HDR broke on xbox since wolfhunter? EDIT: Patch coming early october

MinarasLaure

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

I know there’s more than a little bit of concern from our Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro players who take advantage of the HDR modes on those consoles. For those that are unaware, HDR is a graphics mode that allows the game client to far more subtly render colors to make scenes with a lot of detail almost lifelike. It is really cool and makes ESO look amazing, especially in scenes where there is a lot of color and detail, like sunsets. In the latest update, we made a change that altered the way HDR support in ESO works by “normalizing” lighting and color values, which led many players who use HDR believe it makes the game look bland.

The explanation for what happened here is illuminating, as it gives some insight into our development process, especially how we treat bugs vs. how we treat new art assets and shaders.

On the development side, we have a strict policy to never change art assets once they have been in the live game, except – and this is important – if they are obviously “wrong”. Think bad animations, shoulder pads clipping through armor, weapons hanging too far off a character model’s hip – that kind of thing. This “no change” policy has been in effect since the Redguard Female Armor Debacle of 2015. This was where we updated the visuals of one type of Redguard Female armor and pushed it live without thinking of the consequences of players who liked the way it looked and had been using it for over a year. This caused a lot of – very much merited – criticism from players that liked the older style much better. That’s when we started our “no change” policy. Even if we think an asset needs to updated because it doesn’t fit ESO’s established art style or the artist responsible thinks they could have done better, we no longer change live assets because players are used to the way the game and their characters look, and that is more important than what WE think.

Funny story about this – and I’m sure you are all seeing where this is going – we have a backlog of art bugs and issues that we address over time. If these are flagged as low priority, it can take a long time to get to them. Just after our HDR versions of ESO launched, we flagged an HDR issue where some assets were not responding correctly to our HDR renderer – their color values were not configured properly and were “blown out”, meaning they were far too bright for the established ESO art style. This was entered as a bug, and sat there (not high priority) on the bug list for a few years. Eventually it was addressed and made its way into the build that launched with Update 19 (Wolfhunter).

A side effect of this change is that it changes how our HDR “slider” bar displays HDR changes – on some TVs, you won’t notice any change after moving the slider 10-15%. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no commonly accepted HDR standard for TVs – cheaper HDR TVs tend to be dimmer with not as much control, and higher-end TVs have a large range of brightness. You’ll definitely notice a difference after our change, especially if you have one of the lower-end TVs.

Short story: It was flagged as a bug, not an “art asset change”, so it never came to the attention of the Art Director (or me) until it went live. Obviously this should have been seen as an “art change”, not a bug fix. We should not have changed it, even if we think that the change is merited, due to our “no change once live” policy.

So now this leaves us in a sticky situation: if we change it back, there will be players that like the new way better than the old. And they will be correct, just as are the ones who like the old way – this is subjective. We are now in a no-win situation, which is why we haven’t given you guys much information up until this point. What we need to do is step back, look at our options, and figure out what is the best thing to do that makes the highest number of players happy. I’m not 100% sure what this is yet, but hang tight and we’ll let you know.

And my sincere apologies for rolling this out with no information, no background, and no heads-up. We take this very seriously, and we’ll make some process changes to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again in the future, just like we did during the Redguard Female Armor Debacle.

Mate, really, nobody ever complained about hdr before your "fix" .
And knowing zos, unfortunately the "stepping back, look at our options" , means you won't do anything about it, let this and other posts fall into the oblivion and keep going your way.
But don't worry, we're used to it, the only time you (zos) surprised us is when you decided to remove the third party program you added in a patch without saying a word.
Of course the only reason why you got rid of it is because not only you've been spotted, but because it went public and outside of this forum.

So yeah, in short, thanks for the "mea culpa" buddy, but that's not what we need.

happyhughes2001

Was speaking to a mate about the broken HDR tonight, and about our disappointment in the visual downgrade.

Then we started discussing all the things that had been broken in the past, the lack/miss communication in the past, the false promises.

