A Discussion on GW2's Graphics

[Diak Atoli.2085]

EVE Online graphics is best graphics.

/endthread

 

Ok, now to be serious. Aesthetically, I find GW2 to be better than most if not all MMOs, but I would love it if ArenaNet was able to optimize performance even more. That being said, it already runs perfectly well, so it would merely be a pleasant surprise for me.

[Airdive.2613]

A texture upgrade, perhaps. Especially those three pixels that are stretched all over the huge Shiverpeak mountains making them look silly.

Everything else is great.

[Ephemiel.5694]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"Ephemiel.5694" said:

> > > @"Einsof.1457" said:

> > > I can't believe these type s of posts. The graphics and art design in guild wars 2 is miles and miles beyond what any other game in the genre can produce. WoW and FFXIV textures are about 50x worse than guild wars 2. After playing other MMOs and moving to GW2 6 months ago, I am amazed almost every few minutes of how beautiful the game is. I don't think it's fair to complain about graphics in gw2.

> >

> > I don't know what are you on that you really think WoW and FFXIV have worse graphics and art design. Really, GW2 having better graphics and art designs than WoW, FFXIV, ESO, Tera and especially BDO?

>

> Art design is subjective but gw2 has better graphics than wow.

Agree to disagree then cause i enjoy the cartoony graphics of WoW, especially after they've spent a ton of time and effort [you know, what ANet doesn't do cause it won't make immediate money] since Warlords of Draenor reworking everything from the models, the animation and even the actual particles of every single skill.

 

In the meantime, ANet won't even have unique animations for the races, with Sylvari, Human and Norn using near-identical ones for everything [while WoW has had unique animations for every race and gender since the game released].

[Alga.6498]

It is still really beautiful and have great looking graphic, sure you can see it has aged and some stuff are "outdated and old looking", but overall it still look really beautiful.

[Ok I Did It.2854]

GW2 still has some of the best graphics ive seen in a game, sure there are better, but newer games are using new engines that can truly use all of the latest and greatest hardware the market has to offer,

 

I think with the way the game engine currently is, the graphics/art team have hit the limit of what they can truly do, anything else will require a new game engine, which will not happen for GW2,

 

I hope though that any future games ( probably not expansions but GW3 itself if it happens ) will move on and be built to truly use the hardware we have access too, and not toned down to use 5 y/o systems.

 

For a QoL update I wish they would give us a fully customable UI, like we had in GW1

[coso.9173]

GW2 is beautiful still, it could be improved of course, and I'd love for them to do it, but to me it's more about the art design/direction that could be improved in some areas.

I've been playing the witcher III and everything just "feels" right, lots of attention in towns, woods, swamps, cities, everything looks like it should and "feels"like it should.

you can see the wind in the trees, the reflection of the water and many other things that can be done within the GW2 engine too.

So I hope they keep improving the new zones and keep getting better at it. :)

[GreyWolf.8670]

I don't think the visuals look outdated at all. Gameplay > visuals 99% of the time. If I'm having fun I don't care how detailed that tree or cactus I just ran by was.

[Hashar.6082]

Well, depends on what you mean by "graphics." For the most part, the _environments_ in the game are absolutely stunning, and the textures and models are at least adequate. What isn't stunning is the lack of physics simulations (including but not limited to clothing physics), which isn't something many would consider a "graphics" issue, but which affects the visuals in very profound ways. That I would very much like to see added to the game, and it also has a very slim chance of being added. Lighting could also use an overhaul, though, especially when it comes to shading.

[blambidy.3216]

Me personally I don’t think it would be appropriate for arenanet to focus on improving graphics. There is already a bunch of people who can not handle gw2s graphic state. So to add to graphics I think it would do more harm to the community who don’t have high end PCs.

 

If arenanet has the time to adjust graphics in their engine. I would rather suggest them to clean up the engine and defrag, etc. so much simpler PCs could handle gw2 graphics.

 

Being honest within graphics with gw2. Gw2 isn’t bad at all. It’s actually a beautiful looking game. To me in mmo graphic looks. I would say gw2 is top 5 if not, top 10 of best looking mmos vs other mmos. I have no played all mmos so I couldn’t give a full opinion on all. But I would say it’s probably at number 4? Ffxiv at number 1, bdo, and eso being head to head. And then gw2. Gw2 really is a great looking game.

