Forever Beta Feedback
Forever wow has wierd art direction rant I need the devs to take it more seriously
First of all I wanna say I been really enjoying the beta of wow forever so far but... I cant get it out of my mind that it feels like they are shitting on us about the SD models stuff, I heard in a xaryu stream that if the streamers hadnt pushed for sd models we wouldn't have had them, hear that makes me really concerned they don't care abt this at all and the new armor sets look cool but they don't look anything like the og tier sets like the art direction is all over the place... maybe im alone in feeling this concern but somehow I feel like we need to push up the volume on this and make the devs actually think about what they add and if it fits the world not just add retail graphics style stuff imo doesn't fit the classic spirit they where talking about...
Anyway just need to rant this out and maybe see if anyone has some good ideas on how to make this not become the case đ
Ahh yeah, then I concur. Loved my GronnStalkers/Arena S3 sets. I think if I had to add another Set to the S-Tier for me, as a hunter, (I'm blanking on the T set) but it was the WoTLK Scourge Stalker set. The one that looks like a gas mask. God I loved that armor set.
Itâs just artist skill. IMO the golden age of blizzard was 1995 to 2010. The people who made their games legendary during that time either retired or left, and they lost their world beating spark.
Diablo 3 came out in 2011 and since then everything theyâve made has either been mediocre or badÂ
You know you may be the first person I can recall who has said anything positive about the butthole face rogue tier. Goes to the differences in personal taste and the potential power of nostalgia.
I loved the ToGC set because they were nice on their own, had a theming between the "weight class", and while the plate sets looked similar between them you had unique models between Horde and Alliance.
Maybe they are not my favourite overall, but I think they were nice. I also think we are partially biased against them because we came upon them at a time where transmog still wasn't a thing AND we were supposed to swap Ulduar raid sets for them (Ulduar raid sets being mostly well appreciated by most classes except maybe Hunters and Rogues).
tbf this entire set is carried exclusively by the shoulders (not to say that many sets ARENT carried by the shoulders, but this is is like, THE example of getting carried by shoulder mogs)
Ehh. Sort of depends on which armor/class we're talking about. I think Paladin wise, this one is great. It's probably the best set overall of the three classic ones. I prefer T1 and T3 Warlock and Warrior sets. T3 Shaman is cool. T2 and T3 priest are about even. All the druid sets are about even for me. T2 and T3 Hunter are about even. Otherwise T2 wins for the rest.
This paladin set is probably the coolest over the next couple expansions though. I think T6 and T9 aren't bad.
It's all subjective I guess. I really like T4 Hunter and T5 Shaman but I knew a dude who thought that Shaman set was hideous. Lol
That would require anyone posting this kind of vague Doom post for the 20,000th time, to have actually had a single thought of their own before doing so.
Basically how the discourse around Forever goes. "I don't like Forever, so I need to find things to complain about. What is the most cherry picked thing I can do to support my biased opinion?"
Back in Dragonflight, people wanted to complain about how the new Gnoll models looked, and went out of their way to make the model look as terrible as they could get it without outright just making their own
Whats with modern devs making armor look like foam cosplay instead of metal or leather. It's seems prevalent in like all western fantasy games. This is from the new GW3 trailer.
Soulful, instantly recognizable, and actually feels like something that drops from a bug raid. The design is clearly influenced by AQ40. The new datamined paladin set is influenced by... paladin? It's literally just a generic paladin tier set.
It could be argued that the MC stuff was not that great looking and there were some better looking stuff OUTSIDE of the set peices. Its not like the retial sets set the imagination on fire. So it would be kinda hard to really top t2 and probably should not actuially be that baller for the first sets.
Less detail is the point. the HD reforged models look good when zoomed in, but are less readable than the classic models from a bird's eye view. the definitive models bring back classic's readability.
People complaining about âretail graphicsâ probably havenât seen this set lol. The artstyle has not moved as much as people pretended it has, things just look softer with 3D models and better lighting
Most people complaining about retail graphics complain simply because its retail. To a lot of the andys, nothing good comes from retail; If it has more than one flat texture, they don't like it.
I've also determined that the "Disney" look is having even a single rounded edge and not looking like the npcs is made up of flat panels.
Itâs the wire frames. But also one is in game, the other is a rendered image. So mileage may vary there. Still think wire frames of objects are retail style which helps the split be more obvious
Honestly feel they are leaning into the WC3 style with these. Alotnof the designs are very similar to how characters are looking in the forsaken campaign.
Absolutely. It's an incredible set, but it is the literal poster-child for Blizzard's over-the-top set design.
