Guild Wars 2

Apparently the forums are broken and I actually have to post in this thread to be able to read it.

There have been many, many times where I can’t even see my character full stop…so skill tells etc…are totally impossible.

Its a case of dodge/spam skills and pray for divine intervention in those situations.

kailin.4905:

That looks very similar to how my screen in WoW used to look back in the day. I consider gw2 to be far more of what I call a “twitch” game than wow ever was though. By this I mean its less about timing skills and more about dodging and real time twitch reaction. This is what I was looking for when I came to gw2 but now given how badly it performs in practice I see why many other mmo’s don’t do it. Its really kinda a shame too because the art team for gw2 seems very talented but you rarely get to enjoy there work. I was playing in the labyrinth yesterday fighting the lich and it occurred to be I had killed him about 20 times that day and didn’t know what he looked like because I could never see him.

He is a big skeleton with a necro’s staff-scythe. The Labyrinthine Horror is a giant skeleton with a massive chainsaw.

While the UI is much, much, much better than what often occurred in WoW, I agree that the spell effects are still over the top.

However, I think the best way to counter this would be to at least reduce effects that surround or obscure bosses. Big stuff on the ground or at range is fine, but many boss fights become difficult because of obscured boss tells rather than the fight mechanics themselves.

Dahkeus.8243:

While the UI is much, much, much better than what often occurred in WoW, I agree that the spell effects are still over the top.

I hate to say this, but looking back on it, I actually disagree that WoW’s UI is worse.

WoW’s is extremely customize able – I never, ever had any trouble seeing whatever I needed to see. Not ever.

That, and I could put my skills wherever I wanted, which is absolutely huge.

The fact that I can’t move my skills around, and the fact that GW2 is the only game I play where I can’t choose which monitor to display it on, give it an extremely half-finished, lazily programmed feel.

Then add all the gimmicky bling discussed in this thread and I just feel like they’re trying to compensate for something…

The GW2 UI is (if I may) rather tacky…

I have to admit, I like the particles, I like the idea that I don’t need to read a combat log or numbers popping up on the screen to tell me what the hell is going on. Even in wvw, the particles let everyone know that your sustaining, cleansing, etc. With that said, it can be perplexing depending on the circumstances (pugs blobs, camera angles, etc.).

Shifu.4321:

You must not have played World of Warcraft

A healer UI, and the healer would be able to play largely off the green buttons in the center. The main distinction is that the clutter in your graphic is 100% chosen by the player, the clutter in GW2 is near 100% forced by GW2.

you know, if it wasn’t because of the 200 spell effects covering the water / ground underneath tequatl and slow the framerate down to 5fps, that tidal wave is not hard to jump over at all.

dwayna statue, priestess of lyssa, etc, I can’t see what they’re doing but to guess what they’re about to do.

Is it UI buttons people find cluttering or the spell effects going off all at once within the game that people don’t like? Or is it both?

I’m reading through here and they seem synonymous.

Kyrel.8942:

Is it UI buttons people find cluttering or the spell effects going off all at once within the game that people don’t like? Or is it both?

I’m reading through here and they seem synonymous.

There are tweaks that can be made to the UI to make it more user friendly. That would be a welcome change but not wholly necessary for current play.

It is the particle effects specifically that need to be addressed. Either toned down or an option provided to allow the player to tone them down or turn them off.

There are fights where visibility is basically zero which impacts ability to play other than blindly. That makes it difficult to place circles, dodge, interrupt or avoid marks on the ground. Things that a player ought out to be able to see and time correctly.

goldenwing.8473:

I remember when Total Biscuit brought this issue up on his video cast during beta, saying it needed to be toned down.

I quite agree.

And unlike other games, there is no way to turn it down to a reasonable level or off.

Guild joke since beta: apparently ANet believes the “skill” required by players is finding the target. :p

Hrmmm. For me the skill is finding the mouse pointer. I waste so much time moving my mouse around trying to find the pointer.

pdg.8462:

goldenwing.8473:

I remember when Total Biscuit brought this issue up on his video cast during beta, saying it needed to be toned down.

I quite agree.

And unlike other games, there is no way to turn it down to a reasonable level or off.

Guild joke since beta: apparently ANet believes the “skill” required by players is finding the target. :p

Hrmmm. For me the skill is finding the mouse pointer. I waste so much time moving my mouse around trying to find the pointer.

