Quick answer: Unreal Niagara emitter spawning fewer particles than expected on Effects Quality Medium? Effect Type's quality scaler is multiplying down - override or disable the scaler.
Boss explosion authored at 500 particles. On medium quality, only 50 spawn. Players think the boss died wrong.
Override quality scaler
Niagara System > Effect Type > Significance Handler > Scale Spawn Rate by Effects Quality off. Spawn count is constant across quality.
Or set per-quality counts
For graceful scaling: 500 on high, 250 on medium, 100 on low. Quality scales VFX, not gameplay-critical moments.
Audit by importance
Cinematic VFX shouldn't scale. Ambient VFX should. Categorize and tune.
“Effect quality scaling is a default. Gameplay-critical effects need explicit opt-out.”
Tag each VFX as critical or ambient at authoring time. The scaling policy follows the tag.