Why have graphics stagnated for almost 20 years?

V F · 16 Mar 2022 at 16:37

arknor said:
Neither of those games interests me.

Doom seems to run off a token system anyway where your basically fighting the game itself as a collective like the borg or something
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/cyber-demons-the-ai-of-doom-2016-

But you're saying they haven't progressed in 20 years. They have. They were so good in Doom Eternal on release they were nerfed several times by id because of the difficulty complaints. Not the game journalists.

With God of War on a first playthrough on the hardest difficulty, you can predict the AI patterns. Where on New Game Plus, the AI behaviour and patterns changes. Same patterns but different encounters of how they are delivered. Sometimes extensively and more aggressively.

Calin Banc · 19 Mar 2022 at 07:53

arknor said:
Physics and AI are about where they were 20 years ago.

in fact they were probably better 20 years ago when Hl2 came out and other games were pushing Physx features.

Now we get games where barely anything is interactive or has physics, there was a time games saw destructive environment etc as a good thing.
here's 2001

This game had online multiplayer btw, you could still blow up walls, make tunnels with rocket launchers etc.

Physics in racing games barely changed, AI in racing games still moving road blocks, AI in most games = Brain dead.

most games stopped having interactive environments even

Red Faction Guerrilla and Armageddon are pretty good, too. And Guerrilla being an open world game, similar to GTA, proved that you can do it for more than linear games.

Gerard · 19 Mar 2022 at 14:51

V F said:
But you're saying they haven't progressed in 20 years. They have. They were so good in Doom Eternal on release they were nerfed several times by id because of the difficulty complaints. Not the game journalists.

.

Not really saying much, programmers can just make ai seem good by giving it better accuracy or more damage per shot vs the player, or let it know the players location even if the player is hidden.

In the old c&c games the ai was notorious for cheating by having its harvesters attack the players harvesters, which is something that gameplay wise wasn't possible except for the ai cheating.

MoNkeE · 19 Mar 2022 at 16:34

Gerard said:
In the old c&c games the ai was notorious for cheating by having its harvesters attack the players harvesters, which is something that gameplay wise wasn't possible except for the ai cheating.

huh? I’ve played the old C&Cs loads, when was that ever a thing?

Gerard · 19 Mar 2022 at 17:07

MoNkeE said:
huh? I’ve played the old C&Cs loads, when was that ever a thing?

The original command and conquer onwards, just have to Google it and read about some examples.

MoNkeE · 19 Mar 2022 at 17:25

I can’t find anything, can you link me?

MoNkeE · 19 Mar 2022 at 19:41

Gerard said:
The original command and conquer onwards, just have to Google it and read about some examples.

I can’t find anything, can you link me?

Gerard · 19 Mar 2022 at 20:24

MoNkeE said:
I can’t find anything, can you link me?

Out at the mo, but I recall an article claiming they some of the cheats the ai would employ would be having harvesters attack player harvesters and having its ornithopters attack player ornithopters, though this all happened offscreen so was hard for the player to pick up on it.

Also stuff like the ai insta building things, being able to put buildings longer distances from each other than the player could, harvesters not meaning much to its credits income, etc.

Proto · 19 Mar 2022 at 23:16

Shinier does not mean better.

The 486 brought an evolutionary shift to 3D that is still fundamentally unchanged, and this will remain until truer forms of ray tracing become more common.

BUDFORCE said:
I'm still playing Battlefield 2, and yes the graphics have not changed since 2005.

First comment that made me smile, and brought the thread to life.

Rimsy · 21 Mar 2022 at 14:14

OP has a point (just badly made).
1994- Star wars tie fighter. Basic blocky flat shaded polygons.
2007- crysis. Stunning game that was well ahead of its time.
2022- generic junk that looks a bit better than crysis but nowhere near the leap from 1994-2007.

C64 · 21 Mar 2022 at 14:31

Gameplay has stagnated though

Gerard · 21 Mar 2022 at 18:05

C64 said:
Gameplay has stagnated though

No doubt, games are basically hand holding dumbed down ****. Just have to look at sp footage of the latest call of duty, items being lit up that you can interact with and basically arrows to show you what way to go.

jsmoke · 21 Mar 2022 at 18:17

Bump mapping was introduced in 1978. It's been a case of waiting till the hardware and tools are available.

arknor · 21 Mar 2022 at 18:19

Gerard said:
No doubt, games are basically hand holding dumbed down ****. Just have to look at sp footage of the latest call of duty, items being lit up that you can interact with and basically arrows to show you what way to go.

Games arent aimed at adults any more that's why it used to be an adult hobby or geek teens who are smart.

now it's gotta be accessible to any random potato who can only navigate a corridor

BIackMagic · 23 Mar 2022 at 22:34

You jelly?

V F · 24 Mar 2022 at 01:50

arknor said:
Games arent aimed at adults any more that's why it used to be an adult hobby or geek teens who are smart.

now it's gotta be accessible to any random potato who can only navigate a corridor

It was hard not to laugh.

mid_gen · 24 Mar 2022 at 08:17

Games are still pushing on in the visuals department, it's just more subtle. More polygons aren't going to offer more at this point. It's animation, lighting and shaders that are where the gains are being made.

Horizon Forbidden West has pushed human faces agonisingly close to out of the uncanny valley. The skin shaders in particular are incredible. With a bit more advancement in the facial animation, human features will be nailed.

AI is an interesting one (mainly because I am a game AI programmer

)...relatively easy to make genuinely 'smart' and 'clever' AI. For a shooter you could use neural nets and let the AI run around in simulation and get extremely good at killing players and exploiting every single flaw in your engine....not much fun to play though, and there's little scope for tuning.

Making game AI feel 'smart' is actually mostly about smoke and mirrors, rather than it actually making smart decisions. Animation and audio tics that help the player read what the agent is doing and why, etc.

Spook187 · 24 Mar 2022 at 08:17

Simon0001 said:
Since about 2005 they have hardly changed.

Stop moaning and get a better job so you can afford a better graphics card, survival of the fittest wink wink :cry:

Joxeon · 24 Mar 2022 at 09:05

Gerard said:
In the old c&c games the ai was notorious for cheating by having its harvesters attack the players harvesters, which is something that gameplay wise wasn't possible except for the ai cheating.

The players always had the good old sandbag wall to outfox the AI.

MoNkeE · 24 Mar 2022 at 09:47

Yeah I searched and searched, there’s nothing online about the enemy harvesters being able to attack player ones etc

the rest of the cheats around economy etc are true that and that’s something a lot of strategy games do.

The old C&C games didn’t actually have anything in the way of AI, just literally text scripts that the “AI” would execute. Whilst this sounds like ai in theory, it actually means the AI would only ever build the same buildings, would only react to the player if it did a certain thing, stuff like that.

@mid_gen interesting post, and I think you’re right that players react better to the illusion of intelligent AI rather than actual intelligence. I think audio cues play a huge part in this A I remember being really impressed playing The Last of Us 2, and hearing the bandits referring to unique names when saying things like “oh no, they’ve killed Chris!”.