The patch notes for the previously announced PC patch for Aliens: Colonial Marines have been published today by Gearbox Software. Most notably this patch includes improved quality textures which bring up the size of the update to 3.5 GB.
Additional changes include “tweaked enemy and friendly AI to be more aggressive and responsive” and the addition of the film grain effect.
The patch should be available on Steam today (March 18, 2013) at approximately 3PM CT. The full changelog can be found after the cut.
Curious to see more comparison screenshots? Do you notice a major improvement while playing the game after the update or does it seem the same to you? Make sure to voice your opinion and let us know on the forums.
General
- Improved texture resolution.
- Various visual improvements.
- Added mouse smoothing to options menu.
- Fixed crashes tied to launch and motion tracker.
- Added additional safeguards to better protect save data.
- Resolved an issue where a player’s level could sometimes appear incorrect when backing out of a party.
- Addressed several scenarios under which players could spawn without a weapon.
- Changes to better prevent audio from sometimes cutting out during end of mission cinematics.
- Fixed issue where Xeno death animation was not properly calculating momentum of the killing blow.
- Smart Gun animation now properly tracks targets.
- Addressed some instances where Xenos would display erratic animations.
- Increased light radius for player’s shoulder lamp.
- Adjusted aim assist to better reflect player input.
- Addressed an issue that could sometimes cause co-op player revival to not work under certain circumstances.
- Addressed issues with players not spawning into a level properly.
- Fixed a marine player invincibility exploit.
- Resolved several instances where players could walk or fall outside of maps.
- Addressed an issue where Ripley’s Flamethrower (bonus content) would sometimes fire continuously without player input.
- Fixed an issue that could cause localized text to sometimes display incorrectly.
- Addressed an issue where weapon ammunition was not always highlighted properly.
- General user interface improvements.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.
Campaign
- Tweaked enemy and friendly AI to be more aggressive and responsive.
- Modified campaign difficulty to account for improved AI responsiveness.
- Improved enemy collision detection regarding doors and Power Loader.
- Addressed some issues that could cause improper warping for co-op players.
- Various tweaks to address instances where NPC characters would not always properly navigate to objectives.
- Players will no longer bleed out immediately when downed in a Power Loader.
Versus
- Fixed issues that could cause clients to report inaccurate results and statistics.
- Addressed instances where a map would appear to “pop in” when loading into a new match.
- New Xeno appearance customization added.
- Multiplayer teams should now correctly auto-balance between rounds.
- Increased duration of Lurker Pounce Challenge “Cat-Like Reflexes” from 10 to 20 seconds.
- Fixed issue where certain multiplayer challenges would not unlock properly for all characters.
- Crusher pick-ups now correctly appear as highlighted for clients.
I only have ACM on the PC, and WinterActual is right on the money, there are NO matches to access! It is sad as hell, but the ONLY one I managed to get in, the mike sound was clipped as hell, the screen tear was all over the place, bugged even more than the game itself! So, multiplayer is a bust! The offline experience in the maps, well, you already know what I think about them!
About the dedicated servers, highly doubt it, given the feedback and the Steam data! Gearbox is gonna ditch the game come Summer 2013, the day of the last planned DLC! So, why build dedicated servers at all NOW that the cat is outta the bag and people have given Gearbox such a hard time and SO deservedly so?!
It is a pity though, because even though I dislike the Xenos and Mercs AI and damage resistance, with three or four pals and three turrets, it is an awesome survival battle! Just check the youtube vids and see for yourselves! Too bad I can't get into one now...
so we have a great looking game now, just with no one play with...
looks like its back to avp2 and the AJL mod for me...
That may be, But you are comparing a fully released game with another 6+ months of patches and updates to a demo that had "work in progress" stamped on the top right hand side.
The game is certainly a lot better in my eyes than it was pre-patch.
Red dog collars with chrome spikes/studs. The soldier and spitter have the default head with the collar, while the lurker looks like the original alien with no dome wearing a collar.
http://games.opensteamworks.org/Chart/View/49540
Player counts are pathetically low. However....
It's still the same crappy SP. The AI is a little more aggressive, but still extremely stupid and still gets in the way. The film grain is overdone with no way to turn it off or lower it. It's hard to tell graphically simply because the film grain covers up a lot of the crappy looks the game had before. A few textures are noticeably better, but still ugly as hell. Bughunt is a bit of fun until the WY mercs show up, and after that it's all downhill. Price-wise, I'd take CoD map packs over this any day simply because those four maps in CoD would see way more use than I'll probably get out of Bughunt. And I haven't bought a CoD title in 2 years.
