Rocksteady is working on fixing the PC port, not Iron Galaxy if I remember correctly (unless something changed recently).
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Batman AK PC Perf Thread of DARKNESS, NO SETTINGS [30fps cap / intro removal in OP]
- Thread starter Peterthumpa
- Start date
Rocksteady is working on fixing the PC port, not Iron Galaxy if I remember correctly (unless something changed recently).
johnnydrama
Banned
It's kind of hilarious how long it's taking them to fix it. Must have been a huge mess in the first place. I played it on PS4, but I've got it in my Steam library and I'd love to play it in 60FPS if I can. So I'm waiting.
Yeah I just meant in the first place, creating this situation with some of the worst programming known to man!
Reizo Ryuu
Gold Member
Combat has regressed since Origins IMO, WB montreal fixed some things and had some good ideas RS never implemented for Arkham Knight.
If IG got handed garbage code from WB, you can't expect them to work miracles.
Oh yeah definitely. I still can't believe WB lied to us about who developed the game for so long.
I thought I could trust Rocksteady but I really can't anymore. I'm not sure how much of that is due to WB, but it doesn't matter. I'm the consumer and I don't want to buy Rocksteady or WB games day one anymore.
Plus it was the worst Arkham Game. I ended up playing it on PS4.
Spring-Loaded
Member
You mean the electric gauntlets? The way enemies would run straight through smoke as if it weren't there? Enemy attack speeds/frequency being unbalanced against player animations? The stackable takedown uses that made the "gel + multi-ground takedown" really easy?
RS actually did change the explosive gel to be like the concussion grenade (which was the worst thing introduced in Origins' combat) and the weapon pickups work like the electric gauntlets, it's just something the player can't recharge on their own volition. Not sure what you're referring to other than that.
Worse than Origins Blackgate confirmed
Schweinehund
Member
Nice to see the film grain toggle, I thought film grain was a bit out of place being the only game with it on there.
My guess is if we get anything for free it will be announced with a relaunch so people don't buy steam codes in the interim between now and that patch, so they can get more money potentially.
They don't want to do a cut off because it would be bad publicity for those that buy steam keys unaware. So it's best for them to say nothing.
My guess is if we get anything for free it will be announced with a relaunch so people don't buy steam codes in the interim between now and that patch, so they can get more money potentially.
They don't want to do a cut off because it would be bad publicity for those that buy steam keys unaware. So it's best for them to say nothing.
Spring-Loaded
Member
When Rocksteady got the console version to be a "technical tour de force", it suggests the PC version should've been somewhat similar
LabouredSubterfuge
Member
Time and resources?
Apparently Rocksteady barely got the PS4 version running fine just before release. It seems like their code was an issue - I bet IG weren't given enough time or resources to fix this before WB mandated the PC release.
IG aren't the best port house out there, but the publisher knew what was wrong with the port and considered releasing it in that state as 'acceptable'. They're definitely more to blame.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Then it wasn't the code.
This isn't to excuse WB, but assuming the code was borked before IG got their hands on it shifts more blame to Rocksteady than should be.
Where'd you hear about them getting in order just before release? Is this assumed because of the delay?
Yeah, on one system - by sacrificing dev time for the PC and passing off the work. All reports point to even the PS4 having abysmal performance until just a few weeks' from release. A lot of previews noted this and stuff has come out from Rocksteady corroborating.
EDIT: Articles following up on the PC mess have mentioned it. I definitely read this on Kotaku or somewhere (see the link below). I also remember the Giantbomb guys talking about how awful the game was running in various preview events running up to release: http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2015/07/for_months_it_was_impossible_to_get_batman_arkham_knight_to_run_on_ps4
I REGRET EVERYTHING.
My least favorite main entry I should have said
What a shame, seem to hear more and more of that. I played it a little on PC and tried some Batmobile which I hated, I just hope the new PC version will me enjoy it more! Ha
The batmobile wasn't my biggest issue to be quite honest. I should note that driving the batmobile is pretty fun, but the tank combat is just so unwelcome.
