Should the game default to 30fps or 60fps?

[TerryCavanagh]

The current beta defaults to 60 fps, but I find myself going back and forth on this decision, and I might revert to 30fps before the actual release. Open question to anybody reading or anybody who wants to weigh in, thoughts welcome.

[Fussmatte]

Dunno how much my opinion weighs, but I think 60fps is fine. There will be a fair few people who might not even check to see all the new features, and might not even be aware that 60fps mode is a thing. If 60fps is the default and someone does notice it and isn't a fan, they might be more inclined to check if they can disable it. At least, that's what I think could likely happen.

[flibitijibibo]

As far as stability goes the high framerate is definitely reliable, but is a big change in expected behavior compared to 2.2. My reasoning for approving the default was just this: Once the news of 2.3 and the uncapped rate both get out into the public, everybody is going to end up turning it on anyway since it was at one point a big controversy for PC customers. When Misa and I were posting samples the reaction just from the niche that followed development was unanimously positive, and I expect that to carry over to the mass market pretty much 1:1.

But at the end of the day it is very easy to toggle in the settings, and either way we'll probably want to point out the toggle in the official announcement whether you want it on or off anyway.

[AllyTally]

Personally, I like 30fps as the default. 30+fps is definitely the Shiny New Option™ which can be shown as like "wow look at what this new update adds"... however thinking about it further, as long as the option is pointed out in the official announcement, then I'm fine with 30+fps as the default. There's arguments to be made about the feel of the game and all, however I guess a lot of people genuinely just don't care about that. So as much as I don't want to ignore that; it can probably be ignored.

[InfoTeddy]

since it was at one point a big controversy for PC customers.

I have some personal experience with this - back in 2019, someone on /r/VVVVVV moaned about the capped framerate. I ended up DMing them on Reddit and Discord telling them about community efforts to make fangames (which would have a higher framerate) and hexedit the binary to have higher framerates.

Those fangames have gone basically nowhere and hexediting the binary is dumb. But imagine the delight on that person's face if they found out about this! Problem is, they seem to have dropped off the face of the earth...

[GTcreyon]

In my opinion, uncapped/60fps should be the default, because it's an objectively more comfortable user experience. If someone particularly prefers 30fps for a specific reason, they can disable said option.

[Elomavi]

I personally prefer playing at 30 FPS but whether or not something is the default decision mostly comes down to what new players who don't look in the options think. If the FPS changes are stable across all monitors and window sizes, then I think that 60fps should be the default since it would enhance the game for most players and doesn't introduce much risk. Players from 2.2 who prefer the old framerate can change it but I feel that having the new framerate be present automatically is a good choice.

[Daaaav]

I'm personally in favor of 60fps being the default - I've been playing with it for a while, and now 30fps looks choppy and flashy to me, like watching through a spinning fan, despite first having played VVVVVV in 2011.

I agree with Fussmatte's message above, I think most people would prefer 60fps and would have no idea what they're missing out on if it's disabled by default, and the people who find they prefer the old way can always figure there's probably an option to turn it off, even if they don't read announcements.

I think disabling it by default would also kinda make people think it's an experimental feature just for the heck of it - like it's off by default because it's known to change the gameplay, but the option is there for the people who are feeling adventurous, who don't want to "take playing the game seriously" anyway, and don't care about "inaccurate" gameplay. I think most people are not going to read the announcement that tells them otherwise and will just make their own assumptions.

[leo60228]

It's a relatively minor consideration, but with WebAssembly (#690) it's not feasible to render without vsync (though you could obviously just skip frames so that it averages out to 30fps).

[TerryCavanagh]

Thanks all, that's as good as a consensus for me - lots of great points made here. I'll leave this open for the rest of the week, but I think I'm happy to leave the default at 60fps. 👍