Batman: Arkham Knight

[ManjuShri]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

As previously advised, we have stopped sales of Batman: Arkham Knight PC while Warner and Rocksteady work on addressing performance issues with the game. The latest information from Warner is that the updates won't be available until Spring. Due to this we have made the difficult decision to recall all PC stock from stores to return to the vendor until an acceptable solution is released.

As this quote is obtained from an e-mail to EB staff in Australia, keep in mind that "spring" means "autumn" to everyone else, so don't expect the game to be ready until October/November at the earliest.

Source is Kotaku, which is why I'm not providing any links.

 

[Jick Magger]

Best Batman & Robin is Dick & Damian.

I guess what annoys me is the PLEASE HIT ME IN THE DARKNESS colors of the Robin suit. On the other hand I do get that without the contrast in colors, he'd probably look even more dull.

To be fair, black is also terrible camouflage unless the environment you're in is solid black as well, which is rare even during the night due to ambient light. If anything Dark red is slightly more preferable because it absorbs any surrounding light a bit better.

 

[Mangoose]

Best Batman & Robin is Dick & Damian.

I guess what annoys me is the PLEASE HIT ME IN THE DARKNESS colors of the Robin suit. On the other hand I do get that without the contrast in colors, he'd probably look even more dull.

To be fair, black is also terrible camouflage unless the environment you're in is solid black as well, which is rare even during the night due to ambient light. If anything Dark red is slightly more preferable because it absorbs any surrounding light a bit better.

True, this is the best camouflage

I still need to figure out how that guy got this skin. >made

 

[Mangoose]

Hmmm

The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh has its full model stored in the base game, like the WBPlay Gotham Knight skin, and its thumbnail does not specify it as being DLC, also like the Gotham Knight skin. It seems likely that this is the famed "missing showcase", and that it will be automatically unlocked for players via WBPlay at some point, perhaps as a "thanks for playing guys!"-type bonus in a few months.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BatmanArkham/comments/3dfziy/arkham_knight_dlc_skins_summaryguide/.compact

I'm okay with this.

Edit: https://steamcommunity.com/app/208650/discussions/0/530646715646792324/

Just read something on the wiki that says that no one knows what it is, even after beating the game completely. DLC is added on to the panels there, so it wouldn't be any of that, so it's either super secret, or an error.

pls not be dlc

 

[AW8]

True, this is the best camouflage

I still need to figure out how that guy got this skin. >made

 

[Mangoose]

What's that from?

 

[AW8]

What's that from?

Batman R.I.P., same as the other pic.

 

[Shadenuat]

I watched whole thing on youtube as a big movie with a help of a few glasses of wine
Engaging into same gameplay after previous games felt like a chore so I didn't
I still find stories from 90's BTAS cartoon more interesting
And the batmobile is ugly

 

[Mangoose]

I'm curious what you guys think of the ending. A lot of people dislike it. Yet I thought it was good. But the funny thing is that they liked the 100% ending, but for me.. I disliked the 100% ending because it spelt "DLC INCOMING + Damon Lindelof lazy 'twist' incoming."

Spoiler

I mean, I know one person complained it was stupid Bruce 'killed himself' to protect the city's citizens.

Uh no.. he 'killed himself' so stop people from getting at his very close ones, aka Tim, Dick, the Gordons, etc. That's about it.

Engaging into same gameplay after previous games felt like a chore so I didn't

This is true. And I repeat again (for everyone in general, not to you) the gameplay is worse. Mechanically it's actually slightly better (more variations). Encounter-wise it just sucks dick and shits on whatever mechanics it has. Almost every encounter and encounter type is shitty so I'm not even bother going more in depth.

Now if they do fix the ridiculous texture-size/streaming+VRAM+RAM issue then it should be rather fun joyriding around in the Batmobile. I can once in a while have some fun driving around at 15-20 fps*. It's ugly as you said, but in "regular" batmobile mode it plays pretty much like a regular batmobile except for the look. In "regular" mode it's rather maneuverable and very fast, you do a lot of "power-sliding", afterburner boosting, and there's no silly Nolan jump-between-rooftops thingie - If you want to jump you have to find a ramp. The cons however are a very very limited amount of gadgets (compared to Burton's types not Nolan's)... No turning a tight corner with a grappling hook, no blowing out an enemies tires or entire wheel/axle with a claw from your Bat-rims. Your only two non-driving mechanics in the Batmobile are: powering into a super super fast glide, and using an "immobilizer" shot (EMP?) thing when chasing fearful criminals' vehicles.

