Guild Wars 2

Fire(tennis)ball is what I now call it and I do my best to try and ignore it. That said, why is this a strict enforcement across the board for everybody? You should be able to turn up and down particle effects in the options for the game. I did not build a good gaming PC to have my graphics nerfed when my computer can more than handle it.

Yup. BTW the option for people to cull/reduce other player’s graphic effects is something people have ACTUALLY been asking for, for a really long time. A mandatory animation nerf for everyone isn’t.

I bursted laughing when I saw the new firepebble. :P

i am sad the skill feels very unsatisfying now.

why even do this? wtf is the point? if they are trying to make it accessable for slower machines, why dont you just create a checkmark option in the visuals tab that turns this on and off. like “Reduce Visual Clutter”

The fireball looks like a ping pong ball with a red led shoved in it. i mean wtf.

Sidenote: someone on your staff really hates ele

The worst thing about this is that its in the one attunement we need to sit in, on the one attack that we get to see over and over again and for many of us an iconic spell that drew us to staff ele in the first place. I play on my reaper and see enough green, black spinning, whooshing effects that i can barely see my target but my eles fireball gets turned into this, Hell plants vs zombies peashooters firing though a firestump looks more like a fireball then this. Maybe its just anets way of encouraging us to play warhorn, they seem to be nerfing lots of old content to “encourage” us to play their new shiny content. Oh well time to put the old match flinger in storage.

I guess they did it because its one of the most uses skills, but it destroyes the feeling of a staff elementalist…

Ok here’s the thing you can add options for everyone to CHOOSE if they want less cluter or less “noise”?¿ (wth I love it when my skills makes a mass monstrous sound who doesn’t -.-")
But why, just why did you turned my fireball into a firecracker and my overloaded air thing into a quiet thunderstorm, JUST WHY WHY WHY WHY Q.Q GIV IT BACK

I get that the size was reduced to match that of a rifle/pistol shot, but a fireball thematically isn’t supposed to be a small bullet. If anything, the big problem with visual noise seems to be the hit effects that occur on enemies. Bring back the old fireball appearance Anet.

They also stealth nerfed the splash dmg from i, before the visual patch hit.

Fireball is perfect! You are holsing a cat and cat pees with pressure to your opponents face looks funny and cute

Senario.2038:

Fire(tennis)ball is what I now call it and I do my best to try and ignore it. That said, why is this a strict enforcement across the board for everybody? You should be able to turn up and down particle effects in the options for the game. I did not build a good gaming PC to have my graphics nerfed when my computer can more than handle it.

It sure looks like a Fire tennisball.

They should make an option as mentioned, for those with a pc who need this (preferably the option for all spells and an option for enemy spells only).
Not have visuals suddenly be changed without any option selected for it.

Its odd though.
Something relatively harmless graphic wise like the old fireball gets changed, yet the Herald Elite part 2 (Facet of chaos, Chaotic release), which shows a whole dragon on your screen remains as it is.

I would say that dragon is a lot more harmful to someone’s pc’s performance than the old Fireball (that dragon is arguably the most harmful of all classes their spells in this game).

There are many spells who could be considered more harmful for a pc’s performance than the old fireball.

Was fireball ever complained a bout in this context?

I’d prefer Rebound fix over this really :p

I think the skill should be renamed to “Flare”, and the name “Fireball” saved for a skill in future elite specialization. A skill that actually looks like a large fireball that falls on the target and spreads a flaming wave outwards.

Lol I just logged in to see what this was about.

I can definitely second “flaming tennis ball” . The skill looks so bad now…. Really sad.

Yeah there was no need for this to be forced on the user of the spell Just place it on other players.

Seriously i hardly post about anything on the forum but this, THIS! This has me going crazy it’s literally made my favourite skill ever become my least favourite skill, visuals is what i go for in a class, the visuals of the skills is what sells it to me, they’ve just destroyed that for me (not to be dramatic) but i am being dramatic… CHANGE IT BACK and just tone down the explosion when it hits a target.

I’m a new player, ele was my first to level to 80 and I can say after the change, it takes most of the fun out of playing. It’s so weak looking.

Lazy, lazy anet. Putting out an update today without listening to all the complaints and doing a simple and easy revert to the old animation.

The animation had more of an impact to my gameplay then i thought, strange how you get attached to a certain look and feel of your spells and abilities. The new animation looks and feels so weak and pathetic i’m almost ashamed to even be seeing casting it. As a long time staff ele please revert this change and restore the look and feel to the weapon and playstyle that i love. Let me once again be a mighty wielder of the elements and not some peevish child flinging matches at weeds.

OMG!!!

I can’t belive this HORRIBLE change! ANET switch it back please!

Guild Wars 2 is known, loved and played for two main reasons: graphics and gameplay. I play this game for two main reasons: graphical “noise” and gameplay. If graphical “noise” is slowly dissapearing so will you’re player base ANET! I will be amongst them! I don’t want to see this beautiful game with awesome graphics turn into WOW! No way!