More than anything the game just felt EXTREMELY formulaic. This is coming from someone who played AA twice on 360 and once on PS3, AC twice on PS3 and once on PC, AO once on PS3 and once on PC.
Reizo Ryuu
Gold Member
All RS arkham games have a problem with enemies that are offscreen and behind the player. The camera is positioned as such that the player sees much more in front then behind.
When the player happens to get near a wall, or other tight quarters, the amount you can see behind becomes severely limited.
This caused enemies to start attacking offscreen and then finish their attack in the split second they became visible.
Which is absolutely stupidly ridiculous and no other action game does this nonsense (dmc, bayo, ninja gaiden, etc.).
WBM actually attempted to fix this by having enemies that are out of view move much closer before attempting attack, giving more time to counter when they come into view.
RS didn't care for this fix and just ignored it.
They did however implemented another fix WBM did, which is how ridiculously enemies used to "slide" in AA/AC so they could still hit the player even when moved clearly out of the way. Origins mostly fixed this as well.
As for their good ideas, the gauntlets are a subjective addition which as you say fulfill a similar role as the weapons, but WBM added enemies that actually fought back (martial artists).
As for another subjective addition, they made the enemies a bit more aggressive, yes the timings changed a bit, but all the combat in AA/AC/AK feels boring and easy to me now.
Also you can charge the batmobile for easy takedowns, much faster than you could the gauntlets.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Giant Bombcast mentioned that last year before the long-ass delay. 9 months may not be a long time in the scope of the entire development, but is that what you mean by "running up to release"?
And if you find the stuff from Rocksteady that corroborates it, please post it. I never bought the assumption that the delay was merely "video games take time to make," that's been tossed around, but I'd like to see the evidence.
Amazeballs! 2 vehicles to love! Ha, I'm just happy that I paid peanuts for it tbh, if I'd paid full whack I would feel a bit pissed!
Spring-Loaded
Member
I'm watching videos of Origins and Knight combat and the camera works is marginally different at most. Looks more like the "freeflow focus" effect changes the FOV (something happens in City — along with terrible wavy filter — but not in Knight). If Origins camera is pulled out further, the benefit's negated by how enemies attack/recover quicker without there being any considerable adjustments to player animations/controls to account for them. This is anecdotal, but after picking around in Knight for 150+ hours (mostly redoing militia checkpoints in lieu of challenge maps), I haven't encountered enemies attacking off-screen any more than in past games (which happened infrequently). The camera auto-adjusts to points of interest in all the to the point constant adjustment isn't needed — charging and armed enemies who are about to shoot always telegraph through sound, and the camera swings around to show them. I haven't had an enemy start a charge from off-screen in the time I've spent with a game — I'm sure it can happen, but I'm pretty sensitive to when the systems break in this series, partly why I dislike Origins' combat, for example, for how often beatdowns lose lock-on when near a wall while countering other enemies.
AC and AK combat scales better than AO's — AO's is harder in general, but when doing the challenge maps, those flaws start to show, whereas AC combat is generally easier, yet the difficulty at higher levels is almost always fair (too few pure combat challenges in AK to judge for now, but it seems closer to AC in that regard). Joker's Carnival in AC is hard to get a million points for me, and enemies attack much faster/more frequently than normal, yet any time I've lost a combo, it was always something I could've overcome. I can't say the same for the time I spent with AO.
Batmobile takedowns, with the upgrade, recharge faster, but it's still just one enemy at a time. You can summon it to stop nearby, and if done with enough skill, it can careen through groups of enemies, knocking them out while you keep a combo, but aside from that, it's nowhere near as abusable as the gauntlets. I don't at all mind Batman being overpowered, but the Batmobile during on-foot combat is only ever too broken out in the streets and most of the hardest fights take place elsewhere. The gauntlets were always there in Origins once you got them.
