Guild Wars 2

Changing visual effects is really not going to accomplish much unless they nerf the visuals of most skills in the game in which case it will look like kitten (just like the new skill visuals) and I assume that will turn some people off the game. I certainly wouldn’t play a game that used to look good but then was made to look significantly worse.

if thats true, looking back at gw1, this game just keeps getting dumbed down to oblivion

hey at least i can go kill some of the ‘new players’ in pvp right now with invisible auras. already downed a couple dh and rangers wit reflects.

GJ Anet!

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Nerf the “Violets, not violence”. Nerf the “Get some water from the dolyaks, and put out those fires!” audio spam.

Or those shouts. The new ones are totally narm, overly complex, situational, like something a child would consider “epic” after he sees a superhero cartoon. When repeated 1000 times while you play a shout build in a new multiple hour HoT map, that sounds just awful.

On this point, I love my shouts. I love hearing “Feel the burn!” “Aftershock!”

But at the same time, it’s embarrassing to think other people are hearing that. I would love an option so only I can hear my shouts.

I’d be happy with an option for both.

My husband and I play in the same room next to each other. He keeps his sound off because he can’t stand all the audio spam. I keep mine on low, but no matter how low it is, every time he hears, “Feel the burn [bern]!” he makes some remark about “feel the Bernie Sanders!”.. between him and the shouts and the random stuff… “dolyaks. .violets, I like that, I earned that, look at that! So pretty! This rose has thorns and here they are! Chilled to the bone, you are all weaklings!” a girl will lose her mind!

In case you haven’t noticed Anet: We, the players, are extremely unhappy about you messing up our spell effects. I don’t want to play a character with lame looking spells, ESPECIALLY when I’ve been playing for a couple of years now with fantastic looking effects only to have then ripped away. That is a really, really crappy way to treat your customers. Put an option in that lets us turn off (or turn down) the effects for other players, but put our spells effects back the way they were. It’s really stupid to take the sexy pop and sizzle out of an awesome fantasy game like this and ruin it for your customers who keep your raft afloat.

Please, let the players decide the things on their game client!

My computer can handle the particles without a problem, either at Teq or at Maw (yay, slider boss! – not for me).

The auras now are crap, I don’t wnt to play Crappy Wars 2! I loved the game before because the visual effects!

If you want to make the game a TEXT BASED RPG, please, let me know so I won’t pay for nice weapons/outfits, cause they will not be nice to show.

Let ME have the option (a slider? a nice box?) to choose if I want low particles/effects/skills (read it: LAME!) or I want to play an astonishing game with really awesome looks!

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Anet,

Isn’t it about time for a response on this thread? This is affecting the morale of your customers and in the end that affects your profit through customer retention and gem store purchases. To be blunt, avoiding this thread for so long is unprofessional and inexplicable. This is the first place you want to resolve issues like these, before they get out into the wider world via other forums. Ignoring this just doesn’t make any business sense. I, like many others, care about this game. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother to discuss this point time and again, as objectively as I can. There is a clear failure of customer relations in this forum and I cannot believe that you are unaware of this. If there is no-one on staff with the training or time to manage this forum and provide at least the impression that you’re listening, hire somebody – even temporarily. Hire an intern and introduce them with the disclaimer that they’re only learning, that they might make mistakes but at least you’re providing a point of contact. The player base will, I’m sure, accept and appreciate the effort. Your customers just want engagement with you. Again, I can’t believe I’m saying anything you’re not already aware of and I cannot guess at the reasons why you keep silent when it’s detrimental to your business, and when some simple customer expectation management – for which there is ample training and resources out there – would benefit your business. Your players don’t expect you to be omnipotent or infallible. They want to help you grow this game. Sometimes they will disagree on your directions but avoiding that discussion isn’t going to make the problem go away, not here and not in any other avenue of life.

This is another great post Zoltar.

It amazed me that they’d take this road right before the holidays, right after the expansion released. Don’t they want the great word of mouth a satisfied customer base will provide them? Perhaps the gift a happy player might bestow on someone who hasn’t played GW2 before? I can’t imagine recommending the game to a friend, or family member right now, let alone, purchasing it for them as a gift. I feel like the graphics touted with the expansion was a bait and switch. I only came back to GW2 a few weeks before the expansion, after having left not too long after Triple Trouble launched and all of the bugs were ignored, forcing many of us who were in on some of the first kills (ugh, the hours spent) to repeatedly go back and repeat things for achievements or rewards. Once I achieved that, bugs and all, I was done, my whole family left.
We heard of the expansion, looked into it, thought we’d give it a go. Both me and my husband had recently (a few months ago) built new systems, and we were really looking forward to playing with maxed out graphics (a far cry from what we were able to do before, but that was on us and we were fine with playing on low/med settings) like our son does (liquid cooling, sapphire video card, yada yada). The expansion hit and we were thrilled. Everything looked great. The spell animations, etc.. then this. It just feels like they said, “psych!”

