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[Kyuur]

How are you feeling about mods?

Mods to extend a game after you've played through? Fine.
Mod that unquestionably improves upon but does not change the experience? Fine.
Mod that completely changes the experience and has no bearing on the original? Fine.

Mod removing any instance of difficulty and skips all that cumbersome dialogue on their first playthrough in my favorite RPG? Yeah, I'm going to be a bit peeved.

I don't feel particularly strongly on this stuff though: in the end people can play how they want and I will play how I want. I will however side with devs who choose not to include it to preserve the experience they want. That's really what I'm arguing for, with how it personally affects me just being how it feels on a much smaller scale. I'm trying to illustrate that I get why they would want to preserve that.

 

[jotun?]

How difficult is it to put in an FOV slider and how much does it impact performance?

How difficult it is to implement depends on when in the development process they decide that they'll include it.

If the game is developed under the assumption of a static FOV, and the devs take shortcuts using that assumption, then it will be harder to add an FOV option later. This is pretty much the explanation for most problems when console games are ported to PC.

For example, games will often use FOV changes to implement various effects. Two of the most common are increasing the FOV while sprinting and lowering FOV to zoom in. If the devs are taking shortcuts, they might just hard-code the FOV values for these effects. Sprint on, FOV 90. Sprint off, FOV 75. Zoom on, FOV 30. Zoom off, FOV 75. If they want to add an FOV option, then they have to go through the code and replace all of those constant values with variables and multipliers instead. Borderlands 1 was an example of this - you could change the FOV with a console command, but you had to keep changing it every time you sprinted or zoomed because it would keep reverting back to the default.

There are some graphical issues that might come up too, like the weapon+arm model might be incomplete so that a higher FOV would let you see a disembodied arm just floating in front of you. In Crysis and some other games, turning up the FOV would let the outer edges of the camera clip into walls so you could see through them.

So yes, there are some technical challenges to allowing a configurable FOV, but I think they're all very minor if planned for properly.

 

[Arrage]

A competitive game should have a fixed amount. Just like there is a certain zoom on the camera for RTS/Moba games.

CSGO is full of places where an insane FoV would give a huge advantage.

 

[Winter John]

As someone who has frequently had motion sickness due to low FOV. I think FOV settings should be a standard on pc and consoles. The latest game that made me want to throw up was Planetside 2. A shame because I was looking forward to it, but after 5 minutes I had to switch it off

 

[dark10x]

I do think it's a feature that should be included as I've discovered the need for it myself. After upgrading to a 32" monitor, low FOV games are almost impossible to enjoy on my PC without a wide FOV.

Now, when playing on my TV from a normal viewing distance, a lower FOV is actually fine and, in some cases, preferred. It really just depends on my viewing distance.

On console games, it is locked to get the desired performance.

I'm going to guess it can lead to cheating or breaking the experience as other reasons.

Though I agree, it should be an option on most pc games.

It doesn't actually make a huge difference in some cases, though.

Case in point - Shadow Warrior on PS4 includes an FOV option. Performance between the lowest and highest settings is identical. Same deal with Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Dropping the FOV significantly has no real impact on performance.

 

[jotun?]

A competitive game should have a fixed amount. Just like there is a certain zoom on the camera for RTS/Moba games.

CSGO is full of places where an insane FoV would give a huge advantage.

Quake Live is a very competitive game.
Quake Live allows configurable FOV.
The top Quake Live players do not max out their FOV settings.

Also: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=172174909&postcount=64

 

[Spasm]

The change in FoV from Halo CE to Halo 2 was so jarring, I hated H2 almost instantly and never really recovered.

 

[AnyoneInCherno]

But if this is not true, and people hack FOV for actual accessibility reasons, then I humbly admit I was wrong. And I'm glad you made this thread, because you have reached at least one person who didn't know what they were talking about.

Kudos to you for being open-minded and mature about the topic. (If only everyone else could follow...)

FoV is a legitimate concern, just like low framerates, for those of us who are easily prone to various types of motion sickness. And as I said in the 30 FPS curator group thread, many of us play on PC because we either can't enjoy or simply can't play games that low framerates - and it's the same thing with FoV.