AA's definitely more formulaic in its base gameplay. It may mix things up more often with it's boss "fights," but those are all terrible, drudgery at best. The expanded options in AK allow each encounter to be approached in considerably different ways, combat or predator.
I do think AK needs more enemy variety, in general. I actually miss the Venom giants from AA AC and the martial artists.
I don't hate the batmobile, but they should have kept it as the car only and axed all the tank stuff. They could have beefed up the chase sections and added more gadgets for the batmobile while chasing cars and it maybe would have been cool.
I could see a scene where you are chasing the Arkham Knight in some sort of big vehicle that's knocking through walls and Down buildings while you are deploying gadgets and weapons. Then when you finally immobilize it he steps out with like 30 dudes and you have to beat ass.
Instead we got tank battles.
Diablohead
Member
knight stuck to the militia approach too much, we needed some ex-joker thugs, stray titan thugs and heavies which take more then a cape stun and 20x punches to takedown.
Anything twisted such as manbat was shoved into a small side story, where as in asylum the game revolved around this toxin which will turn things into freaks so it have a more comic book story feeling about it, knight is all "I must defeat this army alone" and it's boring shit.
*edit* ok so the gas cloud stuff isn't too bad but ivy was really the only villian to feel fully functional, everyone else was on the side and seen once.
I was thinking about it today, and you know, I don't think that Scarecrow is ever rendered in-engine in the entire game. You certainly never interact with him, but I don't think there is even an in-engine scene with him in it.
That basically tells you everything you need to know about the misuse of villains.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Titan stuff was all awful in AA, and the other villains don't need that crap to shine.
Militia stuff is one note in tone, but it allows for good counters to Batman's weapons/movesets, in turn making the base gameplay more interesting, with more potential for challenge. It also doesn't preclude the more creepy/freakish aspects of Batman lore — those aspects could've been more prominent even with the militia, and they'll probably resurface in the villain DLC.
You can play as Scarecrow in the PC version, along with
Killer Croc
See the link I posted above - the PS4 version was a mess leading up to release according to sources spoken with by Kotaku. Seems like it was Rocksteady that likely bit off more than they could chew. Good on them for delaying and fixing things to an acceptable level for the PS4 release but it seems like this really hit them hard on the outsourced PC version.
Reizo Ryuu
Gold Member
Well it's great that you are watching a video on how the camera works, but I didn't say there was a difference in camera, the difference is in the enemy AI, they simply move closer before attacking.
And ofcourse I wasn't refering to enemies to which the camera focusses to like the chargers, also not refering to enemies that make audible cue before attacking (which are only 2, the charger and the gun), normal enemies do not make an audible cue before striking, they just suddenly appear before driving their fist/shield/bat/sword in the back of your skull when the camera fucks up in AA-AK.
Also I just easily got 1.5m points in Joker's Carnival to test your theory, hadn't played AC in years. I also used Catwoman, so no access to all the gadgets, multi-takedowns or weapon disarms, they didn't become any more aggressive later on than they are at the start...AC combat is just too easy and methodical compared to AO; JC and Penguin lounge are fun, but I enjoy 1-100 in AO exponentionally more. Let's just leave it at a matter of subjectivity.
shiftplusone
Member
wasn't the rooftop scene with him in game?
fake edit: just watched the video, doesn't look like it
well alright then
Spring-Loaded
Member
I noted the camera to reinforce that there's very little difference, if any, between the way combat beyond AO enemies attacking more frequently. But to address enemy attack proximity: If enemies run up closer to Batman before attacking in AO than in AC, they still attack faster and more frequently than in AC, yet Batman's animations are largely taken wholesale from AC, meaning there inevitably is a move that had purpose in AC becomes less useful/useful in AO (i.e. aerial attack/aerial attack to other enemy, or using the smoke bomb). Enemies locked-on from further away in AA and AC, yet their attack speed was adjusted accordingly — they also lost their lock-on to Batman easier, and regained it at a more reasonable pace. In AO, even if they run up closer to Batman before initiating attack, they're still locking on during other moves the player can't break out of or cancel, so rather than rewarding reflexes by making attacks faster/more frequent, it just changes a system that is already focused on managing large groups of myriad enemy attacks instead of moment to split-second-moment reaction. As good as the animations in these games can be, enemy attacks aren't animated in a way to support that kind of gameplay, as discussed in this video (whole video is worth watching btw).
