Guild Wars 2

It’s a bit alarming to have these people be in charge of the game and blatantly lie to customers. How do they even get into that position while being so out of touch, while at the same time displaying extremely unprofessional behavior?

Seabreeze.8437:

Colin’s post definitely implied that he was frustrated with some of the player base. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but maybe now he knows how we feel.

I don’t give a kitten if he’s frustrated with some players or not. They ruined a part of the game that I and many others enjoyed, now it’s up to them to fix it.

Preach Willow. Thrown an acorn at them and turn them to stone!

Jax.4903:

I am not concerned about why the special visual effects nerfs were done. The ONLY thing I care about is if A-Net will soon give us graphics options to restore our full effects for all professions prior to the 11/17 patch.

All the maybe speculation by Colin leaves us hanging in midair. A simple YES or NO answer will do. However, if effect options were planned, they would have been implemented along the “visual nose” changes. So, I am not hopeful that A-Net will revisit this issue, and, if that is the case, I will be requesting refunds for all four of my family’s GW2 accounts.

Yes, this, I 100% agree with you. I would like a clear answer, and soon. If the answer is “Yes, there will be a slider or toggle in the near future.” I will be content and remain playing the game. However, if the answer is “No.” (They will skirt around the issue most likely like they did on Reddit…. by the way, why are they using Reddit and not the official forums, what? That’s baffling.) I will be leaving.

I 100% agree with everything you said. I have recently returned to the game as well and chose an Elementalist due to how awesome their spell effects were, and now I’m running around throwing a flaming ping pong ball and rocking different colored egg shell auras.

warbignime.4610:

Is it really that big of a deal? I really don’t think it affect too much

It may not be a big deal to you, but part of why I like this game so much is because the spell effects add to the feeling of the game. I would have no problem if they added a toggle option or slider for spell effects, but forcing this change onto me, as well as others, is affecting my enjoyment of the game.

TexZero.7910:

Caro.2730:

I think they do not get that most of the player base don’t care about e-sports and just want to have fun with friends. And what is there to watch? All the beautiful animations are dying. There’s nothing to watch.

Take the tinfoil hat off for just 2 seconds…..

It’s not about e-Sports, it’s about creating a more dynamic and easier to read combat. This applies to Raids and future content where the mobs do more than just face tank you.

Carry on.

Then if a player cannot see, it is up to them to correct that and they can turn their own spell effects down. I have never before witnessed devs purposefully making graphics worse in their own game. If I like to play solo a majority of the time, why do I need reduced “visual noise?” (What an obnoxious term.) The answer is that I don’t. If I chose to do raids or anything else that requires a large number of players, I’d turn my settings down like I have done in the past with WoW, CoH, or the original GW. The developers need to recognize that this is hurting the game and will cause people to leave.

ZachAttack.3957:

Guys. I can’t believe no one can see this. The reason they are reducing visual effects is because of visual clutter. People who aren’t so familiar with the game can stumble across a GW2 stream with some kind of boss fight and they go “What the #?%! is going on? You can’t even see the boss! All I see is massive exploding things and glowing circles on the ground! What is going on? How can you guys stand to play this game?” This is especially terrible against bosses that aren’t giant monsters. It’s not very easy to see an important tell from the vale guardian if there’s giant mushroom cloud every 5 seconds (what the engineer bomb kit #2 used to be). The elementalist fireball is so big is basically completely enshrouds the mob it is hitting upon explosion. When you have around 5+ players with effects are ridiculous as this it’s impossible see the mob you are fighting, let alone any tells.

Don’t get me wrong, I like flashy effects (Engineer bomb kit #2 and elementalist fireball felt pretty satisfying). But at some point you actually need to be able to see.

As for mods… I don’t know. I don’t run into them often but about two weeks ago I ran a few fractals with a game dev and got to talk to her for quite a while. She was actually playing from overseas from China while over-seeing the chinese release. So yeah, there’s devs out there.

If you’re fighting a boss with over 10 players, I think you should expect a butt load of spell effects and flashy graphics going on. And players on twitch aren’t stupid, they will understand that it’s a boss fight. I can postulate about a new player’s thoughts as well, such as, “Why am I not throwing a fireball, just a spark? This doesn’t look anything like the videos I watched on YouTube!” Or, “Why did I just get stunned when I attacked that Elementalist? Oh, I couldn’t see that he activated his Shock Aura. That sucks.” And keep in mind that these are forced changes, if players are complaining that they cannot see, then they are the ones who need to lower their spell effects, not everyone else. And I believe now we’ve surpassed the amount of viewers of the game on Twitch with our posts about the visual noise “improvements,” so I would like an answer regarding our complaints.

This thread has more views than the PvP league on Twitch. Why have we not received a response yet?

BrotherBelial.3094:

Apparently they do, I even saw one once. But that was a long time ago.

I’ve never heard of a developer decreasing the visuals in there games, improving yes, but never making it worse. I just don’t get it. If this is to do with PvP, could they have not just added it to the standard model setting they have that people are supposed to use in tournaments?

It would seem that ANet are doing a good job of destroying there own game.

I know. This whole visual noise fiasco is one of the most bizarre, strange, and stupid moves I’ve seen by developers in a long time. They’re really shooting themselves in the foot.

