Title should say “… clear[er]…” but was too long.
I’ve always been interested in the competitive GW2 scene, and I would love to spectate the matches between really good teams more often.
But every time I do (like during the Stronghold beta right now), I’m put off because it’s too hard/confusing to follow the action.
There are many reasons why it’s much harder to follow a GW2 match than for example a MOBA like LoL.
Some things like the variety of skills each character can use or the speed of combat cannot be changed of course. But there other things that would make spectating so much easier.
1) Differently-colored health bars.
It really boggles my mind why such an obvious thing hasn’t been addressed yet. The PCs of both teams have green health bars (the enemy NPCs have red bars though….). This makes it very hard to follow the fast-paced GW2 combat.
-> Green health bars (friendly), red bars (hostile) and always visible, not only when PC is focused on
*not sure but color-blind people may need different colors (blue & red?)
When spectating you should be able to easily identify the different teams. Every information that doesn’t support clarity should go, such as
2) No name plates or character titles.
They only distract from the important informaton and that is the health bar (and profession).
BTW if you compare how information is displayed in LoL and Dota2, you realize that LoL does a much better job. The slightly different colors Dota2 uses for PCs of the same team are unnecessary, unintuitive and have always made it very confusing and hard for me to follow the action.
I strongly believe it’s these little things that make a good esports title a great esports title. And for me as a spectator visual clarity is the most important aspect.
3) Make professions easier to identify.
This might not be easy to achieve but I think it’s equally important.
Of course you could argue that once you see the spell/skill effects it’s clear that the PC is a thief or necro but my problem with it is that it’s not as easy as it could be and it again makes it harder to see what’s going on at first glance.
Some of the reasons that seem to blur all the characters into one unidentifiable mass are:
a) Professions don’t have a distinct look, i.e. are not easily identifiable.
They can wield similar weapons and wear similar armor.
b) Professions can be played by all races.
The races itself are easily identifiable but the professions they play aren’t.
So when I see an Asura, my first reaction is: Ahh an Asura but I can’t tell at the same split second whether he’s an Asura elementalist, or Asura thief, or ranger or even warrior….
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to change any of this. Character customization is one of the strong points of GW2 but it doesn’t help when spectating matches.
So even when the PCs are only running around and not spamming their abilities, you should be able to recognize their professions AT ONCE!
Possible solutions:
1) Every profession has an easily recognizable armor dye.
2) Every profession displays an easily recognizable icon, and by easy I mean much clearer and bigger icons than those we have now. The icons should be visible on the mini map as well.
3) A combination of both.
4) Anything really that makes me see which character and team I’m looking at.
tl;dr:
Visual clarity has to be priority no 1!
Teams and professions have to be recognizable at once! Within a split-second!
Because GW2’s action and camera movement are too fast-paced to make spectating accessible or fun.
Arc
Sorry for the long text but this has really bugged me since day1 of sPvP, even before spectating became a thing.