I often keep my mouse centered mid screen, and move MYSELF and double tap to put down circles for that same reason. Ridiculous way to play when my screen is a blur of particle effects. (see my post directly above.)

goldenwing.8473:

pdg.8462:

goldenwing.8473:

I remember when Total Biscuit brought this issue up on his video cast during beta, saying it needed to be toned down.

I quite agree.

And unlike other games, there is no way to turn it down to a reasonable level or off.

Guild joke since beta: apparently ANet believes the “skill” required by players is finding the target. :p

Hrmmm. For me the skill is finding the mouse pointer. I waste so much time moving my mouse around trying to find the pointer.

I often keep my mouse centered mid screen, and move MYSELF and double tap to put down circles for that same reason. Ridiculous way to play when my screen is a blur of particle effects. (see my post directly above.)

The thing is I prefer to use the mouse to activate the utility skills (the ones on the right side) because I tend to use a combination of the keyboard + mouse to move around and change my point of view. As a result I can reach the 1-5 keys easily enough but for anything else I want to use the mouse. And as soon as I do that I tend to lose the pointer. If the pointer was just more visible (larger, colored red or something) and never ever disappeared, then I think I would be happy.

pdg.8462:

goldenwing.8473:

pdg.8462:

goldenwing.8473:

I remember when Total Biscuit brought this issue up on his video cast during beta, saying it needed to be toned down.

I quite agree.

And unlike other games, there is no way to turn it down to a reasonable level or off.

Guild joke since beta: apparently ANet believes the “skill” required by players is finding the target. :p

Hrmmm. For me the skill is finding the mouse pointer. I waste so much time moving my mouse around trying to find the pointer.

I often keep my mouse centered mid screen, and move MYSELF and double tap to put down circles for that same reason. Ridiculous way to play when my screen is a blur of particle effects. (see my post directly above.)

The thing is I prefer to use the mouse to activate the utility skills (the ones on the right side) because I tend to use a combination of the keyboard + mouse to move around and change my point of view. As a result I can reach the 1-5 keys easily enough but for anything else I want to use the mouse. And as soon as I do that I tend to lose the pointer. If the pointer was just more visible (larger, colored red or something) and never ever disappeared, then I think I would be happy.

I hear that. My husband does the same thing. It’s really annoying when the mouse pointer just “isn’t there.”

ColinJohanson.2394:

Cleaning up the existing UI systems to make them less cluttered, more-stream lined, and better unified is part of this project and absolutely something you’ll see in the west as well, likely around or possibly even before we release the game in our next major world region.

I think you are missing the point. The clutter referred to is the particle effects of spells that turn the whole screen into an indistinguishable colour mash, The LOD checkbox needs to work a lot better

Oh, and I should say I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally hit the ‘~’ key (when trying to press ‘1’) and swapped weapons when I most certainly did not want to swap weapons. Yet another reason to prefer the mouse over the keyboard. I guess I could look for a key remapping option (is there one?) but haven’t. I guess I would move it to left ctrl.

The casting skills animations got fixed recently, now they’re ok.

pdg.8462:

Oh, and I should say I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally hit the ‘~’ key (when trying to press ‘1’) and swapped weapons when I most certainly did not want to swap weapons. Yet another reason to prefer the mouse over the keyboard. I guess I could look for a key remapping option (is there one?) but haven’t. I guess I would move it to left ctrl.

F11 or the Game Menu icon on upper left of your screen —-> Options——> mouse icon (Control Options). Yes you can map that to another key.

The UI in many ways is a complete disaster. I switched to simple party interface recently because I simply couldn’t see anything. But that’s just one element.

Play WvW sometime (we know that almost nobody at anet does this). Need to rush to the west keep on the west borderlands (with only a 1 second window to do this)? You can’t, it’s UNDER the UI. You have to zoom out, scroll, zoom in, scroll. Need to warp to the east keep on the minimap? You can’t, the UI expands out to cover up the waypoint when you try.

Need to meteor storm that treb on top of the southwest tower? You need to target a spot that is in range, has LOS, and is not covered by the UI. Pick 2. While you’re futzing around trying to get the spot that is in range and in LOS out from under the UI into that tiny space between the portrait and the living story tracker, somebody jumps down and kills you. Wait, why isn’t meteor storm firing? I’m pushing 5-5! I’m clicking! Hurry up before they see me! Oh, what’s that there? Apparently, I’ve started reporting an enemy payer for something because I’ve clicked on the kitten portrait and I can’t do anything until I dismiss it. Now I’m dead.

