Do graphics actually hinder gameplay?

fdfxd2

As an aspiring environment/prop(still undecided) artist I always said no but then I realised I have no real experience in this sector of the cg industry so..

Does it actually hinder gameplay?
Because I'm getting a little sick of scrolling down on Epic's video of how they made the environment art of x map or a making of in youtube and the comments are "yeah this is the problem with the industry developers spend too much time working on the graphics!1"

Kevin Albers

The graphics almost never hinder gameplay directly (although I'm sure there are some examples where they do). However, they can certainly hinder gameplay indirectly on projects where the focus and budget is mostly on the presentation side of things. 

Aabel

They can absolutely hinder gameplay. Anytime graphics get in the way of controller response, frame rate, player visibility, or any other key function of the game, they can hinder hinder game play.

 One thing to keep in mind is 3d models, and textures are supporting cast members in a game, they are not the star.

AtticusMars

Not really but poor art direction certainly can.

More to the point though, the idea that Epic only focuses on graphics is sort of ridiculous in my opinion given that the star of UE4 is arguably the Blueprints scripting system. Important rendering features have lagged way behind the rest of the engine, it wasn't until fairly recently that UE4 finally got decent hair/skin shading presets.

Cay

You could easily just ask the same question reversed.. Does gameplay actually hinder graphics?
Quite often the gameplay mechanics are not designed to work in a realistic scenario. They live in a boxy, modular world..

JedTheKrampus

Compare something like Dwarf Fortress to something like Assassin's Creed Unity and you can see why people say this. If half the money AAA games spent on graphics and advertising got spent on game design and simulation stuff instead, who knows what sort of cool stuff might happen?

Fuiosg

Imo, one of the biggest mistakes is in thinking realism = immersion, it really doesn't. If you're walking around an immaculately made city, with pedestrians and cars with realistic traffic rhythms, and weather effects etc. -- that all goes out the window once the player realizes he can only do what the game designers allow him, in that sense it all becomes a big facade.

krraej

Oh, for sure they can.

As others have already remarked, if the game's performance suffers because it can't handle displaying all the in-game assets (along with post processing effects if applicable) it will impede on the gameplay and thus on the enjoyment of the player. There's also a certain subset of gamers, especially PC gamers, who expect games to run at 60 FPS or more, and will be very vocal when it dips below that mark.

Environmental assets can hinder the gameplay when its visuals interfere with the gameplay. For example, a player can't find an important item on the ground because it blends in with the scenery, or in a 2D platformer the player can't reliably distinguish between the platforms they can jump on and non-interactive background. Or for example, in a game like City Skylines the player can't tell the difference between a house at level 1 and level 2 or similar things like that.

Though I think if you see stuff like "rather than putting all that money in the graphics, they should improve the gameplay!", you can't probably do much else except shrug it off seeing as that's not something an environmental or prop artist has any control over.

AtticusMars

I don't think performance is synonymous with graphics...

Aabel

One of the things that bugs me the most is character controllers that over animated. You lose response time because you are waiting for a damn animation to finish playing.

Kwramm

I think OP's point was more production than gameplay related. I think that mis-allocation isn't really the problem - i.e. "art gets more budget than design, hence the gameplay sucks!" isn't really the reason why some games with great graphics just offer mediocre gameplay. Design is creative work and unlike art your story/design doesn't get better if more people work in it - actually the opposite may be true. The only things, imho, that affect it are time and talent. More time allows you more iterations, more feedback, more polish.

However a problem can be that you get stuck with shitty gameplay because your production is just too far advanced to move back and redesign it. Especially when milestones loom and you already invested some time in art and programming that closely relates to gameplay. Of course, the bigger your production, the more you have to throw away to get back on track. In that case the scope of your project may really work against you. Basically, there is some point of no return where you have to keep polishing the turd and hope that the game's other qualities (e.g. graphics) salvage it and recover your production costs.

As a gamer, I don't like this. But as an artist I long ago stopped caring about things outside my control. If I can walk away with kickass art for my folio then it's good enough. We're all industry professionals, and when we hire we know that we hire artists for their artistic capabilities first and foremost. I'm sad for whoever's game tanked due to things out of their control, but it won't affect employability if your contribution, such as graphics, was top notch.

