Graphic Options

[Backyard Employee]

Should you be allowed to disable things like Shadows, Foliage, and Anti-Aliasing for better FPS?

As in these would become new game options, and not something you'd need to do via editing a file.

Highest Settings 1920x1080

Lowest Settings 1920x1080

Highest Settings (Shadows Disabled) 1920x1080

Highest Settings (Shadows, Foliage, and Anti-Aliasing Disabled) 1920x1080

The pictures are present to show the difference in FPS.

Some key points

1.) Not asking for any form of editing back, simply the ability to toggle these options in-game.
2.) Foliage should -NOT- include any form of gatherables, pickables, or bush-like assets (Anything that provides coverage of the player on low-ground.)
3.) These settings have been used in the past and allowed players to play the game more smoothly (or to play in general). There is no arguing this.

My opinion

1.) Some of these settings disabled make the game look better and more appealing.
2.) I've personally played with settings like this, and it made the game a night and day difference without needing to deal with frame drops.
3.) PvP and general exploration as well as camera turning were butter smooth and enjoyable (Beyond the actual balance / mechanics themselves.)
4.) Would allow more lower-end rigs to play the game.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Shadows, antialiasing yes.


foliage no. This would be a huge unfair advantage in pvp. If i see a bunch of tall grass, and you see the top of my head, thats an unfair advantage.

 

[Evelyn]

Bumping this thread. Removing all foliage is anti-competitive behavior, devs either need to prevent it or allow everyone to do it in the game menus.

 

[Tzone]

Smooth always looks better then higher end graphics with low framerates.

Foliage only really removes grass. Bushes are still there to hide it. Games performance is poor and looks like UE5 isnt going to fix that.

 

[Evelyn]

People should not be digging around in the ini files to gain advantages in the game. Threatening to ban people for it is a lot more work than simply putting the options in the menu and letting everyone play on an even field.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

I think making the game more accessible to a wider audience is more important than the 1% chance someone is hiding under a leaf or shadow and isn't seen and subsequently is able to get a kill or run away because of it. But even if that could happen players can easily increase their gamma and brightness to see players if they care enough

 

[foe]

I have a very weak pc and turning off shadows would look infinitely better than my current situation where I have low shadows and my game looks like a disco ball is being hung from the sky. Insane shadow flickering non stop and I cannot turn other settings higher to stop this because my performance would be worse.

Allow us to remove shadows and antialiasing, removing all foliage is anti-competitive. If there was a way to keep some foliage and remove the low ground foliage this would be better to still allow hiding etc.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

Seems to me the fact that you can turn off shadows in the ini file can be seen as game-breaking, given the vast differences in visibility.

Someone with shadows on and trying to hide in the shadows would be easily spotted by another player with shadows off.

In the end, it might make everyone want to just turn shadows off completely, and defeat the purpose of even having them in the first place other than for aesthetics.

 

[Emdash]

Eh foliage is an epic troll haha, it's almost like brightness dark vision to disable that. That last pic is too clean of garbage, imo. All the garbage makes it harder to focus which in some ways is good. Gives people places to move around etc. AA tho def. I dunno why people use AA at all.

Edit: in translation, I mean the last pic gives more than FPS as a competitive advantage, so that sucks. Should not be legal.

@ fine ye...

Edit2: I do support the the coloring of more lootbags tho. Grey is hard to spot some places.

 

[Lord Hair Remover]

Yes to all. I'd rather my game run excellent then have some hitches because the guy above me wants my PC to render garbage for some arbitrary reason.

 

[Tzone]

Seems to me the fact that you can turn off shadows in the ini file can be seen as game-breaking, given the vast differences in visibility.

Someone with shadows on and trying to hide in the shadows would be easily spotted by another player with shadows off.

In the end, it might make everyone want to just turn shadows off completely, and defeat the purpose of even having them in the first place other than for aesthetics.

I just turn my gama up to fix what ever visability issue there is. Nothing can be done to stop that. I mainly turn up gama just because the eye correction makes the game look worse l.

No one really tries to hide in shadows because it doesnt work except in dungeons where the shadows are not shadows from the shadow system.

You are hurting alot of people ability to enjoy the game by forcing shadows.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

I just turn my gama up to fix what ever visability issue there is. Nothing can be done to stop that. I mainly turn up gama just because the eye correction makes the game look worse l.

No one really tries to hide in shadows because it doesnt work except in dungeons where the shadows are not shadows from the shadow system.

You are hurting alot of people ability to enjoy the game by forcing shadows.

Yeah if someone uploads a video where they successfully hide in a shadow and no one notices them then maybe I'll take their argument more seriously. Just seems like a made up excuse so people with high end PCs have more of an advantage

 

[Tzone]

Yeah if someone uploads a video where they successfully hide in a shadow and no one notices them then maybe I'll take their argument more seriously. Just seems like a made up excuse so people with high end PCs have more of an advantage

Only in dungeons and with the old .ini tricks you can still hide in dark spots in dungeons. Outside of dungeons where the shadows are in effect and would be turned off no one will ever be hiding in shadows.