I mention Joker's Carnival because it's the hardest combat challenge in AC, yet it never breaks — if anything, you beating it easily only supports the notion of how solid the mechanics are in AC. The enemies do attack more frequently in that challenge than they do in the main game, yet you don't find attacks whiffing when they should've landed (like what happens in AO), nor do you have stuff like batarangs (which always auto-target to a degree) hitting armored enemies, breaking you combo (which happens in AO). It's completely fair and doesn't break unless the player messes up. AO messes up a lot (because of enemy attack frequency/speed, enemy-Batman animation balance, player lock-on, etc.) and is more about avoiding damage until you can abuse the electric gauntlets (or explosive gel + multi-ground takedown) rather than building a massive combo steadily having to manage different abilities (the only on of which that's broken being the bat-swarm).
AC and AO are extremely similar. I totally get how someone would enjoy one over the other. That doesn't change that AO does not objectively improve the gameplay over AC and it's a disservice to anyone related to the series (fans or developers alike) to dismiss AC's approach to combat — the things AO changed could've been objectively for the better. In a vacuum, they are better because they make combat more challenging at a lower level and on the surface. When taken into consideration in the grand scheme of things, those changes were implemented improperly.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Double post:
That link was just an anonymous tester sourced by Kotaku, it didn't mention anything from RS themselves though. It sounded like you said "stuff has come out from Rocksteady corroborating" that development was rough. I believe it considering the delay, but I want to see more evidence.
And the PS4 version isn't merely an acceptable level if Digital Foundry gave it such high praise. It's a fantastic "technical tour de force" whereas the PC version is among the worst in the AAA industry. That is weird no matter how you slice it, and it sounds more like WB wasn't willing to delay the title (something that happens a lot in the industry and is better than releasing a broken game) rather than release a broken game.
Again, that's just the way I see it, but I do believe there was turmoil. Just thought there was some more substantial evidence than that one link, and more evidence from just before release of the game.
That link was just an anonymous tester sourced by Kotaku, it didn't mention anything from RS themselves though. It sounded like you said "stuff has come out from Rocksteady corroborating" that development was rough. I believe it considering the delay, but I want to see more evidence.
And the PS4 version isn't merely an acceptable level if Digital Foundry gave it such high praise. It's a fantastic "technical tour de force" whereas the PC version is among the worst in the AAA industry. That is weird no matter how you slice it, and it sounds more like WB wasn't willing to delay the title (something that happens a lot in the industry and is better than releasing a broken game) rather than release a broken game.
Again, that's just the way I see it, but I do believe there was turmoil. Just thought there was some more substantial evidence than that one link, and more evidence from just before release of the game.
Reizo Ryuu
Gold Member
You say objective, but none of your qualms happen to me in AO, I never "whiff" attacks, nor am I constantly "avoiding damage" until I can use the gauntlets, I don't even use the gauntlets, just like how I don't need all the extra things batman has over catwoman when I use her in AC.
"Objectively" AO combat is more challenging, which makes it the better out of the 2 for me.
Spring-Loaded
Member
And batarangs (which can't be aimed when used as a freeflow attack) hitting an armored enemy breaking a combo is objective. Is that better? What about the "vault form one enemy to another" aerial attack being longer in AO despite enemies attacking faster? Or animations in general being faster for enemies whereas most for Batman are the same as in AC? You've got enemies running/attacking through smoke that the player still needs Detective Mode to see through, though that's just a symptom of the overall "bump up enemy attack speed/frequency/recovery time/tracking ability w/o adjusting everything else in accordance" problem the game has.