Ditto for aiming arrow carts, which have a special LOS requirement: ground not blocked by gates, walls, chat, party portraits, enemy portraits, achievement trackers, living story trackers, building supply trackers, building upgrade trackers, holiday/event announcements, or boss health (all of which are simultaneously present).

I think the overall issue is both in the UI elements involved and their potential for customization, and the particle effects of combat. Most issues around this arising in these threads have to do with the particle effects. Even in a relatively small DE, if you have a couple legendary greatswords, the target can be largely obscured by the particle effects what to speak of larger encounters.

Is this thread serious?
GW2 has the least intrusive UI of any MMO I have played, and you pretty much never need to look at it with the exception of checking if enemy has stability.
With the condition update you don’t even need to check your conditions anymore.

I hope Anet makes stability visible on the character (a symbol under their feet should do it) so I never have to look at the UI ever again.

Both of the posted pictures of the Destroyer and Dwayna look like that weird, super scaled up, flame blast glitch that you see with some bosses.

For whatever reason, rather than a normal radius, the thing produces flames that fill the screen.

It’s pretty common in the Dwayna statue fight.

The particle effects is the biggest problem. They really should address that

ColinJohanson.2394:

One of the projects we’re working on in preparing the game to release in new regions is trying to make the game easier to learn. While a lot of that work is in the area of better tutorials, better level up messaging guides, and unique tutorials for specific mechanics we’re also evaluating UI complexity (and system complexity) to try and make information easier to see/consume.

Cleaning up the existing UI systems to make them less cluttered, more-stream lined, and better unified is part of this project and absolutely something you’ll see in the west as well, likely around or possibly even before we release the game in our next major world region.

And to get ahead of the next question: No, we have no solid dates! We’re still in beta in China and are testing and developing all of these new systems to make the game is easier to learn. We haven’t announced timelines for development any other major regions other than being in Beta in China at this time.

Just implement the customizability you had in GW1… let me move or remove UI elements like you used to.

I’ve been wanting this since day 1 – make it so

Aza.2105:

Hey Colin,

I would like to see Anet address the insane particle effects.

I can never anticipate when to dodge the statue of dwayna attacks because of this. You can barely make out the enemy model. Particle effects are nice and all, but in gw2 they are overly done. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this issue in any mmorpg I’ve played.

I’m in favor of toning down the particle effects, but a screenshot where your camera is shoved behind a single flame is not valid evidence.

Actually your screenshot did make me notice the jigsaw puzzle particles to the right, which look really cool. I must not play with my animations up high enough to see those.

The particle effect on Guardian elite book skill that makes a huge blast of light happen is also overwhelming. My first encounter with it was late at night doing a AC run with a friend who main’s a Guard and who basically lit my whole room up with that flash-bang grenade of a skill animation. I literally had after images for a couple mins after that.

~~
Another effect that I find annoying and often obscuring of my view is my Ranger’s warhorn #4 skill, Hunter’s Call.

OMG dem birds!

While I love the skill in a “Alfred Hitchkitten tribute” kind of way, I HATE IT when I’ve targeted a boss or other large creature and my entire screen is taken over by what look like Pterodactyl-sized hawks eating my target’s head.

I don’t know if that’s just a graphics glitch on my end or if GW2 decides somewhere in its odd programming that regular sized hawks just ain’t enough some days.

goldenwing.8473:

pdg.8462:

Oh, and I should say I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally hit the ‘~’ key (when trying to press ‘1’) and swapped weapons when I most certainly did not want to swap weapons. Yet another reason to prefer the mouse over the keyboard. I guess I could look for a key remapping option (is there one?) but haven’t. I guess I would move it to left ctrl.

F11 or the Game Menu icon on upper left of your screen —-> Options——> mouse icon (Control Options). Yes you can map that to another key.

Yes, and how intuitive is that, then, when you remap the key two over to the right but can’t move the skill two over to the right? It’s a complete clusterkitten. I’ve tried it.

Chuo.4238:

Apparently the forums are broken and I actually have to post in this thread to be able to read it.

Sorry for off-topic, but yes, that is a bug on the forums.
I believe it is a bug with cookies for viewing the most recent post in the thread. The problem is that when a page reaches the maximum number of comments it will force the person to view the next page that does not exist and does not have any comments on it yet instead of the bottom comment of the existing, full page.

Due to the cookies returning you to the last point of the thread you left at, which is the blank Page #2 of a thread with only a full page 1, one must manually edit the URL and remove the “#post000000” portion and also manually change the “/page/2” portion to the previous page number.