 

[4Tran]

I'm not sure how there's any reasonable debate regarding this subject. Allowing variable FOVs is akin to having a colorblind mode in a game. It allows the game to be enjoyed by more people without harming anyone else. Surely that's unequivocally good?

 

[Footos22]

Just played through vanishing of ethan carter and that has a nice fov slider.

 

[Cizeta-Moroder]

How difficult is it to put in an FOV slider and how much does it impact performance?

In the back end, FoV is an inevitable parameter in the 3d-to-2d projection algorithm.
So it just comes down to creating the possible GUI for customizing it.

 

[injurai]

I in general need a 90-100 FOV. Anything lower than 85 is just bullshit. Why even fucking set your game lower than that.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

High FOV, or 120°+ fisheye-level FOV?

Most of the arguments are for 90-100°.

Yeah I prefer like 70. 90 makes me barf.

 

[Grief.exe]

Yeah I prefer like 70. 90 makes me barf.

It's not 1:1 though.

FOV is calculated differently if it is horizontal or vertical and effected by viewing distance, screen size, aspect ratio, resolution, etc.

Preferring a certain number is predicated by too many extenuating factors to be comparable to someone else.

 

[IcyRhythms]

I hope I can finally change the FoV in Fallout 4 without using the ini file or opening up the console(which will disable Steam achievements).

 

[mattp]

i fucking wish
i can't play 95% of first person games because it gives me a headache
if i could tweak FOV in stuff it'd help so much

i wish i could play alien isolation

 

[Grief.exe]

i fucking wish
i can't play 95% of first person games because it gives me a headache
if i could tweak FOV in stuff it'd help so much

i wish i could play alien isolation

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Alien:_Isolation#Field_of_view_.28FOV.29

 

[purdobol]

Higher FOV is an advantage in multiplayer games.

Not quite. Its a trade-off. You sacrifice aim for better visibility. Higher fov also means the game would appear faster when you move. Illusion of making longer distance.
Extreme example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmCYTV5YV4E.

Aspect ratio is also a big factor here. Lower fov is more acceptable when playing in 4:3 but at 16:9 fov 90 is minimum.

A competitive game should have a fixed amount. Just like there is a certain zoom on the camera for RTS/Moba games.

CSGO is full of places where an insane FoV would give a huge advantage.

Yeah sure. Lets make it more even to the players and set fixed gamma and mouse sensitivity for all. That will be fair...
As long as people are not cheating they should have freedom to use any settings they like.

 

[Astral/H3X]

A competitive game should have a fixed amount. Just like there is a certain zoom on the camera for RTS/Moba games.

CSGO is full of places where an insane FoV would give a huge advantage.

If you so much as change your mouse sensitivity or adjust your controller sensitivity, then you are a hippocrit.

And you better not use inverted look, that might give you an advantage of aiming comfortably.

 

[Parfait]

I don't play fps games but I had no idea that FOV wasn't an option in every single one of them. Fucking nuts.

That said, Guild Wars 2 recently added FOV options, and it's really neat and interesting in a third person perspective.

 

[THEaaron]

That's not quite how it works - you also get substantially improved peripheral awareness which more than makes up for that.

Yeah but it's not that it makes the things I said invalid.

 

[VGA222]

Case in point - Shadow Warrior on PS4 includes an FOV option. Performance between the lowest and highest settings is identical. Same deal with Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Dropping the FOV significantly has no real impact on performance.

The myth that low fov is used on consoles exclusively to increase performance needs to stop. Halo 3, from what I can tell from a 30fps video, seems to be running okay at 150 fov.

 

[mattp]

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Alien:_Isolation#Field_of_view_.28FOV.29

i only have it on ps4 (no gaming pc)

 

[Hidden One]

I can't use a high FOV for Battlefield..It's already hard for me to see the character models in the game.

 

[zoku88]

FOV is the first setting I look for in first person games nowadays.

Half Life 2 used to make me very nauseous when I play...

I can't really believe people are arguing for them to not be an adjustable option.

I think most people would choose not being sick over being 'fair' in a competive environment or sticking to 'artistic vision'.

 

[Adnor]

I just don't understand why some games don't have FOV slider. Are testing groups so small that nobody in them ever had headaches after playing the game?

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I just don't understand why some games don't have FOV slider. Are testing groups so small that nobody in them ever had headaches after playing the game?