I wish they’d at least give us option to slide the settings, not just take stuff away.

Makai.3429:

Colin replied to this issue on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v24hg/the_reduced_visual_noise_changes_have_to_stop_gw2/

FINALLY something from Arena net. The greatest of kudos to NocturnalQuill for dragging it out of them.

As for Colin’s response, I disagree with 90%, maybe 95% of what he said, but I don’t even care anymore, he can say he’s the Queen of England, as long as he says this:

“That’s the type of stuff you should be seeing in the future as this project ramps up, and looking at more options so you can opt into more noise if you want seems pretty logical.”

Still not letting this thread go though, not until the matter is fully resolved. Toggle option or Death.

LET THE PLAYER DECIDE!

ArenaColin:

Thanks folks, I passed this discussion along to the folks driving the project on combat visibility.

Combat visibility in general isn’t driven by any sort of “esports” stuff though I realize that’s the easy out that’s cool thing to blame things on this week. Despite some of the insane assumptions I’ve seen lately, the PvP pro league is pretty much entirely a marketing team thing and has almost no impact on the dev team. Though we all think it’s really cool, and seriously some of those games monday were awesome!

From a marketing standpoint, it (and the ESL weekly cups and WTS tournaments before it) has been extremely successful so far, among the most successful projects our marketing team has ever launched to grow our title in the history of the Guild Wars franchise in return for the cost. If you don’t like it more power to you, don’t watch, but it’s absolutely helping our marketing folks make Gw2 a bigger game which I’d hope we’re all excited about. If you want to see the game fail I’m not sure what you’re doing here, but rooting against programs like pro league is basically rooting against Gw2 growing. When folks come here and rip on stuff like PvP, you’re basically hurting the games ability to grow – and personally I would say shame on you, if you truly love the game, be constructive and give awesome feedback and suggestions: but don’t knock it just cause it’s not PvE. And let’s be honest, it beats spending marketing funds on taxi confession ads or people spray painting wall cinematics if you ask me.

The reality about FX visibility is it’s consistent feedback we’ve had on every part of Gw2 for years that people can’t always see what’s going on in combat; our design, gameplay programming and FX team are putting a focus on resolving this issue together. This is most important in WvW and open world PvE where it’s the most problematic and where we need to solve this the most, though certainly impacts other parts of the game from Raids to Fractals to PvP.

Seeing what’s going on in combat isn’t a PvP problem – it’s a Gw2 problem, and it’s why our teams are trying to address it. I will say last time I saw the backlog of combat visibility cleanup work, the vast majority of stuff was along the lines of what you’re all suggesting below. More programming solutions at the systemic level and going after a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players rather than directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time. That’s the type of stuff you should be seeing in the future as this project ramps up, and looking at more options so you can opt into more noise if you want seems pretty logical. Along with that I imagine they will have opportunities to revisit some of the concerns raised here in relation to needing to see stuff that is important and how some FX have now become unreadable that should be, it’s (mostly) great constructive and totally fair feedback imho.

Colin replied to this issue on Reddit. On Reddit?!? Why would he reply on Reddit, rather than the official forum?
Here’s a quote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “I will say last time I saw the backlog of combat visibility cleanup work, the vast majority of stuff was along the lines of what you’re all suggesting below. More programming solutions at the systemic level and going after a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players rather than directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So why did they start with the stuff that would be more impactful to individual players VFX (with no player choice/options) and plan to do the less directly impacting stuff(and give player options) later. To me that seems backwards. Wouldn’t you want to start with the more fundamental “programming solutions at the systemic level” and “a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players”. Then if that didn’t produce the desired results, resort to stuff that is “directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time”.
It seems to me that they’re working on this issue in reverse.

re: Combat visibility in general isn’t driven by any sort of “esports” stuff though I realize that’s the easy out that’s cool thing to blame things on this week. – The timing of these visual nerfs right before the esports event was an unfortunate coincidence, then? The reason that esports is “the easy out that’s cool thing to blame things on this week” is perhaps because esports is what’s being hyped “this week”, and those changes hit just before “this week”. So yeah, we’re just so reaching blaming esports as the culprit.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

Colin replied to this issue on Reddit. On Reddit?!? Why would he reply on Reddit, rather than the official forum?
Here’s a quote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “I will say last time I saw the backlog of combat visibility cleanup work, the vast majority of stuff was along the lines of what you’re all suggesting below. More programming solutions at the systemic level and going after a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players rather than directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So why did they start with the stuff that would be more impactful to individual players VFX and plan to do the less directly impacting stuff(and give player options) later. To me that seems backwards. Wouldn’t you want to start with the more fundamental “programming solutions at the systemic level” and “a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players”. Then if that didn’t produce the desired results, resort to stuff that is “directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time”.
It seems to me that they’re working on this issue in reverse.

