Personally I would like to see none of the proposed subdivisions take priority at the current time and instead look towards an optional reduction of visual noise. While not directly within the WvW teams hands(?) I would like to see an option for “Adaptive Culling” where, when activated the game will automatically reduce model quality/the number of player models shown to maintain a playable framerate in the large scale clashes which would then be automatically turned up again outside of these fights (perhaps with a slider to alter the severity of the culling); this alongside a better Effect LOD option (where you have it broken down into multiple layers (detailed below)) would make the large scale clashes a better experience for everyone. Persoanlly I have an overclocked i7 at 5.1GHz with dual-overclocked-980TIs and can’t maintain 30fps in large scale clashes with Effect LOD off – so I dread to think how lesser systems are handling it, and I feel that adding “adaptive culling” QoL changes would help in this area.
I mentioned that I would like to see Effect LOD broken down into subparts; these are the following divisions I would like to see:
- Friendly Effects
- – Combo Fields
- – Crowd Control Fields
- – AoE (AoE effects that have no Combo Field or Crowd Control associated with them)
- – Projectiles
- – Melee Attacks
- – Auto Attacks (Would also be filtered by projectiles and melee attacks depending on the attack)
- – Other (i.e Coalescence of Ruin, Dragon Banner etc would be toned down by this. Skills that do not fall into any of the other areas)
- Enemy Effects
- – Combo Fields
- – Crowd Control Fields
- – AoE
- – Projectiles
- – Melee Attacks
- – Auto Attacks
- – Other
- Exceptions
- – Always Show High Damage Skills (i.e Coalescence of Ruin, Gunflame, Killshot etc. High damage (might have a wind up) skills that need to be dodged)
- – Always show Party Skills (Always shows skills used by your party/subsquad)
- – Always show Squad Skills (Always shows skills used by your squad)
These would all ideally be sliders, so we could alter the severity of the LOD on each type (all ideally with a checkbox to toggle ‘automatic culling’ on the effects as well, to optionally increase the severity of the culling when the framerate drops . If checkbox is not checked then the maximum amount of LOD is the level the slider is at (i.e. if the slider is at maximum and the framerate drops with the box unchecked no LOD will occur. If the box is checked then LOD will happen, up to the severity shown by the slider). The slider would prioritize skills closest to you; so with a slider on “enemy autoattacks” at 10, only the 10 closest enemy auto attacks would have effects (they would still have animations). It is important that this is a number, not a %, as it allows the user to precisely control the minimum amount of effects shown in fights. A slider would range from 0 (no skills of that type shown in heavy fights) to 100+ (the same as unculled, so no matter the intensity of the fight no culling would occur on that type, unless the checkbox was checked).
Animations would still continue to play as normal (animation drop down is for that).
With the “adaptive culling” option for player model number and quality I would also like to see them transitioned to sliders (like the proposed effect LOD changes) and again, broken down into friendly and enemy. You could build them in as part of the effect LOD system, by adding “Models” to the list of effects and having an exception for Party models and Squad models.
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I know this is not specifically the WvW team’s area, but these changes would have huge positive impacts for the large scale fights often observed in the WvW gamemode, with a knock-on effect in PvE with the world boss fights having increased FPS. These suggestions would help improve the QoL for players playing with any type of rig, and would help improve individual skill level in the fights.
Lootballs – Elementalist