 

I would also say comparing to which graphic setting everyone has it at. If everyone could handle gw2. The highest settings with gw2 is a great looking game. But if your at low settings, I could see why people would say it would need an update.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

GW2's [painterly ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painterliness "painterly ")aesthetics have been chosen purposely to keep the graphics relevant even after they become dated.

 

I will welcome any and all performance improvements, but I see no need to have more detailed models.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Ephemiel.5694" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > @"Ephemiel.5694" said:

> > > > @"Einsof.1457" said:

> > > > I can't believe these type s of posts. The graphics and art design in guild wars 2 is miles and miles beyond what any other game in the genre can produce. WoW and FFXIV textures are about 50x worse than guild wars 2. After playing other MMOs and moving to GW2 6 months ago, I am amazed almost every few minutes of how beautiful the game is. I don't think it's fair to complain about graphics in gw2.

> > >

> > > I don't know what are you on that you really think WoW and FFXIV have worse graphics and art design. Really, GW2 having better graphics and art designs than WoW, FFXIV, ESO, Tera and especially BDO?

> >

> > Art design is subjective but gw2 has better graphics than wow.

> Agree to disagree then cause i enjoy the cartoony graphics of WoW, especially after they've spent a ton of time and effort [you know, what ANet doesn't do cause it won't make immediate money] since Warlords of Draenor reworking everything from the models, the animation and even the actual particles of every single skill.

>

> In the meantime, ANet won't even have unique animations for the races, with Sylvari, Human and Norn using near-identical ones for everything [while WoW has had unique animations for every race and gender since the game released].

 

U enjoy the art style which over time and with better equipment has improved. As for the animations. Its w/e its not something that imo is required.

 

also gw2 is far younger than wow and the models they change looked very low rez and effort previously.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Hashar.6082" said:

> What isn't stunning is the lack of physics simulations (including but not limited to clothing physics), which isn't something many would consider a "graphics" issue, but which affects the visuals in very profound ways. That I would very much like to see added to the game, and it also has a very slim chance of being added.

 

GW2 uses Havok physics, its just they chose not to do too much with it. But it's definetly capable of it and doesnt need any engine update for that. Its the same physics engine used in Destiny, Shadow Of Mordor, Assassains Creed (I get the feeling that will be heavily kittened), Call Of Duty, Halo etc etc.

[DarkHorse.1059]

> @"Zedek.8932" said:

> > @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> > Graphics are fine as they are, not everyone has a super pc to play at 60fps during WvW blobs and Istan on max settings, upgrading grappics will cause a lot of people will low end pcs to not be able to play anymore, also im way too busy enjoying the game than zooming in on foliage and grass and complain about it.

>

> The problem with your statement is that GW2's engine is so bad, it is **THE** reason why it is running bad on older PCs as well as on new rigs.

> If you, for example, think of GTAV and its ability to look absolutely great on a GTX660 or how well FFXIV runs on my rig, while GW2 suffers due to bad programming, your argument is kind of flawed.

>

> The graphics themselves are nice, but if you - again - think of FFXIV, they are not so good, and every bit of eye-candy is ressource-hungry. FF14 retrofitted a lot of things or came with right from the start (e.g. soaked clothes right up to the point you were in actual water, e.g. just up to your waistline) or the shadows on Gridania's paths (forest area) that are caused by the flora (the trees) then I am always a bit annoyed that when I turn on shadows here, it starts to eat ressources like crazy or when I want to turn on water reflections on my Ryzen7 1700X/GTX1080 PC, I can't do that without getting FPS rollercoaster. GW2 is the only game which is hindered by its engine so much it's not even funny.

>

> On a side-note, I also hate the light is ALWAYS coming from top right, no matter what you do; character lighting is flawed, too.

>

> Excelsior.

 

Because I run a consistently comfortable framerate @ max graphics settings on a processor that was 3 years old when the game came out and a GPU that was released one year after. Engine must really suck badly. WVW/PvP/PvE I never experience any more "graphical" or better said "performance" issues than I would on any game dependent on network connectivity.

[Apolo.5942]

Personally I find nothing wrong with the current graphics.

 

On a cost/benefit analysis, better graphics are poor substitute for better gaming, better gaming endures, better graphics get outdated by the end of the next quarter.

[Zola.6197]

The graphics are fine and have aged well - more cartoonish styles age better than “realistic” graphics anyway.

 

Black Desert is gorgeous but the game is boring as hell with virtually no coherent story. I’d rather have a more compelling and fleshed out world/story.