Basically, the last comment of the existing full page is being associated and linked to as being on the next, blank page until a new comment is actually created on the second page…then it gets fixed.

:\

On topic:
I only wish that the Personal Story, Daily Tasks, Living Story Chapter and Area Events would remember their collapsed/expanded states! I have to re-collapse and re-expand all of these items any time I do anything in the game and I end up doing this 40-70 times an hour. Seriously, it’s the most obnoxious thing that I deal with when I play. It actually discourages me from doing dynamic events (which I love) and instead actively try to avoid even getting near one so as to not complete or fail the event. Even still, if I happen to kill a single enemy anywhere near a dynamic event and go on my way, 30 minutes later when someone does come by and finish the event then I get the credit for participating in it…though I’m nowhere near it anymore and I wasn’t even aware of participating in it…which leads to this phantom credit award and the collapsing of my dailies I’m trying to do, the expanding of my personal story box, the expanding of the living world chapter, the expanding of the zone event status box.

It’s just too much to constantly have to deal with this silly, silly annoyance no matter how hard I actually work to steer clear of anything that could trigger this expand/collapse situation. And when I am working on my dailies, even completing one of the daily tasks actually causes my list of daily tasks to collapse! I then have to re-expand my dailies to remove the daily I just completed and then re-collapse the other elements…again.

If anything were to make me leave this game for a while it would be this constant nuisance that absolutely ruins the fun I have while playing…and it almost has many, many times.

Carize.8532:

The particle effect on Guardian elite book skill that makes a huge blast of light happen is also overwhelming. My first encounter with it was late at night doing a AC run with a friend who main’s a Guard and who basically lit my whole room up with that flash-bang grenade of a skill animation. I literally had after images for a couple mins after that.

~~
Another effect that I find annoying and often obscuring of my view is my Ranger’s warhorn #4 skill, Hunter’s Call.

OMG dem birds!

While I love the skill in a “Alfred Hitchkitten tribute” kind of way, I HATE IT when I’ve targeted a boss or other large creature and my entire screen is taken over by what look like Pterodactyl-sized hawks eating my target’s head.

I don’t know if that’s just a graphics glitch on my end or if GW2 decides somewhere in its odd programming that regular sized hawks just ain’t enough some days.

Those birds scale to the size of the enemy they are called to attack. Use it on a rat and they’re real small birds; use it on an Ettin and they’re normalish sized; use it on something the size of the Shadow Behemoth…yep, pterodactyls.

Carize.8532:

The particle effect on Guardian elite book skill that makes a huge blast of light happen is also overwhelming. My first encounter with it was late at night doing a AC run with a friend who main’s a Guard and who basically lit my whole room up with that flash-bang grenade of a skill animation. I literally had after images for a couple mins after that.

~~
Another effect that I find annoying and often obscuring of my view is my Ranger’s warhorn #4 skill, Hunter’s Call.

OMG dem birds!

While I love the skill in a “Alfred Hitchkitten tribute” kind of way, I HATE IT when I’ve targeted a boss or other large creature and my entire screen is taken over by what look like Pterodactyl-sized hawks eating my target’s head.

I don’t know if that’s just a graphics glitch on my end or if GW2 decides somewhere in its odd programming that regular sized hawks just ain’t enough some days.

Not a graphics glitch. The birds scale. Guildmate and I both had mad king runes, I was on my hunter. Warhorn, 2 mad kings punched and bam… Alfred Hitchrooster terror ensued.. on our end… not being able to see a dang thing.

ColinJohanson.2394:

One of the projects we’re working on in preparing the game to release in new regions is trying to make the game easier to learn. While a lot of that work is in the area of better tutorials, better level up messaging guides, and unique tutorials for specific mechanics we’re also evaluating UI complexity (and system complexity) to try and make information easier to see/consume.

Cleaning up the existing UI systems to make them less cluttered, more-stream lined, and better unified is part of this project and absolutely something you’ll see in the west as well, likely around or possibly even before we release the game in our next major world region.

And to get ahead of the next question: No, we have no solid dates! We’re still in beta in China and are testing and developing all of these new systems to make the game is easier to learn. We haven’t announced timelines for development any other major regions other than being in Beta in China at this time.

What about extremely dense particle/spell effects, even on minimum settings? This one is a way, way bigger culprit than the UI in my opinion and a way more critical issue.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Aza.2105:

Hey Colin,

I would like to see Anet address the insane particle effects.