I can’t belive how stupid the autoattack on my ele looks now! I wanna cry and puke in the same time! ANET switch it back please because I for one build my gaming PC for one reason only: the graphics of Guild Wars 2! That’s the main reason I play Guild Wars 2 and ONLY Guild Wars 2! Otherwise WOW is waiting for me! Your Gem Store will miss me too!

Guild Wars 2 is lacking a good storyline and content is at a bare minimum! (I have played this game from the start and after 3 years I need more dungeons and fractals!) You want this game to live? Make more dungeons, more fractals, more maps like silverwastes! (the best open world instance in Guild Wars 2 BY FAR!) Don’t destroy the graphical “noise” that made this game to be loved and played by so many!

LISTEN to you’re players ANET! We are the bread on you’re table! We want the fireball back! If you want my money ANET I want my fireball! I won’t make any purchases from Gem Store from now on until I get my fireball back!

it’s sooooo cute now

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

What the hell.

Fireball went from being a Firebasketball to being a Firetennisball. This is unacceptable really as this completely destroys the fantasy of being a staff elementalist.

I always wonder what fantasy people have when they channel meteor shower with their male human eles.

Ok Anet now think this twice, even if you get used to do the first thing that came to your mind without even testing during the last past months. The projectile doesn’t interfere with the ability of other people to see their target. The explosion that caused the projectile could be more debatable, so I could go with the old projectile and a reduced explosion. However you made it look as if this one skill was the major cause of all the visual noise in the game and that is far from true. Any guardian will easily render any mob invisible behind a curtain of flames, with smaller mobs Legendary Greatswords effects and oversized wings contribute way more to not seeing whats really happening than any Fireball that has ever been thrown. Ofc you love your easy income with wings and you won’t touch the Crown’s Jewels that are your Legendary great swords but do not ruin another skill you have picked without a very extensive research and pretend visual noise is gone. Try to go to Dwayna Temple now and see if the visual noise isn’t a thing anymore, guess what, it still is and the reason is that you didn’t cap the skill causing it.

Rofl they downgraded static field before, and now this: Fireball and Eruption?! What were they thinking?

Necrum Davengers.3519:

Rofl they downgraded static field before, and now this: Fireball and Eruption?! What were they thinking?

ESPROTS

I just double checked my calendar to make absolutely sure this is not an april fools joke. Now that I did – what were they drinkthinking. Almost every legendary collection cannot be completed because some event bugs out or a certain item doesn’t even drop at all, the bugs forum is scrolling faster than a news ticker at the stock exchange and THIS is their priority – THIS?!? – I mean REALLY?!?!?

I don’t really know what to say….

Just read the posts here, and I’m kind of glad I’m not the only one feeling frustrated. The current incarnation of GW2 is the most unstable thing I’ve played in such a very long time, and when I do finally get some time to go around and cause some havoc and mayhem, I’m forced to do so with something so weak and pathetic looking.

And the most maddening thing of it all is the sinking feeling that they may not even care enough to do anything about it but may just sit out the rage storm from the community.

I’m not ever going to play eSports and now that Fireball is more like Firepea, I’m not going to play my Elementalist any more.

Another problem with the “noise reduction” is during events like Tequatl: you cannot see your own projectiles due to the amount of ground noise from the boss. These are the sorts of areas that need clutter reduction—not the player’s skills. Furthermore, the reduction (upon playing around with it a deal more) is so drastic that on any bright type of background, the projectile for Fireball is almost invisible. The effect equates to pointing at a target and watching numbers pop up, essentially stripping the aesthetic soul right out of combat. Most people are complaining about this whole ordeal for that very reason.

If it doesn’t look cool or interesting, why bother playing? There’s a reason why the economy basically revolves around Legendary weapons. They’re neat. People choose classes because they think they’re neat. If they’re.. not neat any longer. Well.

Maybe do some research and watch how many elementalist players suddenly start playing alts for a while.

Exactly, and especially with the current amount of bugs in HoT, I really dont understand why they create even more places that need improvement. I mean, “visual noise” certainly wasn’t on the top priorities list of most players that I know. To me that sounds a lot like a mechanic telling you: “hey, we reduced the brightness of the GPS display in your car, so it is less distracting at night” while your entire car is burning…

From Voldemort level of wizardry to Ron Weasley wizardry.

Kyon.9735:

From Voldemort level of wizardry to Ron Weasley wizardry.

Hahahaha, way too actuate though.

Keep popping in here in the hopes of seeing a Dev comment that this change will be reverted soon. Surely they can’t actually be claiming that this was done to improve performance and reduce visual clutter after they just introduced some of the “loudest”, flashiest animations ever. Hopefully this "noise " reduction doesn’t become too much of a trend as I recently upgraded my rig on the assumption that animations and effects would be improved upon. Having your animations looking worse after a 3 year expansion is not something you’d expect.