Judgement literally features triangular pauldrons â which btw, wouldn't actually work as shoulder guards, because shoulders aren't triangular. And the pauldrons come complete with entire shortswords and books stapled to them.
Some people just need something to be mad about, so they're trying to find literally anything to get them worked up.
Fucking thank you! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills but absolutely none of the Tier 2 sets "fit into" classic. And thats why they're so fucking good. They're over the top, fantastical, overstylized.
I really don't care for the low texture nostalgia models but i feel if there is a high enough base that uses them, blizzard will support them longer and better. I am curious what the percentage are now, at release and half a year after release.
Would argue Lawbringer makes for a better comparison, seeing as they just about share a color pallet, also the gloves and boots use the same style of geometry. Also Tier 2 mogs on everything, but that's besides the point.
I think these two sets really infer exactly what's wrong with the new armor. Primarily the biggest issue is texture quality and resolution, The new set is just leagues ahead of anything that can be found in the Vanilla world its supposed to live in. Looking at the specifics, The newer armor conveys things like layered depth (Look at the Layering of the chest plate) with a sharp shadowing effects undercutting crisp lines which are things you really couldn't model on armor from that early period of the game due to texture map limitations.
Vanilla armor sets by comparison convey texture depth by adding very subtle shadowing effect around the texture (look at the 'scaled' armor just below the breastplate on lawbringer) to give you the impression that there is some level of layering, The lines on the texture are more dulled almost pulling double duty as transitional spaces for the color to change, but adding an air of a shadowing effect as well. I find people often attribute this to why they feel like Vanilla feels so 'gritty' which it isn't so much as it is a softer color transition. This same trick is repeated across the character models and much of the world stage. Or otherwise the effect of having more 'painted on' appearance than that of retail.
Another albeit important nit-pick is the polygons on the pieces of armor that have geometry are also just too high, the transition of angles on the new armor is too smoothed or rounded. While the old designs had very limited geometry instead again using that more painted on art style to infer changes in depth and shadowing instead of it actually being there.
So why is this important? Well I think that Wow Forever needs a conducive and identifiable art direction. I think the world only benefits for having assets added that look like they belong in it. Classic World of Warcraft could reasonably be called 'retro' at this point, and I feel likes if we are as serious about preserving that original art style that is so beloved, It created some of the most iconic armor sets the game ever had (Basically Every T2 set). I can appreciate its probably not a matter of snapping your fingers and going back into the early 2000's design space for the games art direction, especially when you have all these flashy new toys that can help you make 'better' looking armor. But its worth keeping in mind 'looking better' and 'thematically better' are two very different things. I would have happily had a few re-colors of classic armor sets in the first tier while more time was spent achieving that classic vibe.
Classic or 'retro' graphics are something that has become very popular over the last few years, it does not require the latest and greatest fidelity to achieve that style, instead using things like lighting and shadows (which you've already done wonderfully) to achieve something that hits on a while new level.
I recently watched this video that put your point the same way. The Classic feel is defined through sharp, distinct, polygonal silhouettes and textures that have hand-crafted brushwork with a wider variety of distinct color tones on a single surface to fake lighting and shadow cues.
The difference in emotion conveyed through complex geometry and emotion conveyed through textures is why people often complain that Retail looks "Disney", because it kinda does: the rounded geometry, softer differences in color in the textures, and expressive faces really do look like something that wouldn't be out of place in a movie like Tangled.
When I think about developers, itâs about momentum. If theyâve done nothing but make retail assets for a decade, to switch gears and make deliberately low poly SD assets AS WELL AS the equivalent HD asset is not just twice the work, itâs like 3 times the work because you need a brand new workflow to produce the SD assets. You canât just use the same tools they used in 2004 because those tools probably #1 no longer exist, #2 donât run on your current workstations, and #3 wouldnât work on Forever because a big part of it is that itâs Classic ported to the Retail backend which wouldnât be compatible with the old tools.
Making SD assets is an undeveloped muscle they are learning to train. Like in OSRS when nightmare zone was introduced they had a random cow wandering around because they didnât know how to remove it yet in the legacy code. Theyâll get better with time. Also, of course they are going to be annoyed by this ask, you are arguably 2-3x the artistsâ workload with arguably little tangible return on investment. This is from a software engineer who knows how it feels to be on the other side of making stuff for people.
Blizzard sets their own deadlines just as much as turtle did. Honestly the lawsuit made them kick things out faster to profit as much they could from the hype.