I can never anticipate when to dodge the statue of dwayna attacks because of this. You can barely make out the enemy model. Particle effects are nice and all, but in gw2 they are overly done. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this issue in any mmorpg I’ve played.

I’m in favor of toning down the particle effects, but a screenshot where your camera is shoved behind a single flame is not valid evidence.

Actually your screenshot did make me notice the jigsaw puzzle particles to the right, which look really cool. I must not play with my animations up high enough to see those.

The entire fight was that way, not just a single frame. The flame you see is sigil of fire proc I believe. Tons of people had them, so they just kept exploding giving off a type of a effect that may give a seizure.

I took the screenshot because I think dwayna is ridiculous because of all the particles going on. I just wondered if Anet even acknowledged that stuff like that is a serious problem.

ColinJohanson.2394:

One of the projects we’re working on in preparing the game to release in new regions is trying to make the game easier to learn. While a lot of that work is in the area of better tutorials, better level up messaging guides, and unique tutorials for specific mechanics we’re also evaluating UI complexity (and system complexity) to try and make information easier to see/consume.

Cleaning up the existing UI systems to make them less cluttered, more-stream lined, and better unified is part of this project and absolutely something you’ll see in the west as well, likely around or possibly even before we release the game in our next major world region.

Colin,

The UI isn’t the problem (although it should’ve been customizable like in GW1), it’s the insane particle effects that make it difficult or even impossible to discern what’s going on. I either back off because I can’t see, thus not contributing to the fight, or continue fighting and hope some unseen enemy doesn’t put me in the downed state. It’s made all the more frustrating since GW2 is marketed as an action MMO with an importance on positioning.

It would be helpful if given options to turn down enemy spell effects, our own spell effects, and spell effects from allies. Or at the very least, have the red targeting outline overlayed on all spell/particle effects.

I’m sorry. I’m a bit bothered at the fact that a developer would respond to this thread and completely ignore what people are talking about.

“I can’t see anything because of particle effects, and I’ve been complaining about this from beta” -Players

“Hey guys, we’re going to streamline the UI. You’re gonna love. K’bye” -Dev

What is that about? Am I out of line for being a little upset by this? Are we going to get all technical and do the whole “but the OP said”? What about the discussion and the major problem?

MrDmajor.7084:

I’m sorry. I’m a bit bothered at the fact that a developer would respond to this thread and completely ignore what people are talking about.

“I can’t see anything because of particle effects, and I’ve been complaining about this from beta” -Players

“Hey guys, we’re going to streamline the UI. You’re gonna love. K’bye” -Dev

What is that about? Am I out of line for being a little upset by this? Are we going to get all technical and do the whole “but the OP said”? What about the discussion and the major problem?

That is pretty much how ANET has been avoiding(dealing) with many key issues for over a year now. They simply do not want to talk or converse about them openly with us.

kailin.4905:

I was playing in the labyrinth yesterday fighting the lich and it occurred to be I had killed him about 20 times that day and didn’t know what he looked like because I could never see him.

I think I kinda caught a glimpse of his weapon. It looked like an awesome Scythe. But I’m not entirely sure though. He’s just covered in all kinds of particle effects all the time.

Guardian fire – I find it extremely hard to get a tell sometimes when the boss has that on. Especially if its a smaller tell, ones like the aetherblade whirling boss can still be seen or an overhead smash but its insanely hard to spot anything else once the effects start going on.

MrDmajor.7084:

I’m sorry. I’m a bit bothered at the fact that a developer would respond to this thread and completely ignore what people are talking about.

“I can’t see anything because of particle effects, and I’ve been complaining about this from beta” -Players

“Hey guys, we’re going to streamline the UI. You’re gonna love. K’bye” -Dev

What is that about? Am I out of line for being a little upset by this? Are we going to get all technical and do the whole “but the OP said”? What about the discussion and the major problem?

Whether you like the UI or not it is not game breaking. Not being able to see a boss and hence miss the signs of an attack that you are supposed to dodge is gamebreaking, given how important dodge is in the game.
Being told that “we will fix the UI” as a response does not help in the least.

Please give me the option to play without this tremendous amount of particles!

I don’t need them!

Really.

GW2 the newest and most innovative mmo=No particle affect option.

City of Heroes old and shut down mmo=Awesome particle affect option with placing the value in that best suits your combat/graphical needs.

Go figure.