To summarise, we are a pair of idiots thinking this was going to get better.

Davor

MinarasLaure wrote: »

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

I know there’s more than a little bit of concern from our Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro players who take advantage of the HDR modes on those consoles. For those that are unaware, HDR is a graphics mode that allows the game client to far more subtly render colors to make scenes with a lot of detail almost lifelike. It is really cool and makes ESO look amazing, especially in scenes where there is a lot of color and detail, like sunsets. In the latest update, we made a change that altered the way HDR support in ESO works by “normalizing” lighting and color values, which led many players who use HDR believe it makes the game look bland.

The explanation for what happened here is illuminating, as it gives some insight into our development process, especially how we treat bugs vs. how we treat new art assets and shaders.

On the development side, we have a strict policy to never change art assets once they have been in the live game, except – and this is important – if they are obviously “wrong”. Think bad animations, shoulder pads clipping through armor, weapons hanging too far off a character model’s hip – that kind of thing. This “no change” policy has been in effect since the Redguard Female Armor Debacle of 2015. This was where we updated the visuals of one type of Redguard Female armor and pushed it live without thinking of the consequences of players who liked the way it looked and had been using it for over a year. This caused a lot of – very much merited – criticism from players that liked the older style much better. That’s when we started our “no change” policy. Even if we think an asset needs to updated because it doesn’t fit ESO’s established art style or the artist responsible thinks they could have done better, we no longer change live assets because players are used to the way the game and their characters look, and that is more important than what WE think.

Funny story about this – and I’m sure you are all seeing where this is going – we have a backlog of art bugs and issues that we address over time. If these are flagged as low priority, it can take a long time to get to them. Just after our HDR versions of ESO launched, we flagged an HDR issue where some assets were not responding correctly to our HDR renderer – their color values were not configured properly and were “blown out”, meaning they were far too bright for the established ESO art style. This was entered as a bug, and sat there (not high priority) on the bug list for a few years. Eventually it was addressed and made its way into the build that launched with Update 19 (Wolfhunter).

A side effect of this change is that it changes how our HDR “slider” bar displays HDR changes – on some TVs, you won’t notice any change after moving the slider 10-15%. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no commonly accepted HDR standard for TVs – cheaper HDR TVs tend to be dimmer with not as much control, and higher-end TVs have a large range of brightness. You’ll definitely notice a difference after our change, especially if you have one of the lower-end TVs.

Short story: It was flagged as a bug, not an “art asset change”, so it never came to the attention of the Art Director (or me) until it went live. Obviously this should have been seen as an “art change”, not a bug fix. We should not have changed it, even if we think that the change is merited, due to our “no change once live” policy.

So now this leaves us in a sticky situation: if we change it back, there will be players that like the new way better than the old. And they will be correct, just as are the ones who like the old way – this is subjective. We are now in a no-win situation, which is why we haven’t given you guys much information up until this point. What we need to do is step back, look at our options, and figure out what is the best thing to do that makes the highest number of players happy. I’m not 100% sure what this is yet, but hang tight and we’ll let you know.

And my sincere apologies for rolling this out with no information, no background, and no heads-up. We take this very seriously, and we’ll make some process changes to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again in the future, just like we did during the Redguard Female Armor Debacle.

Mate, really, nobody ever complained about hdr before your "fix" .
And knowing zos, unfortunately the "stepping back, look at our options" , means you won't do anything about it, let this and other posts fall into the oblivion and keep going your way.
But don't worry, we're used to it, the only time you (zos) surprised us is when you decided to remove the third party program you added in a patch without saying a word.
Of course the only reason why you got rid of it is because not only you've been spotted, but because it went public and outside of this forum.

So yeah, in short, thanks for the "mea culpa" buddy, but that's not what we need.

I know I said before about people twisting words, but I think this was well deserved. Well said. Hopefully this will have Zenimax become involved but I am sure just like a Lawyer company they will just become more silent.