I’m so sick of horrible patches. It’s as if anet has an A team for creating release content and this B team that comes in afterwards to defecate all over the A teams fine work. I miss the PVP locker and the exclusion of runes, sigils, and the bloody healing skills that have to be bought with gold when you used to be able to create a character, run it through the tutorial instance and jump straight into spvp with everything available to them. Living story has always been garbage, dungeons have been completely abandoned, fractals are heading towards being abandoned more than they were before HoT. GW2 is my favorite pvp game and I’m sick of seeing it getting defecated on with terrible patches. PVE has always been broken and I still see nothing being done about the serker meta. When the dust settles from HoT release I’d wager everyone is going back to serking because agro really isn’t a thing.

LOL Churning Earth also looks like crap now.

Blazinflames.8415:

LOL Churning Earth also looks like crap now.

Why would they nerf the effect on a skill with such a high cooldown that needs to feel powerful? Nobody ever complained about churning earth.

Xillllix.3485:

Blazinflames.8415:

LOL Churning Earth also looks like crap now.

Why would they nerf the effect on a skill with such a high cooldown that needs to feel powerful? Nobody ever complained about churning earth.

It took this long to notice because nobody ever uses churning earth XD. If they do they cancel it immediately.

It’s unlikely Anet will ever comment on this issue in these forums. They’re hoping the furor simply goes away. Clearly Anet is catering to new hardcore raiders and future esport players who likely welcome the changes and don’t care about visuals.

Anet knows perfectly well it’s turning its back on older more casual PvE players and they don’t care. It’s a trend that has been taking shape for some time now. A constant stream of free-to-play turned paid players will support Anet’s revenue stream, and in time, after long-time players have moved on to other games, e.g. Black Desert Online, no one will remember what the original spell visuals even looked like.

That wonderful feeling of anticipation when the game first came out is now taking its last few breaths. Mr. Johanson’s often quoted statement, “You should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game,” is now a hurtful memory of a bad prank played on hopeful but unsuspecting gamers with money in their hands.

Anet, have you no shame?

The new Fireball looks like a joke to me. More like a fire work flare, something you could expect on a birthday cake.

Why do you do this, anet? This is so kitten stupid.

This is bad. Don’t take away our wonderful spells pleaaase

Two pages of responses is hardly enough for anyone on the dev team to even notice, let alone bring to anyone else’s attention. I wonder how Ruby feels about it.

It wont get reverted because we are not their target audience. They don’t care what we think.

I only have HoT because someone bought it for me as a gift two days before launch. Had I been able to know all of this was coming, I would have told them to save their money. I don’t just mean the visual nerf, I mean everything else included.

I guess this may help eles a bit in WvW and PvP …make it a bit harder to track down where they are by following the fireball back to it’s source. I don’t play either so I really don’t know.

Just one more thing on my list of things to make HoT feel…meh.

Necrotic.7820:

Two pages of responses is hardly enough for anyone on the dev team to even notice, let alone bring to anyone else’s attention. I wonder how Ruby feels about it.

It’s enough to make them notice, just look at some other threads that have developer responses in their first page. The issue is not if they will notice. The issue is if they will do anything about it

Oh boy, another update and anet shows they’re still ignoring the fact that NOBODY like this change. Listen to your players you kittens.

Ganathar.4956:

Necrotic.7820:

Two pages of responses is hardly enough for anyone on the dev team to even notice, let alone bring to anyone else’s attention. I wonder how Ruby feels about it.

It’s enough to make them notice, just look at some other threads that have developer responses in their first page. The issue is not if they will notice. The issue is if they will do anything about it

Apparently I could be wrong…since typing the comment above someone on the team merged all the other threads about it ….or it didnt show on the front page anyway…

So maybe someone will see it. I’m still not holding my breath about it.

Someone already suggested it, but could we just call it firebolt and double its speed?

LOL I never use staff, just saw it… Its pathetic :’) I feel like fire staff ele is nerfed to the ground

roelvanesch.2817:

LOL I never use staff, just saw it… Its pathetic :’) I feel like fire staff ele is nerfed to the ground

It also seems to apply to fiery greatsword and any other skills that mobs or bundles use with the base fireball animation. This has resulted in many more immersion-breaking moments across the entire game, even when I’m not playing my elementalist.

Looks like eles are the best tennis players in Tyria now. They can use a greatsword as a tennis racket. Who else can do that?

Dexlmentia.7391:

It’s unlikely Anet will ever comment on this issue in these forums. They’re hoping the furor simply goes away. Clearly Anet is catering to new hardcore raiders and future esport players who likely welcome the changes and don’t care about visuals.

You can clearly tell they have different devs now, the release team would NEVER let this happen.

Sigh

New animation looks terrible. One more reason not to play ele.