ANet rarely posts on the official forums unless they’re trying to market something. I guess the hugbox that the subreddit frequently is ends up being more appealing.

Siobhan.5273:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Anet,

Isn’t it about time for a response on this thread? This is affecting the morale of your customers and in the end that affects your profit through customer retention and gem store purchases. To be blunt, avoiding this thread for so long is unprofessional and inexplicable. This is the first place you want to resolve issues like these, before they get out into the wider world via other forums. Ignoring this just doesn’t make any business sense. I, like many others, care about this game. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother to discuss this point time and again, as objectively as I can. There is a clear failure of customer relations in this forum and I cannot believe that you are unaware of this. If there is no-one on staff with the training or time to manage this forum and provide at least the impression that you’re listening, hire somebody – even temporarily. Hire an intern and introduce them with the disclaimer that they’re only learning, that they might make mistakes but at least you’re providing a point of contact. The player base will, I’m sure, accept and appreciate the effort. Your customers just want engagement with you. Again, I can’t believe I’m saying anything you’re not already aware of and I cannot guess at the reasons why you keep silent when it’s detrimental to your business, and when some simple customer expectation management – for which there is ample training and resources out there – would benefit your business. Your players don’t expect you to be omnipotent or infallible. They want to help you grow this game. Sometimes they will disagree on your directions but avoiding that discussion isn’t going to make the problem go away, not here and not in any other avenue of life.

This is another great post Zoltar.

It amazed me that they’d take this road right before the holidays, right after the expansion released. Don’t they want the great word of mouth a satisfied customer base will provide them? Perhaps the gift a happy player might bestow on someone who hasn’t played GW2 before? I can’t imagine recommending the game to a friend, or family member right now, let alone, purchasing it for them as a gift. I feel like the graphics touted with the expansion was a bait and switch. I only came back to GW2 a few weeks before the expansion, after having left not too long after Triple Trouble launched and all of the bugs were ignored, forcing many of us who were in on some of the first kills (ugh, the hours spent) to repeatedly go back and repeat things for achievements or rewards. Once I achieved that, bugs and all, I was done, my whole family left.
We heard of the expansion, looked into it, thought we’d give it a go. Both me and my husband had recently (a few months ago) built new systems, and we were really looking forward to playing with maxed out graphics (a far cry from what we were able to do before, but that was on us and we were fine with playing on low/med settings) like our son does (liquid cooling, sapphire video card, yada yada). The expansion hit and we were thrilled. Everything looked great. The spell animations, etc.. then this. It just feels like they said, “psych!”

I wish they’d at least give us option to slide the settings, not just take stuff away.

I left a very large insurance company and now work for a much smaller one, and I love it. We were studying large companies and how at a certain point of success mostly all business lose touch with their base. The conclusion thus far anyway, is that once a company sees success from their own doing they feel that their direction is the correct direction, and that steering their crowd is a better idea than speaking to them. In recent years it seems this has changed, as due to social media and the Internet being such a strong presence on reality, more and more large companies have began reaching out and listening and talking to their base.

I hope anet realizes this soon. Their lack of communication has become well known and many people don’t take this game seriously because of it. We never know what direction the game is going so they go back to wow or ff14 or their mobas. Shame really

Hirosama Nadasaki.6792:

Makai.3429:

Colin replied to this issue on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v24hg/the_reduced_visual_noise_changes_have_to_stop_gw2/

FINALLY something from Arena net. The greatest of kudos to NocturnalQuill for dragging it out of them.

As for Colin’s response, I disagree with 90%, maybe 95% of what he said, but I don’t even care anymore, he can say he’s the Queen of England, as long as he says this:

“That’s the type of stuff you should be seeing in the future as this project ramps up, and looking at more options so you can opt into more noise if you want seems pretty logical.”

Still not letting this thread go though, not until the matter is fully resolved. Toggle option or Death.

Yeah, half of Colin’s response was about how the visual nerfs have nothing to do with the PvP Pro League, but because all players in general have complained about the visual noise. Disgruntled players cannot be blamed for believing the Pro League is the reason due to the precise timing of these patches.

I am a part of the largest guild on Yak’s Bend, and I have yet to ever encounter ANYONE who has ever complained that their profession’s powers were too noisy & dazzling needing to be toned down. Yet I know of many who are going to put GW2 on hold or are contemplating quitting GW2 for good because of the last two patches. How visual noise is a problem in PvE, other than congested World Boss battles, I cannot comprehend.

