Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Guild Wars 2 - Skill Visibility - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Guild Wars 2 - Skill Visibility - MMORPG.com
As Guild Wars 2 ages, skills have become flashier and larger, to make sure new elite specialisation skills look as good as they feel. This is leading to an ever-increasing issue of visual clutter, with PvP situations in particular becoming almost impossible to see some small but important animations, and enemy AoEs in all content becoming hidden amongst dozens of allied particle effects.
Comments
Started PC gaming in August, 2013. Games played (in order): FF14 ARR ==> Guild Wars 2 ==> Planetside 2 ==> League of Legends ==> Neverwinter (still playing)==> Back to League of Legends for a second try
I'm back now and though I would love to do wvw or raiding, I can't without more control over what particle effects I see. I'm stuck in open world and relying on it being easy when the cluster of pve mob players are zerging a Boss.
This needs to change and has since release. I wouldn't count on any rework of this...
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
i mean some at least have a way to lower the graphics (particles of other group members) , FFXIV for example u can lower it to none , or low , and keep your skills at max .
WoW with all the ppl and aoes , pets and what not is sometimes hard too.
To the un-trained eye usually the first reaction would be "I have no idea whats going on, I'm just pushing buttons." Mean while to the trained eye, these people usually survive the encounters a lot better, do more dps/support, and res the people who die because they weren't paying enough attention.
If you ask me, there should be an option to reduce visual clutter. When you are alone, its no problem. But in pvp, knowing the animations is very important. But than again, a good player would be able to determine these things very quickly by just experience.
5+ Years Later and now it's "current clutter".
Yo thanks guys. Really. =\
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The biggest issue is the lack of clarity of your teammates' spells. The game has a robust combo system, where "field" skills trigger extra buffs when combined with "finishers". This works well in terms of gameplay, but is let down by the poor visuals. Most people can't tell when someone puts down a field - you would not expect a flaming circle to be a good thing. In this case, many people actually dodge away from my fields instead of moving towards them.
Group content then ends up being about trusting others, rather than reacting to them. If it's that difficult to tell a friendly buff, you end up doing your own thing, hoping others do theirs.
I think League of Legends (and Overwatch in the coming update) do this quite well. Skills have different colors, based on if it's friendly or harmful. If Guild Wars 2 did something similar, you'd at least be able to move away from red and towards the green. Currently, they are doing the "red" part in some cases, but not the "green". I understand that it might not be lore friendly, but I think GW2 is arcadey enough to justify this.
More and better animations, less particle effects thankyou.
In a singleplayer game it is one thing but in a MMO you just can't have something that looks flashier then a Yanks X-mas decoration to show a skill.
I remember when the only skill effect my bruiser in EQ2 had was a lightly glowing fist. I'll take dog turd animations over seizure inducing flare any day.
To be fair it's an issue common in many MMOs. Even ESO sieges are inclined to induce seizures...
Was thinking this as well... surely some basic options like being able to lower or turn off effects for self / party / raid / other would go a long way. Not sure how well that would work in PvP though, as you would at least want to be able to see and identify all the AoE damage stuff.. maybe a customisable (for color blindness) tint for hostile and friendly effects; red fireworks = bad, green fireworks = good.
They did add one option a while back, but it almost makes no difference.. I have it selected, and my screen looks worse than the ones posted above. In wow, I could almost turn particle effect off, just basic enough to see where attacks were landing. With gw2, they don't have that type of option.
I'm not sure if the gw2 team is simply not capable with their given code to change this, or if they simply don't think it is a problem. I think they are mostly lacking on ability and time to male this change. I don't think they have the resources.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
So an option in settings where you can set the game to use simple spell animations would be very helpful.
I don't think GW2 is better or worse then most games, the problem is that you usually have far more larger fights in it (not to mention PvP zerges) so it gets annoying in a way a game where almost all content is done by 5 players groups never get.