[Elvirais.5472]

Black Desert Online looks good as long as you stand still... it has about the worst pop-in I've ever seen, with scenery changing drastically even when you're one meter away. It's a bad engine, but it looks flashy and cool up close. The devs basically admitted they couldn't fix this, engine limitation, but even then they could have picked level-of-detail models that are more or less the same shape... baffling design choice.

[Zeivu.3615]

You think gw2's graphics are bad? The original Lineage is still up and it has Morrowind style graphics. lol

[Holy Security.9724]

Whatever your opinion on graphics is: the engine needs a rework. heavily

[crepuscular.9047]

outdated? nah, dont need super realistic graphics like BDO, kinda pointless

 

I got drawn into BDO because of the eye candies, but got bored after a few months because it was so stale, all i did was 24 hours afk fishing

cant really do proper levelling because all levelling spots are camped by jack@55es who would come and 1 hit you

you even get killed by them at gathering nodes >.>

 

performance and gameplay > eye candies

[darkaheart.4265]

I think investing into new graphics and engine would probably call out for GW3. In my opinion the graphics are fine since it's all part of the game style, for example minecraft's graphics. However, enhancing the lighting of the game with a third party mod can make a big difference. Check out this video to see the 2 mods I been playing GW2 since last fall. It adds a contrast, sharpness, bloom, depth, and can hide parts of the UI.

 

https://youtu.be/1dljE3Nul20

[TatsuyaHiroki.7412]

graphics are fine, i just wish there was a way to reduce lag some more whenever in crowded zones

[TESLA.7415]

> @"Ephemiel.5694" said:

> > @"Einsof.1457" said:

> > I can't believe these type s of posts. The graphics and art design in guild wars 2 is miles and miles beyond what any other game in the genre can produce. WoW and FFXIV textures are about 50x worse than guild wars 2. After playing other MMOs and moving to GW2 6 months ago, I am amazed almost every few minutes of how beautiful the game is. I don't think it's fair to complain about graphics in gw2.

>

> I don't know what are you on that you really think WoW and FFXIV have worse graphics and art design. Really, GW2 having better graphics and art designs than WoW, FFXIV, ESO, Tera and especially BDO?

 

I just tried the trial of FFXIV and I can say the graphics are far worse than GW2. The characters have poor detail, their heads are too small for their bodies, etc. They have no detail in their faces, they look like clothing store manikins. Aside from worse graphics, the gameplay has no voice acting and the combat is terrible. WoW is an has always been awful in graphics. BDO has nice graphics but it's a very boring game. All you do is left/right click and wipe out everything in your path. I never even had to use a skill.

 

And no, it's not my system as I have an RTX 2070 Super and run everything maxed. I get over 100 fps in GW2.

[AgentMoore.9453]

Most of the graphics in the game are fine, and I actually prefer them to the creepy not-quite-realism other games have been trying their hand at lately. I wouldn't mind sharpening up some of the blurry textures, however. The basic Moa pet and some of the ambient animals, for instance, are unfocused and in some cases made noticeably out of triangles. There was also a hubbub recently about blurry infusion textures which could use a tune-up.

[thepenmonster.3621]

> @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> > @"Yannir.4132" said:

> > These kids, complaining about graphics... Back in my day, characters were a blob of pixels, and I was still happy enough to play. I still do. I never understood why people bought Pokemon Fire Red over the regular red... (and I'm under 30...)

>

> Back in my days Fallout was a top down turn based rts/rpg with pixelated 2d sprites, and it is still better than the newer ones that came out from Fallout 3 and after

 

You fetuses. Generation _Asteroids_, son. And I still got the scars from my _Pac Man_ Fever.

 

> @"Elvirais.5472" said:

> Black Desert Online looks good as long as you stand still..

 

It's the world's best waifu builder.

[TESLA.7415]

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said:

> Most of the graphics in the game are fine, and I actually prefer them to the creepy not-quite-realism other games have been trying their hand at lately. I wouldn't mind sharpening up some of the blurry textures, however. The basic Moa pet and some of the ambient animals, for instance, are unfocused and in some cases made noticeably out of triangles. There was also a hubbub recently about blurry infusion textures which could use a tune-up.

 

Do you have an Nvidia card? Have you used their built-in filters in the games? It makes a big difference. There is also ReShade, which is a bit trickier to setup, but works well.