yes, i crank the graphics to the maximum, for me the better the graphics the better is the immersion.
I always keep my computer hardware up to date, i mean i upgrade the hardware every 2 years or so, so i will be ready to crank Pantheon to the maximum it can offer while still having great fps.
I hope Pantheon will be beautiful graphically among many others amazing things it will offer.
I used to be a 60 fps guy, but since changing to a 144 hz monitor and seeing the difference, I literally cannot play a game these days without having at least 100+. I'm also not a graphics guy as much so I don't really care how things look, so liking 144 fps isn't because i like how it looks, it changes the feel of the game, and the responsiveness of the controls dramatically and that's whats most important to me.
I find the highest settings that can achieve at least 45 fps though 60 fps is better. I've been lazy about building a new rig so the settings have been pretty low recently.
I try to get 100FPS and Max my settings as much as possible while staying above that. If the game is very stable I may be ok with 70 FPS but found that most games now have a 10-15FPS drop at any given time which makes me want to be at 100 increase I see the drop I'll still be well above 60...
Depending on game performance on my machine, I sometimes adjust the settings based on what I'm doing.
If I'm exploring on my own, then I'll crank everything to "11" as I want to see everything in its radiant glory.
If I'm raiding, then I'm going to turn down many of the graphics features to maintain performance.
A very nice UI feature would be a HI/LOW toggle where you could define two profiles for your settings and then switch between them with a CLI command or slider switch in the options screen.
Both :)
I crank up the graphics as much as I can early on and when I am exploring a new area. But I dial them back to high performance while actually fighting. While I love the visuals, and I agree that they are important, they don't mean crap if the gameplay is clunky. This is exactly why I can still thoroughly enjoy original EQ EMUs, and find little joy in so many (most? Almost all?) really beautiful modern MMOs.
Ideally, the game should allow me to save full, detailed sets of graphic options as named presets, and to be able to quickly switch between them.
Then I could make one preset for "Solo - high graphics quality", another for "Group - medium graphics and speed" and "Raid - high speed, lower quality". Possibly also some intermediate combinations.
Provide me with a drop-down box so I can quickly switch to any one of them.
Now, if you want a superb solution, as step 2 allow me to set options for automated switching, like this: let me set which of these presets will be turned on when I'm solo, which one when I'm in group, and which one when I'm in raid. You could even make 2 or 3 separate triggers for raids, based on the number of people in it - 24, 48, 72, so I could attach presets (defined by me) to each of them.
And make it so that this automatic switching is not instant (sometimes you get in and out of groups quickly, raid is being reorganized or something like that, and you don't want the graphic options to rapidly switch back and forth). Make it so that when the underlying condition has been stable for a minute or two or three, THEN switch.