Is it just me, or the visual SOSE2 design looks like DOWNGRADE?

[droid_orat]

Oirginal SOSE vs SOSE2 looks like SW movies vs Disney SW cartoons

[Veny]

Yea ships certainly use more cartoon-ish colors compared to first game, that had more realistic vibe.
However, enviroment looks great so far and so will propably effects.
All in all it seems that the cause of this "problem" is the color of different players/AIs which kinda overwrite overall ship design.
But since we can have same factions fighting against each other, is it actually a bad thing?

[Antineutron]

I think its the textures, they are too "clean" with not enough detail such as the patchy TEC plating, player colors on ships exist and aren't a problem in sins 1 so I doubt it is because of that

[WHIPperSNAPper]

It might be far too early to judge any of the game's visuals just yet. At this point they may all be placeholders.

[Mr.Person]

I think its that there is too much paint, the whole ship is covered in it instead of it just being normal metal with some stripes to indicate player colors

[Queco Jones21]

Too early to judge...

But it maybe a way to help tell the difference for MP...

The models look great though.

[Veny]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

I think its that there is too much paint, the whole ship is covered in it instead of it just being normal metal with some stripes to indicate player colors

Well, the very early game will have just one faction which means there will be same factions with same ships fighting against each other. This pretty much requires some (very) visible distinction. Otherwise, it will be a visual mess.
Game kinda reminds me Age of Empires 3 where when zoomed out, soldiers were just red/blue/whatever mass but everything else worked just fine.

Lets just hope these colors are not really part of the models and there will be some in-game option to remove team colors completely so ships could get their realistic look.

Indeed, too early to judge.

[Ensign]

Its not too early to judge, the models are very clean indeed this is going in a new artistic direction where more color is the only way to differentiate units rather than silhouettes.

When games do this its either to dumb things down for consoles (like civ 6 and this is doubtful since this is way too micro intensive for that) or because its going the way of bigger is better. Stuff gets colorful when battles get bigger (see supreme commander).

The thing thats largly a "downgrade" is that the ships have militarized. Take a look at the Akkan Battle Cruiser (the TEC Colony Cap ship) and ull see all the little windows and ridges and that added alot of "realistic" detail. They were retrofitted civilian ships afterall.

But the new Akkan is all large pieces of single plates, which taking into account that Sins Vanilla through Sins Rebellion took place over 40 years. It would make sense that the new ships are more armored, militarized and "streamlined" to look clean and new.

The Kol Battleship also got the same treatment, most of its geometric detail was cut infavor of large smooth armored plated look. Without all the little glowing windows and smooth reflective/metalic surfaces the new ships look like a downgrade by comparison since the OG ships are more detailed.

I do hope they add more "battlescars" or shiny metalic surfaces to ships so they look less like mobile versions of the original ships. Becuase at the moment the Matte finish the ship's paint job have give it a sort of duplo/ playdough kind of look to the ships.

[Mr.Person]

Originally posted by Veny:

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

I think its that there is too much paint, the whole ship is covered in it instead of it just being normal metal with some stripes to indicate player colors

Well, the very early game will have just one faction which means there will be same factions with same ships fighting against each other. This pretty much requires some (very) visible distinction. Otherwise, it will be a visual mess.
Game kinda reminds me Age of Empires 3 where when zoomed out, soldiers were just red/blue/whatever mass but everything else worked just fine.

Lets just hope these colors are not really part of the models and there will be some in-game option to remove team colors completely so ships could get their realistic look.

Indeed, too early to judge.

Colored highlights on the ships in Sins 1 is still easy enough to make them visually distinct, not to mention they just turn into team colored icons when zoomed out so I don't think its a visual distinction thing.

Doubtful but maybe they'll bring the old models back for one of the faction splits, (Rebels get more militarized ships, Loyalists getting the originals but updated) though I'm not sure how'd that work with the new moving turrets system on old ship designs. It'd be cool to see though.

[Akira_R]

Strongly disagree, visuals look great, especially compared to SoSE1. I will never understand why some people think having more contrast and color saturation looks worse or like a downgrade. Seriously texture detail, model detail and lighting are all worlds better in the screens we see.

