So, update, performancewise Hogsmeade is indeed a disaster. Kinda reminds me of BOTW where you would go to that forest and the game would just absolutely tank for some reason. Like Hogwarts has a little hitching when you transition between gameplay and cutscene, but Hogsmeade is a total mess. Walking around tanks my FPS below 40 fps (bearing in mind the rest of the time it is around 80 plus), and you have to fight a boss in this location and my God, the game was literally down to single frames fighting this thing. I even tried turning a bunch of my settings down and it basically made no difference.
Currently playing a LOT of Marvel Snap on Mobile and Cassette Beasts.
@Pizzamorg
I'm pretty much the same with performance for the game, especially in Hogsmeade. I can get between 90-100 fps with max settings on average inside Hogwarts, but it lowers down to 40-60 after exiting outside. However, as soon as I get to the village, it tanks to 15-30. All of this is due to poor optimization, which sucks since these types of issues have been going on for a few years on PC. Release a game as a mess, then fix it with updates after many complaints. It has gotten better with the day 1 patch, but it shouldn't have to be like this.
Link-Hero
Switch Friend Code: SW-3097-0477-1999 | Nintendo Network ID: LinkHero25
@Pizzamorg
I'm pretty much the same with performance for the game, especially in Hogsmeade. I can get between 90-100 fps with max settings on average inside Hogwarts, but it lowers down to 40-60 after exiting outside. However, as soon as I get to the village, it tanks to 15-30. All of this is due to poor optimization, which sucks since these types of issues have been going on for a few years on PC. Release a game as a mess, then fix it with updates after many complaints. It has gotten better with the day 1 patch, but it shouldn't have to be like this.
Been a bad year for PC Ports so far, the other big release was Forspoken and that is basically unplayable on my rig. Seems like unless you have a 4090, you can't play that game on PC, unless you wanna play it like upscaled 1080p at 30ishfps. Unacceptable. Apparently some big patch is coming for that, dunno when.
Also apparently there was a Day 1 Patch for Hogwarts Legacy, can't imagine how bad the game ran before this. I woulda been gutted to pay the extra for that early access, if the game was basically unplayable for three days.
So funny when I am also playing Dying Light 2, a game that is by technical definition an indie game, but also a big open world title and that runs basically flawlessly on my system on really high/close to max settings. And for people that know, Dying Light 2 has technology pushing draw distances, too, not to mention a huge amount of stuff just active at any one time with all the zombies going around and dynamic events with NPCs, and almost no visible loading screens at all when you transition between indoor and outdoor space.
Currently playing a LOT of Marvel Snap on Mobile and Cassette Beasts.
@Pizzamorg
It was worse. Poorer performance outside of Hogwarts along with constant stuttering whenever it loads a large amount of new data. Currently, it performs better, and stuttering is pretty much gone.
Link-Hero
Switch Friend Code: SW-3097-0477-1999 | Nintendo Network ID: LinkHero25
Hogwarts Legacy has given me a chance to go out into the world, my performance is lower in the world than in Hogwarts itself, but more consistent and close enough to 60 fps that it is fine, it is just Hogsmeade which seems totally busted.
As a game though I dunno whether I am feeling this. To use Dying Light 2 as an example yet again - and to make it clear, it isn't like a pillar of it's genre or whatever, it is just a recent open world game I have played, it is full of your usual busy work open world crap, but the traversal and combat elements of the game are so strong, coupled with things like how the day night cycle works, just getting into a building to retrieve a book or something can be a nail biting adventure in entirely emergent ways. And that is in a game somewhat grounded in a real world. Despite this being a magic world, I am often being tasked with doing the same kinds of busy work crap, and it is often far less interesting to do. A lot of side content is just walk a couple of steps, press one your spell buttons which requires no actual aiming or mechanical involvement, it just does what it needs to do automatically, then walk back to the NPC and say you are done. Super boring stuff.
Combat is certainly strong here, for sure, but I dunno how much of that is just the flashiness distracting my brain. Not sure what it is like to play on a controller, but the controls are pretty overwhelming on PC. They start off okay, but then when you get into combat encounters where you need to fire off three different types of spells to break various shields, dodge some enemies and parry others, I just start forgetting where I put everything. Especially as you can't do things like double bind the space bar, for one tap jump and two tap dodge, or whatever way round, it needs to have a dedicated binding. I've moved the controls around, and moved a lot of stuff to extra buttons on my mouse, over about 6 or 7 tweaks, I think I have it somewhat comfortable now, but if they throw any more mechanics bound to specific keys at me I am not sure I am going to be able to cope.
