In some competitive games, players lower the graphics settings because it removes smoke, dust and other effects designed to obscure vision, which gives them a competitive advantage. What are your thoughts on that? Would you consider a mode that just eradicates them, like there is in some games?
TL;DRMike Snowdon says Star Citizen doesn't want players gaining a competitive advantage by lowering graphics settings, and he dislikes forcing effects off, though he understands why competitive players do it.
I think we don't want to give players competitive advantages by reducing graphics options. I don't think that's the ethos of Star Citizen. From my point of view as a VFX artist, I hate the idea that the competitive gamers just won't ever have the effects on the screen. So we need to find the balance. We obviously don't want to be crushing people's performance, but I wouldn't like the idea that we're forcing people to hide the effects. I just think that's not really in the spirit of the game we're making.
We used to do stuff like that back in the old Battlefield 1942 and Tribes 2 days. You used to be able to reduce the graphics to the point where you were basically playing on LOD 5, and so the player characters really stood out from the background.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving yourself a competitive advantage where you can take it. I used to play Counter-Strike 1.6 and I had drawn a dot in the middle of my screen. Not that it did me much good; I was never that good at it. I understand where people are coming from with that.