Just a point of view before early access

[Rastlaff]

Good visuals, but looking at the videos the characters animations and movement feel disconnected from the ground they are moving on. Second video, 1:00, look at the feet of the characters.

Death Stranding was teaching something about that, same as RDR2. The ground could be your doom and it's a shame devs are not using this to enhance tactical options. Especially when you play that guy you were showing with a huge backpack.

Game Director is an artist who worked on Horizon Zero Dawn, quite fine, but Guerrilla's latest HZD game was to me absolutely not shining. It seems to be a thing lately saying that devs are coming from AAA and big name studios, there were recently several Early Access games on Steam claiming the same and turning out to be just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, so it's better to wait and see what becomes of this one at the full release.

[wasteland_ghost]

One should do, not pretend. Emphasizing on being experts from big studios (and not giving names nor responsibilities) is off-putting, tbh, because it feels like a bit of dust in the eyes.

[Pino is reading a book]

Wow a triple A that costs +100 million dollars have better animations than an early access game made by a small studio? INSANE!!!

[Rastlaff]

Originally posted by Pino is reading a book:

Wow a triple A that costs +100 million dollars have better animations than an early access game made by a small studio? INSANE!!!

and obviously you are not reading any books

[kilo 40]

I noticed that floaty looking walk in the first couple of trailers, but I didn't really notice in the game play videos I've watched.

[Bandy]

Hormones on attack at steam forum... ಠ_ಠ
Who needs to buy a game...

[CryonicSuspension]

A streamer talked with a dev about it, so they know and are working on it:

https://youtu.be/Be8Dc3hf-iw?si=teRBYyaspccNmf8P

[Kashra Fall]

You really can't compare games that have hundreds of devs+outsourcing+ a WAY bigger budget, to a game just going into early access. They know the animations need work and are working on it, but don't expect a pristine experience on day 1.

[Rastlaff]

People really need to learn to read into the text, not just glance at it, grab one word they recognize and immediately go write a reply.

It's not about animations, it's about how characters interact with the world. They can have the best beautiful animations and the best beautiful ground textures ever made, but if the characters are not slowed down by the mud they're walking on, then all that beauty makes no sense. This is why I brought up Death Stranding and Red Dead Redemption 2 - because in those games it's not just visuals. And you don't need a AAA budget to make proper character-world interactions.

The fact that characters in the trailers are floating above the ground indicates that the devs didn't think about those interactions, so even if they fix their IK, it won't really change anything except the visuals.

[CryonicSuspension]

It's hard to talk about a videos that are not even in the original posting...

[NexAngelus *X*]

Originally posted by Rastlaff:

People really need to learn to read into the text, not just glance at it, grab one word they recognize and immediately go write a reply.

It's not about animations, it's about how characters interact with the world. They can have the best beautiful animations and the best beautiful ground textures ever made, but if the characters are not slowed down by the mud they're walking on, then all that beauty makes no sense. This is why I brought up Death Stranding and Red Dead Redemption 2 - because in those games it's not just visuals. And you don't need a AAA budget to make proper character-world interactions.

The fact that characters in the trailers are floating above the ground indicates that the devs didn't think about those interactions, so even if they fix their IK, it won't really change anything except the visuals.

read these words. have u ever held a gun? plot twist u dont look at ur feet while hold a gun. how am i going to know im floating on the ground unless i have a fat friend join me and laughs at me for 5 mins about my running animation? take ur time and write up a how to stealth guide for those of us that want to play the game oooo great masta

[CATTY&Co.]

Originally posted by Rastlaff:

They can have the best beautiful animations and the best beautiful ground textures ever made, but if the characters are not slowed down by the mud they're walking on, then all that beauty makes no sense.

I remember an interview where John Carmack (or someone similarly venerable) moaned about how players always say they want "realistic physics" but expect themselves to accelerate from standing still to 30 miles-per-hour in zero seconds.

TFW is over-produced. Individual hairs in your cyber-hobo's beard, but no footprints on the ground.

Realism in FPSs is an artefact of how GPU hardware was marketed to consumers - eventually the hardware might be able to render it, and AI fill in all the detail a human artist couldn't be paid to draw - but (1) we aren't there yet and (2) it isn't desirable. 3d art is still about stylization.

The realism of TFW doesn't really achieve a superior illusion to 30 years ago, but it does create a ton of busywork for some underemployed AAA animators. If only they can find some way to trick people into paying them to draw hobo beard-follicles.

[Zen]

That is something I hope they can also look into. Making your characters movements more reactive to terrain. Turning, the body moves then the gun. Running and stopping, the weight of the backpack should make the character look like they adjusting. Leg up on uneven terrain. Subtle little things like that can make the difference. But Im positive the devs might work on it.

[wasteland_ghost]

Basically, we'll get yet another survival co-op game where you need to collect some resource(s) to make it through another day, right? So it's Tarkov but with water instead of fuel? That's it? Ah, yes, "the setting" is supposed to be different.

But what is "the setting"? Look at the recent Star Wars Outlaws game from Ubisoft. Is it really Star Wars? Is it just about textures and sounds? Or there is something else that a - can make this game distinctly Star Wars, b - can give it a unique identity? BTW, Assassin's Creed Shadows dev revealed recently that there will be a change of weather and seasons but it won't affect the gameplay, because they don't want to have "negative impact" on the players. Lol, who is this guy? Ubisoft should fire him immediately, because he has no clue about gameplay! And those Ubisoft devs are upset when Elden Ring & RDR2 are making sells when their games don't.

The Forever Winter so far from what we can see at the game's Steam page (yep, the videos are there, you don't even need to search if you're lazy) suffers from the same "Ubisoft syndrome" (apart from the casual difficulty of the Ubisoft games) - it's the same exact gameplay we know repeated over and over again copy-pasted from a legion of games in the same genre. Just with different skins.

So the problem is not graphics or animations, the problem is the lack of gameplay connections. It's not a wallpaper generator nor a movie we're talking about here, it's a game. And the game needs to play good, not just look good. If you've got a backpack, its weight and size should affect the gameplay, add problems to solve and challenges to overcome. If the ground is muddy or slippery, it should affect the gameplay, because the battlefield becomes more dangerous and stealth more tricky. This is what makes the game actually difficult and interesting to play - not spongy enemies or clunky controls.

[Rastlaff]

We will probably do a playtest at the EA, though, I suspect we won't be amazed by the gameplay. And I even suspect we won't have good optimization and graphics of UE5. But if I have to do the same I did for Qanga EA (a 10 mins tweak, honestly) to get that proper UE5 fluidity and good graphics, it will be a refund. And don't tell me it's EA and you will optimize later when you know it takes just a few minutes to someone who knows the engine. And you chose that engine so you should know it ("The team noted that the reason they were able to do all that they wanted with the game was because of the power and versatility of Unreal Engine 5.") ? Right ?

That said, I hope I'm wrong because, yes, the visuals seem to be good and the atmosphere as well, but as wasteland_ghost said very truly, it's not what you make good games with.

If players are satisfied with the same gameplay loop they already had in a legion of the already released games, same crouch, same basic gameplay mechanics (simplified GTFO) ... well, it's up to them.