Even though Colin attempts to offer hope in that we SHOULD SEE more programming solutions in the future and IMAGINING they will revisit our graphics concerns at a later time, I feel that if A-Net was planning to implement such a logical effects options system, they would have done it before making these abrupt & major visual changes.

If the developers are really concerned about how we feel, they will roll back the last two patches and later re-release the visual changes when having graphics options in place that will allow players to see their characters’ full special effects (the way they were before 11/17).

Jax.4903:

ArenaColin:

I will say last time I saw the backlog of combat visibility cleanup work, the vast majority of stuff was along the lines of what you’re all suggesting below. More programming solutions at the systemic level and going after a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players rather than directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time. That’s the type of stuff you should be seeing in the future as this project ramps up, and looking at more options so you can opt into more noise if you want seems pretty logical. Along with that I imagine they will have opportunities to revisit some of the concerns raised here in relation to needing to see stuff that is important and how some FX have now become unreadable that should be, it’s (mostly) great constructive and totally fair feedback imho.

Azure.8670:

I left a very large insurance company and now work for a much smaller one, and I love it. We were studying large companies and how at a certain point of success mostly all business lose touch with their base. The conclusion thus far anyway, is that once a company sees success from their own doing they feel that their direction is the correct direction, and that steering their crowd is a better idea than speaking to them. In recent years it seems this has changed, as due to social media and the Internet being such a strong presence on reality, more and more large companies have began reaching out and listening and talking to their base.

I hope anet realizes this soon. Their lack of communication has become well known and many people don’t take this game seriously because of it. We never know what direction the game is going so they go back to wow or ff14 or their mobas. Shame really

I hope so, too. We left GW2 to play ESO (we’d come to GW2 from WoW, and from UO to WoW- geesh, how long ago UO was!! Left that when devs started lying about the “limited availability” soul stones and the use of skill jewelry became more prevalent than working the skill, and 120 taming was something you didn’t have to kiss tons of great hart booty or chase down white wyrms to get anymore). We’re pretty faithful customers when our loyalty is earned, but I’m just not feeling it, again, with GW2. We’d bought the expansion early enough that we did get to play some of the beta, and I get that things change, but after reading what was written over on Reddit (really? We have to go somewhere else to hear from ANet?), I’m disappointed.

Siobhan.5273:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Nerf the “Violets, not violence”. Nerf the “Get some water from the dolyaks, and put out those fires!” audio spam.

Or those shouts. The new ones are totally narm, overly complex, situational, like something a child would consider “epic” after he sees a superhero cartoon. When repeated 1000 times while you play a shout build in a new multiple hour HoT map, that sounds just awful.

On this point, I love my shouts. I love hearing “Feel the burn!” “Aftershock!”

But at the same time, it’s embarrassing to think other people are hearing that. I would love an option so only I can hear my shouts.

I’d be happy with an option for both.

My husband and I play in the same room next to each other. He keeps his sound off because he can’t stand all the audio spam. I keep mine on low, but no matter how low it is, every time he hears, “Feel the burn [bern]!” he makes some remark about “feel the Bernie Sanders!”.. between him and the shouts and the random stuff… “dolyaks. .violets, I like that, I earned that, look at that! So pretty! This rose has thorns and here they are! Chilled to the bone, you are all weaklings!” a girl will lose her mind!

..since you mentioned your husband’s pet shout, I have a confession….

When no-one’s listening, I shout “Feel the burn… of Trehearne!”

(I don’t know why. It just rhymes.)

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

..since you mentioned your husband’s pet shout, I have a confession….

When no-one’s listening, I shout “Feel the burn… of Trehearne!”

(I don’t know why. It just rhymes.)

HA! Oh, that’s hilarious! I love it!! +1 and a thumbs up!

I’m quite happy with the visual nerf’s, I can actually have a chance of seeing the AoE circles on the floor now. Stop being so melodramatic. ‘your customers who keep your raft afloat’, I just lol’d

The Greyhawk.9107:

Earlier this afternoon I stumbled upon a player in LA with an Anet tag. I made my disappointment known to him/her. The following image is the convo I had with him/her.
(Sorry about the poor quality, only have kittenty old MS Paint to work with)

You were very rude. He/She already stated they work in a different area. Don’t be an kitten .

nexxe.7081:

The Greyhawk.9107:

Earlier this afternoon I stumbled upon a player in LA with an Anet tag. I made my disappointment known to him/her. The following image is the convo I had with him/her.
(Sorry about the poor quality, only have kittenty old MS Paint to work with)

You were very rude. He/She already stated they work in a different area. Don’t be an kitten .

oh hush. what are we, twelve? if you believe that was “rude” then you are just over-sensitive. get over it. ;x

in reality Arena Net are the ones who are rude.