I do some 3d modeling myself and yeah its somewhat true but you also sometimes get more intresting results when u are limited by the amount of freedom you have this is basic creative development, for me might even feel better if they only had retail sets but now its like a wierd mix of super low poly and super high poly it just makes the game look less coherent imo, I realise not everyone agrees with this
It just has to be consistent, I don't mind retail graphics that much except that many of the old zones in retail do not fit with the new graphics. If they want to go HD they need to remake all the zones to also be HD
The set on the right looks very Vanilla design wise to me. It's hi res sure but the design is fairly down to earth. Looks nothing like retail tier sets. Retail sets usually have glows, animations, 3D elements etc. And this one looks simpler than retail questing gear.
Stuff like this is a great example of why I don't read the forms or this subreddit that often.
I've been having a blast with the beta, new graphics and everything. To the point where I'm having to stop myself from playing so I don't burn myself out for the actual launch.
And then I come here and it's just post after post of the most inane complaints being treated like they're the end of the world and the worst thing ever.
I mean, to be fair, this is definitely the place for people to voice their concerns. Devs come here often to see what people are thinking
They can love the game and be playing it non-stop but have a concern about the tier set designs, they come to Reddit and post about the tier sets, then go back on the game they love
You gotta take reddit and other non-paid forums with a hefty grain of salt though. As there is no direct correlation between a comment here being associated with a paying customer or potential paying customer. The best wow example would be the transition from wrath to cata heroics. All over the forums people were talking about how they quit during wrath and just wanted tbc type heroics back and wanted healing to be hard with mana being a big issue. So blizz listened, and juiced the crap out of cata heroics and the people who said they would come back if those dungeons were hard again...didnt come back and instead loads of people quit because of the jarring change. So blizz reversed the decision and added raid finder for their current paying audience.
The whole "you think you want this but you dont" argument pre-classic is from that cycle that blizz had seen. Old lapsed players complain about something new and say that they'll return if its fixed. Blizz fixes it. Old people find something new to complain about. Right now theyre listening to people who are playing the beta because almost all of us have paid blizzard for the beta (we have proven that our voices == $$). Long term, forever is going to be for the people who monetarily support forever (sub AND play). So if that audience wants every new thing to be HD. That is what it will be. IMO forever is catering to the lapsed player who wants that slow experience, but not the 1:1 classic experience. They want class identity but also every class to be viable for all of their identified roles. Faction identity, but also not being locked out of their favorite class because of that decision.
With the most recent name ban wave, WoW Forever as a topic has gotten political too. I've seen a number of comments here, but mostly other platforms, from people who don't appear to have played classic, retail, or any other version of WoW. In a few cases, I've seen them argue for dozens of comments before downright admitting they've never played the game.
I'm sure there's always been a little bit of that with the overlap between a certain WoW streamer's actual WoW audience and his chud audience, but I've noticed a huge influx of those people recently.
This is an extremely relevant opic, art direction is one of the pillars of a game's identity, and here it is all over the place. The new stuff just doesn't look good.
The post doesnât really have suggestions. Itâs a self described rant that claims the devs are âshittingâ on the players (whatever that means in this context) and donât care about a feature they implemented after what sounds like community feedback from streamers (whether or not that was true). Thereâs basically nothing constructive about it. I guess itâs saying I like SD better? But thats about it. Data theyll get internally fairly easily.
People are welcome to give positive or negative feedback. But when they then get responses agreeing or disagreeing, thatâs the price of voicing an opinion. Youâll get opinions voiced right back at you.
Art direction for new Forever assets/characters/models and HD-toggle aren't consistent with Vanilla for the most part. It's sticking out like a sore thumb and that has me worried.
Environments, lighting and the new zones align perfectly with it tho, so I just wish for the rest to kind of go that same route as well.
I would say that it's a good problem to have, it means that a majority of people like the direction overall, that Blizzard are taking Forever in.
You're comparing the most iconic WoW set ever to a newer set that's more in line with T1 in terms of intricacy.
I'm sure the art team is taking this very seriously, they just need to adapt more and creative success doesn't happen every time. Maybe they'll release a total banger eventually, or maybe not.
And visually, they're comparing an in-game on a character model, to a model viewer with bright static light (I think it's called?). Of course it's going to look off.
Havent seen much of the new armor but that does look pretty retail. They have been uninspired making retail sets for a while now. Most of them look way too clean and cookie cutter. One on the left is miles better
They are obviously catering to the newer generation tastes. The original generation was heavily influenced by dark gothic themes like Diablo, torchlight, and like themed comic books.
These are much less dark and more âVictorianâ for lack of a better word. Very bright, shiney, notice me! Vibes.
Itâs concerning for me. The game is supposed to cater to classic players but the majority of new assets both implemented and datamined are reskinned retail models with high poly counts and smooth textures and edges. No matter how hard they reduce the texture quality for most of this stuff itâll never look classic and will always look out of place. Iâm concerned itâll get to the point where Iâd prefer to play something else because the game becomes so visually jarring and immersion breaking it wonât be cool anymore.
