Have a less flashy base animation level and allow players to tune it up to be very flashy.

Ironhope

I honestly think the attack animations and the ability animations are way too flashy.

It looks like a firework spectacle more than a fight.

If you keep this pace, this path, a battle field with hundreds of players will be just blinding.

I know this is standard for mmo-rpgs nowdays but honestly, it's a standard mistake not a standard quality. Most mmo-rpgs can barely handel a few tens of peoples on screen at a time anyway (unlike AOC which is going for far more than that).

Even if some don't realize, such a model is exhausting, makes the whole thing look kind of silly and is largely pointless.

My suggestion is this.

Have very basic animations (especially for attacks) and allow players the option to make them more visually flashy if they want.

Now, you might ask ''but why not have them flashy and give people the option to tune them down?''

Because most people won't bother and will judge the game based on the default version you gave to them.

And I strongly believe more chill animations, like World of Warcraft Classic had, maybe even lesser, are more than enough.

Ludullu

They already said that we'll be able to tone the vfx down. They've also stated before that they have exaggerated effects during testing, just to overburden the processing power, and it'll be toned down later in development. And iirc we've already seen examples of this before.