Why am i even posting in the OFFICIAL FORUMS…might as well abandon ship after the story.

I think a lot of people are realizing that until ANET can get things worked out, a break might not be a terrible thing. I know that I will be departing after this posting for a hiatus, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that I won’t be returning until they establish a better solution to visual options.

I do find it promising that Colin at least called the suggestion of a slider “logical” but that is a far cry from actually getting to a solution. Since he asked for us to give constructive feedback, I will give the most applicable insight that I can into the situation – whether you decide on a visual slider or not, clock’s ticking.

I say that not to be aggressive in any sense, only to say that this issue is time sensitive. For every player that is brought in by new marketing, it would be prudent to recognize that players are hemorrhaging from the other end.

And as much as I welcome these new players and wish them the best, there’s a reason they say, “make new friends, but keep the old – one is silver and the other gold.”

-Darksabre

The truth of the matter is Anet knew it could not or would not be able to implement the visual effects it advertised in the GW2 expansion HoT. I believe this is a case for the courts on false advertisement. Demand a refund!

I’d say this is a top priority. I tried to leave gw2 for a little while, then I realized my computer can’t handle many other games today… Either way, my only recourse is to withhold money to the gem store until this is resolved. The visuals of gw2 are the biggest part of the game. Some people joke calling it fashion wars, and its true. So many of us spend lots of time and money to make our characters look as awresome as possible. This includes combat looks. For now, I will not spend another dollar on gw2 until they fix some of these recent “corrections”. Please look at the real culprits for effect clutter, or enable a slider for players. I know myself, 99% of the time I’d want the full effect.

I hope this reaches you guys. Cause I really want to buy grenth hood, but I don’t think I will for now….

Elliyana.8936:

If only they gave us the option to choose what visual changes we can select—- I don’t think anyone would have complained about it. Here’s a sample of what I had in mind… for options, I didn’t have much time to do it, but as long as the general idea gets across.

Way to unneccessarely over complex!!

Just this:

Graphic Settings:

The Game offers multiple modes:

Best Performance
Balanced
Best Appearance

Then you can manually select on alot of different sections your own preferences, if you don’t want to use the presets.

Theres alot of options.. and two would be just missing there with with one having multiple options of intensity to be added, while the other is just only a direct choice of having it activated or deactivated :

Personal Skill Noise Intensity The option with the intensity levels to choose from
Player Noise Reduction he option that you either activate or deactivate.

PSNI should provide the same intensitiy levels, like the other graphic setting options based on the steps

• MINIMUM = Noise Reduced Versions
• MEDIUM = How Skill Designs are currently in their Pre Noise Nerf State
• HIGH = Improved Skill Designs for People which like it more flashy personally (Improved Lighting/Shadows ect.)
• ULTRA = Improved Skill Designs for people that like epic looking flashy Skills with all kinds of Visual Side Effects (example Fireballs leaving also a significant seeable Smoke Trail)

PNR = deactive > You will see the Skill Designs from all other players around you with the kind of details, that you have setted up for yourself. So if you see your own Skilsl on Ultra Setting, you will see also the Skilsl from other Players in Ultra Setting.

PNR = active > You will see the Skill Designs from yourself only on your own Personal Setting, while you see the Skill Designs from all other Players around you on Minimum Intensity Setting. This is the kind of Option that players with bad PCs want to use and that these Esports peopel that watch matches from Spectator Mode want to use from which we “THANKFULLY” receive now all those visual skill design nerfs… while all other players that have no problems at all with very effect high skill designs are beign LEFT ALONE with all this skill design nerf garbage and are still able to play a visually GOOD LOOKING game and not an ugly piece of garbage that gets more and more changed to the bad, only to please a minority of esports fanatics that doesn’t even oftenly really play the game, but justs watches only other players playing the game from the POV of someone else..!!!

Once again, reddit gets more developer attention than their own forums.

After all these years, Anets communication skills are still atrocious.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Once again, reddit gets more developer attention than their own forums.

After all these years, Anets communication skills are still atrocious.

Well, even the Devs know just how bad and outdated the forum software is. Anet has refused to fund a change to make it more functional. Makes sense.

These “reduced noise” changes are an incredibly stupid move for the health of this game. When I saw the new auras the first thing I thought of was the dying MMO Rift. The new egg shaped barely visible animation looks like it came directly from that game. It looks generic, and once you take away the feeling of power from our characters people are going to lose interest in combat. Let’s be real here guys, guild wars has way less skills and therefore depth in combat gameplay so making it less exciting to watch is going to be a huge, huge mistake.