Really disappointed in how Zenimax operates. I thought Zenimax was a different company but they are not sadly.

woodap

***. *** ***. Since the latest “update” I have done my best and voice my concerns about the terrible graphic downgrade to all of us on pro box 4k TVs...yes it went from stark glorious colour in amazing high definition to.. well .. load of old grey ***.

Has there been a patch? Have my eyes now adjusted to the new world order? I only did this...

Brightness turned all way down
HDR turned all way up.

I am looking at the game now and it is quite splendid...and I hate myself. The game looks fantastic. I have tried loads of zones...some look better than others....but on the whole.. amazing.

I cancelled my sub 2 days ago.. Just bought it again ...sorry guys.. I was all with the witch hunt.. but Just actually sorting the game settings out made it look pretty awesome like before...maybe better

happyhughes2001

Bizzquik wrote: »

That's a great reply from Matt.

I agree with others that say reverting to pre-Update 19 HDR methodology now makes the most sense - if for no other reason than console players are just ten days into this new version: better to nip it in the bud now, make changes to the new HDR version in testing, then roll out a corrected version later .... versus letting the divide settle in for player tastes as this drags out.

My biggest gripe as I play today is the character selection screen; drab and devoid of color. That's not the ESO I love. That's how I know there is a legitimate problem - before I've even started playing, the game feels markedly off.

Here's hoping the team reaches a decision soon.

I agree with this.

Valrien

woodap wrote: »

***. *** ***. Since the latest “update” I have done my best and voice my concerns about the terrible graphic downgrade to all of us on pro box 4k TVs...yes it went from stark glorious colour in amazing high definition to.. well .. load of old grey ***.

Has there been a patch? Have my eyes now adjusted to the new world order? I only did this...

Brightness turned all way down
HDR turned all way up.

I am looking at the game now and it is quite splendid...and I hate myself. The game looks fantastic. I have tried loads of zones...some look better than others....but on the whole.. amazing.

I cancelled my sub 2 days ago.. Just bought it again ...sorry guys.. I was all with the witch hunt.. but Just actually sorting the game settings out made it look pretty awesome like before...maybe better

Good post.

happyhughes2001

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Was speaking to a mate about the broken HDR tonight, and about our disappointment in the visual downgrade.

Then we started discussing all the things that had been broken in the past, the lack/miss communication in the past, the false promises.

To summarise, we are a pair of idiots thinking this was going to get better.

Searched the forums can’t find a similar visual downgrade happening previously.

Beardimus

woodap wrote: »

***. *** ***. Since the latest “update” I have done my best and voice my concerns about the terrible graphic downgrade to all of us on pro box 4k TVs...yes it went from stark glorious colour in amazing high definition to.. well .. load of old grey ***.

Has there been a patch? Have my eyes now adjusted to the new world order? I only did this...

Brightness turned all way down
HDR turned all way up.

I am looking at the game now and it is quite splendid...and I hate myself. The game looks fantastic. I have tried loads of zones...some look better than others....but on the whole.. amazing.

I cancelled my sub 2 days ago.. Just bought it again ...sorry guys.. I was all with the witch hunt.. but Just actually sorting the game settings out made it look pretty awesome like before...maybe better

Cool that you have found something that works for you, sounds like your TV wasn't colour calibrated previously I'm guessing, must have looked pretty bad if brightness was up high.

Mines done professionally, for mt setup, and brightness is already way down and I'm sorry there is still a night and day difference between what we had before and what we have now, even if i manipulate with the settings. Additionly id like my settings to be consistent across all content i use on the box, and any wild changes to TV or Xbox for ESO alter that.

Glad you are happy, however personally i want true HDR back, for my palette how it was was awesome or similar if they can do that. Glad you found something that works for you however!

Nova Sky

I'm not happy about HDR being zapped in ESO — I've stated that upthread and elsewhere.

That said, it's worth giving ZOS anywhere from a few weeks to two months to figure out what they want to do. After that, frankly, they're going to run into competition from a lot of new games coming out, including Fallout 76, RDR2, BFV, Spider-Man (already released) and more.