claydough

This attitude easily makes me more angry than any other shift I have seen in artists over the years. The one where we hand over our balls and apologize for passion in our craft for destroying game-play! ( you know because management decisions in a multi-billion dollar industry and has nothing to do with it )
Even if as much was knowingly 100% true without a doubt. It would still be my responsibility to  advance, concentrate and support my craft.
As much as I love game-play...
I can easily imagine a future evolution of real-time graphics in interactive immersions ( particularly considering the billions invested in VR concerns lately )
Where the experience of real-time graphic immersions advance into an art-form unto itself whose impact is more than enough to replace Cinema's position as the 21st centuries predominant culturally relevant art-form that society embraces to gauge and derive entertainment and meaning, truth and emotion.
Where among that art-forms differing genre's...
Gameplay "button-mashing" is only that art-form's self absorbed button mashing pornography! ( not necessarily unimportant but certainly not the penultimate end to everything interactive and immersive? )
In which case...
As an artist I defend my art profession as the most important and noble an occupation anyone can strive towards. Humanity's mirror second only to the act of living itself... 
Poetry and meaning that reinforces a cultures experience.
We do not apologize for art.

claydough

Cay said:

You could easily just ask the same question reversed.. Does gameplay actually hinder graphics?
Quite often the gameplay mechanics are not designed to work in a realistic scenario. They live in a boxy, modular world..

I ask this question often when dealing with the irritation of game-play. When overzealous waves of supposedly fun button mashing gets in the way of exploration appreciation. Where I can easily see more and more pleasure enjoyed as worlds become larger where contrasting environments immerse myself more than a puzzle or a platform ever could.

I appreciate very much the ability to create games in the new Unreal Tournament and only have the alpha to do as much and enjoy every new awesome level's ( albeit small, fps bangity bangity, twitch jizz, spaces  ). artistry! And I have probably only played 4 games so far ( probably only two multiplayer games ) whose enjoyment pales in comparison to the relaxed, reflective immersion of sublime exploration.
( but then again I am old and grumpy )

ZacD

Aabel said:

 One thing to keep in mind is 3d models, and textures are supporting cast members in a game, they are not the star.

There's a few exceptions to this rule. Dark Souls, to me is about the landscapes and the bosses, everything else is filler. But I guess you could say that art direction and concepts are the stars, and what's in game (3d models and textures wise) is just the execution of those ideas.  

Aabel said:

One of the things that bugs me the most is character controllers that over animated. You lose response time because you are waiting for a damn animation to finish playing.

I definitely agree with this, I'm hoping more games use this type of approach http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020583/Animation-Bootcamp-An-Indie-Approach

I don't mind slow animations in games that are slower and you have to make deliberate decisions, like Limbo. But if it's action packed and fast paced, controls > animation. 

leilei

Only the stupidly abused usual god rays, bad motion blur methods, crude 1950s TV outline-looking SSAO and not-so-subtle bloom.  The rest are fair game to me.

and that's nowhere near as anal as the anti-texture anti-lighting competitive fps community who aren't satisfied until everyone is a colored glowing bounding box in a flat shaded color map, in this age and i believe i ranted about them before.

Brian "Panda" Choi

I stand by Blizzard's first core value in most cases.

"Gameplay first."

Otherwise, we should be making a movie or a book.

I can't really recall a game being hindered in gameplay because of its art though.

Snowfly

Deus Ex's stealth mechanics don't come through to the player too clearly because of the FPS camera, particularly the lines of sight. I'm set in this immersive cyberpunk universe, and you're telling me my spiky 'do poking over this teeny crate isn't catching any attention?

RyanB

You should be looking at stuff like this and not making assumptions:


And this:


If you are playing a game and it is running poorly, it can be a problem with almost anything.  It could be bottlenecked on the CPU or GPU.  You could have garbage collector spikes.  You don't know just by looking at the game, even if the game looks "expensive" with lots of fancy shaders and high rez textures and models.

The only way to know where your bottlenecks are is by using tools.  Every usable engine will come with some type of tools to analyze performance.  In the case of Unity, it comes with a profiler and frame debugger.  Unreal has similar tools.  You can also use third-party tools that come with your OS or can be downloaded from processor manufacturers.

Once you find a problem using these tools, the next step is to find a solution.  This often requires someone with a lot of experience who knows lots of techniques to mix and match without sacrificing the overall visual quality of the game.

P.S. - If you aspire to be a professional games artist, a step in the right direction is to stop acting and sounding like a consumer. 

Cay

I think once you start highlighting characters red and blue to make them stand out you are doing something wrong. Unless.. that is what you choose as a style. Not every game has to be like that though.
I understand it's something considered important for competitive multiplayer.. but that's about it. I've never had problems spotting enemy NPCs in Witcher 3.

ZacD

In horror games, having 100% visual clarity is generally not what you want. Even Dark Souls gets away with it, with gameplay as it's selling point. It gets away with less visual clarity by really telegraphing attacks. And being slower and deliberate helps. But in a 10 man esport or a fighting game where every frame matters, yes, visual clarity is important. Especially when people are watching streams that are pretty heavily compressed.

fdfxd2

@Kwramm
Yup, I was talking about the production side not the performance side
if only everyone else in the thread got the message