I don't think it's been a widely documented phenomenon. If people were aware small FOV caused motion sickness, OP wouldn't have made this thread, you know?

I see it a lot on NeoGAF, but before GAF and outside of GAF I never saw and never see anybody claiming to get nauseas playing games. I've been gaming my whole life and never heard of it happening, have never known anybody it happens to, and never even understood that the FOV was the culprit.

Most people assume wanting an FOV slider is typical PC preference-tuning and nothing more.

Which is all just a round about way of saying that, maybe, nobody in focus groups has ever gotten sick when they were testing a game. Since most people don't experience, or even know about, the phenomenon. Or connect the issue, when it occurs, to field of view at all.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

A low FoV in first person games can sometimes give me discomfort, and I prefer a higher FoV when possible.

I don't think there's anything unreasonable about wanting a high or customizable FoV, though I haven't run into any games that I would consider "ruined" by their FoV alone.

True. At the very least FOV options should exist for those with TV overscanning issues. Repositioning the HUDZ doesn't fix the problem as overscanning fucks up your FOV. Does the PS4 have a method built in the OS to fix it?

 

[lazygecko]

I just don't understand why some games don't have FOV slider. Are testing groups so small that nobody in them ever had headaches after playing the game?

That's why I'm advocating some sort of awareness campaign. I mean, practically no one used to care or know about things like resolution on consoles, but as the current generation was establishing itself we saw it getting a lot of debate and thus mainstream exposure, and now it's a concept a lot more people are familiar with and thus have higher expectations. So I think it can and should be done. There's likely tons of people out there with eye strain/headache problems to varying degrees who could finally connect the dots.

 

[Northwest]

Wolfenstein TNO is the worst offender I can think of. On PS4, think the FOV is something like 45, I'm sure my normal panoramic vision is larger than Blasko's

 

[Orin GA]

An example of where there can be too much of a good thing. Like anything, FOV needs to be taken in moderation.

I can see thru time!

 

[Tain]

I used to love cranking the FOV in Quake 3 to max and strafejumping around.

 

[ianhamilton_]

Games can definitely be designed for a particular FOV, so I don't agree that it should be baseline or mandatory. I do feel bad for you if you can't enjoy certain games because of it but ultimately that's a sacrifice for a particular vision in some cases.

No, there is no debate to be had. Field of view MUST either:

Be set to an appropriate default for the expected viewing environment
Or better still, be adjustable, on both console and PC

It is not a matter of artistic licence or design thinking. Games are not artistic pieces of self indulgent self expression, they are products that people buy and expect to be able to get their money's worth from.

It's not about having some grandiose artistic vision that justifies making significant swathes (and it is significant swathes) of the public physically ill to the point where they are unable to play. If the pinnacle of your creativity is placing a restriction on field of view, if your concept is that weak that it would be harmed by using a different FOV, it might be worth passing the reigns over to someone else.

This really is basic technical fundamentals of how designing for a screen works.

 

[ianhamilton_]

i fucking wish
i can't play 95% of first person games because it gives me a headache
if i could tweak FOV in stuff it'd help so much

i wish i could play alien isolation

Me too, first ever game I've bought that I haven't been able to play due to FOV. Did it make me respect the artistic vision of claustrophobia that they were going for? No, it made me angry.

I work in accessibility, so I have a high tolerance for developer's mistakes and the various reasons that sit behind them. I also know the lead designer of AI, which gives me personal reasons to be more forgiving. But that still didn't stop the games failings from making me angry. It's difficult to avoid having a visceral reaction like that when a game is harming you.

I've persevered a couple of times with AI, but all that happens is intense discomfort, a hour lying in a darkened room feeling like I spend the day previously on huge drinking binge, and then being unable to look at a screen for the rest of the day. So, money wasted, and a game that I should love inspiring the complete opposite emotions.

FOV isn't like other accessibility failings. It's in that tiny group along with things like epilepsy where it's not a case of being excluded, the game is actually doing harm to you. Games should not be doing that, end of.

 

[Vilam]

Nothing would make me happier than having a FOV option in every game I play, or at least setting the FOV value to something decent. I hate the narrow FOV found in most console games - makes the screen feel claustrophobic.