Shifu.4321:

You must not have played World of Warcraft

I played it just fine

WoW was so nice looking with the right UI. I understand not having a custom UI from Anets pov so I am fine with the one as is. Here is an example of what WoW looked like most of the time with LUI for me. Couldn’t find a pic of my own but got this quick on google to show how clean looking it was.

Shifu.4321:

You must not have played World of Warcraft

Just going to point out that the reason that screen is cluttered is because the person using the mods didn’t take time to make it all into a clean UI. It’s entirely self-inflicted because absolutely everything on that screen is able to be configured a much cleaner manner. Just off the top of my head he doesn’t need the party UI up if he is using the raid grids. The bag/settings UI could be completely turned off because they can be added to the bar mod at the top. There are much cleaner action bar mods that take out a lot of the space and can be resized and reformed. You can take out he xp bar and eagle end caps. There is/was a buff mod that again removed the spaces inbetween and allowed resizing and reformatting.

I used to make it my mission to create nice clean UI’s out of all of my mods. Sure it took some time, but you had to do something inbetween raids besides run from the bank to the AH and back again. Even if it was too complicated people would make UI mod packs pre-setup into a nice sleek design.

I would much prefer full UI customization to what we currently have here. There is no real excuse anymore, customizable UI’s have been done at least since 2003 in SWG where you could move/remove/resize/color your UI/Chat however you liked. WoW took it a step further with custom mod and there was a learning curve on what should be possible, but it was a benefit to the game. A lot of the user created mods are now “standard” things players expect in a MMO UI.

I have only read the original post so far but NO I can’t see through all the clutter! In fact, the excess clutter is one of my biggest pet peeves in this game. It has the effect of making playing melee unviable since it’s near impossible to see what you’re doing when there’s too many effects.

I’d be happy if ALL the names/titles (except those in your group or guild) would auto turn off during any large event. Pehaps they can start there.

Particle Removal or slider here too, many zergs and large groups are insane to play in Graphics lag is off the charts, i must say the fact everyone and their dog now own a legendary doesn’t help either.

Please give the players an option to disable or tone down these things.

As a new player I totally agree! It’s like looking at a bad holiday/xmas decorated house! It’s very hard to make sense out of things. I wish names above heads would scale too with distance too. It’s just a mess and very hard to tell what the hell is going on. Totally agree about the need for a slider to tun down effects and such too. the UI itself is fine in layout, it’s just all the kitten glitter, flash, name plates and crap done like someone never had any interface education. I believe they even teach you interface design in basic communication arts (digital) now. Serious armatures, which is odd because hasn’t NCsoft and ArenaNet been around the block? Hell hire me I will show you examples of how to fix it all up real nicely!

Something else that really annoys me t oa point of logging off which I know is weird but you cant use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out while holding down a look button or rotating your camera.

Aza.2105:

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Aza.2105:

Hey Colin,

I would like to see Anet address the insane particle effects.

I can never anticipate when to dodge the statue of dwayna attacks because of this. You can barely make out the enemy model. Particle effects are nice and all, but in gw2 they are overly done. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this issue in any mmorpg I’ve played.

Thank you for posting this! Temple of Dwayna event seems bugged because the effects are 1000000000000x it’s normal size and flashes on the screen at an obscene rate, I’m really surprised no one has had a seizure.

I know its bad, when Anet told us about the new option that will limit particle effects I was excited. But when I actually tried it, I found it no different than it was before. Its quite disappointing.

There are no casting bars in gw2, so anticipating when to dodge is done by looking at the enemy’s animations. Unfortunately this is proven to be impossible when you have particle effects on bosses like the screenshot I posted.

I can state firsthand that the only thing I’ve seen cause a seizure from this game is the Flamethrower effect. Something about it, it strobes. This is bad. My wife is epileptic, and it’s caused one seizure already. Nothing else in the game does, though I agree the particle effects are BAD.

They need the “tone it down” button to actually, you know, change anything. Then we need a customisable UI – let me move the components, resize them, outright remove them if I don’t want them on my screen. Please?

Assuming it’s not in game already, particle effect reduction options (such as reducing overall particle effects on screen, only viewing certain particle effects, etc.) as well as an option to turn off or alter the scale of certain UI components could go a great way to helping reduce the sense of clutter on the screen.

One possible thing to open up might be to allow players to make and submit custome UI skins or allow players to just tweak their own existing one. I know I myself would love to have a more traditional HP bar than a bubble or have a party window that just shows the name and not the portraits to reduce space taken.