I would think it's totally fine, but I don't have a bias towards that cause I don't play stealth classes so I don't know.
The real issue is not turning it off together, but simply setting your particle effects to "low." That way, you can still see tracers, but smoke turns into these little fuzzballs that hardly obstruct your vision at all.
There is that issue. It was supposed to be addressed, but apparently it wasn't, or wasn't addressed enough. Basically, smoke grenades are at decoy grenades level of usefulness. Even flash grenades got it better, at least they do what they're advertised to do, albeit badly.
Giving a thumbs up to this idea. I also wish that Daybreak would go a step further and allow smoke to block all forms of radar detection to those inside while its active. If they ever do intend to fix smoke it would be nice to see some built in stealth functionality.
The problem with smoke is that it's kinda ambiguous what're we supposed to do with it. Throw it at enemies to impair their vision or throw it at your allies to make them harder to see. Smoke kinda sucks at both, but I'd have to say it's definitely harder to see from inside out rather than from outside in. So if you would want to blind enemy radar tools, you would also blind yourself and every ally around you. Not a good trade off. And even then, I really don't like the idea of using smoke as a substitute for infiltrator's cloaking. Stealth is your forte, not ours. We are forced to use it to survive and kill due to some flaws in our kit. It's a design flaw rather than intended class feature. I like Corezor's idea that smoke should make enemy shields flicker, helping to see them through smoke. Then there would be no ambiguity - throw it at enemies, and gun them down, clearly visible through smoke, while they can't see well themselves.
I always thought the point of smoke was for a coordinated squad to all equip HSNV in advance, then smoke the enemy, most of whom presumably have standard sights. That seems like the most practical option to me, anyway. It might be useful to cover an advance across an open area, if it weren't for the fact that AI vehicles usually have thermals equipped. I think I'd prefer it if smoke blocked vehicle thermals, although that's kind of thematically inconsistent.
Although I wholeheartedly agree, it would favor players who turn off smoke too much. Both the ability to see through smoke while not being able to be spotted? It would be their wet dream! First remove the problem of people changing their .ini file to remove smoke, then smoke can get it's just change.