Yes the ship surface area that is devoted to faction colors does seem a lot higher than in the first game, I can see how some people would dislike that, it sort of gives things a bit more of a homeworld vibe even though the ship designs are still very SoSE. But that is very different from bad graphics.

[wbino]

Yes the ships appear to be just one huge polygon with guns attached.
I hope the devs don't think moving turrets make up for simple ship designs.

[Bourbinski]

Who know, maybe the fancy squeaky clean look is just how they look when the come right off the line, but maybe they've got some more interesting damage models, or the caps start to look more rugged the higher level they are.

[Stabilo ᐰ]

Originally posted by droid_orat:

Oirginal SOSE vs SOSE2 looks like SW movies vs Disney SW cartoons

Feels so. This and the e-store choice disaster ring some very suspicious bells.
Sins1 wasn't without its own cartoony elements, but that felt more like devs had limitations and did what they could with what they had. Looking at titans, models are amazing. The texturework, the effects, ships look realistic, they feel real.
Not so much now, but theres time to change that.

Originally posted by Akira_R:

Strongly disagree, visuals look great, especially compared to SoSE1. I will never understand why some people think having more contrast and color saturation looks worse or like a downgrade.

A lot of games pursue techical quality over art design. This also kinda butchers what the factions are.
TEC for example jury-rigged commercial barges to serve as warships. Even their dedicated war marchines look like they took the biggest gun available and weilded an engine to it. This gave the faction a very unique look and feel. Ship designs told a story.
New ships tell a different story and i dont like it.

[Antineutron]

Originally posted by Stabilo ᐰ:

Originally posted by droid_orat:

Oirginal SOSE vs SOSE2 looks like SW movies vs Disney SW cartoons

Looking at titans, models are amazing. The texturework, the effects, ships look realistic, they feel real.

that's weird, to me the titans, excepting ragnarov and ankylon (somewhat), looked like they were a big deviation from original ship designs (same for the new capital ships/corvettes each faction got except maybe corsev and shriken/stilat + acolyte/vespa) and don't fit aesthetically with rest of the ships

for example rankulas has this weird texture and armor that just doesn't look like rest of vasari ships do and stands out, look at what hull of any other vasari capital ships looks like and you will see it just doesn't fit with them, same as vasari corvette armor

for titans themselves, they look like they were forced into their shape with no compromise, the other ships even in case like rapture/revelation ships still have very specific shape but seem more compromised to have it with things like engines seeming to be part of design, whereas titans are just straight up "this is the shape we must have and not a single plating will be out of place", everything that is part of ship will just be added as an afterthought, for example vorastra has this tiny engine on its back that just doesn't even seem powerful enough to move the shoots pulse cannons from its jaw that just doesn't look like it was supposed to be a weapon port at all, it looks like the ship designs were set in stone and adding engines/other components of ship to to it to make it believable was out of question for some reason

TEC seemed to suffer least from this problem for some reason, probably because their aesthetic isn't that hard to replicate compared to more unique and specific advent and vasari ones, idk but to me eradica, even if I like its general shape, seems to not exactly follow the advent aethetic in its details, coronata's armor at least looks somewhat believably advent in comparison even though its head and shoulders are un-advent-ly elaborate

there is just something about ship design and aesthetics before rebellion that unifies them over new ones

and no I am not "nostalgic" or whatever excuse will be in response, I started playing when rebellion was already released and saw all of them at same time

[Frenker]

Originally posted by Akira_R:

Strongly disagree, visuals look great, especially compared to SoSE1. I will never understand why some people think having more contrast and color saturation looks worse or like a downgrade. Seriously texture detail, model detail and lighting are all worlds better in the screens we see.

My god some people have tiny expectations and standards...

When i saw the first gameplay of the sequel. i didn't even know It was new game footage....


visuals are bad - poor. ONe more disappointment in my opinion.

Same ♥♥♥♥ happened with Homeworld 3...

Rip both of them!

Falling Frontier my last hope for space strategy games now and even those visuals could be way way way better.


Sad year for space strategy games!

[DarkNexus]

I think the graphics are perfectly fine honestly, I personally don't care what the graphics are so long as its good enough to not hurt the eyes or be difficult to distinguish things. What matters to me is gameplay.