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Cacodemon345

Balance between Graphics and Gameplay

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This is something that I have been thinking for a while now.

 

How important the balance between graphics and gameplay is in your opinion? Personally, I feel like both graphics and gameplay should be good and I am not for imbalance between Graphics and Gameplay. It is why I tend to dislike for the likes of Quake 1 and Doom 2 (considering that the latter had a imbalance between graphics and gameplay, Doom 1's an exception here). I don't really mind if both the graphics and gameplay is balanced.


Edit: This thread looks rather confusing, so I will explain:

  1. Quake 1: It had rather good gameplay, but the graphics wasn't really on par with the gameplay, something Doom 1 had.
  2. Doom 2: Same as above. Had better gameplay but the maps by themselves looked like ass as compared to Doom 1.

I could probably go on and on about games that doesn't really have that much balance between graphics and gameplay.

Edited by Cacodemon345 : Attempt to clear confusion.

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If a game doesn't have challenge and good gameplay to it, then it can go fuck itself regardless of what the graphics look like. 

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9 hours ago, Cacodemon345 said:

I feel like both graphics and gameplay should be good and I am not for imbalance between Graphics and Gameplay. It is why I tend to have a distaste for the likes of Quake and Doom 2 (considering that the latter had a imbalance between graphics and gameplay). I don't really care if both the graphics and gameplay is balanced.

I am confused.

 

Anyway, gameplay is top priority in my book. If the visuals are slick it's a nice cherry on top.

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37 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I am confused.

 

Anyway, gameplay is top priority in my book. If the visuals are slick it's a nice cherry on top.

I agree with this for the most part, but if a game looks like complete ass it's hard to save it even with excellent gameplay.  That said, I think Doom looks great.

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8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I am confused.

I meant that if the game has really good graphics but comparably shit gameplay, then that game is out of my taste.

Same thing goes on the other way.


On the former, the games would be Call Of Duty, Quake, Metro 2033, Doom 3 (Yes, it includes BFG Edition too), GTA 5 or shit like that in general that throws out the gameplay for graphics.

The latter part would be Quake 1, Doom 2, Hexen or shit like that in general that would throw out the graphics for gameplay. Speaking of GTA 5, I feel like it's meh in terms of gameplay as compared to GTA:SA. Half Life 1 looks so much better as compared to Quake 1 and plays nice.

Edited by Cacodemon345

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Quake and Quake 1 are not the same game? Then you said Doom 2 but not Doom. BTW, are you judging a 93/94's game based on the standard of 2018 or what... I don't get it.

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I don’t know what ‘throwing out gameplay for graphics’ means. In the case of Doom3, obviously it has better graphics than Doom2 but it could be argued Doom2 has better gameplay. However, Doom 16 has better gameplay and graphics than Doom3, so obviously there isn’t a direct link between gameplay and graphics - you can’t “get rid of graphics and substitute in more gameplay” or something, that’s just not how game design works. A game can have great or shit graphics and great or shit gameplay and the two are not inherently linked.

 

How does GTA5 ‘throw out’ graphics for gameplay? It has excellent graphics.. or wait, when you say gameplay do you maybe mean hardware performance? Or are you using it in the colloquial “how fun a game is” way? lol I’m sorry the whole premise of the thread just has me confused, that’s all.

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Gameplay is most important, but graphics should be good enough to don't ruin it. I could not play Might & Magic 1-2 (there's more text than graphics). I would play Descent into Undermountain if it would work, would not be a nest of bugs and crashes.

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9 hours ago, Maser said:

If a game doesn't have challenge and good gameplay to it, then it can go fuck itself regardless of what the graphics look like. 

 

^ .

 

Nuff said.

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2 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

are you judging a 93/94's game based on the standard of 2018 or what... I don't get it.

Dude, why would I ever judge D2 by 2018 standards? LOL. I am judging D2 by D1's standards. I actually liked D1 more than D2. D2's maps by themselves weren't all too good. D1's maps were.

 

2 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Quake and Quake 1 are not the same game? 