 

[ianhamilton_]

Yeah I'm in favour of FOV for accessibility reasons but there are times a director may want to restrict how much a player is allowed to see on screen at one time. So I stop short of thinking it should always be there. Unless maybe with a big warning to only adjust if you really have to as its not the intended view.

It's a tough one as I'm very much a directors vision kind of guy. For designed by committee AAA games where the players view isn't a consideration then no reason not to have it.

How about if the director's vision was to allow you to play for five minutes, then kick you in the stomach, punch you in the side of the head, and then take your $70 and flush it down the drain? Would that be reasonable? Because that is precisely what it feels like, and I mean physically, not metaphorically. The circumstances in which FOV would actually break the director's vision are pretty rare.

 

[ianhamilton_]

Horror games in general, or anything that relies on your vision being obscured to create atmosphere.

You're talking about a default setting. Providing an FOV slider does not harm that default view for the people who enjoy it, it just also opens up the game to the people who are physically unable to play with an FOV like that.

 

[ianhamilton_]

I really don't give a damn about artistic vision if I can't even play the damn game in the first place.

This

 

[Mutagenic]

Yeah, it's always been bad in games like Halo. I purchased the BL: Handsome Collection at launch and can't play it due to the limited FoV.

 

[ianhamilton_]

I was surprised to see an FOV slider in the PS4 version of Rocket League.

It is important to include a slider for console FOV. This is because simulation sickness is caused by the mismatch between you see and what your brain expects to see.

Your brain expects the TV to look like a window, with the perspective matching up with what's in the room. If you stand closer to a window, you can see far more either side, the FOV goes up dramatically. So it's the same deal with a TV. The distance you sit from it and the size of the screen affect what constitutes a reasonable FOV.

So as most people don't have the luxury of just buying a different sized TV or rearranging their living room to stick the TV in the centre against the wall for example, console FOV is important to open up to configuration.

 

[mcrommert]

So I've been meaning to write something about this for a while...and before I begin I'm sorry for those who have motion sickness issues with low fov...that sucks. however...

For a game (shooter mostly) that has a multiplayer component that can in any way be called competitive the fov should be locked. Especially in fps's it is something that changes the even playing field of the game. Some will say that it isn't always an advantage and that really doesn't matter. It changes how one players sees the game...so it should not exist.

But here is were the conversation really starts (going a bit off topic please sorry in advance). I started playing shooters on consoles after playing fps's on pcs mainly because of cost. When I moved to console it just happened to be because of one of the 2 or 3 most important shooters ever Halo CE. While I made the move out of necessity, there are great advantages to shooters on consoles. Not only is the fov the same for ever player (in almost every console game), but so many other things are the same. Resolution, controller, framerate, etc etc. And in this way console gaming has an huge advantage over pc for fps gaming...even playing field.

So my feel on this would be that fov slider is fine for a single/coop game, but for anything competitive it should be locked. And that isn't always possible on pc, but it is on console.

EDIT: Also it is a creative decision like any other and while a game can be judged for its fov...it is the decision of the dev

 

[HTupolev]

Wolfenstein TNO is the worst offender I can think of. On PS4, think the FOV is something like 45

I don't have the game, but from the video I've seen, if we're talking horizontal FoV that sounds like a very low estimate.

(But then, people usually massively underestimate the FoV of games.)

I'm sure my normal panoramic vision is larger than Blasko's

Well that wouldn't be weird, human peripheral vision has insanely wide FoV. It depends on the person, but for healthy vision it's usually in the vague realm of 180 degrees.

 

[Peltz]

As you can see, changing FoV comes at a cost. You will have more trouble shooting enemies on greater distances, where you will have the lead in narrow corridors.

Yikes... everything above 65 hurts my eyes in this gif.

 

[Defco 7T]

Of all the many great things a large FOV brings to the experience, one of my favorite is how it brings a sense of scale and distance.

Halo 1 had it, Minecraft on console has it. When you look at a far off mountain in Minecraft the perception is that it is way off in the distance. It's really not though, it's just the FOV at work.

Ya a lot changed with halo 2. We also felt something was missing with the sequels. I can tell you one of those things was the sense of scale was gone. Just because you build something big doesn't mean the scale can be perceived correctly on a 2d display. FOV can do this.

 

[Machinehead]

Yikes... everything above 65 hurts my eyes in this gif.