Hopefully, they'll have it all figured out by then. If not, well, there's going to be other titles to spend gaming dollars on.

Audrena

woodap wrote: »

Brightness turned all way down
HDR turned all way up.

I am looking at the game now and it is quite splendid...and I hate myself. The game looks fantastic. I have tried loads of zones...some look better than others....but on the whole.. amazing.

You're brute-forcing a "result" to simulate a pale imitation of the true HDR we formerly had. It may make you feel better, but I guarantee you that a reversion to the way HDR worked before the patch would make you feel better still.

As I and others in this thread have pointed out, HDR is effectively disabled at the moment. Running the game in HDR mode actually hurts the game's appearance, and that "HDR brightness" slider does nothing.

happyhughes2001

woodap wrote: »

***. *** ***. Since the latest “update” I have done my best and voice my concerns about the terrible graphic downgrade to all of us on pro box 4k TVs...yes it went from stark glorious colour in amazing high definition to.. well .. load of old grey ***.

Has there been a patch? Have my eyes now adjusted to the new world order? I only did this...

Brightness turned all way down
HDR turned all way up.

I am looking at the game now and it is quite splendid...and I hate myself. The game looks fantastic. I have tried loads of zones...some look better than others....but on the whole.. amazing.

I cancelled my sub 2 days ago.. Just bought it again ...sorry guys.. I was all with the witch hunt.. but Just actually sorting the game settings out made it look pretty awesome like before...maybe better

I’m glad your happier. But what you are suggesting isn’t really what HDR is all about.

Basically HDR no longer works in this game.

happyhughes2001

Audrena wrote: »

woodap wrote: »

Brightness turned all way down
HDR turned all way up.

I am looking at the game now and it is quite splendid...and I hate myself. The game looks fantastic. I have tried loads of zones...some look better than others....but on the whole.. amazing.

You're brute-forcing a "result" to simulate a pale imitation of the true HDR we formerly had. It may make you feel better, but I guarantee you that a reversion to the way HDR worked before the patch would make you feel better still.

As I and others in this thread have pointed out, HDR is effectively disabled at the moment. Running the game in HDR mode actually hurts the game's appearance, and that "HDR brightness" slider does nothing.

Spot on

maingray

@ZOS_MattFiror "there will be players that like the new way better than the old"

It's only been a week or so. Not a very valid counterargument.

NewBlacksmurf

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Has there been any previous occasions when the game suffered a visual downgrade to this extent?

If so was it corrected?

I have been here for about 3 years and I can’t recall such a significant downgrade.

@happyhughes2001

This game has had a prior issue with graphics as a result of updates. Initially what I’m sharing was closed beta but the game went live and after an early update this last for months.

Link: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/84410/the-red-missing-boxes

ZOS_JesC

Greetings, we've removed several comments that were baiting other forum members, bashing, or derailing the thread from its original topic. This is a reminder to keep comments constructive when giving feedback and to make sure posts are relevant to this thread. Thank you for your understanding.

happyhughes2001

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Has there been any previous occasions when the game suffered a visual downgrade to this extent?

If so was it corrected?

I have been here for about 3 years and I can’t recall such a significant downgrade.

@happyhughes2001

This game has had a prior issue with graphics as a result of updates. Initially what I’m sharing was closed beta but the game went live and after an early update this last for months.

Link: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/84410/the-red-missing-boxes

Thanks for the response.

Just can’t got over the disappointment of this downgrade, and was wondering if there had been other occasions and if they had been corrected.

happyhughes2001

@ZOS_MattFiror is there any kind of timescale on when a decision will be made on if the HDR will be fixed or left as is?

CleverAlchemist

Before:


After:


This is a disappointment to say the least. What I find even more disappointing is having my post removed without being given a reason. These before/after pictures are important for the community to see so that the unaffected player base (and, more importantly, ZOS decision makers) may better understand the issue at hand.

