Did they patch the game?

[Hadji*]

I remember reading that this game required community patches to run, When they removed Denuvo the game still didn't get the patch and I didn't follow it's news until now.. so, Was it patched?

[Kaldaien]

Unfortunately, yeah. The Steam version is now the Windows Store version. So we lost per-object motion blur, got a reduction in bloom quality and AO and it stutters more.

[Hadji*]

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

Unfortunately, yeah. The Steam version is now the Windows Store version. So we lost per-object motion blur, got a reduction in bloom quality and AO and it stutters more.

Huh..? I thought the patch would be fixing the stutters..

[🐸♰Revy]

Originally posted by Hadji*:

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

Unfortunately, yeah. The Steam version is now the Windows Store version. So we lost per-object motion blur, got a reduction in bloom quality and AO and it stutters more.

Huh..? I thought the patch would be fixing the stutters.. :winter2019neutralyul:

He's spreading stupid biased misinformation about stutters because he's bitter that old versions of FAR (that he made) are obsolete now. He's been doing that crud since the release of Windows Store version despite just about everyone admitting to it being the superior version to the old Steam one with plenty of comparison video proof on YT (Santiago Santiago is a good reference for one). The one major exception being Digital Foundry which only bothered to show the prologue section in what seemed to be a rushed out video.

After the patch, the game stutters noticeably less, if at all. Has proper resolution scaling, fixed the issue where having AO and MSAA on at the same time caused graphical glitches, prerendered cutscenes run at 60fps by default, Borderless Fullscreen functionality, etc and there's no actual noticeable visual compromise unless you're deliberately overexamining trivial crap. Not a perfect patch by any means and 4 years overdue but the game is in a much better state now regardless.

Official patch notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/524220/view/3006699289308512389

Also, I still like Special K (FAR) and have used it to smooth out Tales of Berseria and I'm even probably thankful for it so yeh. Pre-Automata Patch versions of FAR though always gave me more stutter rather reducing it (and I'm not the only one) and I used RTSS for better frametimes instead.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Huh:

Originally posted by Hadji*:

Huh..? I thought the patch would be fixing the stutters.. :winter2019neutralyul:

He's spreading stupid biased misinformation about stutters because he's bitter that old versions of FAR (that he made) are obsolete now. He's been doing that crud since the release of Windows Store version despite just about everyone admitting to it being the superior version to the old Steam one with plenty of comparison video proof on YT (Santiago Santiago is a good reference for one). The one major exception being Digital Foundry which only bothered to show the prologue section in what seemed to be a rushed out video.

What are you talking about? I'm irritated that after 4 years of nothing they made stuff worse. Bloom and AO are ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up in this version of the game, it doesn't support framerates below 60, HDR is forced on, they removed per-object motion blur, asset loading hitches are even stronger.

I fixed a few of those issues, but I shouldn't have to fix their new patch.


I modified the very same Microsoft Store version of the game that Digital Foundry reviewed, and I found the exact same problems they did. I fixed a few of them.

You're spreading a lot of misinformation.

[a.j]

Originally posted by Huh:

He's spreading stupid biased misinformation about stutters because he's bitter that old versions of FAR (that he made) are obsolete now. He's been doing that crud since the release of Windows Store version despite just about everyone admitting to it being the superior version to the old Steam one with plenty of comparison video proof on YT (Santiago Santiago is a good reference for one). The one major exception being Digital Foundry which only bothered to show the prologue section in what seemed to be a rushed out video.

After the patch, the game stutters noticeably less, if at all. Has proper resolution scaling, fixed the issue where having AO and MSAA on at the same time caused graphical glitches, prerendered cutscenes run at 60fps by default, Borderless Fullscreen functionality, etc and there's no actual noticeable visual compromise unless you're deliberately overexamining trivial crap. Not a perfect patch by any means and 4 years overdue but the game is in a much better state now regardless.

I would believe way more the guy who actually patched the old mess and knows the game very well on a technical level than you, who's simping on the new mediocre patch for no reason and insulting the guy who fixes tons of games for free for everyone and is a legend on the PC community, specially for the Japanese ports, is obvious that your comment is biased and full of hate, and you're assuming that he's jealous or bitter which makes no sense, he's one of most vocal people around always pushing developers to fix their damn stuff and patch their games, he asked for years for a patch for this game and what they did was a mediocre work, HE KNOWS WAY MORE ABOUT THE GAME THAT YOU DO.

Originally posted by Huh:

Also, I still like Special K (FAR) and have used it to smooth out Tales of Berseria and I'm even "probably" thankful for it so yeh.