You liking AO more is fine. But that's because you're only concerned with challenge. If we're talking about changes, contextualizing those changes is important — even if you say combat being harder is an improvement, it's only makes sense when explained how, and that "how" involves a few broken/imbalanced aspects.
dr_rus
Member
Better post AA. MSAA or SSAA as an option.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Yeah, the interim patch sounds like just that, "interim." It's all stuff that was reasonably expected to be in the base game, and there are options that still need to be added. "Promising" is too generous a word to use for it.
MSAA unlikely but it would be cool. We can already downsample though.
I still think there was some shit behind the scenes that we don't know about. Consider how IG also did the Arkham Origins port which was completely fine, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some merit to the rumors that WB only gave IG 3 months to do this port.
suddenlyissoon
Member
I'm in this situation too. Straight up stealing money at this point.
dr_rus
Member
Well, it's still UE3 so it should be possible.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
The worst thing about the side missions in that each one was repetitive with no real thought put into them.
But there's not even two weeks left in the month and the use of the word "few" generally indicates more than two.
But there's not even two weeks left in the month and the use of the word "few" generally indicates more than two.
Regardless, it still points to the source code itself being sort of a mess so the blame can't be entirely with IG for the bad port. I still think WB is really predominantly at fault for refusing to devote enough time/resources to the PC team. However, people should understand that it looks like that even a talented studio like RS was having issues, so the constant name-calling and claims of incompetence laid at IG's feet when they likely had a fraction of the tech team that RS has is a bit much.
Reizo Ryuu
Gold Member
Again I don't experience these qaulms/broken aspects. I simply don't use batarangs unless an enemy is too far away to continue free-flow, I honestly haven't experienced hitting armoured enemies with them.
If the vault attack now requires a longer time, then you should adjust to the time required, it's like wondering why you got hit when you used a ground pound takedown too early, those require a hell of a of time as well and it just means you need to become better at spacing.
Also if enemy animations are faster, it's by a miniscule amount, I just replayed 1-100 (without gauntlets/gadgets/takedowns) and the animations seem to be similar in speed to JC, the enemies themselves however are far more aggressive, and ofcourse the martial artists spice up the combat just the right amount.
I also haven't experienced enemies running through smoke, sounds like a random bug.
It's heavily modified though so it's entirely possible MSAA is no longer an option, just look at Ryse which didn't support MSAA while the CryEngine 3 did with Crysis 3, the game did not run on the exact same CryEngine and it's likely the same case here.
AA is really bad and I absolutely am not an elitist when it comes to IQ, I can tolerate FXAA just fine for example. I thought it looked decent on previous Arkham games but AK is way too blurry.
Film grain is shit as well.
Well, not if you set your expectations really, really low. When they said "interim", I assumed they were just going to fix all the crashing and unplayable hitching that many faced.
Doctor Ironic
Member
You are certainly acting like you know what *REALLY* happened at Rocksteady. ...Mr. Hill!?
You know that was almost certainly the publisher's decision, right? You don't get to paint Rocksteady as incompetent just based off of assumptions. I'm sure Rocksteady would have done the PC port themselves if they could have. Shit, they basically are right now. But you're also posting a lot of crap about "yeah well the console versions sucked until release too" when there's no evidence for that except dumb internet rumors by anonymous sources.
The facts are in front of you: The console versions by Rocksteady run great and look great. The PC version by Iron Galaxy not so much. You're basing everything else off of assumptions so it can fit your narrative of Rocksteady being dumbos or whatever.
RibbedHero
Member
The Arkham Origins port was shite for a while if I'm not mistaken. It's still soemwhere between very average and poor.
Not to my recollection, Origins ran very smoothly on my end.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Origins had technical issues re: bugs and glitches on all platforms, but as far as features it was quite good.
SeeNoWeevil
Member
If this doesn't maintain 1080p60 on a 980ti with the gameworks stuff on then it's a massive fail imo.
Considering how taxing Gameworks features are, I disagree. You are setting completely arbitrary targets for your hardware.