Its more of Henrik not wanting other people to see videos where the game looks less like a AAA graphics game. The game reason he removed FoV above 110 because it made screen shots "distorted".

Only superficial reasons we cant have shadows off, grass off, FoV a industry standards, and lower textures.

 

[[CTX] Contractor]

Seems to me the fact that you can turn off shadows in the ini file can be seen as game-breaking, given the vast differences in visibility.

Someone with shadows on and trying to hide in the shadows would be easily spotted by another player with shadows off.

In the end, it might make everyone want to just turn shadows off completely, and defeat the purpose of even having them in the first place other than for aesthetics.

Nope. You're actually wrong.

Back before when you could disable shadows via editing the .ini file the game was actually darker at night with shadows gone.

There is no such thing as shadows giving you cover. If you wish to prove this, make a video demonstrating this.

Because as long as I have played I've yet to see anything backing this as ingame nighttime is bright and dungeons which become artificially darker are not affected by shadows.

 

[Tashka]

There is no such thing as shadows giving you cover. If you wish to prove this, make a video demonstrating this.

It doesn't give cover, but makes you a little harder to notice and your swings are a bit harder to parry. However i personally can live with it. Foliage however is a big no. Even if it just lets you see bags and pickables much more easily.

 

[Turbizzler]

I'm against removing shadows. All SV need to do is properly implement shadows and make the lower settings utilize differing implementation compared to the medium and higher settings. Proper use of cascade and capsule shadows, and varying shadow resolutions dependant on settings would benefit things a lot. Making distant shadows potato quality would benefit things too.

A grass/foliage option I would be fine with, as long as things like bushes, tall grass and crop fields weren't touched. It just effects the density and quality of the main landscapes grass.

SV also needs to do a pretty decent optimization pass across the board, before release. I understand they want MO2 to look ultra pretty all the time, but it's impacting things negatively. With the scale of the map and the render/view distances that come with it, they really need to focus on visual optimizations, object culling, and a LOD pass on certain things.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

Nope. You're actually wrong.

Back before when you could disable shadows via editing the .ini file the game was actually darker at night with shadows gone.

There is no such thing as shadows giving you cover. If you wish to prove this, make a video demonstrating this.

Because as long as I have played I've yet to see anything backing this as ingame nighttime is bright and dungeons which become artificially darker are not affected by shadows.

I think the screenshots provided by the OP it is clear that there is a vast difference in visibility if someone were to stand at the base of the tall alpine tree that casts a broad shadow, the screenshot without shadows would instantly make the player readily visible compared to the one with shadows on.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

It doesn't give cover, but makes you a little harder to notice

This is what I was trying to say.

 

[Emdash]

You can hide in plain sight. Tzone you said you played BDO, right, remem ghillies, they finally nerfed that stuff, I heard, but even not being able to target someone for a quarter of a second longer matters in serious fights. All garbage rendered on the screen is extra things you have to account for. That last screenie is so freaking bare, it's hard to imagine anyone would even want to play that game (if it wasn't for WINNING), and it offers an advantage on so many levels.

Edit: and I'm playing on 1080 med lo aa, as I said, so basically epic dogshit settings with "a pretty good PC." But I'm not going into the ini. It takes a lot away from the game. I think if you guys all search your heart you will realize it's about advantage and not about 'guys with lo end pcs playing the game,' lol. But whatever you wanna do, yakno. I can't stop people from goin in and editing their stuff, only SV can, or ideally... maybe they can put that grant money to use and actually get some working anti cheatz.

 

[Tzone]

I think the screenshots provided by the OP it is clear that there is a vast difference in visibility if someone were to stand at the base of the tall alpine tree that casts a broad shadow, the screenshot without shadows would instantly make the player readily visible compared to the one with shadows on.

in practice and from the screen shot the only visibility issues are on the ground due to grass. Bushes still exist and no one is using them to hide in currently. With the lower LoD bushes you would get from turning off foliage its actually harder to look through.

No one is hiding in shadows, no on is using shadows they wont even hide you outside of dungeons which still have their dark spots that are not attached to the shadow system.

The only benefit is finding loot bags wow its like hey lets ruing the gaming experience of potential players who dont have 3090s by giving them low frames because we dont want the game to not have shadows or foliage.

No competitive player cares about this its only the non competitive players that seem to think it maters. Competitive players know the only advantage is higher frames which are needed in any modern game. Turning off shadows makes you game darker too so there are trade offs to doing stuff like that but people will still use those changes in dungeon having a darker dungeon because it gives them more frames to make the game playable and a over all more enjoyable experince.