Guild Wars 2

Ease of watching – particles (boons):

There are a lot of boons in the game. A lot are communicated with really small icons. I say this because of the above non-boon particles. It is difficult to see them should they actually have an animation associated with them. While making solid objects a priority for communication will enhance the boon information, there are some boon cues that could be visually improved.

• Problem: visual information about boons is not sufficient.

• Possible solution: more intuitive visuals associated with boons.

• Cost of doing it: increased amount of visual effects.

• Cost of not doing it: following the boons in play is extremely confusing since they are poorly communicated. Other particle effects are making it extremely difficult to
  see what one should do, especially when there are massive skill effects
  around.

• Implementation: the boons in play could have a stronger visual indication based on what they do. A lot of them could be revised effects that are already in play: stability can be the same effect as wielding the Juggernaut (half body, legs only, black metallic color); retaliation could be something similar to Guardian off-hand focus 5 but with daggers instead of shields (and much closer to the body to prevent clutter), and so on.

Ease of watching – telegraphing:

For a PvP game that wants to be taken seriously, the difference in size between character models will be off-putting to quite a lot of viewers. It means that their skill telegraphs will be very difficult to see, not only for the players, but perhaps more importantly for the viewers. The Asura are the big problem here, and it is not uncommon to see full Asura teams because of this discrepancy in ability to see telegraphed skills.

• Problem: It is simply not fun to watch what you can’t understand, as has been the
  idea behind this text.

• Possible solution: normalize the size of the player models, have tourneys play out in fixed races.

• Cost of doing it: some players will be upset because they do not feel that it is a problem.

• Cost of not doing it: telegraphed skills not being seen by viewers leading to holes in the information that should be given but is not. Not being taken seriously because
  of these discrepancies; this can also lead to misunderstandings about hit boxes. Better telegraphing would also increase the intuition of when to dodge for newer players, and when someone should have dodged for viewers. It’s a nice mechanic, let’s make more use out of it.

• Implementation: rescaling of player models seems like a viable option.

Discussion
What would you do to improve the quality of viewing Guild Wars 2 streams?

Viewing Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is slowly moving towards being a better PvP experience. A great way of marketing PvP games has been via streaming, either personal streams or via casted streams of e.g. tournaments and scrims.

Following discussions online, in both this community and other game communities, there seem to be two identifying features of popularity: ease of following the match (visuals) and rivalry between those that are playing (drama). I will touch upon the first part here.

Visuals: or how I started worrying and hating the particles

A PvP-match in Guild Wars 2 is a flurry of particles and visual information. There is really no way around of describing this. There are clones exploding, dodges, a plague like character looking like she’s melting, more explosions coming out of nowhere, someone is getting impaled, and there seems to be a player who for some reason started swinging his sword in the air hundreds of times, and this would, at most, describe a 1v2 or 2v2 and not a bigger team fight.

You have never seen Guild Wars 2 before, just joined the stream in the middle of the fight, and have no idea what is going on. The person who played Guild Wars 1 for years and watched from the beginning of the fight doesn’t know either. You’re fine, but the way the game communicates is not.

Ease of watching – streaming:

Great progress was made with the creation of the spectator system. Previously, players who watched streams were stuck in the third person view of the streamer. Arguably, for most of the time, they still will be: unless you watch someone spectating your favorite player, you will have to watch it from the third person view.

This might not seem like a problem, but a lot of the time, there will not be much happening. And you will get very little information about what the other players on the team are doing. The little information you get from the mini-map is also potentially confusing since it will share an icon should a team have 2, or more, of one class.

• Problem: information about what the team is doing is not readily available to the one watching a match.

• Possible solution: announce more actions, e.g. when a team-mate is engaging in a fight make the mini-map light up in that area.

• Cost of doing it: can clutter the screen if not done properly.

• Cost of not doing it: watching a game can become stale quickly without information. There is a difference between providing too much information at once (particles in team fights), and not providing enough. Bear in mind that unlike in
  e.g. League of Legends, the player can only see their immediate area. Constant interesting information can thereby be difficult to gain.

• Implementation: A possible implementation would be to provide more mini-map informa-tion; fights can be announced by the icon of a player pulsating in a different color. This is readily available in WvW, although only for bigger fights. Crossed swords surrounded with class icons would be a way of showing who is fighting as well. This could also be a way of showing the magnitude of a fight depending of the amount of class icons.

Ease of watching – particles (non-boons):

In beta, particle effects were toned down. Arguably, there is still too much of them and they are really confusing, not only for new people watching but for veterans as well. A flurry of colors might seem impressive, but not much can be seen: is there someone ressing the downed one (their health bar is barely visible), did a thief just sneak in between the clones of that Mesmer? It is extremely difficult to follow which weapon skills and utility skills are being used.

• Problem: abundance of particles without actual information.

• Possible solution: make certain objects priorities: a health bar should be much clearer amidst a bunch of particles (for Mesmers, all the clones’ health bars become
  clearer); targeted enemies could provide information on what they are currently casting/using.

• Cost of doing it: using cast bars, and make e.g. the Asura more visible in team fights.

• Cost of not doing it: while not completely removing the obscurity of team fights, this will provide viewers (and players) with a better understanding on what is going on. There will be more ”WOW s/he interrupted that! What a play!”-moments, something this game lacks but is present in e.g. LoL.

• Implementation: adding more transparency to the particle effects could be a start, making the solid objects more visible, having health bars as “always on top”. Cast
  bars are a coding and attitude question (they should not be visible to any-one but the one that has that players targeted)