You keep up. It isn't even close except for sound and ONE alien animation.
It is though, If you compare demo footage with post patch footage it IS pretty close.
You left out part of my post by the way when you quoted me, I did say afterwards in the same post that it still needs work and that the current patch is a step in the right direction, Keep up.
The hell it is.
Beat the Mercenary map on Soldier diff. and it just said "completed all waves!" and f**king ends
there was quite a bit of jumping and flanking when I played bughunt earlier. The spitters deal pretty good damage too and kept getting behind me without me seeing. I dug it. Tbh though, the acid in sp is stroooong now and the soldiers like to 2 hit combo off half your life on soldier difficulty so having that in bughunt might almost be too much lol.
I did have an instance in bughunt where a lurker jumped on me and after I tossed him off he just stood there faliling waiting for me to get back up lol. I died...
I say buff the xenos in bughunt and get rid of the mercs, or get rid of the mercs and add queens and crushers and ravens. some sorta bosses or something. Damn mercs man....
Yeah, I know the game is pretty awful, but why come in here and bitch if you say you don't even play the game? I was more or less asking for the people who are trying to play it, lol.
and thanks, Ace! It's good to hear the graphics can at least bump up to the "average" level. I've never been much of a graphics person, but this game's are so bad it's literally distracting. Like the Alien AI in bug hunt, which is adequate but nothing special, I wouldn't expect they could really make the graphics more than adequate without a lot of work.
I think the Aliens work best when the Lurkers are mixed in. The warriors will be charging you as the lurkers peek around boxes or dart across the ceiling to tackle you. I got tackled by one flying into a window earlier, from a rock ledge a ways away. It was crazy. The spitters are also bothersome and accurate as hell. No rupture though, which is great. I do miss the acid, but there's always badass mode.
I still f**king hate the mercs, but now I just arc them and light them on fire.
Hey I posted a mod good sir, but been over at the other forums myself because everyone is apparently mad or dead here.
The game is a lot better, its challenging and more atmospheric and personally I love the filmgrain because it makes everything look less plastic and its just fine if you dont jack up the brightness.
Ive never played a horde mode before so im still getting the hang of it but its fun, im gonna try to play some online matches here in a while. I dont like the mercs but whatever, I own it so im gonna play it.
I think the game is worth taking the time to mod now because its 100% better looking and anything out of place can be fixed way quicker. Still think an SDK is really the only thing that can get people motivated again.
The game is still a 5/10 as far as being an Aliens game but im enjoying it more now. Call the cops.
The reason no one is saying shit is because no one is playing this game any more. Because it's shit.
Patch #2 is nothing more than polishing a turd. The graphics have improved but they're still not current gen AAA graphics. The film grain is irritating and blatantly just implemented to cover up the textures that remain shitty, and you can't even turn it off The AI no longer glitches out frequently but it's still extremely basic.
So what? COD DLC is some of the most over-priced DLC on the market, it's not exactly difficult to offer better value for money than that.
Kind of hard to be excited about anything involving this game really. The fixes are too little too late.
Though I might give them a look all the same just to say I did. But I can see why people don't give a shit.
Hope that they will bring some of that to the consoles, Not sure how theyll pull it off.
Played a little Bughunt today, wasnt bad. Im not really a fan of horde modes. Im too impatient a player. Didnt last long lol, jumped into a match on the 8th wave, finished that off and then got smartgunned by a W Y merc, bled out before help got to me. Only played against the mercs and they were annoying.
Thanks man.
Bitching never fails to bring those responses, sho nuff!
Graphically? Yep, It's pretty close to what we saw on the previous demo's, Even the AI is MUCH less forgiving if you just charge in like rambo.
It's not the same as the demo's.. granted, But it's a HUGE step closer.
And no one's saying shit.
Come on, you freaking PC elitists. When there's whining to be done, ho look at all of the new comments! But something good happens and we hardly have any posts.
How is it for you guys on the PC? Is it better? Film grain? AI? Glitches? Graphics? Thought this would be huge news, but we get crickets.
Bug Hunt is also pretty fun, save for those god-awful WY mercs, and for $15, it offers far more playtime than any of the weak CoD DLC's which are priced the same. I still agree with some of you that they should've just thrown it in for free, but that would require some intelligence on their part. Still, it's easily worth the money compared to similarly priced DLC's for other titles. Best thing about the game for me, really, besides playing Alien in mp.