Yello.3406:

Sorry, if that was missleading. I am not sarcastic at all. I want them to roll back those changes asap! I would laugh hard if the whole fist page would only display complain-threats about this visual noise nonsence!

No worries! That would indeed be hilarious, maybe then we’d get a response on this issue, haha

Elliyana.8936:

If only they gave us the option to choose what visual changes we can select—- I don’t think anyone would have complained about it. Here’s a sample of what I had in mind… for options, I didn’t have much time to do it, but as long as the general idea gets across.

That’s a very good idea. I hope that they implement the sliders and keep the original effects. Part of what makes this game so fun is all the flashy effects.

Yello.3406:

Aaaaand another thread on this topic! I like very much! Keep em coming! xD xD

I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, but it is the players prerogative to voice displeasure about changes being implemented into the game. I would encourage even more threads, not because I want to clog up forums, but because it’s necessary for developers to see that not every idea that they have is a good one. These visual “improvements” are terrible and make the game dull, if I don’t like the look of a game, guess what, I will drop it and forget about it. I liked PvP but I’m honestly disgusted and am very close to uninstalling this game and not looking back. These changes need to be reverted immediately.

Ridiculous changes. What is even more ridiculous is that they have yet to respond to numerous complaints. If they continue with this behavior and don’t revert these changes I will be moving to a different game. As of now, I have completely lost interest in playing a game whose direction is dictated by people who are so out of touch with the player base and changing spell effects that have been in the game for years. Add a graphic option to lower spell effects or revert all these recent changes.

Agemnon.4608:

Stormbolt.7293:

I don’t get it. They received overwhelmingly negative feedback last time they did it, and then they do it again. Their esports pipedream isn’t going to happen. It’s a saturated market as it is, and GW2 doesn’t measure up to other esport games in terms of competitive gameplay. Anet needs to stop neutering the game in the name of PvP (statistically the least played gamemode) and focus on the MMO aspects of GW2

I strongly disagree. PvP balance is the most important thing an MMO can focus on. It’s only the least played for a couple of reasons. People are afraid of exposing themselves as utter noobs while PvP also cuts into farming time.

With that said I agree that the esport ambitions hurt the game somewhat (such as the fireball and other visual nerfs) and the game modes should have separate balance.

I disagree. I enjoy PvP very much, I always have, but it’s impossible to balance an MMO. ArenaNet should be focusing on making the game enjoyable and fun, then you will see an influx of players in more game modes. These visual “improvements” will deter people from playing. Who wants to play a bland game? If I’m playing an Elementalist, I want my spells to feel like they hit hard, i.e., the old fireball effect, not a tiny ember. What I’m trying to say is that I want some oomph behind my spells and they achieved that when GW2 was released. Now spells are being changed 3 years later, and not for the better.

Loboling.5293:

A lot of us are upset with these recent changes. Most didn’t think they would take it this far. Visuals are an important part of games like these. Someone in charge at A-Net has forgotten this… Hopefully they wake up soon. It put enough of a bad taste in my mouth that I plan on taking a break from the game.

All these visual changes cough, nerfs, have made me want to quit as well.

First off, before I start, I’d like to preface by saying that I never feel the need to post on a forum, much less a gaming forum. However, ArenaNet’s continued disregard of the feelings of the player base on this matter, as well as the recent changes causing the degradation of this game has compelled me to post.

Now, onto the matter currently under discussion; I am ******* kittened. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but one of the main reasons I play a game, or any game for that matter, is due to the art style. In my opinion, and I hope some of you will agree with me, is that the art in a game is an essential element. ArenaNet is effectively destroying my interest in Guild Wars 2 due to the increasing -actually decreasing- amount of changes to visual spell effects that have been in the game for 3 years.

What’s the point of playing a game where everything is dull and boring? I want to feel like I’m in a fantastical world, having fun with friends, and being sucked into the story; that is not achieved by altering visual effects under the guise of player enjoyment is down due to the amount of visual noise. What a load of bs. Here’s a tip, if you want your game to be successful, forget nerfing **** for PvP balance or Raids – balance can not be achieved in an MMO, so you should also forget that, it’s laughable – and just make an enjoyable experience and that’s fun. Customers will decide what type of game it will be or what direction it will go. e.g., Super Smash Brothers. SSB didn’t start out by trying to be an eSport or a competitive game, the community and players made it so.

Some of you may disagree and not think that this is a big deal, but it is to me, so you’re wrong and **** you… just kidding. I think it’s great that the developers aspire for the game to be more, but I feel like that they’re going about it in the wrong way. You do not change the game in one aspect to please players (does anyone like the forced visual effect changes,) while at the same time negatively affecting others. That’s just, like, common sense.

Hopefully due to the recent backlash regarding this issue, ArenaNet will decide that it would be best to implement a spell effect graphic slider. I believe that would be a better solution than kittening off however many players. I would like for them rethink their stance on forced visual effect changes. I don’t play a game for it look boring. Part of the reason I love playing this game is because of the gorgeous spell effects. The recent changes have negatively affected my enjoyment of the game and if they don’t reconsider, I will be finding other games that will listen to their customers and keep their interests in mind.