Yes it's good as it'll ease the work for events organisers.

No it's not good that you cannot override it and show your friends or any avatar individually on the end user's behalf.

Having me / an end user override it LOCALLY is not going to spoil the event / organisers / anyone else in the instance !

But forcing it to the end user and not allowing any local override is going to degrade my experience though.

As you say you can already do that locally, just go to your settings and hide verypoor or less if your PC cannot handle it (heck it should be like that by default even , just like on the quest it doesn't show verypoor by default)

So for all the others that prefer to not see very poor or such , they can keep the default of hiding all above the gated setting for the instance and simply not override it.

Having the instance trying to gate avatar as a default setting is good.

but it should be that : a default / predefined setting. That can be modified on the end user.

Another solution could be in the popup when you join the instance:

simply asking the user if they want to run with the default gated settings that the organisers you might want.

with a simple YES/NO

Overall the main problem is with the antiquated ranking system that is not weighted.

There are many very poor avatars that I currently decide to show : my friends and any avatar that looks interesting based on its impostor.

And it doesn't change my fps at all .

Usually I run with very poor hidden and show them on an individual basis as needed

But with all the other performance enhancement options that vrchat has been adding, I find that with conservative limits on the download size + unpacked size + culling, it's totally unnecessary anymore.

Lately I've been showing ALL very poor and still getting good fps. (usually it's only a 1 or 2 fps difference) Because most of the really "fat" avatars are going to impostor if they go over the download size and other parameters.

What that means : is that I don't even need to rely on the regular avatar ranking system. Just a different way to detect "fat" avatars. and currently just doing it by package size seems to be enough for me .

timduru Very simply: If you could override it, then no one would have an incentive to change and the entire feature is actually useless.

Why is this something people are failing to understand?

timduru As darksword points out, yea you just make a system that no one complies with... Congrats we just recreated avatar culling. But seeing as the focus of this is events, think venues like SHELTER_, Tube, and other venues that do a lot of photography and/or videography. This could include the venue's dedicated staff that does it, or it could be the DJ also giving a video stream. The idea of "This isn't gonna spoil the event" when everyone in the feeds is going to be jagged imposters for things like promo material is pretty short sighted.

This isn't a case of "settings that the organizers you might want", its a case of the organizers having the event they want to run properly. To the point enforcing avatar performance ranks is in the Community Guidelines of VRChat as an acceptable rule to enforce. We now just happen to have it built into VRChat as a proper tool rather than asking people to do it, let them through and pray they don't change 5 minutes later. https://hello.vrchat.com/community-guidelines

And if that wasn't good enough, it also comes up again in the Performance Rank documentation its self of groups asking you to change avatars. https://creators.vrchat.com/avatars/avatar-performance-ranking-system/

Lastly on 'antiquated ranking system'. The performance ranks are not as bad as people make it seem. The problem comes down to the fact people just don't listen to them at all. It really doesn't matter if we shift things like the poly count to 80, 90 or 100k because people are just gonna ignore it anyways. The people who I see actively in VRChat scream the loudest about avatar performance, wear avatars that don't even make an attempt. If your opti was a 100k poly but green across the board elsewhere then we might have a case, but thats not the convo we are having if your best avatar is past 300k with 50 mats.

I always wear medium avatars myself, and spend the time it requires to reach that rank, so yes I'm pretty aware of that :)

But the issue is that not everyone is like me, I agree some people are lazy, but that option is not going to change much for them.

I agree that seeing jagged impostors is a pain. and exactly what I'm complaining about. that feature is going to amplify that issue as soon as it goes live in the gated instances with no way to even display them anymore.

Most of the time DJs / streamers with lower end pcs do it the same way than regular users: they hide by default not to crash / lag and show individually if someone is dancing in front of them for example and so on. Now they won't be able to do that anymore either.

(but you still have the option to disable them in your settings too , so it uses the pretty fallback avatar some / most people have set up as their global fallback too :P )

I go to big dance events with 80+ too, so I know the pain back in the days of not having something to limit avatars / ranks / whatever.

I get it and that feature would have been super super needed 5+ years ago.

But nowadays there are ton of ways to get back more fps on the client side. Now yeah that wouldn't change your issue for streamers seeing impostors / fallbacks

But for all other attendees it doesn't really matter much imho as long as they can show them on an individual basis.

As an organiser I get it that you have to juggle and try to balance the preferrences of all type of users, and I'm grateful for all the organizers / djs / streamers / dancers making it happen.

And yes I wish for them to have a good experience too.

But afaik in an event the majority are : attendees / non staff. It's a delicate balance, just need not to deter other categories of users, that's all.

(Big events I go to usually have 50+% of verypoor so better think twice before alienating that user base imho. )

Now overall I used to run with verypoor blocked locally, so even if an event gates the group instance to Poor and below only it won't be super dramatic.

But I'm pretty sure some events will go all the way down and forbid poor or medium too maybe ;) Then good luck.

EksCelle came here to say exactly this

EksCelle Comments too

Docteh Stupid people should not be babysit

well their loss, it doesn't impact me or you ;)

Trying to brute force a setting so that dumb people who don't want to spend 30s to change their settings based onto their real hardware

is gonna impact the events experience for me though.

DarkSwordsman Agreed. Ruins the whole point.

DarkSwordsman

Christmass is still a bit far and it's a bit late for 1st of April ;)

Enforcing it will mostly result in :

Then most events will drop the feature ;)

Just like for the 18+ events gating that was asked so many times but is not really used much at all.