I was talking about Q1. Judging by what Q1's graphics from Doom 1s standards, I wouldn't really call it all that good.

 

57 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

How does GTA5 ‘throw out’ graphics for gameplay? 

Its actually the other way around, LOL.

For people who doesn't understand what I meant, I didn't mean "get rid of the graphics" lol. I meant "more graphics, less gameplay" or "more gameplay, less graphics".

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5 hours ago, Cacodemon345 said:

[...] The latter part would be Quake 1, Doom 2, Hexen, GTA 5 or shit like that in general that would throw out the graphics for gameplay.

 

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

[...] How does GTA5 ‘throw out’ graphics for gameplay?

 

3 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Its actually the other way around, LOL.

 

Ok, now I'm REALLY confused.

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6 hours ago, Cacodemon345 said:

The latter part would be Quake 1, Doom 2, Hexen or shit like that in general that would throw out the graphics for gameplay.

They didn't throw out graphics, it was best for that time, man. If game made TODAY would use Quake's graphics, then you could say about "throw out the graphics".

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I'm not really a fan of how this type of discussion is framed as if these two elements are mutually exclusive. They intertwine and feed into eachother a lot more than you'd think. Save for the base fact that graphics serve a pure functional purpose in letting you know what is even happening on the screen, there's also lots of visual feedback elements that will make the gameplay "feel" better.

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Just now, Rimantas said:

They didn't throw out graphics, it was best for that time, man. If game made TODAY would use Quake's graphics, then you could say about "throw out the graphics".

Maybe it would be the best for it's time, but for people like me who does not really like browny-as-fuck gothic graphics, I wouldn't call it that good. Unreal 1 and Half Life 1 got both the graphics and gameplay part right; the former had more satisfying castle settings that I liked more as compared to Quake 1.

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Concerning Quake:

I really like Quake 1's graphics (without texture filtering). The models are obviously less detailed than Doom's sprites, but the textures have a nice grit.

 

And then there is Malice – a Quake 1 TC. That one is ugly.

 

–––

Concerning the topic:

What kind of Graphics are we talking about? Resolution/fidelity or art style? I have no problems accepting low resolution art with a good art style (like Quake 1 or Doom) as good graphics. On the other hand some modern games have very high resolution graphics but the art style sucks. That's hard to stomach.

 

Obviously the graphics do not matter at all if the gameplay is bad.

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28 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Maybe it would be the best for it's time, but for people like me who does not really like browny-as-fuck gothic graphics, I wouldn't call it that good. Unreal 1 and Half Life 1 got both the graphics and gameplay part right; the former had more satisfying castle settings that I liked more as compared to Quake 1.

It's for "What is your taste for graphics" topic.  Or "Let's compare very first true-3D DOS games to Windows HW accelerated games". Anyway when i play Quake on Tyr-Quake source port (identical to official WinQuake, but fixed) i never think or feel that graphics should or could be better. Pixels in software renderer are alive and does incredible work.

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Style sells and Quake has a terrible style. Quake has an ugly brown style. Although an argument can be made for Doom 2 getting brown. But Doom 1 is colorful even if the game has a lot of grey and startan brown. I don't want to see gritty and real. I want to see something visually appealing. Like those damn Underworld movies are drenched in blues and blacks with little else other than pale colors.

 

Far too many games have good gameplay with good game loops that go from high activity to downtime that have a bland or realistic presentation to get them lost in the shuffle.

Edited by geo

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34 minutes ago, Rimantas said:

It's for "What is your taste for graphics" topic.  Or "Let's compare very first true-3D DOS games to Windows HW accelerated games". Anyway when i play Quake on Tyr-Quake source port (identical to official WinQuake, but fixed) i never think or feel that graphics should or could be better. Pixels in software renderer are alive and does incredible work.

I tended to like Unreal 1 better. I liked the castle designs. The maps never felt like it was ugly. Quake 1, on the other hand, feels like it doesn't really have that much work put onto graphics. Only the models looked good; the maps didn't look that well. Quake 1 had the worst color palette I have ever seen in a video game. The gameplay was good but the graphics wasn't on par with it. It is filled with brown, the only exceptions probably are the boss fight arenas in the first 2 episodes (If I remember correctly).