Being worked up as inâŚcriticism? The post reads pretty rationally. They preface by saying they like the beta. Thereâs no cursing. No embellishing or colorful language. Itâs just a post of someone expressing their valid opinion on the art style. Not sure why forever has so many people being so dismissive about these red flags.
Yeah, man, it's so much better to instead have the time and energy to be worked up about other people being worked up about something like this. You're definitely better.
Considering Blizz nailed the asthetic with HoT, RoL, Riverglades, and the gear therein, I'm willing to give them some more time to refine the actual art direction. Giving them feedback that Riverglades is good and Zephras Isle missed the mark is a good way of saying "not this, but this." Gives a good example for them to work from.
The armor example given in the OP isn't great either. The set on the right is based on sets from MoP and looks really good on the classic/vanilla character skins. A better example would be some of the items added with the Skyborne.
I'm sorry, but you're actually blind if you think the new armor set doesn't fit the WoW Classic Aesthetic. It's higher definition than Classic, but it absolutely fits.
What you're doing is incredibly disingenuous, and I'm guessing just karma farming. You took one of the historically best looking Classic Tier Sets, as if that's the only Paladin example.
I dare you to edit this and put up the other Paladin Tier Sets from Classic up here. Lawbringer and the PvP sets in particular I would love to see the mental gymnastics as you try to explain how the new armor doesn't fit the aesthetic established by the Classic Art Team. But if I were a betting man, you won't, because you know your argument will fall apart immediately (Especially from the PvP set).
You would think with how important it is they would allot time for this but then you find out the only reason SD models are available is because streamers had to bring it up in a meeting. Which means Blizz is completely fine with everything having garbage fortnite looking retail models.
i mean you are showing the most iconic best looking set ever made vs the first raid tier in forever, which i think looks good, slap a tabard on it and its pretty good looking tbh, this paladin one was looking by far the best out of the rest
people really aren't getting it in the comments. it's not only the theme of the new set, it's the fidelity of the assets. it looks so cartoony and whimsicalâ and then on top of that it stands out like a sore thumb because it's essentially straight from retail.
How do you guys really not see the difference? They are dated looks. One looks like it was from before XYZ time, and one looks like it was after. THAT'S the point.
Because it seems like most people playing Forever werenât really Classic players to begin with. Theyâre Retail players or people that have stepped away from the game for a while and just coming back.
People who have been around this sub and talking about Classic+ for years care about this stuff, but apparently weâre in the minority now.
Why do people expect that blizzard still has the know-how and old technology to create new low fidelity sets. Even is SoD all they were able to do was recolors and release all the unfinished or unreleased items from the original WoW back in 2004âŚ
Ofc they have high fidelity but at the same time the cartoonish look with bright colors is exactly what describes warcraft and back then they didnt have the ability to make such 3d models. Why would they do lazy work in a basicly new game?
it's not only the theme of the new set, it's the fidelity of the assets. it looks so cartoony and whimsicalâ and then on top of that it stands out like a sore thumb because it's essentially straight from retail.
You're saying this in a thread that uses fucking Judgement as the positive comparison. Do you understand how stupid this sounds? The "fidelity" and "cartoonishness" of Judgement is off the fucking charts. It's like THE original set for over-the-top pieces of flair.
For one, there are already at least 2 HD versions of Judgement; there are HD versions of "we have judgement at home" tier sets, and they know Judgement was so iconic that, for A LOT of Paladin tiers, they tried to capture that look/feel.
That and Comparing T2 to what is an obvious, like mucho mucho OBVIOUS reference to lawbringer, the teir 1 set they just made it more grounded and less banana shoulders.
They canât, as soon as they made retail models a toggle it opened the box to this sort of stuff. Remember they didnât even plan classic models until a bunch of streamers convinced one of the devs.
Have you looked at Paladin tier 1? The banana shoulders? If anything this first set looks plausible.
It looks like a paladin's armor and it looks very adjacent to the OG Paladin from the WoW loading screens.
The helmet specifically is only really missing that gem-like thing in the middle. If anything the armor reminds me of Dungeon set 1 for warriors, which then got some shades of paladin added to it.
Not every developer can hit gold with their art direction for raid sets like the Judgment armor. And I think they tried quite well with their first new "Old" armor.
Just unbelievable how many are disagreeing with this. I think the game is doomed to be full of these out-of-place assets at this point. We're too late into development and large parts of the community don't mind so I don't see them putting in the work to address this.
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u/Salt-Analysis9999 5d ago
Tbf Blizzard never cooked as hard as they did for Tier 2 sets