@Mr-Fellblade

Thanks for addressing this, however your answer makes me wonder if you were only given a bunch of screenshots to look at, with no context of the actual complaints.

In the (now locked...) thread, both PC and Xbox users agree that the draw distance has always been exactly the same on both platforms, while also agreeing that there clearly was a change (for the worse) in visual fidelity after the first patch.

While it is true that PC users may have completely different hardware that will have an impact on how fast the data are streamed in, that is not the case for xbox where hardware is standardized. Yet both platforms share exactly the same issues in exactly the same circumstances; issues which weren't there on the game release, nor were there during the alphas/betas. In this context, better PC hardware doesn't seem to improve the experience in any way compared to Xbox hardware: they now both share a visually poorer experience, which makes me question the reasons behind needing these optimizations in the first place.

On a side note, your answer focuses on only one of the issues: islands 'main' LOD distance (arguably the less important) and doesn't address at all the greatly reduced players/creatures/interactable items rendering distance, nor the general visual quality degradation, both in terms of lack of details and poorer lighting/shadows, which is where most of the complaints seemed to focus on.

The most ironic part, however, is the following (and i quote)

"The optimisations we’ve made should not cause any change to the appearance of the game. If you notice any significant changes for the worse, then it’s definitely unintentional and we’d want to fix it! "

The (now locked...) thread was already there to say that yes, they DID cause change to the appearance of the game and we DID notice them.

We all assumed this wasn't a matter of trying to convince the devs that there was an issue, but rather making them aware so they could fix it.

Instead, we were greeted by what seems a PR answer at best, that barely acknowledges the existence of these issues and doesn't even imply they will ever be solved.

This is not acceptable.