 

I could have as well said the same thing about Doom 2. It's basically "more gameplay but less graphics" which means it has worse balance between gameplay and graphics as compared to Doom 1. It got browny starting with The Pit, the earth maps got filled with browns.

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Quake was limited in 8bit (256 colors) renderer. ID Software had two options: make it colorful like Doom, or make step forward with more realistic graphics. Could YOU make better realistic graphics in 256 color palette?

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2 minutes ago, Rimantas said:

Quake was limited in 8bit (256 colors) renderer. ID Software had two options: make it colorful like Doom, or make step forward with more realistic graphics. Could YOU make better realistic graphics in 256 color palette?

Quake 1 could have as well used less brown and more grey look using that same 256 colors. Hell, I could have as well called HeXen to be better than Doom 1 and Quake 1 in terms of palette. Raven was smart enough to make proper use of brown and grey colors (although I still feel like Hexen is slightly unbalanced between graphics and gameplay). Raven got the gothic design of the maps right, it is why the maps in HeXen does not look like shit on Quake 1/ Doom 2's level.

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I think you really just need to look at the Jaguar 64 Doom (arguably the best version of Doom). ID decided not to go mad with the advances on offer with the 64bit architecture and by distilling the game to it finest elements and removing the excess fat (ie music/boss's) a far superior game was created.

 

Anyway, not sure what your on about cacodemon345, but your wrong.  

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6 minutes ago, Liberation said:

I think you really just need to look at the Jaguar 64 Doom

Jaguar Doom still kept the graphics part fine; ID was good enough not to degrade the graphics too much and made the gameplay less difficult.

 

11 minutes ago, Liberation said:

(arguably the best version of Doom)

I would always call PSX Doom the best version of Doom. JagDoom is rather inferior as compared to PSX Doom.

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The idea of a "balance" between graphics and gameplay is silly, because you're acting like the relation between the two is a sort of zero-sum game, where having better graphics somehow causes the gameplay to be worse. If the graphics are bad that has nothing to do with an "imbalance" with the gameplay, it just means the game looks ugly. If the gameplay sucks, then it sucks, and it has nothing to do with this "balance," it just means you can't design a game.

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Yeah, a lot of this doesn't make a lot of sense. You also seem to be conflating a game's graphical processing capabilities with its visual designs and aesthetics. Two separate things. 

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I really don't understand this thread at all too. But I'll be honest I really don't get the "graphics don't matter" opinion either, since it would be very easy to make graphics that hinder gameplay. May as well use them to boost gameplay, and give the player something to look at in the process

 

maybe BTSX is playable like this, but is the experience the same or better like that?

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Graphics and balance aren't done by the same people. It is just a symptom of better graphics usually having a bigger budget => a more annoying publisher who are annoying as shit with unrealistic demands and last minute changes.

 

Still I'd rather not sacrifice one for the other. I've had games with good "gameplay" but god the eye strain makes me stop playing faster than a terrible game with good graphics. 

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4 hours ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

The idea of a "balance" between graphics and gameplay is silly, because you're acting like the relation between the two is a sort of zero-sum game, where having better graphics somehow causes the gameplay to be worse. If the graphics are bad that has nothing to do with an "imbalance" with the gameplay, it just means the game looks ugly. If the gameplay sucks, then it sucks, and it has nothing to do with this "balance," it just means you can't design a game.

 

I might be completely missing something here (yeah, the more I read this thread the more confused I get too) , but I think he thinks about these "imbalance" scenarios as some sort "getting away with it" cases as well. 

 

As in, devs be like "We're unable to create something that's both beautiful and exciting to play, so we'll give you some breathtaking locations to visit, hoping you won't quit the game" (for a graphics over gameplay scenario) or "We can't design shit, but you're damn right we're going to make the actual gameplay thrilling and memorating to make it worth your time, at the very least" (for the other way around) 

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