Has Gearbox dun gone and totally redeemed themselves?
Oooops! just noticed it...Can anyone verify that the Xenos's behavior is indeed much better?
That 4gig update to the PC also included things that the PS3/360 got already.
Quote from them, "This update contains the changes that were in the recent update for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, along with some additional changes that will be part of future updates for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3."
And this wouldn't be the first time a large patch has come to consoles. It wouldn't surprise me if it came it around 2 gigs when it was all said and done. We'll see, this is gearbox afterall and they aren't exactly known for telling the truth.
There's just as much chance as the console getting this graphical enhancement, The texture resolutions may need tweaking or resizing so that console hardware can run ACM adequately with the graphical enhancements.
Better textures, more fog, better lighting and 4GB, I don't think so.
Gearbox has said that it is coming to consoles very soon.
ACM will sell 200.000 copies more...eeeeasy.
The film grain is cool in a way, but it doesn't properly replicate the movie at all. The grain in this is too much and looks worse than VHS.
The aliens AI generally seem to target the player more, which makes solo play extremely hard in some sections, mostly in parts where you have to defend a spot. It can be frustrating and unfair.
One funny thing I found: there's a really bad glitch with the first lurker you encounter above where Keyes is hived. If you walk up to the lurker while he's still curled in the wall, his model starts moving around in the air. You can keep pushing him around all over the place while he's still in his static curled animation. Strange.
Not much else to really say. I still would like them to get rid of the stupid sway animation on the guns. It looks ridiculous seeing my laser pointer facing one way and seeing the hit detection to the right of it.
Expected :-(
If they can decrease the film grain opacity by about 50 to 70% it should help. Along with an option to completely disable it. The extra fogging looks good.
Could anyone host the patch for us stranded by non internet equipped homes?
Just asking for a lifeline here.
Thanks anyways, and awesome reporting.
The nope was for can you turn it off in the .ini settings, which, you can't.
Neither FilmGrain=blah nor PostProcessing=blah have an associated boolean, flag, or hook.
You can, however, turn the overlay a solid color on the alpha and thus remove it "manually".
It will not, and get used to it.
yes they are Xhan, Chris allready stated that in the update thread. You might have missed it due to the spamming of idiots.
ChrisF
They gave us a nice patch, no reason to think they wont add the toggle in the near future
nnnnnope.
artisitcintegrity.gif
No, no you don't.
It's f**king horrendous.
// add image grain = animated noise for a more filmic look
#if USE_IMAGEGRAIN
{
const half ImageGrainScale = ImageAdjustments1.w;
// per channel (faster?)
// todo: use Square(float3) once it's in common.usf
float3 GrainAmount = (1 - GammaColor) * (1 - GammaColor) * ImageGrainScale;
// 1/256 to fight 8 bit quantization artifacts, image grain itself should only affect the darks
GammaColor = saturate(GammaColor + (PseudoRandom(PixelPos) - 0.5f) * (GrainAmount + 1 / 256.0f));
}
#endif // USE_IMAGEGRAIN
Hope to see it on the xbox and ps3.
You MONSTER!!!
Actually, On a serious note, You're right, This is karma for kill-stealing!
:edit:
Also.. For those interested....side by side comparison pre/post patch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRiPPqiYzsY#ws
"hey f##k off i wanted to do that"
Or when he waits at a door !! its obvious that theres something in there now cheers :/
CRYO-TUBES
Pre-Patch
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg191%2F3036%2Fhighresscreenshot00018.jpg&hash=697fdeedc2fc9b5f65d6259df27f92db6bbe0d49
Post Patch
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FwYKt1vy.jpg&hash=8189e8c3be2dee0b2e4446d42786b9679f6a4650
Hived area after you rescue Keyes
Pre Patch
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg841%2F5729%2Fhighresscreenshot00025.jpg&hash=c358ff35a87754700283e632b22e8ee8781d92a7
Post Patch
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FA6CAbTV.jpg&hash=48a02fe18abf5a4a3bf1f410cf3d90b3925b9315
Dropship on fire in the Sulaco's hangar
Pre-Patch
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg4%2F2361%2Fhighresscreenshot00033.jpg&hash=0f45e5d520dbabc920f831b6c49b4105c43ad99f
Post-Patch
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Feky6F5p.jpg&hash=1ae5b5f4eaeeb3ddaf63057a099f1f6ea95a0ac1
Enjoy.