[Edit to remove off topic content]

happyhughes2001

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

@ZOS_MattFiror is there any kind of timescale on when a decision will be made on if the HDR will be fixed or left as is?

@ZOS_GinaBruno meant to tag you also.

N0TPLAYER2

I canceled my sub

I haven’t logged in now for about 3 days.

Nice feeling

Beardimus

In reflection it doesn't matter. ZOS have admitted breaking HDR going off was a mistake and shouldn't have happened as it did. It did however and they have their view on how to handle it, and there is probably little we can do to influence it. However i think we just continue to make it clear we are not happy.

How noisy was the hip flaps situation? As if that was allowed to define an entire change process / strategy right through to this very day, we need to equal that volume. Perhaps we need to.combine thread volume with the PS4 guys to ensure its all loud enough.

If there is any flex in decision we need to make sure we are heard that we aren't happy with HDR being off, either in interim or in some dramatically lesser form. HDR needs to be top of the decision makers / design teams agenda

[Edit to remove off topic content]

CleverAlchemist

I agree that our voices should be loud on this matter. The screenshots I posted above were taken on my standard PS4 (not pro) on an LG 4k display, so believe me when I say that PS4 users are assuredly already onboard the displeasure train.

blunned

N0TPLAYER2 wrote: »

I canceled my sub

I haven’t logged in now for about 3 days.

Nice feeling

I did as well. At the time it felt awful and I’m still sad about it but overall it’s very freeing and I have not had the urge to resub. If I had add-ons (or if zos added the base functionality add-ons give that is so severely lacking in the game) and the console experience wasn’t so subpar I’d still be around. I’d be interested to see the number of users that unsubbed as this was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for me. I imagine it was for many others as well.

blunned

Posts are now being removed and altered at an alarming rate and this is extremely relevant to the discussion at hand and this thread in particular. While this is specifically related to the issues with HDR the problem underscores a much larger issue with apathy toward console players and an insufficient community dialogue related to this issue. If you took half the time and effort you are currently taking removing content that is “off topic” actually responding to the additional concerns and questions in this thread, console players may not be leaving your game at an alarming rate. I would certainly still be an ESO+ subscriber if you all had handled this differently. You are removing posts you want gone, not posts “off topic.” I still see many posts from people admitting to trolling in this thread that have not been removed. It just so happens they have a different view than the majority of people posting here so their posts get to stay? Once again, this is extremely relevant to this thread because you are suppressing the ability for us to talk about how this issue relates to a much larger issue the player base has with your game and your community management. These are relevant to the current HDR breaking update.

Cêltic421

Maybe it'll get fixed tomorrow in the patch maintenance. Ive noticed a change since last update and i made adjustments on my tv and got it close to what it was like before. I didnt like the hdr change, and hope they revert back to what it was before. I didnt think it was that bad to cause an uproar like this. I guess it really matters on the tv quality.

MiguZ

Cêltic421 wrote: »

Maybe it'll get fixed tomorrow in the patch maintenance.

Only PC gets an actual Patch maint tho. The consoles dont, so they r not fixing it in this one.

dragonknightmelee

Leaving a comment in both threads. This same thing happend with ark survival evolved on PC they never re added HDR and ive stopped playing it. Same here with eso but it really if like my top game. PLEASE ENABLE HDR. Theres no way this is hdr i play on the 2000 nit vizio quantam on the ORIGONAL PS4 .Even the bright highlights arent there this is not hdr. PLEASE ENABLE HDR.

THANKS.

Sylvermynx

dotme wrote: »

JahneeO wrote: »

I'd like to see this comparison at the same time of day

Well, last night I got lucky. Here ya go...




Now granted, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I prefer vegetation and lighting that pops a little. We lost that with the update, and it's such a shame. The least they could have done is made the HDR Brightness slider function to allow us to choose our own intensity level. Instead, we were given a grey mess with no options. You can't increase the color on the TV without over-saturating maps, HUD and loadscreens. The transition from load screen to world feels like going from full color to sepia now.