In the end that will be a lot of frustration that could have been avoided if people complaining about performance issues would spent 30s of their time decreasing their limits in the settings to something their hardware can handle.

timduru What do you mean? Age gating is used incredibly often.

The ENTIRE POINT of this feature is to prevent people from using those Avatar ranks in instances that do not allow them.

If you could just override that, then all of the motivation to change avatars is gone and the feature literally is useless.

It's to enforce a consistent experience for ALL USERS at an event. It's not so a few users can continue breaking the rules and ruining the experience for everyone.

You do not get precedence over the event organizers.

Well then request the feature to avatars from a certain rank to join completely then only then your event will be as you envision it.

That feature is basically just trying to address the antiquated ranking system failures especially for verypoor avatars by trying to users who are currently using very poor avatar to "do something"

Yes that will work .. a little bit, but for a very very small percentage. 10% ? 20% max

and that would take a very long time for those to even modify their existing avatars

In the meantime that feature will do actually the OPPOSITE of what you're trying to achieve.

You'll just see a ton of impostors in your instances, and no way to display the avatars..

that will degrade the experience for your attendees / streamers / dancers / staff.

And the event will get deserted quickly because attendance will drop as you loose those who don't have the skills or will to do so , and have already ton of verypoor avatars ..

and friends of those users will follow, because they want to be with their friends..

So both category will simply go to other events.

But sure it's your choice as an event organizer to lead your event the way you wish, I agree :)

timduru This feature allows people to get into the event, but provides some level of social pressure to encourage the user using a Very Poor avatar to change into something that isn't very poor.

Even if they improved the avatar ranking system, it won't change the fact that a significant portion of Very Poor avatars will remain Very Poor. VRChat has already mentioned that any changes to the ranking system would generally make it more restrictive than not.

ThistleBunny but isn't that then also punishing people for liking to have a diverse amount of outfits or accessories they can swap on their avatar? As it sounds like that would encourage splitting my 1 avatar with 50 features into 10 avatars with 5 features to get a better rank. Which means I now have to swap between 10 avatars in order to utilize all my toggles and swaps which puts more load strain on the server then 1 avatar with all its features.

I provide a counter statement of "if my computer can handle it why should I suffer a degraded experience because others can't?" It's kind of like how most games have low and high settings, people who can handle high settings shouldn't be punished because someone with low settings can't see the extra stuff someone with high settings can. I do care greatly about optimization, but I also care about self expression, which is why I agree allowing a local override would be nice and shouldn't be a problem. As rather then an encouragement to optimize some like myself see it as having my own self expression limited and restricted when I can only have so many meshes/materials to toggle and have to split them up.

DownLyric Yes. You have to deal with it. Use an optimized avatar for events with performance requirements.

DownLyric Yes. I have a 4K body, two pants, one hoodie with two textures custom hair, bunny ears, a physbone ear piercing, and the stock head for my avi. It's still only 47k polys and is only medium because I was lazy and didn't merge any meshes or materials at all.

Totally agree with that approach.

pre-setting / overriding the already existing performance rank in the settings

restoring it when leaving the gated instance.

Keep allowing the end user to override/revert that "forced suggestion".

Best of all worlds:

Organisers can pre-set the baseline setting they deem acceptable for a medium PC performance and improve the performance for lazy users who don't want to change settings based on their PC.

Users with higher end PCs can override it . (minor annoyance to have to go through settings all the time though, having an extra option on the main page for that would be good)

Rekka93 It IS taking away from the experience, because not having to see fallbacks/impostors while maintaining an acceptable framerate is the part of that experience. People who go to those places are specifically looking for that, and if you and your friends show up and stay in your Very Poors, it ruins it for everyone else by making them to see your fallback/gray robot, or taking a performance hit.

While the system still technically lets you and your friends stay in your Very Poors and keep ruining the intended experience, it at least puts pressure on you to change your avatar (or leave), which most people will do.

buzer ~ If you are that offended by seeing an imposter, then maybe this is not the right platform for you. It used to value all player created content and creativity. Imposters exist for a reason. They give casual players, who do not have hours to spend becoming a game developers, a way to engage with the wider community while still using an avatar that they feel comfortable in.

Instead of welcoming more people into these spaces, it sounds like you would rather shut them out so you can maintain a perfect sense of immersion, regardless of anyone else.

As for the idea of putting pressure on people, it is ironic. The original justification for not having an override was to "prevent the slightly awkward dynamic of players asking others to show their avatar". Yet it seems that pressure is acceptable when it suits your groups, but not when it requires you to interact with someone who does not share your perspective.

Rekka93 It's quite ironic when people who give speeches about the importance of being welcoming are the first to suggest that those who are disagree with them should leave the platform.

Impostors are an awesome tool and I love what they do to improve the general look of the game. They are a good compromise that works in 98% of cases. But some people want to push things further and achieve the maximum immersion possible without settling for ps1-style cutouts. They have the time and skills to do that, and they put a lot of effort into optimization - why shouldn't they be allowed to protect their vision within their own spaces? Imposing performance limits is not an attack on your right to express yourself. You can still be whoever you want, just within 70k polygon limit. Yes it's a bit rough, but at the same time it is not unreasonable. People can do a lot within these limits. You don't have to be a game developer to have an optimized avatar - you can just buy one or pick from the thousands available for free. Many people are already selling optimized versions, and I imagine there gonna be even more.

Speaking of the original justification, people seem to always omit the end of the sentence that says "...thus defeating the point of the feature" - which is the most important part, in my opinion (I don't even know who the hell asks people to turn their avatars on).

Rekka93If you are that offended by not being able to use your Very Poor, then maybe that group instance is not the right instance for you.