Suggestion Display: Lowering/Disabling Voodoo Effects

[Misha]

Credit to @Captain Cat for the original idea!

Pirates Online has never been a game known to be friendly toward lower end systems, and even the odd gaming rig can have problems running the games at optimal Frame-rates (30-60 FPS).

Due to this simple fact, I would like to offer a fix to a huge portion of lag, being a customization bar similar to many other visual increases or decreases. In a perfect world, this feature has two separate types of implementation.

Feature Variant #1: Disabled, Low, or High.
The implementation of this feature using this method would be presented in a style as follows:

The first pinpoint would Disable the visual feature of all Voodoo abilities.
This includes attunement circles visible under attuned enemies and players, as well as all effects of Voodoo Doll and Staff Attacks.

The second pinpoint would be a halfway point between Disabling all effects and the standard settings present in the game right now.
This option would disable all Voodoo effects from attacks with the Staff and Doll, but would instead include Attunement circles as a visible object for players to be able to see who is attuned and who isn't.

The third pinpoint would be the box standard variant that we are currently with in TLOPO, meaning all effects from Voodoo Dolls and Staves will be visible, as well as attunement circles.

Feature Variant #1: Checkbox
The implementation of this feature using this method would be presented as follows:

&

This option, while removing the availability of a halfway point between the first, second, and third versions listed above, would allow players to entirely Enable or Disable Voodoo Effects as a whole.

Conclusion

The implementation of a feature to disable the present Voodoo effects would be an entirely beneficial addition to the game as presented above, and will help expand the long term longevity of the game's play by players running on newer computers that can't quite handle the present stress that these effects put on their systems.​

 

[Captain Cat]

For awhile now, the discussion of in-game effects, and their correlation with performance - or lack thereof - has been a reoccurring topic among friends and guildmates. While there are many other issues that contribute to lag, it seems that Voodoo effects are currently the worst culprit in TLOPO, especially when they - almost inevitably - become a part of looting in large groups. As a lower-end laptop user, I would love to see more discussion and feedback on this topic, and I thank you so much, Misha, for creating this post.

 

[squintz]

Credit to @Captain Cat for the original idea!

Pirates Online has never been a game known to be friendly toward lower end systems, and even the odd gaming rig can have problems running the games at optimal Frame-rates (30-60 FPS).

Due to this simple fact, I would like to offer a fix to a huge portion of lag, being a customization bar similar to many other visual increases or decreases. In a perfect world, this feature has two separate types of implementation.

Feature Variant #1: Disabled, Low, or High.
The implementation of this feature using this method would be presented in a style as follows:

The first pinpoint would Disable the visual feature of all Voodoo abilities.
This includes attunement circles visible under attuned enemies and players, as well as all effects of Voodoo Doll and Staff Attacks.

The second pinpoint would be a halfway point between Disabling all effects and the standard settings present in the game right now.
This option would disable all Voodoo effects from attacks with the Staff and Doll, but would instead include Attunement circles as a visible object for players to be able to see who is attuned and who isn't.

The third pinpoint would be the box standard variant that we are currently with in TLOPO, meaning all effects from Voodoo Dolls and Staves will be visible, as well as attunement circles.

Feature Variant #1: Checkbox
The implementation of this feature using this method would be presented as follows:

&

This option, while removing the availability of a halfway point between the first, second, and third versions listed above, would allow players to entirely Enable or Disable Voodoo Effects as a whole.

Conclusion

The implementation of a feature to disable the present Voodoo effects would be an entirely beneficial addition to the game as presented above, and will help expand the long term longevity of the game's play by players running on newer computers that can't quite handle the present stress that these effects put on their systems.​

Misha, I'm curious how you came to this conclusion. Because if you can substantiate this logical assumption, with visuals or code or what have you, I think this would impress upon the dev's that we're not talking out of our breeches bottoms.
I don't know if this has happened to you, but when someone attunes me, the circles almost always follow me around and never go away until I log off and on. That can't be good for lag either.

Thanks.

 

[Bart Gunshot]

There's really no reason a lower end computer can't handle this level of graphics these days. Instead of a way of disabling certain features they should work on optimizing these effects and utilizing the hardware better. Afterall these are all very low resolution 2d image effects from an era even before POTCO. But that's just my take on it.

 

[Misha]

There's really no reason a lower end computer can't handle this level of graphics these days. Instead of a way of disabling certain features they should work on optimizing these effects and utilizing the hardware better. Afterall these are all very low resolution 2d image effects from an era even before POTCO. But that's just my take on it.

While I do agree in optimizing the game's response to these effects as to make it more livable overall, I do feel like justifying that the game's retro styled graphic detailing is not enough to say that most players' computers should be able to run it. My main PC died out over 2 weeks ago, which ran the game at over 60 FPS in most occasions, save from lower drops that happened in large looting groups.

However, when I switched over to my family travel laptop (Which has almost identical specs to the aforementioned gaming rig), it tanks at just over 50 FPS in non-populated areas, dropping to 23-27 in group fights, and to 10-15 in group fights with Voodoo skills being afflicted to friend or foe.

 

[Misha]

Misha, I'm curious how you came to this conclusion. Because if you can substantiate this logical assumption, with visuals or code or what have you, I think this would impress upon the dev's that we're not talking out of our breeches bottoms.
I don't know if this has happened to you, but when someone attunes me, the circles almost always follow me around and never go away until I log off and on. That can't be good for lag either.

Thanks.

I will try and create video evidence in time through a multitude of examples, however if you were to ask around in many of the populated areas of TLOPO in what caused the highest deficit to player Framerates, I am confident that many and most players few and far apart would answer back with some correlation to voodoo spells, either through attunement, or via large Area-Of-Effect spells such as Wither, Desolation, or things of that sort.

 

[squintz]

I will try and create video evidence in time through a multitude of examples, however if you were to ask around in many of the populated areas of TLOPO in what caused the highest deficit to player Framerates, I am confident that many and most players few and far apart would answer back with some correlation to voodoo spells, either through attunement, or via large Area-Of-Effect spells such as Wither, Desolation, or things of that sort.

Ah, depending on how the game handles different effects and what process is used, perhaps shading is used for staff effects for example and is yet not optimized fully or something. But this doesn't explain how many people are still able to have 100 fps all the time while I have 7 fps. There's like a kabillion different things it could be considering every system is different. I have almost everything turned off and can't get 10 fps. So to me, it could be a combo of the game opengl stuff and my aged graphic card and computer. They are are less than 3 years old, but that's ancient now.
But what bothers me is I can run almost all other newer games above 60 fps no problem, opengl or not. Massive people masses or not.