A way to disable the snow storm?

anomalea

I sit beside another; we're both on our own desktop systems. The weather effects on his screen are barely there, the ones on mine obscure almost everything, making it very difficult to see. We went over our graphics settings and they are the same.

I tried tuning down everything I could to minimum or off and it had no effect on the obscuring fog/snowstorm. I developed a headache after a half hour of play and felt sick after another half hour...had to quit.

I found a partial workaround by changing instance when a storm came up...sometimes the new instance had clear weather.

beckylunatic

taboom#4443 said:

I agree it is hard on the eyes causing strain the movement of the snow particles images on a computer screen are created by combinations of tiny points of light (pixels), which are brightest at the center and diminish in intensity toward their edges. This makes it more difficult for our eyes to maintain focus on them. Instead, our eyes want to drift to a reduced level of focusing called the "resting point of accommodation" or RPA. Our eyes involuntarily move to the RPA and then strain to regain focus on the screen. This continuous flexing of the eyes' focusing muscles creates the fatigue and eye strain. (it gets harder to refocus as you age which escalates the problem) Remove the particle layer or soften the dark count maintain the fog effect and it would work to the same effect you are going for. Reference Air Traffic controller scanning and eye movement literature from as far back as the 80's this is a old school problem we build filters to compensate for in most moving computer images.

This seems like a very useful post.

@strumslinger @panderus @lcdrmiller (is the handle for our environmental artist in this case, iirc)

hypergorila2

Options -> Graphics -> Visual FX quality.
Lower that one
In my case i had to relog for changes to apply.

someonedies

hypergorila2 said:

Options -> Graphics -> Visual FX quality.
Lower that one
In my case i had to relog for changes to apply.

that does not help,
but thanks.

hypergorila2

someonedies said:

hypergorila2 said:

Options -> Graphics -> Visual FX quality.
Lower that one
In my case i had to relog for changes to apply.

that does not help,
but thanks.

Oh weird, in my case it completly disabled the snow storm

kvet

the blizzard effect is on a timer, it comes and goes, might have just been coincidence. I love the blizzard and the dynamic weather. I really do, I think it's super cool. It just make me feel like someone is jamming toothpicks into my eyes after about 30 seconds, and if I stick with it, about 2 minutes in, I start getting nauseous. I've adjusted my graphics settings, to no avail. My only recourse is to wait the storm out, or go do something else. @anomalea Thanks for the instance change idea - didn't think to try that.

zibadawa

archangelzorak01 said:

Ya'll need to settle down. The weather effects add to the dynamic of the zone by reducing your visibility. This makes the zone more compelling and interesting.

I find it remarkable that something so simple as weather effects that slightly reduce your visibility bother you all soooo damn much. Honestly it feels like your just looking for things to complain about.

If I wanted to dig around in a snowstorm I'd move to the Klondike and go outside.

pantherwitch4982

taboom#4443 said:

I agree it is hard on the eyes causing strain the movement of the snow particles images on a computer screen are created by combinations of tiny points of light (pixels), which are brightest at the center and diminish in intensity toward their edges. This makes it more difficult for our eyes to maintain focus on them. Instead, our eyes want to drift to a reduced level of focusing called the "resting point of accommodation" or RPA. Our eyes involuntarily move to the RPA and then strain to regain focus on the screen. This continuous flexing of the eyes' focusing muscles creates the fatigue and eye strain. (it gets harder to refocus as you age which escalates the problem) Remove the particle layer or soften the dark count maintain the fog effect and it would work to the same effect you are going for. Reference Air Traffic controller scanning and eye movement literature from as far back as the 80's this is a old school problem we build filters to compensate for in most moving computer images.

The fog part doesn't bother me, but I fully agree that the snow particles make things quite difficult to focus on fights. It also makes the sparkly trails difficult to follow, so quite often I have no idea which direction to move. While running into mobs isn't a huge problem, playing in there long enough to complete the entire quest line is going to cause that part of the "fun" to become very old, very quickly.