Personally if these continue and you destroy my favorite abilities I’m personally probably going to stop playing this game. Might as well play Rift.

This could all be an elaborate distraction to hide the truth from us:
SAB will never return

I usually don’t post in threads like this one, but the new nerfed effects really do look pretty terrible. Maybe they could just have some sort of options checkbox like they used to in City of Heroes to “suppress combat effects” or something like that?

The adventure in Verdant Brink where you flame torch the vine tendrils is much more difficult now. I need to see where the jet is aiming. Please at least fix this very specific non-combat case where precision is important.

I am not concerned about why the special visual effects nerfs were done. The ONLY thing I care about is if A-Net will soon give us graphics options to restore our full effects for all professions prior to the 11/17 patch.

All the maybe speculation by Colin leaves us hanging in midair. A simple YES or NO answer will do. However, if effect options were planned, they would have been implemented along the “visual nose” changes. So, I am not hopeful that A-Net will revisit this issue, and, if that is the case, I will be requesting refunds for all four of my family’s GW2 accounts.

Siobhan.5273:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

..since you mentioned your husband’s pet shout, I have a confession….

When no-one’s listening, I shout “Feel the burn… of Trehearne!”

(I don’t know why. It just rhymes.)

HA! Oh, that’s hilarious! I love it!! +1 and a thumbs up!

I may be mistaken, but I read somewhere that the Romans actually used the thumbs down to signify “let him live” and thumbs up for “stab him in the heart”. Ouch. ;D

I’ve made a few posts about this in the past. “Visual clutter” is not in the player’s skills or effects that center around deployed fields (for the most part). The problem is in skills applying status effects and oversized “impacts” and flashes, the details of which scale with the size of a mob. Begin by reducing these effects first; the difference will be immediately noticeable.

Suggestions for alterations: condense visual cues such as burning down at the base of the mob—much like the “new” elementalist aura effects, or—even better—place a moving texture over the mob with minimal accompanying particle effects. This way you see the mob, and can see that it is affected by a status.

In terms of field visibility: alter the thickness of the circle line; make it bolder. Red for bad; change good to blue instead of the basic white that is currently visible. Additionally: the puzzle pieces effect as it is is minimal and practically invisible at any distance and is an unnecessary effect. Add a puzzle-pieces shaped edge to the inside of any circle texture that needs to indicate a field can be used in a combo. Do this stylistically, much like the painterly player-placed green circle for targeting to match aesthetics.

These are the sorts of changes that will make combat easier to parse.

Kuddlekins.6407:

I’ve made a few posts about this in the past. “Visual clutter” is not in the player’s skills or effects that center around deployed fields (for the most part). The problem is in skills applying status effects and oversized “impacts” and flashes, the details of which scale with the size of a mob. Begin by reducing these effects first; the difference will be immediately noticeable.

Suggestions for alterations: condense visual cues such as burning down at the base of the mob—much like the “new” elementalist aura effects, or—even better—place a moving texture over the mob with minimal accompanying particle effects. This way you see the mob, and can see that it is affected by a status.

In terms of field visibility: alter the thickness of the circle line; make it bolder. Red for bad; change good to blue instead of the basic white that is currently visible. Additionally: the puzzle pieces effect as it is is minimal and practically invisible at any distance and is an unnecessary effect. Add a puzzle-pieces shaped edge to the inside of any circle texture that needs to indicate a field can be used in a combo. Do this stylistically, much like the painterly player-placed green circle for targeting to match aesthetics.

These are the sorts of changes that will make combat easier to parse.

We can’t do that, because that would make sense!

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of GW2 players’ voices suddenly cried out in Nerf Terror and were suddenly silenced by A-Net.

I am venturing to guess that Arena Net management has recently changed because GW2 has lost its original spirit, philosophy, and direction that used to be focused on providing players with a very rewarding, interactive world that was extremely fun & without the endless grind feeling typical of many MMORPGS. More importantly, we used to have a voice that the Developers heard and responded to when it came to Guild Wars 2 evolution.

Now it’s nerf map events with Diminishing Returns (using bots as an excuse), nerf salvaging to make crafting harder, nerf dungeon rewards because A-Net doesn’t want players doing them anymore, nerf all professions beloved special effects because of “visual noise” that no one has ever complained about… and if you don’t like it as a player, too bad it’s our game; you no longer have a voice.

As I said before, I dealt with getting less rewards for doing PvP, WvW, Dungeons, & Fractals, but when A-Net stripped my heroes of all their visual appeal, what do I have left? What purpose if left for me to keep playing all my level 80 heroes if I no longer enjoy the graphics which were a big part of my fun? It certainly isn’t for me to get 1-2 exotic drops a day or an ascended chest every 2-3 months or maybe a legendary weapon after a year of grinding.

