arrows made out of wood?

You have to shrug tons in order digest what Horizon throws at the player. And that's ok, it's part of what makes it a fantasy game.

The Witcher is not more realistic, but it's more believable in the way that the world and its rules are presented to you.

Seeing towns made out out of wood next to Thunderjaws makes you think "how the fuck are they still alive?"

You don't see small settlements next to big cities. The world isn't organic like TW3.

It's in the little things like thatThe bows and slings were put in their for.
The bows and slings were put in there for gameplay purposes as well as lore.

They initially play tested machine guns but this made the game too easy as you didn't have too aim precisely to hit weak points.

Lining up a perfect shot with a bow on a weakpoint is where alot of the challenge is.
 
Horizon has silly made up (fantasy) tech, as does every sci-fi IP.

Like, lightsabers don’t make any sense. Nor does arrows killing Thunderjaws lol
Can you actually kill a thunderjaw with just the basic arrows?

Maybe you can but it will be a damn slog. As far as I can remember you need to use a bunch of other stuff first to soften him up like blast sling, tearblast arrows, freeze sling, rope caster etc.
 

saintjules

Member
I tried to start the game but keeps crashing. Guess I'll have to wait for the fix.

Edit: Apparently it's affecting physical copies.
 
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kyliethicc

Member
Can you actually kill a thunderjaw with just the basic arrows?

Maybe you can but it will be a damn slog. As far as I can remember you need to use a bunch of other stuff first to soften him up like blast sling, tearblast arrows, freeze sling, rope caster etc.
In theory yeah would just take a while. Somehow a tiny arrow damages a monstrous tank covered in armor lol
 

GymWolf

Member
Horizon has silly made up (fantasy) tech, as does every sci-fi IP.

Like, lightsabers don’t make any sense. Nor does arrows killing Thunderjaws lol
Well of course many things are exagerated for the spectacle\gameplay, but IA and warbots are way more believable than fantasy stuff, let's be real.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
One thing that continues to impress me, and this is something I bitched out last year in regards to TLOU2 and Ratchet, is Aloy's character model. It looks just as good as it does in cutscenes unlike TLOU2 where they completely gut the LOD as Ellie moves away from the camera. Here, Aloy looks like LOD 0 regardless of whether shes on foot or on horseback or in a cutscene. Just an extraordinary looking character model that you can enjoy at all times. Not just cutscenes.

FMqpGBNWYAQzZFk


Now please, put the hero lighting back in. It kicks in sometimes in some areas like this and looks marvelous. Ive found several areas in the game where the god rays in the forest mess up their attempt to hide the hero lighting, and you can see how it looks without any hit to performance. I hate Digital Foundry nerds.
 

kyliethicc

Member
Well of course many things are exagerated for the spectacle\gameplay, but IA and warbots are way more believable than fantasy stuff, let's be real.
As soon as you violate the scientifically tested laws of physics & chemistry, it’s all fantastical.

Distinction without a difference. Space, medieval, etc - whatever furniture you use is just cosmetic.
 

GymWolf

Member
As soon as you violate the scientifically tested laws of physics & chemistry, it’s all fantastical.

Distinction without a difference. Space, medieval, etc - whatever furniture you use is just cosmetic.
Well some form of rudimentary IAs already exist, robots kinda already exist but they are just prototypes, space travel exist but it is slow, etc.

What i'm saying is that it's easier to make scifi believable compared to downright fantasy with creatures, magic etc.
 
In theory yeah would just take a while. Somehow a tiny arrow damages a monstrous tank covered in armor lol
Well sure lol i didn't say it was realistic. I am pretty sure you will be there a looonnnnng hitting exclusively armour parts with basic arrows

Suspension of disbelief is always subjective to the individual. At the end of the day it's about as realistic as a lone soldier murdering a whole army in call of duty🤷
 

kyliethicc

Member
Well sure lol i didn't say it was realistic. I am pretty sure you will be there a looonnnnng hitting exclusively armour parts with basic arrows

Suspension of disbelief is always subjective to the individual. At the end of the day it's about as realistic as a lone soldier murdering a whole army in call of duty🤷
Of course and it’s a fun, beautiful game so I really enjoy it. Gonna get the plat soon
 

assurdum

Banned
allowed? what do you mean not allowed?

everyone can make claims tbh, freedom of speech no? there's no defamatory meaning behind claiming there's sharpening applied, i'd say
Sharpening doesn't eliminate absolutely shimmering and noisy vegetation. Are you crazy people. They have changed something in the rendering. I noticed they have drastically reduced/cut the purple smoke density of the plantes in the short distance also, on perfomance mode.
 