"Probably" thankful? wtf is that? Yeah you're not thankful at all, don't BS us, you play Japanese games/ports which means you've used Special K at some point and this how you repay him for his work that he does for free to fix those games you've played, by insulting him for stating his opinion (and he knows what he's talking about unlike you who just learned everything from youtube videos)

if Special K gave you stutters that's on your machine, because for many it fixed the game and it was free and made by a fan that loves the game, he made no money or gained anything and instead he had to put up with entitled people like you insulting him and making stuff up, he even made a new version of FAR for the new patch. Stop simping for the lousy work that SE made after 4 years and only because of the review bombs and articles otherwise your beloved Windows Store version would've stayed there forever.

[🐸♰Revy]

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

What are you talking about? I'm irritated that after 4 years of nothing they made stuff worse. Bloom and AO are ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up in this version of the game, it doesn't support framerates below 60, HDR is forced on, they removed per-object motion blur, asset loading hitches are even stronger.

Both Bloom and AO look absolutely same to me and if it takes a magnifying glass of somebody with lots of time and experience in game tweaking tools to notice a visual difference, then that difference is pretty irrelevant to me and probably is to most people. AO in particular looks just as barebones as it did before patch except this time around it doesn't create obnoxious graphical glitches when paired with MSAA. And at 1080/1440p I'll take MSAA over barely noticeable AO any day because jaggies especially on foliage and blades of grass are much more annoying. As for Bloom I never really noticed any difference even when I used the bloom/ao FAR fixes back in the day, nothing that affects overall experience in any significant way at least. HDR > no HDR at all. I always had motion blur off but if there's noticeable reduction in a fast-paced action game like this then fine I'll give you that. Overworld/open world traversal is much smoother with less stutter/hitching too. Idk who wants to play sub 60fps but just cap it via RTSS or sum'n??

The side-by-side comparison videos of old and patched Automata look pretty much identical as well so if some miniscule downgrade exists and is a tradeoff for other factually present and functional fixes that you refuse to acknowledge and give credit to, then sh1t, I'll take it.

Proper scaling, more stabilized FPS cap, borderless windowed mode, fixed graphical bugs, etc, are much more essential than that crap.

You were getting called out on shilling your own product incessantly and spreading info that didn't add up with what pretty much everyone else was saying at the time of Windows Store release too.

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

I fixed a few of those issues, but I shouldn't have to fix their new patch.

Sorry I forgot that Square Enix and the entire Automata community forces you to fix what's not broken anymore and do it for free too. Maybe you're confusing gratitude with a feigned sense of unnecessary responsibility. If you have such a strong itch of fixing stuff then there's plenty of other lackluster PC ports even in recent memory that you could tweak up.

I think the reason people haven't been too vocal after the drop of this patch is that at that point most had already finished the game, or were so fed up with SE's bs that they didn't care to even comment. They also did a much better job announcing the patch than its actual release months after. Still, so far the overall consensus seems to be that the patch delivered on fixing most of the stutter which was arguably the biggest problem, and other stuff along with that. For the exclusion of you and Digital Foundry of course so makes me wonder if people who actually play the game feel the change more than people who overanalyze its technical aspects enough to put it into graphs.

I'm one of the people who protested SE leaving Steam users in the cold after the release of Windows Store version on forums & via negative review which I deleted after. Leaving the game in the state that it was for 4 years is inexcusable but I also don't want people to be steered away from playing a great game when it's in a better state or think that they still need community patches for a better experience when most people just wanna boot up the game and play it.

TL;DR: Game is decent and you don't need FAR anymore :]

[🐸♰Revy]

@a.j shush n practice what you preach which is simping LESS

[TheSeek]

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

it doesn't support framerates below 60

I'm sorry, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90jlYf5dKTY
Forgive the awful quality cause my PC is crap, but this is the game vanilla(except 2B Reincarnation outfit mod) after the patch, and as you can see it definitely supports fps below 60(ignore the few dips in the 20s, i don't really get those if im not recording), and the game speed is 100% unaffected.

Mind, i know everything else you said about the game is true, and i don't doubt that if the game is targeting 60, it does go in slow-mo if it dips below that target, but as you can see it is not always true, so maybe there's something else at play that makes the game speed not tied to a locked 60fps(ignorant guess, its spped is tied to whatever fps the game targets on the PC it is running on, so if it targets 30, as long as at least 30fps are reached no slow-mo occurs)

[Khronikos]

Originally posted by Huh:

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

What are you talking about? I'm irritated that after 4 years of nothing they made stuff worse. Bloom and AO are ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up in this version of the game, it doesn't support framerates below 60, HDR is forced on, they removed per-object motion blur, asset loading hitches are even stronger.

