Yes you are crazy and yes I agree with you so I voted no.
Seriously what are we exactly answering in the poll?
I like having future proof settings like crysis had. We need more detailed system requirements though and also a better way to find the right settings for different setups and different tastes.
I think the system requirements for Rare's Sea of Thieves is a shining example of how system requirements should look.
The game's system requirements clearly detail the hardware required to run the game at the given settings, resolution and the frame rate target, it's fantastic!
It's very well communicated with the players and provides a solid basis for people to pick some settings for the game and then tweak from there should they desire to do so.
In-game comparisons of the visual differences is great to see in PC games, and indicators of the performance impacts of the settings is very important too!
I think it would also be great to see PC games offering settings equivalent to a particular console (providing there is a console version), so people can use those settings and scale up or down from there.
Clearly communicating the system requirements is important, this should help temper expectations and reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings regarding a game's performance, in a time when people will moan first and ask questions later.
Durante made an article on PC Gamer about optimization in games, in this article he uses Dying Light as an example of a game where people complained about the performance because they cranked up a draw distance setting and were unsatisfied with the performance, what they didn't know is that this setting goes well beyond the console versions of the game and was tailored specifically for PC Gamers.
PC Gamer: What 'optimization' really means in games
There was an outcry about the 'terrible unoptimized PC port' when Dying Light would not perform up to (arbitrary) standards at maximum settings. As it turned out, the draw distance slider in the initial version of the game was already above console settings at its lowest position, and went incomparably higher. People were so agitated, in fact, that the developer felt like they had to reduce the range of the slider to 55% of its former maximum in an early patch.
Would the game have been perceived as much more 'optimized' if this trivial step would have been taken before release? I definitely think so. Would it actually have been 'better optimized'? No, absolutely not. Dying Light is a great example of just how difficult it can be to judge optimization, and also of the concerns developers might be limited by when implementing game options.
Red Dead Redemption 2 has an extensive list of settings, but you don't really know how much of a performance impact they will have until you try them.
This is how PC Gaming has been for quite some time, but I would argue that more recent games have taken a better approach to presenting options to the user, an example of a game would be Gears of War 4 and 5. These games have extensive settings lists too! However, they present them in a way that is very well communicated with the user, by detailing what hardware it stresses and by how much and even showcasing the visual differences of them in Gears 5!
Gears of War 5 - Screen Space Reflections example:
