LE Footprints (Really, Bethesda?)

[Vagrant0]

Please don't apologize for Bethesda's incompetence. They made so much money off Skyrim (which is essentially an Oblivion Xpack in its current state). Something simple like footprints is not a lot of development time or money. They chose not to implement it to cut costs.

 

I don't think anyone's implying the footprints should exist for 24 real time hours, made dynamically by some footprint-creation algorithm -- the least that can occur is for footprints to be created by things within your view/draw distance and for them to fade as you walk out of such a distance, or for them to fade after a set 5-60 seconds.

It's still active tracking of potentially thousands of entities. I don't think you really realize just how much stuff is within your view distance, or how complex some scenes are.

 

Also, from a technical perspective, it isn't really something that would be easy to attach given how terrain is setup. You would probably need to have some sort of internal coding on each creature type to not only determine what sorts of tracks they would make, but in what materials. Heavier things, for instance, would almost certainly leave tracks in mud. Dragons would certainly leave tracks in dirt and possibly stone.

 

 

I mean really... The game doesn't even have working mirrors except for water reflections. The whole bit about snow collecting was taken out as-is. They probably had their priorities focused more on making you know... Actual gameplay more polished. And compared to Oblivion, it seems to be significantly better. Live shadows, water currents, greater variety in visual effects, these are also improvements.

[Moogiefluff]

Please don't apologize for Bethesda's incompetence. They made so much money off Skyrim (which is essentially an Oblivion Xpack in its current state). Something simple like footprints is not a lot of development time or money. They chose not to implement it to cut costs.

 

I don't think anyone's implying the footprints should exist for 24 real time hours, made dynamically by some footprint-creation algorithm -- the least that can occur is for footprints to be created by things within your view/draw distance and for them to fade as you walk out of such a distance, or for them to fade after a set 5-60 seconds.

It's still active tracking of potentially thousands of entities. I don't think you really realize just how much stuff is within your view distance, or how complex some scenes are.

 

Also, from a technical perspective, it isn't really something that would be easy to attach given how terrain is setup. You would probably need to have some sort of internal coding on each creature type to not only determine what sorts of tracks they would make, but in what materials. Heavier things, for instance, would almost certainly leave tracks in mud. Dragons would certainly leave tracks in dirt and possibly stone.

 

 

I mean really... The game doesn't even have working mirrors except for water reflections. The whole bit about snow collecting was taken out as-is. They probably had their priorities focused more on making you know... Actual gameplay more polished. And compared to Oblivion, it seems to be significantly better. Live shadows, water currents, greater variety in visual effects, these are also improvements.

 

In other words, with so much else going on in the game world, these features were cut because it would be too much for an XBox360 to handle. That's precisely why the lack of these things on the PC version is a little disappointing to me.

[SaturnFX]

Its actually a good idea

I don't care about my prints, but tracking animals, and seeing telltale signs of something big in the area could be helpful...but it would be complex I think.

 

Footprints on grass would be less pronounced than on snow for instance, and no prints on stone or indoors...so, you suddenly have a simple "breadcrumb maker" become a rather complex task given the various environments.

 

Also, how long should it last? a game hour? a rl hour? and finally, in a area filled with mobs, how much would it have the area lag down when everything is tromping around leaving prints.

 

I have had fairly smooth preformance on ultra (minus antial)...however, I came across 2 dragons flying around, a sabercat, some mages, a giant and 2 mammoths all duking it out and I started to lag out pretty hard actually..so adding even more fuss into this (oh, my horse and lydia also) scene with footprints constantly rendering and trying to figure out which level of detail to go, timers, etc might only serve to slow things down to a near unplayable level in such cases...

 

Not saying don't attempt it modders, just make sure that if you can and do do it, it has to go through 2 phases before its a success...first, the ambiance qualities (ground texture, timing), and then performance impact...most mods take a bit of performance hit, but there is reasonable and unreasonable hits.

[AxleB]

It would just be a decal like the fire or frost decals from spells, not a big deal to make but i dont know how you'd implement. And would make tracking a hell of a lot easier, especially rabbits and fox.

[zalatoth]

Been requested. In http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/464214-skyrim-wishlist/

[cheajiwon]

i'm very sure that there were footprints in youtube video demo of skyrim.

but, after i played few hours, i could notice that there are nothing left behind my character ...

 

no footprints TT.

 

but i'm still pretty much satisfied ^^

Edited November 18, 2011 by cheajiwon

[Moogiefluff]

Been requested. In http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/464214-skyrim-wishlist/

 

This thread existed first, so I'm not sure what your point is.

[IsolatedPurity]

I was disappointed with this too actually... With all the snow n all I thought it'd go without saying it. I'd also love a mod that enables your player shadow while in 1st person and being able to see the rest of your body.

[nightowl79a]

Actualy this was the first thing i noticed that made me sad in skyrim : / .. Trees can burn for a while, frost spels place frost on walls and floors, It couldn't be too hard to add footprints =P

but what's done is done, so I just hope it can be made in a mod, would be a must have mod for me if so.

[cmoe]

I was really pee'd off at this as well. Even stupid World of Kumquats has this. And seriously, all those explanations and excuses people are making up - all nonsense. Add a graphic options slider for footprint visibility -> easy to handle by any graphics card (console AND pc). Other than that... shadows... first person has none. Third person has, which is still aaaalright... but what makes immersion fade back again is the non-dynamical shadows in most parts of the world. Shadows are always calculated by a SINGLE light source. No change when using other light sources. Talking about light sources. Cool that there's lanterns all over the place that are NOT useable instead of torches. And mirrors... or reflections in glas-like materials... maybe only indoors, but theres NONE.

And another thing i noticed is that theres snow and rain INSIDE of small caves/understands where there should be none... it felt so cool to ride through a heavily snowing area, seeing a cave, retreating there and just wanting to stand there watch the snow outside... seeing the snow/rain fall through solid rocks quite breaks the immersion.

 

Quality management at its best... what hurts most is that skyrim actually still is a great game, but those flaws... they really dont have to be there, those things can be found in the first rounds of quality assurance. But those were maybe busy with adding underwear to the people of skyrim.

 

Sorry to rant in this thread but i guess it catches the spirit of what i am saying the best.

Edited November 19, 2011 by cmoe