Should Competitive PC games require a minimum level of settings + performance to play in Ranked PvP?

[Paragon Fury]

Title is topic.

To be more specific, should devs require all players in a Ranked match/game mode to be operating with a certain minimum of settings and performance EX: "You must have these options enabled and hold a framerate in this range in order to play Ranked" in order to ensure a basic level of fairness and quality in performance for all participants.

So that people can't pull crap like disabling grass, shadows, lower textures etc. in order to give themselves an advantage, nor are are they playing at like 10FPS and barely able to react etc. Let them play Casual, Co-Op, Singleplayer however they like, but no more potatoes in Ranked or deliberately trying to tweak the game for an unfair advantage.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

If you are talking about Dota2 The International or some large, hosted event, I'd say sure. Strictly on the basis that someone is hosting, they should provide the computers for their competitors to play on and those should be the same. That comes with one caveat...gamers should absolutely be able to use their choices of mouse, keyboard, keybinds/controls etc. Maybe even their gaming chair. If a gamer has their way of doing things, providing it isn't cheating (eg. crazy macros, that sort of thing), then their mouse/keyboard is fine.

But outside of a hosted event like The International, then no, there should not be a requirement. Games should be accessible, players have different rigs and I believe it's a great travesty to lock some players out and lastly, it's not the dev's job, it's the players' job to make sure their machines are capable.

And if there is a competitive edge to be had by disabling all unnecessary functions, then that is legit too. Back in the day, all competitive UT players I knew (I was standing at the door, looking in at the pro players) ran mods that disable all sorts of things. No more giblets, players died in a brief shower of gold dust.

Look, a decent developer wouldn't make a game that requires crazy amounts of bandwidth and should aim for a level of graphical fidelity at 60fps for the average gaming computer out there. But people with budget machines should be able to play and if disabling "options" gives better performance, power to the player who disables them. An edge is an edge, if anything it should spur the less well-equipped player to consider an upgrade. It's a players job to make sure their PC can run a game well, while it's a devs job to ensure their game is as stable, bug free and compatible as possible.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Competitive Mode in TF2 does something like it this. While it doesn't have a minimum performance requirement, it does force you to play with a number of graphics settings turned on. The survers also run with sv_pure 2 enabled, which essentially bans all kinds of custom content like custom UIs and graphics/sound mods. It won't stop you from playing, but your customs stuff won't work.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I'm torn on this. On one hand, yeah, I can totally see having a purposefully under-clocked PC can give you an edge as you spend less time loading grass textures and updating the frames, and more in reactions.
But on the other hand that sounds very gate-keeping and basically pay to play, if not pay to win. Like in 40k you have to have a minimum point value for your army, but not a minimum price point. Its a perfectly legitimate, if dickish, strategy to have a super cheap army of nothing but Guardsmen, hundreds of them, with the sole strategy of taking as much time as possible to move, shoot, charge, etc, simply to run out the 2hour clock most tournaments have on matches.

Maybe a compromise that at broadcast events, the PC are all the same and provided for the players? Everyone on an equal playing field? Otherwise how could you enforce something like that?

 

[CaitSeith]

Nah... Forcing all players like that just for the competitive segment of the community is a douche move (unless the game is 100% dedicated to competitive play, in which case, sure, as you wish, that's pretty much console gaming after all).

 

[Bad Jim]

No. Unless the game is very stupidly designed, selecting super low detail should not give you an unfair advantage over the average player because the average player should be getting a good framerate anyway. Those low detail settings are there to allow potato PCs to get the same framerates as everyone else.