I started playing this game mainly for its aesthetic quality that it seemed to hold over every other mmos heads. Spell effects on launch were incredible, looked and felt powerful, and always felt satisfying to use. I am really getting sick of this skill effect culling … Examples:
Elementalist fireball that has been made tiny, it looks and feels aweful to cast now..
-Mesmer effects being toned down heavily
-Guardian tomes being removed even though they were one of the most stunning effects in the game..still a horrible decision.
Daredevil never getting a proper fix to any of its effects besides skill 1, Skill 2-4effects look and feel terrible.
New staff holding animations for melee users are recycled hammer stances making it look like we are carrying an overweight club.
Engineers mushroom cloud bomb skill now looks much less powerful and like every other generic blast.
Engineers elite laser move also looks really bad compared to what it used to be.
These are the ones that stick out to me the most and I have to say I am EXTREMELY disappointed that the game has taken these turns. It seems anet cares more about pleasing Esports communities than its original fan base appealed by what the game was advertised to be. I say this because ever since overpowering effects complaints were made about spectator mode and raid fights.. I started noticing these changes. I don’t think guild wars belongs in Esports.. I think it should stay the asthetic masterpiece it started out as and should still be.
Not sure if anet realizes it, but allot (most) of us play the classes we find cool looking and aesthetically pleasing. Be honest, you start playing a video game by choosing what LOOKS amazing to you… Not by saying "hmm what class will pump out the least amount of cool looking attacks so I can look weak and terrible in order to see my enemy 2% better.
If anything should ever change on the lines of effects, it should not
Be the projectile effects nor the ground targeted aoe’s nor any other large cool looking skills. The thing that blinds combat the most is when a spell makes contact with an enemy, it is these impact effects that I can obviously tell are seperate effects from
The skills themselves that need to be toned down. For instance, instead of making fireball a tiny nut with a streamer attached, leave it a giant fireball, but when it makes its impact on the mob, tone down the kitten explosion effect it makes on the character model. I noticed these effects attached to impact from skills are significantly more obnoxious on large mobs as the effect radius looks far larger. but if it were up to me, I would say.. Give players the kitten option to turn stuff on and off, I personally love all the effects and don’t want any toning down. An option box to let players decide how much effects should show is the best thing anet could do. That way they don’t end up destroying all the classes by making all our skills look boring. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to leave games… Hope we see some change.
(edited by Arctarius.2649)