Also, I dislike how there is no map indicator to show how to get off the map in the first place. Yes, I found it after a few minutes of wandering, but it's just a touch irritating.

damoc

Yeah I want to pipe in on this blizard nonsense. The main 2 sources of hardships in this new content is this blasted weather and the quite surprising hitboxes

When the only bead you have on your foe is through the damage floaters you know ther is something wrong: it adds difficulty only by hiding foes. I don't want to ply blind even before the blizard would render me so IRL

when you're in bryn shandar, sometime wolves will grap you from accross your field of vision, some meager bush will serve as full coveer: you see the foe (a feat in this weather) but you won't be able to fire your spells because this meager bush is in fact a 50' black wall of adamantium ....

Please there is some work to be done here, All of this creates artificial difficulty by decreasing noticeably the maniability we'reused to from the rest of the entire game.

I won't touch this MOD 10 content before it get back in line with the play experience I have had so far.

It's a shame realy because when the weather stops we can see quite the work and the sound ambiance is wonderfull. Please just toss the bad concept and keep the wonderfull ones.

gphxgphx

They should call this mod 'Snowblind'. Even when the snow stops it's like playing looking through milky glass. There needs to be a way to turn the effect off. This is like one of those movies where it's so dark you're struggling to see anything, only with light. Not fun at all. If one has vision problems in the first place this is essentially unplayable. Back to the old areas until it's an option because this mod is dead to me.

wylonus

I had several crashes in that zone in every 30-45 mins. only happens during that heroic encounters by the wall/gate.

jaegernl

archangelzorak01 said:

Ya'll need to settle down. The weather effects add to the dynamic of the zone by reducing your visibility. This makes the zone more compelling and interesting.

I find it remarkable that something so simple as weather effects that slightly reduce your visibility bother you all soooo damn much. Honestly it feels like your just looking for things to complain about.

Of course, you could completely ignore the fact that this effect gives people physical discomfort - head aches, etc - and just tell people to deal with it. It's about as helpful as telling people suffering from depression to 'lighten up'. GG.

zibadawa

Definitely throwing my hat into the "this is absolutely awful, thanks for nothing and btw I'm sending you the bill for this bottle of aspirin and my optometrist" ring.

tostrek2012

Land-sickness and mental stress. I lowered the brightness of my display, but there is nothing I can do about my land sickness while inside the castle wall. The moving walls of snow drifts and sudden fog caused me ill. I had to take breaks between the quests. Unfortunately, I don't think I can play long term in this quest to collect the necessary seals and items for the new gears.

matthiasthehun76

kvet said:

This is a serious post, not trying to troll at all - is there a way to turn off the snowstorm visual in Byn Shander? It's giving me a raging headache and from what I've seen on Alliance chat, the same is true for several others.

+1000 times

I have played there tonight solo and with friends, we all had severe head aches, especially when you try to farm HEs over a period of time.

I don't want to troll either, but this map is mildly spoken dangerous for eye sight and is super annoying not to see anything.

I know it can be tweaked a bit, but it doesn't help much and besides we are in the 21st century, messing around with monitor setting isn't the way to go.

So please make it more like IWD, a small breeze is ok, but this is way overkill and it's to bright. Not speaking about doing it on more toons, not in this state.

Hope to see changes really quick.

zibadawa

Using /unlit 1 helps a little bit, but not a lot.

sameriker

meh... You should try playing Protecting the Portal with epilepsy. Don't worry I take my meds.

brockweaver1

I concur that both the degree of snow and fog effects detract from game play and cause additional eye strain.

My wife and I play together and we both turned down our Visual Effects Quality to "Low". We played in the zone doing HEs for over 2 hours... no fog or snow. It took a few minutes to update. If it is on a timer, i'd be interested to know the interval. If not on a timer and if it shouldn't be impacted by VEQ, then we inadvertently glitched it in the off position. Either way, it requires attention.

Thank you.

nameexpired

+1 to all who have issues with the new map.

