First of, this is not my own idea, I saw it first here. But I feel it well deserves its own thread.
Currently there is lots of distraction in PvP, like flashy weapon and armor skins, lots of particle effects and people playing the smallest Asura possible. All this is taking away your attention while it is neither part of the actual battle nor requiring any skill on your opponent’s part.
So a simple solution would be to a “Distraction Free Mode”. There should be an option (no forcing) that provides
Two standardized character models, one male, one female (the same for all races)
One standardized weapon per type
A standardized light/medium/heavy armor (maybe with the class icon on back and front of the chestpiece and dyed in the color of the team)
Less particle clutter
Since there are already tonics in the game, it also fits thematically. I personally think it should be an option only for PvP, WvW was never meant to be an equal ground. But the particle effect reduction would still be nice to have there.
Can’t you just turn down your graphics settings? =P
There is still a different model for each race and neither weapons nor back items are standardized. Also, would you want to play like this or watch someone stream it?
Can’t you just turn down your graphics settings? =P
There is still a different model for each race and neither weapons nor back items are standardized. Also, would you want to play like this or watch someone stream it?
No, but I wouldn’t want to play or watch a stream of a mode like you described either. =P
I’m very much in favour of this if it’s AN OPTION. Same size character for everyone , and same armour skin for every profession so that they’re immediately recognisable. Every competitive game that has different classes makes those classes recognisable in silhouette, no matter how much you customise them. You can buy all the special costumes for your Ken in Street Fighter but they’re still immediately recognisable as Ken, and you can give any amount of silly hats to your Heavy in TF2 but they’re still unmistakeable. Same for things like LoL and Dota2, and the game that did it best of all imho was GW1, where, even though each profession had dozens of different armour options, they were still recognisable from maximum draw distance: not only because of the consistent styles in armour (eg all necros looked kinda gothy in some way), but also because the body pose and animations of each character model were consistent within classes no matter how much you customised them. In GW2 otoh, animations are internally consistent not for each profession but for each race, which is completely unhelpful in combat.
I like the idea. What they should do is decrease particle effects in PvP and make animations for Asuras much bigger. A cloak and dagger on an Asura is almost impossible to see, while on a Charr or human you can see it come from miles away… I play an Asura, and I wouldn’t mind a more even footing, because I almost feel like cheating. :p