Colin Johanson on Guild Wars 2 in the Months Ahead
by Colin Johanson on January 15, 2013

To make playing in our open world worthwhile, we’ll make it rewarding enough for players to spend their time there across all levels. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.

As we push the boundaries and do new things with what an online game can be, we’ll likely hit some bumps along the road on the way. With your feedback and support, we’ll learn from those mistakes, grow from them, and be as transparent about them as possible. We’ll also have some amazing moments, and hopefully craft gaming memories you and we will never forget. And though you may not always know it, we’ll be right there in-game playing next to you as well.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

Siobhan.5273:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Anet,

Isn’t it about time for a response on this thread? This is affecting the morale of your customers and in the end that affects your profit through customer retention and gem store purchases. To be blunt, avoiding this thread for so long is unprofessional and inexplicable. This is the first place you want to resolve issues like these, before they get out into the wider world via other forums. Ignoring this just doesn’t make any business sense. I, like many others, care about this game. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother to discuss this point time and again, as objectively as I can. There is a clear failure of customer relations in this forum and I cannot believe that you are unaware of this. If there is no-one on staff with the training or time to manage this forum and provide at least the impression that you’re listening, hire somebody – even temporarily. Hire an intern and introduce them with the disclaimer that they’re only learning, that they might make mistakes but at least you’re providing a point of contact. The player base will, I’m sure, accept and appreciate the effort. Your customers just want engagement with you. Again, I can’t believe I’m saying anything you’re not already aware of and I cannot guess at the reasons why you keep silent when it’s detrimental to your business, and when some simple customer expectation management – for which there is ample training and resources out there – would benefit your business. Your players don’t expect you to be omnipotent or infallible. They want to help you grow this game. Sometimes they will disagree on your directions but avoiding that discussion isn’t going to make the problem go away, not here and not in any other avenue of life.

This is another great post Zoltar.

It amazed me that they’d take this road right before the holidays, right after the expansion released. Don’t they want the great word of mouth a satisfied customer base will provide them? Perhaps the gift a happy player might bestow on someone who hasn’t played GW2 before? I can’t imagine recommending the game to a friend, or family member right now, let alone, purchasing it for them as a gift. I feel like the graphics touted with the expansion was a bait and switch. I only came back to GW2 a few weeks before the expansion, after having left not too long after Triple Trouble launched and all of the bugs were ignored, forcing many of us who were in on some of the first kills (ugh, the hours spent) to repeatedly go back and repeat things for achievements or rewards. Once I achieved that, bugs and all, I was done, my whole family left.
We heard of the expansion, looked into it, thought we’d give it a go. Both me and my husband had recently (a few months ago) built new systems, and we were really looking forward to playing with maxed out graphics (a far cry from what we were able to do before, but that was on us and we were fine with playing on low/med settings) like our son does (liquid cooling, sapphire video card, yada yada). The expansion hit and we were thrilled. Everything looked great. The spell animations, etc.. then this. It just feels like they said, “psych!”

I wish they’d at least give us option to slide the settings, not just take stuff away.

Ah, Zoltar, how doth thou quoteth the voice of the people.

The thing that confuses me the most is that there are sometimes responses – but pretty much only on Reddit. I never go to Reddit unless looking up a Windows bug fix or something like that… if anything, I only expect to find general-public discussion there, not studio interaction or feedback. Twitter or official forums are the places for those kinds of updates. I really, really, really would like to see Anet staff interacting on these official forums – with the very community they have striven to create through the Guild Wars games! We don’t bite (that much), do we?

Edit: ah, I just found the dev tracker page for the first time. It’s still curious that there aren’t more responses to threads, but Gaile’s still pretty active and supportive (it’s curious that I rarely seem to bump into her replies, though).

Jax.4903:

I am not concerned about why the special visual effects nerfs were done. The ONLY thing I care about is if A-Net will soon give us graphics options to restore our full effects for all professions prior to the 11/17 patch.

All the maybe speculation by Colin leaves us hanging in midair. A simple YES or NO answer will do. However, if effect options were planned, they would have been implemented along the “visual nose” changes. So, I am not hopeful that A-Net will revisit this issue, and, if that is the case, I will be requesting refunds for all four of my family’s GW2 accounts.

Yes, this, I 100% agree with you. I would like a clear answer, and soon. If the answer is “Yes, there will be a slider or toggle in the near future.” I will be content and remain playing the game. However, if the answer is “No.” (They will skirt around the issue most likely like they did on Reddit…. by the way, why are they using Reddit and not the official forums, what? That’s baffling.) I will be leaving.

