Guild Wars 2

While many of my concerns are being addressed, this is a topic that no one really brings up, in spite of how important it is.

To be blunt: I can’t see. It is worse for some classes than others (I’ve practically gone blind playing ele a few times), but in group content this issue always rears its head. While there are options to reduce the amount of particle effects, the sheer amount of flashing lights and glowing flames can make things nigh impossible to see. See attached picture for reference.

I am wondering/hoping if anything is being done in the HoT expansion to reduce, or at the very least give the option to reduce the blinding special effects further. If not, then you should do that.

particle effect ftw…..

At launch it was even worse. Still bad now, but still XD

I like option reducing particle effect’s, can’t play without it but can someone tell me why this option cut off aura from legendary weapon on our character? Its just stupid.

Its part of the new WvW blinding meta. Player’s can’t accurately target something they can’t see clearly. :P

I’ve heard ZOOMING OUT works wonders.

Best part about it is that mouse cursor blends with effect and you just lose it. I sometimes spend more time looking for cursor than fighting.

Derigar.7810:

I’ve heard ZOOMING OUT works wonders.

This. /thread

Derigar.7810:

I’ve heard ZOOMING OUT works wonders.

That just makes the indecipherable glowing explosion of equestrian magic further away. It doesn’t help me see the tells of the boss.

I wish there was a tab to turn on/off all particle effects and each piece of the UI individually.

Derigar.7810:

I’ve heard ZOOMING OUT works wonders.

In OPs defense, sure the example might be a little cherry-picked, but the problem is still there.

Its K. I took several screenshots of things that are “zoomed out”. Max zoom, actually.

You are absolutely right Blood Red Arachnid. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more attention to it from the art department. This has been an issue since launch. Some of the big orange circles during the Living Story kind of helped, although you still couldn’t see what was happening exactly. I think it deserves to be addressed.

The Michael Bay Effect

You know at one point, I sat down and really thought about it.

And you kind of can’t start putting a method to the madness of this visual language without taking a hatchet to ever-granular sprawl of it. And somewhere – mid-swing – up to my elbows in sub-sub-subcategories it started to seem less like ill-orchestrated visual decisions but a series of mechanical ones that look way better on paper than in practice but were irresponsible to make invisible retroactively.

Honestly, to get started on cutting Visual Clutter – I’d revise Combos.

‘Establishing a sense of Skill Interplay between Players’ and ‘Area Denial/Manipulation’ are pretty different concepts with so much to explore you’d need a map, and yet the Area of Effect mechanics in this game are attempting to handle them both.

I’ve seen these things handled otherwise: FFXI provides an example of non-AOE Skill Interplay with the SkillChain system, and TF2 provides an example of non-AOE Area Denial with Turrets. Strictly speaking, you don’t need AOEs for any of this. But, of the two systems, the Combo System is the one in need of revision – and you could shave out some real bad offenders by lifting that system off the floor coupled with drawing some effects behind mobs.

This has been my main beef with the game since day one. The game RELIES on your ability to see telegraphs and react to them. In small groups, I can JUST make out the telegraph. In world events, forget it. I spam 1 and pray.

The devs indicated just after release that they would put in a particle effects slider. They did put in a slider but it really doesn’t do anything.

They need to take a look at TESO and follow their lead. You can still have pretty particle effects without completely occluding the boss/mob that you’re fighting.

And I can guarantee continued silence on the issue. But man would it be nice to be able to react to telegraphs instead of relying on being picked up and staying at range all the time.

A particle effects slider isn’t the solution. We shouldn’t have to turn the particles invisible in order to see what is going on. The art department should think of a way to make the action readable, regardless of how many players are spamming their fire fields. Find a way to have glorious visuals + readable action, not one or the other.

It is such a big problem for me as well; it makes the fundamental game system of avoiding attacks from bosses pretty much impossible to judge and do reliably..

I wondered if this was just a problem that I had, and felt that if I wanted to be successful in a boss fight, I’d have to play each fight enough times to be able to guess or expect when a large attack needed to be avoided.

Then realised I don’t find that type of gameplay fun or engaging, and rather find it quite frustrating that I am just getting blown away by boss attacks I didn’t and couldn’t see coming no matter how diligently I tried.

Sometimes when I look at the boss all I can see is a giant flaming conflagration of colours which completely conceal the actions or movements of the target and makes it near impossible to know even basic stuff like whether it is facing me or not..

Probably, this could be easily dealt with by completely minimizing the effects of other players being seen on your screen. To this end the amount of clutter is reduced significantly, allowing us to actually visualise the boss’s movements, instead of having to decipher this chaotic blast factory of eruptions as we now do, and consequently making it much easier to engage in the gameplay mechanic, which, as I had thought, was a basic intent of the gameplay design for Gw2…

In short.. reduce the effects of other players being seen on my screen to an absolute minimum, and maybe even completely for residual, on target effects such as burning and explosions.. This will make it easier to see what the boss is actually doing, so that it is possible to react to their specific telegraphs, such as preparing to blast the area in front of them, without me being crushed for thinking they’re not even facing me.