Well, I guess it is still kinda tanky because you can just drive right through anything that's not a building, and the only way of taking down vehicles is with shooting a projectile or slamming into them. But the main thing is you really do feel like you're doing a chase scene (and the AI can drive) rather than focusing on the takedowns. But again they need to patch it so you can have like... 40FPS I'd say to enjoy it. Otherwise, yes, I agree that it's not fun.

It's Battlemobile (tank mode) that is unforgivably and irrepairibly bad. I really suspect the reason it's like this is to appeal to moviegoers. The tank-mode I even more strongly suspect is to hype people up for Superman V Batman. I know it's Dark Knight Returns inspired, but my marketing radar is pinging like mad here.

Fake-edit: BTW, you can take down enemy vehicles from the air. I am not getting tired of that.

I still find stories from 90's BTAS cartoon more interesting

That's not a surprising observation at all: Paul Dini was head writer for BTAS, and wrote for Asylum and City. He did not write for this game or Origins.

Interestingly enough though, all of the Arkham main stories have been forgettable for me. Except that I remember Origins having a shitty story. Actually thinking about it now, I remember the sidequests of each game much more than the main stories.

The most memorable "story-esque" parts of any of these games were the environments in Arkham Asylum, like the Penitentiary. Also the Amadeus Arkham writings were really good. In the other Arkham games, you can just forget about the indoor atmospheres.

 

[Israfael]

Initially i thought i was supposed to distract Jonny's attention with some sort of hellish japanese music 'dancing' game on that platform, but this is really nice, in my opinion

 

[Azalin]

 

[Mangoose]

Initially i thought i was supposed to distract Jonny's attention with some sort of hellish japanese music 'dancing' game on that platform, but this is really nice, in my opinion

Wow, takes a special kind of retard to run counter-clockwise there

 

[Mangoose]

I can't decide if I'd rather continue NewGame+ in City or give NewGame+ in Knight a chance. I mean there is a chance that the encounters are better....... But that's very very hopeful thinking...... on the other hand it'd only take half an hour to see. Eh. Will wait for patch.

The Modding guy I was talking about - and I've actually been working with him - has been continuously doing good stuff. Of course not anywhere near a completely fix. But I have had no hitching anymore, even when I glide and spin around in circles - that's the worst because you're trying to load every texture in the game. That actually really surprised me because I didn't think that was possible, and that I would only dip to like 20-25 FPS doing that, as long as not maxing out on settings.

Of course let me remind you I have the best luck dealing with bugs and technical issues. Nuffle loves me.


... But I'm playing other games right now so I haven't even played except to help the guy with his tools.

I guess that's a lot of the reason I spent time on this game. I can get very compulsive about modding and tweaking.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've finally given this a try on the PC. It's completely unplayable on my mechanical drive system partition (windows 8), even installing it on a SSD; there's definitely some huge issue with the game's streaming code. Whenever the game tries to stream something - i.e. quite often, the framerate drops to single digits.

Playing it under a Windows 10 installation on the same SSD is much better, game runs at a reasonably stable locked 30 fps on maximum settings (except texture) on a gtx 770 and a i5 3570k OCd to 4.3ghz. It looks significantly better than previous Arkham games, I honestly didn't expect this kind of leap; animations are largely the same so the effect is somewhat diminished however.

 

[Mangoose]

I've finally given this a try on the PC. It's completely unplayable on my mechanical drive system partition (windows 8), even installing it on a SSD; there's definitely some huge issue with the game's streaming code. Whenever the game tries to stream something - i.e. quite often, the framerate drops to single digits.

Playing it under a Windows 10 installation on the same SSD is much better, game runs at a reasonably stable locked 30 fps on maximum settings (except texture) on a gtx 770 and a i5 3570k OCd to 4.3ghz. It looks significantly better than previous Arkham games, I honestly didn't expect this kind of leap; animations are largely the same so the effect is somewhat diminished however.

Weird. Windows 10? Wtf?

I think there are two main issues with the framerate. (1a) Driving at like 60mph.. that's a lot of texture load unless a certain company knew how to port, (1b) A lot more textures also loading when you're gliding because you see a lot more stuff. (2) Rocksteady talked a lot about making teh grahix super good and shit and I'm assuming that's why they took so long with the game.

