Gameplay performance drop when player is burdened

[lore-nmj]

There was an update, it has been more than 1 year ago, where I started to experience a change in the game when the player is burdened. It seems like my gameplay experience suffers when I have a character that is red-lined in the weight capacity. I only mention it because lately it has gotten worse and more pronounced. If I had to guess using my limited knowledge of development myself I would say there was a decision made to create the illusion of being burdened by slowing the overall system down rather than just affecting the character actions.

Let me explain. It doesn't really show up when I am at a 88lb capacity and I am carrying 89lbs. It more shows up when I have an 88lb capacity and I'm at 100lbs. If I just harvested up a bear in PV right outside the farm I can walk out at 68lbs total carrying weight and my system is not sluggish but FPS is normal and game play is comfortable. However, after harvesting and walking back with 35+lbs of bear meat my FPS drops and even turning around takes longer than it should. Load screens seem to take a few ms longer. It is as if I had a system with medium capability that suddenly went up to ultra video settings and is chugging at trying to keep up.

It feels as if a knob was tweaked to lower the gameplay performance to simulate Wil being burdened by weight. I don't know if I'm explaining it correctly, and it is difficult to describe the feeling. Perhaps I can record a session and see if I can get something measurable.