Guild Wars 2

So as a very first, this is partially a mirror of a fairly recent Subreddit thread that garnered some attention.

There’s an expansion on the horizon, everyone. And that expansion will no doubt advertise once again how beautiful some skills look on the new Elite Specs. Last time we received an expansion however, several skills were made less pretty! Since, they fixed Effect LoD, meaning there is no reason to keep Orbital Strike, Auras and some other abilities ugly.

And if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that people want Auras to look the way they used to before the just-after-HoT-released bugs / patches / hotfixes, because it was better for PvP.

The other is that people want a few Skill Visuals back, particularly Orbital Strike (hilarious video btw, love it for years now).

A GM actually told me to post this request for seeing these abilities be beautiful again on the Forums. Why? Anet want to see that people are interested in seeing beautiful combat skills again, at least on THEIR end. Effect LoD can take care of the rest! Colin actually promised that we’d get them back before sadly leaving the company.

So why not just leave a post that makes it clear to Anet you want combat looking better? Hell, their Aura visual nerf actually hurt PvP and there’s no reason to keep Orbital Strike ugly since they improved Effect LoD.

So, can we get a yay or two? And if nay, can you explain why? Effect LoD has long since been improved, and Anet did return how Fireball looked. With that awesome revert, why not get more awesome skill visuals brought back to the way they looked just before Heart of Thorns?

Edit: Added a screenshot of how skills were supposed to look beautiful again long ago. But that change was forgotten as he left the company. Let us not forget so Anet will always be reminded.

I’m in! I’d love the option!

I think this should be done in a case to case basis.
However, Orbital Strike is a clear case of “imperiously needing visuals back please”.

“Why? Anet want to see that people are interested in seeing beautiful combat skills again, at least on THEIR end. Effect LoD can take care of the rest!”

This is exactly what I’d like to happen. As right now, being a mesmer only player, it drives me nuts that with effect lod on, well animations glitch out and just stop playing properly, phantasms are nearly invisible ever since HoT, phantasm effects disappear (warden/duelist) and many other effects just stop working. That shouldn’t be the case for the caster of the skills at least. When I summon the Phantasmal Disenchanter, I should always see the effect that happens when you cast it, for example. But with this effect lod, so many visuals just glitch out and don’t even play for the caster. And some skills, like Gravity Well never got their full effects back, even with lod off.

I’m hoping we’ll get another option, where they have effect lod off to show full effects for all, effect lod as it is now, and one that gives you the option to see your own full effects.

Thanks for reposting this thread, hopefully something comes out of it.

Don’t forget this thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I remember overload air used to summon a black thundercloud. That was cool. Now it just shows lightning bolts coming out from thin air and the funny thing is, the description still says: “Summon a nimbus that…”

I don’t see why there’s no option to activate these “advanced” effects for the people that have the machines capable of handling that. Just put them under an “Ultra” tag in the animations option.

I’m all for auras having their visuals restored. For how powerful they are, you shouldn’t have to be looking at the buff bar to see them, but with how pathetic their visuals are right now they can easily hide behind all of the other effects.

In general though I think visual effects could be reconsidered (don’t get me wrong, I love them!). I think that the visual effects should give an indication of how powerful a skill/effect is. That’s why auras need to be easily seen, why Orbital Strike could a really awesome animation. Weapon skills could be toned down in a few places where it makes sense (for instance it wouldn’t make much sense to tone down mesmer shield 4 too much, since hitting that shield directly benefits the mesmer by summoning an avenger), same with utility skills.

I completely agree as long as it is an option people can turn on/off. That way, people who hate the visual noise can just turn it off while the people who love the effects can leave them on.

Yeah, Zivi, they changed Effect LoD to work that way! Like if you’re a Staff ele now? If you throw a fireball, it’s HUGE for you, but everyone else’s is still a pebble without any visual noise! So we have a great solution in place, but it’s just not being worked on.

Also, fun fact, Colin wanted to have even better detail options back in Spring 2016. Proof:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/471azb/elementalist_can_we_have_our_old_fireball_and/d0ani87/

And that (referring to 2nd half of the video) is how an orbital strike should look.

Not the little light glow dropping down from the sky with a little static shock we see in game. I mean c’mon, is that really supposed to intimidate anyone?

I was truly upset when they decided to nerf graphics to the ground 10x over. But I really don’t expect they’ll change it back anytime soon either. That would be asking for too much.

This makes perfect sense with the toggle in the settings.

“That would be asking for too much.”

They’d be back if Colin was still at the company, which is just the saddest part of it.

Could be a good idea. Least fo auras. They are not easily visible.

Added a Screenshot of how Colin promised us to get our FX restored back in early 2016. There was supposed to be first word on our FX getting restored in Spring of the same year. Of course this never happened.

Yes please! The mighty Orbital Strike doesn’t look really devastating. It’s more like a golem emtying its bladder from the sky above…

Sold Out.7625:

Added a Screenshot of how Colin promised us to get our FX restored back in early 2016. There was supposed to be first word on our FX getting restored in Spring of the same year. Of course this never happened.

You might want to make the picture a little bit bigger… xD

The attachment is always small, sadly. At least in the preview. BUT I’M TEMPTED TO ATTACH A GIANT COLIN HEAD AS A PICTURE just to make that more obvious.