If you want a noticeable amount of improvement - but no where near a complete fix - use this tool: https://steamcommunity.com/app/208650/discussions/0/523890046870624615/

It just tweaks the numbers in the texture streaming section in BMEngine.ini, and modifies the texture LOD levels in BMSystemSettings.ini. Nothing big. Has a separate section that allows lazy people to change Nvidia settings instead of going into Nvidia control panel.

But I still seriously find it funny that I don't subjectively have a problem with FPS now. Again my specs: GTX650Ti and FX6300 not OC'ed (OCing got too obsessive for me). Only issue is texture popping. Driving is between playable and fun, but gliding is perfectly fine now. I had a good time taking out cars and drones from above lol.

---

But still the gameplay encounters suck so fuck it.

Somewhat hoping NewGame+ will fix it...

But I've moved on to other games until the patch comes in.

Though I am going to reiterate that the PC version of Arkham City was delayed two months, and that's not terribly different from this PC version of AK released two months too early.

Of course that's fucking WB's fault.

 

[Israfael]

Finished the game, 47 hours with 100% completion, hard to say if I liked it or not. It tells that there was no Paul Dini now to do the scripts, although the story is more dark and batman-like than it was in the previous games, although a lot more cliche. They should have given an option to 'give in' to the Joker and play as him after the last part of the main quest.

The most notable part, however, is the fact that AK clearly demonstrates the creative barrenness of the sandbox games - maybe Asylum was much shorter, but it was much more creative and interesting. This is mostly visible in the Nigma riddles - there's a lot of new stuff (aka gadgets) in the Knight, but each of them is used only twice or thrice in the more difficult puzzles. Catering to the lowest common denominator, i guess, or maybe the riddles just lost their novelty and lustre for me.

Apart from the graphical glitches, there're several PC-only bugs (judging from the SPUF topics) - three or four riddles require spamming screenshot button to reset the glitchy physics scripts that control them, combat seems to be linked to the 30fps lock as I felt that Bats was blocking / punching much more faster than in the Origins (although maybe it's just the fucked up combat of AO). I hope Rocksteady's next game would be more fleshed out and less sandbox'y.

 

[Ellef]

Finished the game, 47 hours with 100% completion, hard to say if I liked it or not.

Sounds like you're waiting for Codex approval before you admit you enjoyed it.

 

[Israfael]

And what time played is supposed to mean? I finished Halo 2 for Vista, on the highest (retarded 1 shot) difficulty, and i didn't really enjoy it and can say for sure that it was a poorly optimized, written and overall shit game. Same goes for 5 seasons of Andromeda Ascendant (first episodes were actually not that bad before they kicked Robert Wolfe from the production). These 47 hours is just an illustration to how poorly unoptimized the game is (without 12gb of ram it eventually clogs the memory and starts to stutter) and how they added a lot of filler content (the towers / mines / etc), much more than it was present in AC or AO.

 

[Multidirectional]

Finished the game, 47 hours with 100% completion, hard to say if I liked it or not.

I will never understand shit like this. Finishing a sandbox game with 100% completion and then remaining unsure if you liked it. I could never be arsed to finish any sandbox game 100%, even the ones I loved. The fuck is wrong you people?

 

[Cyberarmy]

I will never understand shit like this. Finishing a sandbox game with 100% completion and then remaining unsure if you liked it. I could never be arsed to finish any sandbox game 100%, even the ones I loved. The fuck is wrong you people?

We are sick and not ashemed too admit it.
I "%100" ed whole Assassins Creed games. (2 of them %99~ish due to fucking bugs )

 

[Multidirectional]

We are sick and not ashemed too admit it.

Maybe you should be. Who knows, might just help you heal some. There are plenty of things anyone could be doing that would be better than hunting for pointless collectibles in video games they don't even like that much.

 

[Israfael]

To be honest, even B:AK has more appeal than the borefest of PoE which i didn't finish yet

 

[Drakron]

To be honest, even B:AK has more appeal than the borefest of PoE which i didn't finish yet

 

[racofer]

To be honest, even B:AK has more appeal than the borefest of PoE which i didn't finish yet

And that doesn't say much, since PoE is an Obshitian game and all.