Both Bloom and AO look absolutely same to me and if it takes a magnifying glass of somebody with lots of time and experience in game tweaking tools to notice a visual difference, then that difference is pretty irrelevant to me and probably is to most people. AO in particular looks just as barebones as it did before patch except this time around it doesn't create obnoxious graphical glitches when paired with MSAA. And at 1080/1440p I'll take MSAA over barely noticeable AO any day because jaggies especially on foliage and blades of grass are much more annoying. As for Bloom I never really noticed any difference even when I used the bloom/ao FAR fixes back in the day, nothing that affects overall experience in any significant way at least. HDR > no HDR at all. I always had motion blur off but if there's noticeable reduction in a fast-paced action game like this then fine I'll give you that. Overworld/open world traversal is much smoother with less stutter/hitching too. Idk who wants to play sub 60fps but just cap it via RTSS or sum'n??

The side-by-side comparison videos of old and patched Automata look pretty much identical as well so if some miniscule downgrade exists and is a tradeoff for other factually present and functional fixes that you refuse to acknowledge and give credit to, then sh1t, I'll take it.

Proper scaling, more stabilized FPS cap, borderless windowed mode, fixed graphical bugs, etc, are much more essential than that crap.

You were getting called out on shilling your own product incessantly and spreading info that didn't add up with what pretty much everyone else was saying at the time of Windows Store release too.

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

I fixed a few of those issues, but I shouldn't have to fix their new patch.

Sorry I forgot that Square Enix and the entire Automata community forces you to fix what's not broken anymore and do it for free too. Maybe you're confusing gratitude with a feigned sense of unnecessary responsibility. If you have such a strong itch of fixing stuff then there's plenty of other lackluster PC ports even in recent memory that you could tweak up.

I think the reason people haven't been too vocal after the drop of this patch is that at that point most had already finished the game, or were so fed up with SE's bs that they didn't care to even comment. They also did a much better job announcing the patch than its actual release months after. Still, so far the overall consensus seems to be that the patch delivered on fixing most of the stutter which was arguably the biggest problem, and other stuff along with that. For the exclusion of you and Digital Foundry of course so makes me wonder if people who actually play the game feel the change more than people who overanalyze its technical aspects enough to put it into graphs.

I'm one of the people who protested SE leaving Steam users in the cold after the release of Windows Store version on forums & via negative review which I deleted after. Leaving the game in the state that it was for 4 years is inexcusable but I also don't want people to be steered away from playing a great game when it's in a better state or think that they still need community patches for a better experience when most people just wanna boot up the game and play it.

TL;DR: Game is decent and you don't need FAR anymore :]

Jaggies are awful, and I too will take MSAA over them is SGSSAA or 4K and SMAA are not enough or possible.

[Hadji*]

I'll see for myself I guess.

[BONKERS]

I'll what K says over some rando any day of the week.(When they have had years of actual evidence to support their claims) Especially when we all know how incompetent and how little of a ♥♥♥♥ companies like Square Enix actually give when it comes to supporting or fixing any of their products on a platform they treat like a 2nd class citizen.

Speaking of downgrades that just reminds me of how much Sega downgraded vanilla PSO2 with the NGS update...ugh. When I emailed them back and forth repeatedly about some of them.
Such as thee removal of reflections on water despite there still being a reflection quality option in the menu.
https://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=15440

The bloom has been downgraded significantly
https://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=15003 (This is supposed to be on a blistering hot and sunny desert planet)
https://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=15004
https://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=15005

The game now finally has proper mipmaps, but the mip setting for all character models beside your own being completely broken.(Resulting in all other models having very low res textures now) And your own character model uses the wrong mip when previewing your model
https://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=15431
https://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=14943
https://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/8c3pso20210725233220002.png This is a picture of the game at max settings (Sans terrible TAA). Look at all the textures on the other character models using the wrong resolution mipmap. It's a blurry mess.

Or the shadow lods, resolution and draw distance being significantly broken after the update. (Without showing you the pictures comparing the old and new engine it's hard to explain).

They removed the "Reflections quality" option entirely (instead of fixing the problem), the shadow lod distance was marginally improved (But still worse than before the engine change) and the character model texture resolution is still completely broken.

It goes on and on. I've got 70+ direct A/B image comparisons from before and after the update (Because I could see it from the moment it was shown off. And took a few thousand screenshots and several videos) and it's just sad how much worse the game looks now with no way to go back. (Unlike with the 2016 engine update).

Wayyyy off topic sorry.