Clearly by Mr Collins Statement on reddit(makes ya wonder) While I appreciate his honesty a bit rude in fact very rude….and clearly they know this thread is here and not respond…just shows “your true colors”

Also I would like to say I am 43 years old and have been testing playing even a gm in a few games over my time playing mmos. And for a company to see and know a thread like this is out there and not respond is just a slap in the face to those of us taking the time to post our issues with your change to the visuals.

Saddens me a bit when i watch their HoT launch video again with the CEO saying how we the players etc etc and they love us and then this and by this I mean that arrogant post on reddit by Mr Collins.

Just annoying is my two cents.

colin is such a jerk ): i used to think he was actually a nice person… i learned from his post on reddit that he is just a patronizing moron. ;x

i feel like his previous appearances and comments only existed to trick me into thinking he actually cared about what i and many other people wanted for the game. when it comes down to it… he is just another employee for Arena Net… saying whatever he can to attempt to “keep people interesting in playing” even if that means being a rude patronizing jerk that flat out lies to our face. anyone with any sense of awareness sees through his post. :[

i guess it is kind of my fault… being naive and thinking that a company could actually care about me… it only exists to make money ):

welcome to the world i guess.. :c

Baamoink.4281:

I’m quite happy with the visual nerf’s, I can actually have a chance of seeing the AoE circles on the floor now. Stop being so melodramatic. ‘your customers who keep your raft afloat’, I just lol’d

I just lol’d at your selfishness. Options will not hurt anyone you know.

Yeah Anet, you gon’ learn today. Tell ’em how it is Willow.

At SB recently, I was reminded of something… it’s really hard to see ground AOE in the swamp. If anything, AOE rings need to be brighter in/on/under water.

Preach Willow. Thrown an acorn at them and turn them to stone!

They aren’t going to change it because they don’t listen to their community. Colin seemed very rude today insinuating that if you don’t support the esports direction they want to take the game in you must not like gw2 and must not want it to succeed. Pretty sure that is a fallacious argument there.

Senario.2038:

They aren’t going to change it because they don’t listen to their community. Colin seemed very rude today insinuating that if you don’t support the esports direction they want to take the game in you must not like gw2 and must not want it to succeed. Pretty sure that is a fallacious argument there.

Can you cite that? From what I saw, he wrote: "Combat visibility in general isn’t driven by any sort of “esports” stuff though I realize that’s the easy out that’s cool thing to blame things on this week. Despite some of the insane assumptions I’ve seen lately, the PvP pro league is pretty much entirely a marketing team thing and has almost no impact on the dev team."

Which doesn’t point at all toward an esports focus…

Colin’s post definitely implied that he was frustrated with some of the player base. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but maybe now he knows how we feel.

Seabreeze.8437:

Colin’s post definitely implied that he was frustrated with some of the player base. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but maybe now he knows how we feel.

I don’t give a kitten if he’s frustrated with some players or not. They ruined a part of the game that I and many others enjoyed, now it’s up to them to fix it.

“The reality about FX visibility is it’s consistent feedback we’ve had on every part of Gw2 for years that people can’t always see what’s going on in combat; our design, gameplay programming and FX team are putting a focus on resolving this issue together. This is most important in WvW and open world PvE where it’s the most problematic and where we need to solve this the most, though certainly impacts other parts of the game from Raids to Fractals to PvP.”

Sometimes I wonder…let’s not end this sentence.

Yes we did complain about FX for the past 3 years but about what FX did we complain exactly?

Certainly not:

- good looking idle animations
- visually appealing fireballs and skills that feel how they are called
- skills we can see and differentiate from one another

What we always screamed for was a FX fix for BIG bosses where certain effects scale into oblivion and clutter the whole screen (eg. Dwayna).

Also the huge FPS drops for FireFX, StormFX and other fps dumps could be tackled instead (eg. Maw).

Yet you remove visible auras that clutter little to nothing and instead go towards a GW1 approach where we had to look at status bars the whole time because we otherwise didn’t see what was going on. I always thought this was something you wanted to avoid in GW2.

You really want to tell me that invisible egg shells around players do anything at all..?

Do not twist feedback from your playerbase around just to justify your actions. Yes we asked for changed but definitly not these kind of changes.

Why not go the extra mile and show this kind of stuff before implementing it?
Why not go the extra mile and put this in as a choice?

It’s not just A-Net that loves this game – we do too – that’s why we care so much.
Always keep that in mind when people go overboard.

Sincerely,

Someone that misses the open dialogs with you guys in random arena, temple and all the other froggy times.

don’t worry, i am sure they will be back soon in the cash shop. limited time offer!