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Dunker99

Neo Member
One thing that continues to impress me, and this is something I bitched out last year in regards to TLOU2 and Ratchet, is Aloy's character model. It looks just as good as it does in cutscenes unlike TLOU2 where they completely gut the LOD as Ellie moves away from the camera. Here, Aloy looks like LOD 0 regardless of whether shes on foot or on horseback or in a cutscene. Just an extraordinary looking character model that you can enjoy at all times. Not just cutscenes.

FMqpGBNWYAQzZFk


Now please, put the hero lighting back in. It kicks in sometimes in some areas like this and looks marvelous. Ive found several areas in the game where the god rays in the forest mess up their attempt to hide the hero lighting, and you can see how it looks without any hit to performance. I hate Digital Foundry nerds.
No thanks - I hate the hero lighting. She looks like she’s in front of a green screen in that screenshot.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Wow they really did completely fix performance mode. It looks so much better and the shimmer is gone. They also seemed to have tweaked the AI and splash damage range of the enemies a bit since the last time I played as well (which would be launch week, beat this in three days after launch) - the enemies are less spammy and no longer swing around on a dime in wild, impossible ways like they used to. I'm only an hour or so in so maybe I am jumping the gun, but really liking this patch and the game is so much more enjoyable in NG+.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Wow they really did completely fix performance mode. It looks so much better and the shimmer is gone. They also seemed to have tweaked the AI and splash damage range of the enemies a bit since the last time I played as well (which would be launch week, beat this in three days after launch) - the enemies are less spammy and no longer swing around on a dime in wild, impossible ways like they used to. I'm only an hour or so in so maybe I am jumping the gun, but really liking this patch and the game is so much more enjoyable in NG+.
splash damage and other A.I tweaks were done in the past few patches.

They still go aggro at the same rate jumping around like kangaroos with no recovery time so you will eventually notice that when you get deeper into NG+.

there were a couple of really great quality of life changes added in the last months. You can toggle auto pick up like in Ghost of Tsushima and skip pickup animations for berries and other items.
 

DeaDPo0L84

Member
Finally diving in post patch and the game is beautiful in performance mode, playing on a 65" lg cx. But man coming from doing a second playthrough of the first game on pc and I feel like I'm having to teach myself how to use a controller all over again, I'm terrible with the bow. On pc I felt like a master archer, here I truly feel like an outcast, but I'll get used to it.
 

Filben

Member
been playing at fidelity because performance was too low res and had shifting upscaling/moving sampling that wasn't smooth at all. Will try performance tomorrow with the new patch.
 

Gamerguy84

Member
I played on performance the first playthrough after I compared them in several scenes.

The fluidity of performance vs res was more important at the time despite the visual difference.

I'll be happy to play in a new mode after this though to get the best of both worlds.
 

NeoLed

Member
It is kinda sad to see the word "free" in the headline. Most of the things added are usually already included in base game. To have the word free there meaning these performance optimization and new game+ are valid for paid content. But GG are good guys because they give it for free. Triple AAA future looks gloomier

I really need to finish the first one so I can give this a go
 
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sankt-Antonio

:^)--?-<
Had hoped they could fix performance mode without cutting back on features (tree swaying) but oh well... Curious to see hoe well a 40fps mode would feel/look in this game.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
Had hoped they could fix performance mode without cutting back on features (tree swaying) but oh well... Curious to see hoe well a 40fps mode would feel/look in this game.
Honestly, I could live with 40fps. There have been times where I played games below 60fps, even down into the 40s, and it took me a minute to notice. I can get use to 30fps but only in a situation where the 60fps setting looks like ass in resolution and effects by comparison. This improved performance mode is great but if they can give back a few effects from fidelity mode while keeping the framerate at 40, that might be where I park my car.
 
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