Guild Wars 2

I generally run around with lowest settings available, especially at world bosses (and have had the client crash when I try to increase the settings.) I tend to see everyone as generic characters in generic armors, with little to no variation.

There are 2 exceptions to this: Weapon skins are always shown, which seems perfectly fine, but why are the backpacks shown? Especially when everyone is now running around with the big ugly wings? I can’t think of a reason why this specific piece of outfit would always be shown, when nothing else is. Is there any chance that they can given the same treatment that armor gets, not being shown when charactr models are at the bare minimum?

Maybe it’s because the generic character model is a separate thing from weapons and backpacks. I don’t think there were any backpack skins at all when the game first released. iirc that came later and it was visible back pieces added about the first Halloween with the Mad Memoires, a couple of months after launch. If my memory is correct then the generic character models were made a long time before all that and that’s why they aren’t included. It might mean a separate toggle to remove the backpiece from view.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t think there were any backpack skins at all when the game first released.

Wrong. One of the engineer optional starting items is a backpack, and has always been, and the guild backpacks were there since the launch as well. Visible back items were few, for sure, but there were some.

Tuomir.1830:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t think there were any backpack skins at all when the game first released.

Wrong. One of the engineer optional starting items is a backpack, and has always been, and the guild backpacks were there since the launch as well. Visible back items were few, for sure, but there were some.

Ah. Ok. I forgot about those items.

what’s wrong with showing backpacks? :\ I love my wings personally.

Xbon.9086:

what’s wrong with showing backpacks? :\ I love my wings personally.

OP is trying to prevent their potato from overcooking by keeping the heat on low, but believes it can be even lower by reducing unnecessary fuel.

Also I may be eating hash browns right now.

Pandaman.4758:

Xbon.9086:

what’s wrong with showing backpacks? :\ I love my wings personally.

OP is trying to prevent their potato from overcooking by keeping the heat on low, but believes it can be even lower by reducing unnecessary fuel.

Also I may be eating hash browns right now.

if ur char models are already on lowest, then ur only gonna be seeing like 5 ppl anyways, 5 wings really gonna hit you that hard?

Backpacks and weapons are not considered part of the character model. Turn your Character Quality Setting to Low and everyone will have generic models of each profession yet the weapons and backpacks will still render in their proper form. They are separate entities from the player model and only the player model is affected by the quality setting.

Wish I could disable those horrible looking flying monkey wings. Also you don’t need a potato PC to get massive frame rate drops in WvW or at world bosses. You can get massive drops with a solid gaming PC. I’d love to be able to disable all those garish backpieces and gain a few frames.

The wings are the most noticeable, but things like the burning book and the fervid censer also have their own special unique particle effects to go along with them. Massive framerate drops happen to a lot of people, and since I tend to do world boss trains a lot, I just leave the settings low. Since weapons can’t be toggled to show generic versions either, even at lowest settings the stuid effects for Legendaries still render as well. Any one effect is negligible, but when you get a dozen, or a few dozen, all rendering at once, you start to see big hits to performance.

I’d dig the option.

This game often feels like Pigeon Wars 2 which is pretty immersion breaking for me personally, in game with no actual flight mechanic.

Behellagh.1468:

Backpacks and weapons are not considered part of the character model. Turn your Character Quality Setting to Low and everyone will have generic models of each profession yet the weapons and backpacks will still render in their proper form. They are separate entities from the player model and only the player model is affected by the quality setting.

Since they obviously have different models for each race/class/armor type, I wonder if they could (or would be willing to) add a “default” backpack and one for each weapon as well. Since the lowest settings only show things like “human male heavy armor”, could they add a simple check that if settings are low enough, it shows “default greatsword” and “simple backpack” instead of showing Eternity and the white wings?

None of us have that information, but I hope ANet sees this and maybe considers adding it.

go into your graphics card settings. turn on overclocking. don’t actually overclock it, but just increase the fan speed, and only when you play GW.

this is the difference between playing on potato settings at 55fps and playing at supersampled max settings at 35fps. your mileage may vary.

It probably has to do with how the graphics of certain objects are programmed at a low level on the server.

For example, in Second Life (and I am sure other VWs/games) when a character is genericized you will not see their custom skins but you will see the ‘solid’ objects attached to them. I am guessing something similar was done with backpacks: they are so off of what the character’s skeleton provides they have to be their own objects.

Menadena.7482:

It probably has to do with how the graphics of certain objects are programmed at a low level on the server.

For example, in Second Life (and I am sure other VWs/games) when a character is genericized you will not see their custom skins but you will see the ‘solid’ objects attached to them. I am guessing something similar was done with backpacks: they are so off of what the character’s skeleton provides they have to be their own objects.

Its more to do with the culling flags for the models. The main culling routine swaps the generic model for the armor, either on demand, or by settings. But weapon skins, back packs and boon effects aren’t linked to the model; so they aren’t culled on the same flags as the character model. I’m guessing they didn’t want to cut “all” the effects to make sure you can tell characters apart, and weapons being both easy to recognize, and critical to PvP/WvW counter play. Backpacks only became significant much later, as originally we were supposed to get guild capes standard (which they later pulled in development for being too difficult).

All they would need to do is expand the LOD and culling routines to include backpack and weapon models….. but I don’t know if anyone in the engine develop team actually knows how to do it. It sounds dumb considering; but their frequent difficulty in modifying their own engine suggests the people who designed it (and probably coded it) aren’t there any more.