Really? Low FoV hurts me more. 55 feels nauseating. 75 and 85 are my favs.

 

[ianhamilton_]

There really ought to be some kind of information campaign to help spread awareness about FoV and motion sickness to make developers and players alike take the issue seriously as it deserves to be.

Make it happen!

Here's some supporting information:

http://gameaccessibilityguidelines....gine-only-allow-a-means-for-it-to-be-adjusted

 

[LCGeek]

So I've been meaning to write something about this for a while...and before I begin I'm sorry for those who have motion sickness issues with low fov...that sucks. however...

For a game (shooter mostly) that has a multiplayer component that can in any way be called competitive the fov should be locked. Especially in fps's it is something that changes the even playing field of the game. Some will say that it isn't always an advantage and that really doesn't matter. It changes how one players sees the game...so it should not exist.

But here is were the conversation really starts (going a bit off topic please sorry in advance). I started playing shooters on consoles after playing fps's on pcs mainly because of cost. When I moved to console it just happened to be because of one of the 2 or 3 most important shooters ever Halo CE. While I made the move out of necessity, there are great advantages to shooters on consoles. Not only is the fov the same for ever player (in almost every console game), but so many other things are the same. Resolution, controller, framerate, etc etc. And in this way console gaming has an huge advantage over pc for fps gaming...even playing field.

So my feel on this would be that fov slider is fine for a single/coop game, but for anything competitive it should be locked. And that isn't always possible on pc, but it is on console.

EDIT: Also it is a creative decision like any other and while a game can be judged for its fov...it is the decision of the dev

valve has some of the biggest competitive games on the planet and this issue is already handled well. Locking it to one value is stupid cause no matter what you do someone will always be disadvantaged, so your idea of just locking it makes the reality worse. Most gamers should know widescreens offer better fov be it single or multi display. If you use a screen that is 4:3 but a game that is hd widescreen based why should a majority of hd users have to suffer for basically a consumer bad choice. The same should be considered for the FOV you need if you're sitting at a TV vs a Monitor or the distance you sit.

Also keep your BS delusion about controllers making it fair for more players to yourself. No it doesn't level the playing field simply gimps players of one style for analog method that sucks at aiming in general. Fine people who take up analog have skill, but that's a given considering you would need a lot to be good at it whereas as a mouse doesn't require much. Devs would do a lot better to make fps games require actual aim than to make games have next to no recoil and have slow targets with gigantic hitboxes to make up for analog. You also cannot balance out a high end mouse with great tracking vs crap ones. Consumers have decided by and large if a certain groups wants this delusion fine don't advocate as platform stance when it largely should be on devs and the communities that deal with these issues as they want. Controllers aren't a real solution considering they take a billion steps back to achieve parity in a dumb manner. Even worse you mentioned sticky aim halo as some great example when its one reason some of us loathe being on a pad. You're whole spiel about fairness and then you talk about a game that over various version robs players of any real skill comparison having sticky aim or aim assists.

FPS is not 1 to 1 across same spec systems it's similar but be it pc or console sames specs doesn't equal same performance, this fact shouldn't have to explained to you. There's nothing fair about forcing players to have fps that minimizes their response or cannot even guarantee 30fps minimum 90% which is why some of us stay pc for shooters we like competitively.

 

[ianhamilton_]

...that doesn't make any sense. Many people can't even play games with a low FoV, and you're arguing against high FoV. Have you ever heard of someone having a worse experience in a game due to a higher FoV?

Yes, the sickness is caused by a mismatch between what your brain expects to see and what it is seeing, so it can be caused by high as well as low, although low is more common. Here's an example:

I get sick playing FPSs on my computer at anything above 90 FOV. I remember playing an XBox shooter (might have been Time Splitters 2) that seemed to be at about 110, with no option to change it. Couldn’t play.

See the comments section here: http://kotaku.com/5869607/how-motion-sickness-can-ruin-games-and-the-meds-used-to-fight-it

 

[Tagyhag]

Yikes... everything above 65 hurts my eyes in this gif.

You have to see it in motion.

65 right up against a monitor is the worst fucking feeling, makes me feel so nauseous.

 

[TheBear]

I find the FOV sliders are kind of meaningless unless I can see the actual image I am adjusting.

The only game I can think of FOV bothering me was Assetto Corsa now that I think about it.