In my opinion it is way to bright. Reallly terrible for the eyes. I don't mind fog, but it is way too bright.

hustin1

I indeed wound up with a headache after a while. Tomorrow I'm just going to get in and get out. I might spend the night in Sharandar to cheer myself up.

dcc

Eye strain and headaches for myself and others I play with as well. Please put in a patch quickly.

genjundead

strumslinger said:

We're looking into tweaking the storm to avoid this.

@strumslinger i stared at the storm all day and i am just fine. man the game looks great gratz. most people turned down their brightness settings. i did nothing cause i had no problem... actually their is one problem the new content is way too easy.

tieashame

sameriker said:

meh... You should try playing Protecting the Portal with epilepsy. Don't worry I take my meds.

Protecting the Portal and IWD don't bother me so much. I do the old trick of closing one eye for a little bit then rotating to the other, it helps in my case, also between quests i'll let my char sit for a bit and i'll turn away for a few minutes or get a drink.
I can't even go in the "gold" area of Whispering Caverns due to the brightness. I did the 1st day of the new content with my sunglasses on *had a fore-warning on the brightness* but couldn't really see much. Was very hard to find the boxes and crates and well anything that was suppose to have sparkles indicating I needed to get this *like nodes do*. My eyes hurt even wearing the sunglasses, my tummy felt a bit ill but went away a little while after I logged out the area. I think it was a great idea to make it as realistic as they could but way to bright IMO. With all that said, thanks for the new content and look forward to grinding it out once this issue gets better.

juleadream

The snowstorm is murder for anyone with a visual impairment like myself. Some days it is already a small miracle I can even play Neverwinter... getting 3 toons through the first day was nothing less than an act of God. Please make it stop snowing - I'm going to see more than enough of that in real life in only a few short months :P

valcontar73

Ok, it seems that no one wants this blizzard snowy effect, but, may we have it for the foundry? we could use it, even in a better way :P

And those who don't play the foundry don't waste your time answering this, thanks.

mattachine

I managed to get through the first two quests there until I had to stop playing because my eyes and head hurt. I grew up in the northern part of Sweden. Before the climate change. Back when we commonly had blizzards creating a 5 feet snow depth. Temperatures down to -40C. I've been skiing in heavy snow fall. I've been outside in those blizzards when we barely saw more then a few feet ahead of us. But what they have created is a white fog. Something that is only caused by clear skies making the sunlight light up the fog to that bright light. Never ever seen that happen. Sure there were days with -30C and no wind with microscopic ice crystal hovering in the air making everything sparkle. Where we got warnings for highten risk of becoming snow-blinded. But there was never a milky fog at the same time.

Sadly I will not be able to play this new content due to this FX. I've seen weather done better in Champions Online and Star Trek Online. Two games also made by Cryptic/PWE by the way. As for Icewind Dale and Dwarven Valley. I'd love to play those maps more often then I do, but while the game runs smoothly on the highest graphic settings everywhere else, it is lagging to the point of making it impossible to play even on the lowest graphic settings in those two places.

matiagronx

This fog/blizzard is the best thing, graphic wise,that happened in this game since day 1. It just needs some tweaking for the super brightness that is quite annoying. Dont ever think to remove this chaotic fog/blizzard effect or i will then be sure that you guys are not humans but mindless/heartless bots. You already done enough to remove the soul of this game...stop stripping everything that adds to the fun factor.

cerberusxll

genjundead said:

strumslinger said:

We're looking into tweaking the storm to avoid this.

@strumslinger i stared at the storm all day and i am just fine. man the game looks great gratz. most people turned down their brightness settings. i did nothing cause i had no problem... actually their is one problem the new content is way too easy.

well, as long as you're alright, eh?

silverkelt

Count me as one that doesnt see any issue, it does look like a blurred fog at points, its nothing I havent seen in other games tbh.

It did nothing to my eyes nor did it give me a headache.

looomis

matiagronx said:

Dont ever think to remove this chaotic fog/blizzard effect or i will then be sure that you guys are not humans but mindless/heartless bots.

You complain about people who can't enjoy the game due to health issues. Do you know what heartless means?