cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

It is a sad day, one of my 2 VR Killer apps died today

falken76
Expert Consultant
OMG I have two favorite VR games, Onward and DCS World.  Onwards recent update to include Quest transformed an awesome game into the dumbed down Roblox version of the game complete with terrible animation and heavily gimped sound effects.  It's in early access so it could go either way, but the game now is no longer as fun to me as it once was, it just looks terrible and with the change in sound and animations, I've almost lost interest completely.  This is 100% a downgrade.  I suspected they'd abandon PC to only support Quest due to the size of the demographic and they said they wouldn't be doing that.  I had no idea they would just ruin their game and end up having to support quest by default.  For shame......
83 REPLIES 83

RedRizla
Honored Visionary


I assume this is a cross-play thing? Are they saying the world has to be the same as displayed in both headsets for cross-play to work? Aren't there other cross-play titles that have managed this without Rift downgrading?

I guess Star Trek Bridge Crew, for example, has a less complex world but still, there must be ways of doing this.





Yes, in many online PC games you can turn off grass and other things if you choose to do that. I just find this a ridiculous excuse by these devs. Everyone knows they dumb down a game to make it mobile VR compatible.

Two steps forward one step back lol. Just roll back to fix it and then there's no need to take two steps forward 😄


RedRizla said:



I assume this is a cross-play thing? Are they saying the world has to be the same as displayed in both headsets for cross-play to work? Aren't there other cross-play titles that have managed this without Rift downgrading?

I guess Star Trek Bridge Crew, for example, has a less complex world but still, there must be ways of doing this.





Yes, in many online PC games you can turn off grass and other things if you choose to do that. I just find this a ridiculous excuse by these devs. Everyone knows they dumb down a game to make it mobile VR compatible.

Two steps forward one step back lol. Just roll back to fix it and then there's no need to take two steps forward 😄



Well there's no avoiding having to have less complex graphics for mobile VR but to be clear, I assume the problem is cross-play rather than just compatibility.

If all the elements in the game influence the play, i.e. things you can hide behind or interact with in some way then it'll have to be the same on both platforms otherwise Rift owners would be hiding behind trees that are invisible to their Quest opponents.

In that respect it's a question of whether making the game cross-play was the right choice, or how well they can optimise more complex graphics on the Quest.

I think in this instance, abandoning cross-play may be the end decision. If it sells well, there should be enough Quest players for them not to need cross-play, maybe.

RedRizla
Honored Visionary



RedRizla said:



I assume this is a cross-play thing? Are they saying the world has to be the same as displayed in both headsets for cross-play to work? Aren't there other cross-play titles that have managed this without Rift downgrading?

I guess Star Trek Bridge Crew, for example, has a less complex world but still, there must be ways of doing this.





Yes, in many online PC games you can turn off grass and other things if you choose to do that. I just find this a ridiculous excuse by these devs. Everyone knows they dumb down a game to make it mobile VR compatible.

Two steps forward one step back lol. Just roll back to fix it and then there's no need to take two steps forward 😄



Well there's no avoiding having to have less complex graphics for mobile VR but to be clear, I assume the problem is cross-play rather than just compatibility.

If all the elements in the game influence the play, i.e. things you can hide behind or interact with in some way then it'll have to be the same on both platforms otherwise Rift owners would be hiding behind trees that are invisible to their Quest opponents.

In that respect it's a question of whether making the game cross-play was the right choice, or how well they can optimise more complex graphics on the Quest.

I think in this instance, abandoning cross-play may be the end decision. If it sells well, there should be enough Quest players for them not to need cross-play, maybe.



Did you actually see what they did to the game? I've already said in another thread that unless you were an Ant, then you couldn't possibly hide in the grass on the PC version before. I suggest you see the grass on the PC version before they decided to remove most of it. They also decided to get a decorator in to stripe the wallpaper and make it blank, which you also couldn't hide behind. The bushes look like something out of Minecraft and the list just goes on and on.

OK I stand corrected 🙂

So the problem may be that the devs haven't gone through the process of separating what has an impact on cross-play fairness and what doesn't. If that's the case then it's fixable and should have been done before Quest release... they must be working on it though and depending on how all the world objects have were classed could be a long process or not.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
I'm hard-pressed to believe that the developer didn't see all this when he was halfway through the graphical downgrade. It would be like pooping your pants after several big meals, and then heading out for a day of shopping anyway. No changing, no shower.

Probably someone was against the wall with the Quest release date... someone else threatening consequences if it wasn't met. Bad decision made to release before being properly sorted... bad publicity ensues, work continues.

Megalithik
Expert Protege
Onward is dead to me now.  If PCVR people had to get the mobile graphics downgrade for Quest, then Quest users should have just been walled off to play with their own kind.  If i wanted mobile quality games, i'd have a baby-vr quest.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP


Quest users should have just been walled off to play with their own kind



"WE ARE NACHO KIND!"

Pixie40
Expert Trustee
Downgrading things to make it compatible with the Quest, sure. But they might have gone too far. Or maybe they intentionally overcorrected, and plan to now work back up to see what exactly they can pull off with the Quest.
Lo, a quest! I seek the threads of my future in the seeds of the past.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Post from the Onward Lead Dev,

Hello everyone.

We’ve
been listening to the feedback on the PCVR 1.8 update we launched
yesterday, and I understand the frustrations you’ve shared with us. The
focus for the update was not only to facilitate the launch on Quest:
we’ve also implemented an enormous amount of changes under the hood that
will enable us to expand Onward going into the future.

In
the end, we didn’t allow ourselves enough time to bring back the full
immersive experience for PCVR: the current graphics in particular are a
noticeable step down from what you were used to in 1.7. I apologize for
not having communicated that clearly with you, or giving you the option
to make a choice between 1.7 and 1.8 while we worked on solving these
issues.

Going forward the first
priority for 1.8 is to bring the graphics to a higher level, and sort
out the other issues you’ve raised with us over the past day. We’ll be
releasing a patch today with a couple of immediate changes to LODs, as
well as a handful of bug fixes. In addition to today’s patch, we’ll open
up a beta channel on Steam that will allow you to revert back to 1.7 if
you want to continue playing that version. This will remain an option
for the coming weeks, as we work to address the issues you’ve raised.


My
team has been working extremely hard over the past couple of months to
make this release happen, and I’m proud of the work they did. One of the
things they really need right now is some time off to catch their
breath. That means that after today’s patch most of Downpour will have a
week off before returning to work. Trust me they’ve earned it.


When
we’re back the focus will be to release frequent, incremental
improvements, and I’ll talk to you guys more about that as soon as I
can. Apart from graphical changes, we’ll also keep working on bringing
back the maps that didn’t make it into 1.8 yet, as well as custom
content.


Thanks for being
passionate about Onward. Your support over the past four years made the
game possible and I’m not about to forget that. Thank you.


- Dante (Lead dev)


https://www.reddit.com/r/OnwardVR/comments/i1bf33/the_state_of_onward_on_pc_future/