Um. If my game looked like your first pic, I'd be tweaking madly to get rid of it. Seriously, if that's what you like.... well, I don't, and thankfully I don't have to deal with it. The second pic looks "normal" to me. That's a good thing. I'm on PC thank the GODDESSES.

EJRose83

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

I know there’s more than a little bit of concern from our Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro players who take advantage of the HDR modes on those consoles. For those that are unaware, HDR is a graphics mode that allows the game client to far more subtly render colors to make scenes with a lot of detail almost lifelike. It is really cool and makes ESO look amazing, especially in scenes where there is a lot of color and detail, like sunsets. In the latest update, we made a change that altered the way HDR support in ESO works by “normalizing” lighting and color values, which led many players who use HDR believe it makes the game look bland.

The explanation for what happened here is illuminating, as it gives some insight into our development process, especially how we treat bugs vs. how we treat new art assets and shaders.

On the development side, we have a strict policy to never change art assets once they have been in the live game, except – and this is important – if they are obviously “wrong”. Think bad animations, shoulder pads clipping through armor, weapons hanging too far off a character model’s hip – that kind of thing. This “no change” policy has been in effect since the Redguard Female Armor Debacle of 2015. This was where we updated the visuals of one type of Redguard Female armor and pushed it live without thinking of the consequences of players who liked the way it looked and had been using it for over a year. This caused a lot of – very much merited – criticism from players that liked the older style much better. That’s when we started our “no change” policy. Even if we think an asset needs to updated because it doesn’t fit ESO’s established art style or the artist responsible thinks they could have done better, we no longer change live assets because players are used to the way the game and their characters look, and that is more important than what WE think.

Funny story about this – and I’m sure you are all seeing where this is going – we have a backlog of art bugs and issues that we address over time. If these are flagged as low priority, it can take a long time to get to them. Just after our HDR versions of ESO launched, we flagged an HDR issue where some assets were not responding correctly to our HDR renderer – their color values were not configured properly and were “blown out”, meaning they were far too bright for the established ESO art style. This was entered as a bug, and sat there (not high priority) on the bug list for a few years. Eventually it was addressed and made its way into the build that launched with Update 19 (Wolfhunter).

A side effect of this change is that it changes how our HDR “slider” bar displays HDR changes – on some TVs, you won’t notice any change after moving the slider 10-15%. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no commonly accepted HDR standard for TVs – cheaper HDR TVs tend to be dimmer with not as much control, and higher-end TVs have a large range of brightness. You’ll definitely notice a difference after our change, especially if you have one of the lower-end TVs.

Short story: It was flagged as a bug, not an “art asset change”, so it never came to the attention of the Art Director (or me) until it went live. Obviously this should have been seen as an “art change”, not a bug fix. We should not have changed it, even if we think that the change is merited, due to our “no change once live” policy.

So now this leaves us in a sticky situation: if we change it back, there will be players that like the new way better than the old. And they will be correct, just as are the ones who like the old way – this is subjective. We are now in a no-win situation, which is why we haven’t given you guys much information up until this point. What we need to do is step back, look at our options, and figure out what is the best thing to do that makes the highest number of players happy. I’m not 100% sure what this is yet, but hang tight and we’ll let you know.

And my sincere apologies for rolling this out with no information, no background, and no heads-up. We take this very seriously, and we’ll make some process changes to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again in the future, just like we did during the Redguard Female Armor Debacle.

I haven't logged in yet to check-out the HDR update, but anything has to be better than the overly saturated/bright color tones that existed before. This might sound lazy, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to switch my HDR on and off whenever I wanted to play ESO on my xbox and so with the Summerset expansion I just turned my HDR off and didn't bother to turn it back on for the other games I play. Happy I'll be able to just leave it on now

happyhughes2001

maingray wrote: »

@ZOS_MattFiror "there will be players that like the new way better than the old"

It's only been a week or so. Not a very valid counterargument.

I’ve pointed this out also.