The loot system is also pretty weird. I love loot in games, but at least so far despite tripping over Legendary pieces which I assume are the highest rarity? My brain has been coded for that, anyway, everything has just been stat sticks, there are no like perks or even build options I have seen. It is also odd because in the context of who your character is, being in the middle of a sea of school uniforms while wearing an opera mask, cape, armoured gloves and riding chaps just absolutely rips me out of the story. I understand they included the transmog system probably for this purpose, but if I am going to constantly transmog everything to look like my school uniform what is the point of this.
@Kermit1 Yep, that is indeed what that means 😉
It is pretty nice that we have a PC handheld from Steam though, Handhelds are having a moment right now...
I'm now tenish hours into Hogwarts Legacy, which according to the game is about a third of the way through the main story.
I will say once I found a more comfortable control scheme, and unlocked the skill tree, combat I was kinda back and forth on really came alive for me. The skill tree isn't really that interesting on it's own, but between the more powerful versions of spells and the growing mastery of how everything weaves together, I just started to find this very satisfying flow to combat where you can just absolutely overwhelm the enemy with really awesomely animated offence.
Everything else about the game though... eh. It does sorta feel like their ambition is sorta fighting with itself, as the game is sorta like three games that sorta sit on top of each other. You've got this open world loot game. This virtual tourism Hogwarts simulator. And you've got this action adventure narrative game.
Talking about the world first, I zoomed out for the first time and was kinda blown away by how mind bogglingly massive the map is, and how I am apparently a third of the way through the story and rarely have been required to venture much further than Hogsmeade. I could just make my way to the furthest point of the map I suppose, but that isn't really how I play open world games, I like them to give me a reason to visit a far off location and then I take the long way around to see what I find along the way, and if I find nothing, it is okay because I know I have a properly curated end goal either way. Who knows, maybe the game will start using the further points of the map soon, but at least so far based on the story there doesn't seem to be a clear reason as to how.
The traditional action adventure narrative stuff is really where the game sings for me the most, but it really comes at the expense of the Hogwarts simulator side of the game. As you go out on these story quests, a lot of the time they'll take you away from Hogwarts to little curated spaces outside of the map, which aren't distinguishably Harry Potter in any real way. They are more like generic fantasy stuff utilising Metroidvania elements and elements from games like BOTW.
You will be faced with things like puzzles that are satisfying to solve and require your understanding of your abilities, but never too complicated or long winded where they end up overstaying their welcome and become frustrating. Then this is usually followed by a brief combat encounter which are really designed more for you to show off your combo skills, rather than being something the player is meant to sweat out and show off their mastery. This is all great to me.
But then you come out the other side and that piece of story wraps up, and then you get like three messages from teachers with assignments for your classes. But this'll literally be just like 'go drink three different types of potions' or 'use these combat items in your next battle' or whatever, MMO style busywork stuff. Once you do these, you then walk into their classroom, get a really brief cutscene where your creator character stands out ridiculously in a crowd of bland NPCs, you do the trace the line minigame, get a new spell and you are done.
I won't say the opening couple of classes which were made up of a couple of minigames were necessarily amazing or whatever, but they at least felt like I was taking part in actual classes and school life. But the stuff that follows is basically just busy work to distract me for half an hour before I go and do the next side mission, and you quickly lose any real sense of you being an actual student on Hogwarts, having to balance your school life with this grander purpose you discover you have.
I dunno, I just kinda wish they put more effort into making the classes feel like classes, rather than fetch quest collectathon busy work checklists that reward you with a brief cutscene of some kind of class. And really put more effort in immersing you in life in Hogwarts, which just sorta ends up feeling like a static movie set in the end, which doesn't really do anything outside of specific story missions. I get no real sense of life in this place.
Currently playing a LOT of Marvel Snap on Mobile and Cassette Beasts.
Going to tag @neonpizza (as an outspoken fan of glasses free 3D) & @JaxonH (as a fan of cool gaming tech whatever it may be) in on this.
Apparently the dream of glasses free 3D isn't dead yet, as Acer apparently has a series of stereoscopic 3D monitors & (gaming) laptops. Dozens of games are supposedly compatible with the effect & they claim to support new titles every week (including games like God of War, Forza Horizon 4 & 5, Octopath Traveller, & Abzu).
Appears to be super expensive though, as the monitors are around $1,100, & each laptop model over $3,500.
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