I agree that the new water does not contribute. It is a cheap gimmick. Play Valheim to see what can be done with water. In Vaheim, the water acts and affects and is affeced by things. In EGS the water effects are nothing more than a graphic effect. I too would have rather had Eleon spend their resources on fixing other things.
Water in Valheim is worse than water in Empyrion in some aspects, and better on others. I could say the same for all other aspects but there are major differences that make both these games apples and oranges for comparison. In Valheim, water is a volume that occupies the space under the sea level. Players making bases close to shores have water coming in their houses (high tide or storm waves) like whatever they try to build to stop it is simply ignored. In Empyrion, apart from digging right at the edge of water, players can reach the bottom layer without the water being present everywhere on the map below sea level. In Empyrion the player floats on water, same in Valheim. But in Valheim they have some amount of items that are affected by buoyancy (dead player inventory?) while this only applies to the player in Empyrion - for now. Building and crafting are also quite different : the "ships" that float in Valheim are predefined models that can not be modified after they are built like the ships in Empyrion, where players can modify everything at the level of individual blocks and components. That is one major difference here : "models" are much easier to track for physics (buoyancy) purposes than large modifiable voxel ships. And the biggest "floating model" in Valheim is, what, 40 feet long ? Water physics in Valheim is applied to specific objects, and all other objects fall to the bottom of the sea. Valheim has limited terrain editing capabilities compared to Empyrion, and it is already causing performance issues on servers even with that limited extent. The developers issued a patch some time ago so players can deal with the problem via a console command, but results vary and some players see their structures buried, disappear or break, etc. Empyrion wipes playfields to refresh original terrain states on starter planets only (mp), but players have the blueprint advantage : whatever they build they can re-create anytime, anywhere, provided they have the right resources. Also note that although "water (waves) affect ships" in Valheim, ships are not creating various effects like 3d waves we now see in Empyrion. And what we want in Empyrion is water that is excluded ( "affected" ) by player ships and structures, and more precisely water that "stays out" of these. That aspect is totally absent in Valheim, and Eleon just started working on water v2. Valheim art style is cool but low-resolution, the opposite of what Empyrion seems to be aiming for. This "lighter" system is surely easier on performance but it does look like early 2000 games like Gothic series. Water effects look cartoony, and they are a combination of sprite-based surface effects (trails and splashes) and physics simulation (buoyancy - ships follow waves). Empyrion just started dipping its toes in there, so I am willing to let them try their skills at it. Why waste time and just throw it out the window ? Then all players ranting will be even more angry, as their "self-fulfilling prophecy" will happen : water will stay like it is for a long time because players don't want Eleon to work on it, yet Eleon already spent time and salaries on it. Honestly, I think they earned a chance to try to make anything they want, and even make mistakes. And just as a comparison, here is a short glimpse how players deal with some requests concerning "water in Valheim" : https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/suggestions/162541/water-physics That's so short and sweet : "it's a feature, not a bug". But I don't see twenty five hysterical players jumping in there yelling " Iron Gate fix your game" ! But the game is still in Early Access. Let's wait some time and see how it evolves... And here is something we are more familiar with here (on "terraforming) : https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/suggestions/162551/fix-terraforming-heavy-fps-impact So that's almost the same story, but with low rez textures and cartoony models. Imagin if they had voxel ships and bases and flying combat with a zillion tracers on screen, with modern textures and "normal" models. And players can't make "bases under water" either in that game, and the "viking" setup is not really one that would support that kind of anachronism anyway. But then what will the water guy do ?
About what ? "Water not more realistic now" or "Valheim better than Empyrion" ? For water in Empyrion, everyone can like/ dislike the "subjective" part : nicer or uglier. "Closer to reality" is another topic. If people hate the new water because it causes performance issues then it has nothing to do with "realism". If they don't like because of tint/ color/ textures it does not mean it is less realistic either. Best way to show differences would be with pictures of the same area, before/ after the changes. For the waves and ripples part we already covered that : it's exaggerated.
I happened to have made a backup of the game in version 1.6, so I was able to go back and take a few snapshots. I hope this will better illustrate the difference between "old" water and what we have now. Game versions are indicated in red numbers on the composite images. First composite shows a "shore break" for both games versions : I think there is no question here that the water looks way more realistic in the 1.7 version, in aspect and color. But looking more closely than I did on my first "checks" I see now that even though the wave effects are too large and big for the small lake (maybe on a sea shore, but needs more waves on all the surface) the animation is quite realistic, with foam fading in/ out as the wave spills on the shore in a very natural way, very close to what real waves do. What is not natural is that waves appear from nowhere, but that could be lessened by making all effects much smaller, or by tuning down the pre-shorebreak waves. Next one is a view from underwater, taken in Clear weather in both cases : In 1,7 we can estimate the distance from the surface with the ripples, while in 1.6 it is quite uniform, and in both cases we should be able to see more of what's outside (just like it's possible to see into the lake when we're outside). The dark horizon band in 1.7 is not realistic because it's still close to the surface, and I prefer the "clear view" from 1.6. Main problem with 1.6 here is that it is darker closer to the surface and lighetns up the deeper we go, and it should be the contrary. Next image shows that in 1.7 we have interaction with objects just under the surface (a rock - but still effects too strong/ large) and the transparency/ tint is way more realistic than in 1.6 which looks like a mining site dead acid lake (and no effects of course) : Last is a 2-shots of a wave breaking on the shore : Looking at stills does not render justice to the effects. When looking at the motion before a wave breaks, there is no "foam" and it does look weird, slowly ondulating along the shoreline. And when a wave breaks and spills over, we can see the logic animating it, and it is really close to a natural water behavior. But the thing is just too big : water should be agitated all over the water basin for waves like this to have that behavior on the shore, but the water looks very calm everywhere else. Transparency could also be lowered a bit, because in some instances we can see there is foam at the edge but it is too dark to be seen, and there is no texture in-between the areas where there is deformation, while there should be ripples/ foam etc. Because of this lack of visible texture the shapes are lost in transparency. The size has to be notably scaled down for shore effects, and that would probably take care also of the unnatural, slow ondulation of foamless clear water before and after the waves effects. In fact, at smaller scale all effects would have to be moving/ developing faster, like what we can observe in nature. Big, slow waves may be OK on an ocean shore, but not on a lake that we can see trees clearly on the other side, and that has calm and flat water everywhere apart from close to the shore. .
I think the water is a considerable improvement in looks. If I could change an aspect of it, then wave should come as basically infinite length across the surface insted of lots of separate little waves. Also they should start much further away from the shore as soft round waves that gather in intensity as the water shallows (not distance from shore). It seems odd at the moment that the shore waves seem to appear from nowhere and are disconnected. Perhaps adding a concept of wind to the weather and letting that drive the waves may help in future? As a pure visual thing, its a good improvement. I am not sure they need reducing, I think that is more a problem of them appears from nothing. Also they should vary in height and crest with weather and perhaps steepness of the shallows (I have no idea of they do or not). Valheim waves are certainly better in many ways, but they are also currently serving a different purpose as travel in a ship is a significant part of the game - ships of that age are very sensitive to the weather and waves etc and so their waves along with the weather add significantly to gameplay and rightly so. In this however, I can accept that hover engines are less/not affected. Maybe that will change in future. With these I can see the effort that has gone into the modelling and animation of the waves, I just dont think it is right yet, but certainly a good start and improvement.
