Guild Wars 2

Sourde Noire.5286:

Andulias.9516:

Just wanted to pass along an update from Colin, which, yet again, can be found only on Reddit:

Just wanted to quickly pass along we asked the skills team to hold off on making any more FX changes until a system was in place to allow people to toggle them on/off as a selection. They’ve been continuing to work on the project of making combat less visually noisy, while also ensuring there will be options for players to pick from.
More info on this with the spring update but I did want to say you’ll see the old FX restored soon along with some visibility options for those who want to use them

And, as I mentioned there as well, it’s nice that they listened, but the speed at which they responded was unsatisfactory to say the least. On the other hand, we have a relatively well-defined ETA, which was probably what he wanted to give us before saying anything at all.

So, confirmed! The old fireball, mesmer wells etc are coming back this Spring!

See https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged/page/19

So here’s to hoping they’ll actually do it.

Colin was the one who reached out and provided that information, but with his departure I sincerely hope that this is still something high up on the priority list for them; not sure what his level of involvement was in making what he said in that post a possibility. It seems like such a small thing, but ever since the visual effects nerfs to fireball and auras I’ve felt very little motivation to play my elementalist.

Human warrior named Brogan Thackeray. I lol’d a little more than I think I should have.

I’m in the same boat as the OP. I’ve never posted on the official forums before because I’ve never felt the need to, but these recent changes to the visual effects of spells and abilities are so egregious, so uncalled for, and so unnecessary that I feel like I need to come on here and add my voice to the growing mass of people who are unsatisfied with these changes. One of the things I love most about this game is its art style. I think GW2 looks freaking gorgeous and a big part of the visual fidelity of this game has been its flashy spell effects. Now, it seems like Anet is trying its hardest to kill the aesthetic theme its built.

The backlash on these “visual noise reductions” was very strong during past nerfs, I thought for sure that this patch would dial back on some of the most dramatic ones (looking at you ele fireball!). Imagine my disappointment when this patch didn’t reverse the earlier changes but instead introduced even more visual nerfs.

What it ultimately feels like to me is Anet trying to force its players to play the game the way Anet wants us to. No we’re not allowed to have options or sliders because Anet doesn’t want us to choose the level of visual effects we have on our screen, they want to choose for us. There was and has been huge outcry, and really it feels like valid community feedback is being ignored. It’s just saddening.