"Cursed" settings, is it fair to have a PVP game called 'playable' at 15fps?

  • CapnLimbless

    I've seen a lot of topics talking about is it fair for XB1 players to be at 30fps, playing against PC players at 60fps+, but I'm more curious about cursed mode. If Rare is telling people that 540p@15fps is an acceptable entry point, how will that affect online play?

    It's true you can do a lot to smooth out low fps play with frame-skipping and interpolation, but it's still 15fps. Tracking a galleon at full clip with a cannon at 15fps can't possibly be easy.

    I know it's not Rare's fault for trying to make it run on anything, I totally applaud that. Just wondering if it's something that belongs in the support forums as a last ditch resort, not something proudly touted in interviews. It's like other online games all over again, where you can start it on a Pentium 4, but go into raiding or PVP and you can't play at all. Just curious what people's thoughts were on this?

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  • FatherFuzzie
    Lord
    Founder

    Xbox one x is 60fps.

  • DaftStatue80201
    Founder

    As an avid PC Potatoe gamer i can put in my two cents. With pvp games where you are going against someone with better frames you are always at a disadvantage. The bottom line of playability is the games mechanics. While this is a PVP Oriented game, it doesn’t have crazy twitch mechanics where frames are king. If it did than crossplay just wouldn’t be feasible. Someone who is on a c****y pc learns to adapt. After so many hours with low frames you learn how to adjust. Maybe stay out of close quarter melee battles. Maybe lead your shots more. This game has more to offer than pvp. Giving players who can’t be as competitive a chance to play fills out the game so theres a gap between “Git gud” and “Roleplayers”.

  • TouchDown1504
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @minusculemoss48 I don't believe it will be that big of an issue. This is not a "PvP game". Yeah, yeah, I know "pirates", PvP is a feature. The game is not built around it. Lower frames blows, I agree. And can make a difference. But not to the extent it would in say a COD game, or PUBg or something along those lines. Those are PvP games, where all else is a feature.

  • CapnLimbless

    I guess my meaning is more that since the game is pretty much a free-for-all, you can't exactly control a lot of what you normally would with low-end PC. It isn't like Counterstrike where you can just do a 5v5 match, or WoW where I've literally seen someone do a raid looking at the ground.

    In SoT, you could just have a galleon sail up and starting firing all guns, filling your screen with particle effects and chaos. In a lot of games where things like this can happen, they just straight boot you if you fall below 30fps. Like Dark Souls 3 or Far Cry 4 multiplayer. Since SoT supports super low-end play, you could conceivably get into situations where the game really pushes playability and fun.

    Once again, not saying it shouldn't be possible, just maybe they shouldn't be telling the world "potato gamers welcome." It might not actually be that fun and just lead to people complaining a lot. If it was only the really determined low-end gamers who know what to expect, it would be different.

  • TouchDown1504
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @minusculemoss48 These are very valid points. However, it really boils down to the player and the player's means. I don't want to sound cruel, but the world is what it is. A player can either afford a good system or not. That isn't about "fairness" it is about priorities. Beyond that, I have not heard any complaints about Lag, or latency issues (except a few comments during the stress test where lag and latency issues were induced intentionally). I don't believe it will be that wide spread. Maybe I am wrong?

  • CapnLimbless

    @touchdown1504 I guess we'll see at launch. It's not often you get the 10 year old kid with a cruddy HP all-in-one PC in the beta, but once the game launches and officially supports low-end systems, I wonder.

  • TouchDown1504
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @minusculemoss48 Well, here is something to think about as well. I would "ASSUME" that on the lower settings, such as cursed, many of the high end effects (shadows, particles, dynamic lighting, reflections, and so on) are tuned down quite a bit. If we have another test session I will play with it a touch and see what happens. I currently run my PC at highest settings and get 30FPS steady with occasional spikes down to the mid 20s. That was during the stress test. In Alpha and Beta I only used my Xbox One.

  • CapnLimbless

    @touchdown1504 That's a good call. If we have another test, I'll try to find the weakest system I have and actually test what it's like. I'm used to playing it at 1080p/60, so I'll know exactly what I'm missing.

    Unfortunately I think I'll have to go to the storage unit for that though. The weakest system currently in the house is my wife's new Macbook Pro(unless we count the PS4 Pro, ouch!), which I'm pretty sure could still do 720p/60 all day long.

  • MillTheButcher

    @capnlimbless were you able to run it on the MacBook Pro? That’s what I was planning on doing as well.

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