Minimal Infestation looks really bad
Jekt
Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
So since release, minimal infestation has looked like this.
Streaks and barcode like infestation textures cover every surface. There's been a few threads about some servers that have had an infestation bug causing it to look like this.
This is the greatest bug I've seen. It should be a feature.
Streaks and barcode like infestation textures cover every surface. There's been a few threads about some servers that have had an infestation bug causing it to look like this.
This is the greatest bug I've seen. It should be a feature.
Comments
Would that be easier on CPUs? Looks like it still covers most of the textures even though its lighter.
full infestation leaves huge bubbles that hide buildings, cysts, hydras or enemy players etc. also make it difficult to catch a wall-jump as the distance to wall is hidden.
minimal infestation not only looks 'patchy', but it's totally unintuitive because it looks like you should be able to place building/mines when you actually can't.
wouldn't it be nice if there was a 'middle ground' ?? keeps a little bit of the 3d effect, but not enough to cover cysts etc.
Hey guys remember me
Only the best version of minimal infestation passing through
;-;
Not really sure I follow your argument. The minimal infestation appears to be rendering incorrectly, this isn't subjective.
It's particularly obnoxious when you have no idea where you can place your Hydras so that they grow themselves.
Yea, infestation completely covering stuff can be annoying.
Once, in Mineshaft, our Cavern Hive was constantly being shot by an ARC but we couldn't find it... after some time, it turned out it was completely immersed in infestation :l
No, not at all. I'm saying that the old ones were glitchy as well. Your cherry picked screenshots looks mostly good but the old minimal infestation only did so occasionally, most of the time it looked horrible. Even in your screenshots there are several jarring transitions and stretched textures.
Why on earth would you force such a thing on players?
Because full infestation causes noticeable difficulties in gameplay, the full infestation can significantly obstruct visibility, depending on the circumstance.
It is like suggesting that low model quality should remove some of the level geometry to make it easier to see, and that there's nothing at all wrong with that state of affairs.
Players should not be choosing between functionality and aesthetics. Either full infestation needs not to block visibility, or low infestation needs to start doing it, or there needs to be no option to switch between them.
If one was to follow that logic you'd have to turn on shadows, ambient occlusion and atmospherics permanently as well. Because they too give a player some visual disadvantage. What said about resolution and FOV? What about the sneaky ones who turn up the brightness/gamma of their monitors?
For most shooters, increasing the visual splendor will no doubt influence the visibility of the game in some part, not to mention the fps. That's just how it is. The options allow you to choose to play the game very casually and enjoy as much as the visuals as possible, or choose to play it very competitively and cut away all the pretty stuff. Or one can find a middle way.
IMO, if one was to change something in this case, rich infestation needs to cut down a bit on the bubblyness, so it can still look good without obscuring too much.
But, with regards to atmospherics and shadows, those are both actively addressed, a few patches back they cut the atmospheric intensity of flashlights because they were causing the exact same dichotomy, visibility for visual appeal. Shadows are also important to consider which is why mappers are (or should be) careful not to rely on shadows to make their lighting work. If lighting looks drastically different with shadows on and off, you need to redesign the room to change that, you cannot use shadows as a component of gameplay-affecting lighting because players have the option to turn them off.
The problem is that you're suggesting that gameplay and visual appeal somehow should be opposite ends of a scale, rather than unfortunately so as a limit of the game developer's ability, which is a silly argument, what possible benefit is there to separating them if it is possible to not do so?
I can sympathize that the patchy nature of the bug makes it difficult to know the extent of the infestation for hydra placement, but I've never had many problems with it in practice. There is almost always enough patchy infestation around for you to make a good guess how fair it extends.
for me the biggest annoyance (aside from looking glitchy) is mine placement... the mine is actually 'green' to denote valid placement, but then you try to place and it doesn't work. you literally have to spam the mouse button to find where the infestation actually ends.