Hi Devs,
Increasing the zoom range would be great. For when I play on the laptop with 2 year old integrated graphics I lower the resolution which greatly improves performance so that I can play online.
However, lowering the resolution forces the graphics to zoom in, so I zoom out as much as possible to compensate. These two changes have opposing effects: zooming out does decrease performance as it increases the number of features on the screen, but overall with the lower resolution the performance is significantly improved compared to having the same number of features on the screen but at a higher resolution.
So, this is a quick and easy workaround to improve performance on low quality machines for an equivalent number of features/tiles on the screen! Just makes the graphics a little blurrier. However, the lower resolutions don’t let you zoom out to the wide fields of view as you can at higher resolutions… For me and my integrated graphics, I would even lower the resolution further, if I could only zoom out more and not just have my TC fill the entire screen.
Based on extrapolating the changes in the stress test scores observed when testing at various zooms and resolutions, my performance would be even higher if I could zoom out more and use the lower resolution! I expect I could get a multiplayer performance score of well over 1100 at a very zoomed out level on my old laptop!
When on my desktop I can play at higher graphics, and so can zoom out further. On low spec systems being able to zoom out to the wider fields of view would be very useful too when using low resolutions! I know having a large zoom out does decrease performance and so the solution would be to allow the user to find an optimal offset between maximum in-game zoom level and resolution which their computer can cope with. So in the graphics menu the user would manipulate a slider or toggle to change the maximum in-game zoom range. This zoom range could be measured in tiles rather than as a percentage, so it is uniform across all resolutions! For example, a hard limit on the zoom range of up to 40 tiles, regardless of resolution would be good! Some users might want high resolution and zoomed in, or like me low resolution and zoomed out. On the absolute worst systems (very old cheap laptops) the user would select low resolution AND lower the max zoom out (e.g. max zoom out to 30 tiles on the screen).
Increasing the zoom range for lower resolutions would help make the game more accessible. People would also appreciate the increased zoom for macro purposes. Many players/friends I know are turned away from DE when they select low graphics and still can’t pass the stress test to play online, due to the fact that they don’t know that they can also reduce the resolution and zoom out. It even allows for 2 year old integrated graphics to pass the stress test. In the graphics menu when the user clicks the low graphics default setting, the default configuration should lower the resolution.
Thanks,
S