I am writing this because patch 8 just demonstrated that a very serious complaint that I made way back in the times of patch 7 apparently did not get noticed by Larian. So here is a dedicated message to all the masses of Larian employees that are reading this forum, hungry for valuable feedback.

The issue I want to address, obviously, is the horrendous way of marking something of someone as selected. To illustrate, here are two pictures of the same scene:



This first picture one looks really good. An almost realistic three-dimensional world, ready to absorb the adventure-hungry player.




Then look at this picture. What happened? I clicked on something. The beautiful 3D-illusion is brutally shattered by a selection outline that wipes its behind with any notion of maintaining immersion.

There really is no excuse for this visual vandalism, because the graphics engine clearly is capable of creating three-dimensional highlight effects. And Larian clearly is capable of creating of creating beautiful things with the engine. But the more effort is put into engrossing simulations, into lifelike characters, into realistic sceneries, the more jarring this totally unnecessary invasion from flatland becomes.

Make it stop! Oh please make it stop. Take it away and bury it somewhere deep.

Has making any improvement ever been more obvious?

From an availability point of view though I personally like that items get clearly and visibly highlighted with a border. But I can agree it does make immersion taking a hit when it happens.

I also personally like items to be clearly and visibly highlighted. Only definitely not with this kind of border.

Yeah even an outer glow effect would be less immersion-breaking. I really think it's a holdover from earlier CRPGs, including the original BG games.

That seems like you they can make a simple button to disable that in the options menu.

The ONLY glow effect that I want is when I pass a perception check in case the thing I am perceiving is very small or counterintuitive. Otherwise, no highlighting.

I would be interested in what alternatives people would suggest. This to me feels like one of those concessions to the fact this is a game. Sometimes clarity and making sure the player can easily see what's going on has to come before immersion. I can't bring to mind a crpg that does differently in thisarea.

It can be anything. An obvious effect would be to make the model glow. It could be a pulsating glow, to attract more attention. Glow colours could cycle for more contrast. The model could grow in size for a second and then change back. A spotlight could appear, pointed at the object or character.

The way selected objects or objects of interest are shown could be made tweakable in the menu, using buttons and sliders.

It can be anything... Just do not use the projection of the outline of the 3D model on the viewing plane. It is the king of bad ideas.

I like this feature and honestly hope it will stay there ...
Otherwise i would never ever guess that this shit is supposed to be healing station.

Probably this is 100% a joke, but because I would rather like to err on the side of caution, I just want to state that I am not against highlighting, identifying or labeling objects. It is just the weird 2D outlines that are so painful to watch.

Nope, im totaly serious.
I seriously DO like it ... and i seriously DO hope it will stay there.

It's never been a problem for me. It works.

Personally, I think there's been enough fixing of what already works. Just my opinion.

So, after just looking at the two pictures, I couldn't see the problem. After reading the rest of the post, I still couldn't see the problem. Further, reading some of the suggestions applied in response to "what else could they do", paraphrased, I found myself thinking "Please don't do that" with things like the spotlight suggestion...

They could add a glow/outline intensity/thickness slider as a graphics setting, which would probably be the best solution. ESO does this and it works very well there, so there's no reason why it shouldn't work here.
The question is: does Larian see any value in adding something like that or not.

What happened is that they actually higlight the item for you so you can see what you can select. I see nothing at all the matter with this, I personally prefer it.

I am somewhat surprised that not everyone sees the same problem I do.

Again, it is not about highlighting things itself. That concept is fine. It is also not about highlight intensity. For me the main problem is that this particular way of highlighting items breaks the illusion of the three-dimensional world.

All in-game graphics use three-dimensional models and three-dimensional effects. That is nice and immersive, because we, the players, also perceive the world around us as three-dimensional. But this outline effect does not take place inside the virtual 3D space of the game. Instead, it projects a 3D model onto a flat plane, in the viewing direction, and then displays the outline of that projection. This creates a very strong cognitive dissonance, or distance effect. At least that is how I experience it. The 2D outline screams very loudly: this item/person is fake!. Wake up! Do not believe what is going on!

Other assisting visuals that are not to be interpreted as existing in the game world do not bother me at all. For example, circles on the ground or jump trajectories are fine. Although they are artificial within the game world, they are still three-dimensional.

Well, from my own perspective, I don't need a 3d secondary representation of every interactable in the game. When I observe a corpse, it's obviously a corpse, adding some "backlighting" doesn't suddenly change it into a sheet of paper. That is, in essence, what your screenshot shows. It's a highlight, not a separate model. It's only purpose is to inform us that we can interact with that item, no matter what it is. The fact that it requires us to either press a hotkey, or mouse over it, should be enough to demonstrate how much of a problem this isn't, from my perspective, so I guess, I'm surprised anyone has a real issue with it?

I totally get what OP is saying here, it’s also been bugging me for a while but not enough to make a post about. A more integrated glow would be my preference, nothing too crazy – just enough to highlight the object. The axe cutout in the original post really demonstrates how odd the current system is (I do understand why it works this way though)

The problem is that if that effect will be "a more integrated and subtle" it would also be easier to oversight ... that should be clear without saying.
Its basicaly exactly what "subtle" means by deffinition.

Uh, you’re the first person to use the word subtle in this thread? By integrated I mean incorporated as part of the rendered scene, not a 2D overlay.

Personally like the feature.

Get a really bright flashlight, run outside at night, and shine it through your car, and then run around to the other side and look at what it does. Assuming a smaller car, like mine, it will shine around the edges of the car, creating what appears to be a 2d outline, or highlight.

So, what happens when it's a scroll? A weapon? I mentioned corpses in one of my previous posts.