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Design suggestion: VFX scale with character level

SjeldenSjelden Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
edited February 2023 in General Discussion
My first MMO experience was Everquest. I played it on launch back in -99, and enjoyed it for years, before exploring the multitude of MMO's that has come (and gone) since.

Every time I play a new MMO, I often compare the "Good, Bad and Ugly" to my first gameplay experience with Everquest.

Modern MMO's tend to go full tilt with VFX effects out of the gate.
I am a level 1 whatever, but the particle explosion that occurs when I swing my sword, or toss a feeble bolt of magic, makes me believe I am nearly at the apex of my characters development path. Personally, I find that extremely offputting.

Everquest solved this in a highly simplistic, yet satisfactory manner;
The particle effects of abilites grew with the character. At certain levels they added new layers of VFX effects to ability effects.

My plead to Intrepid developers is to be modest with your visual effects for early level characters.

Comments

  • GizbanGizban Member, Braver of Worlds, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Asheron's Call was similar to that.
    The spell effects got bigger and bigger as you progressed.

    I think it gives a good sense of progression.
  • Ace1234Ace1234 Member
    That could potentially aid in server performance of large scale fights as well, due to the natural curve in the involvement of players at different levels of progression. There would likely be a lot fewer high level characters with lots of effects for the server to process, potentially making battles less taxing on the server.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    Ace1234 wrote: »
    That could potentially aid in server performance of large scale fights as well, due to the natural curve in the involvement of players at different levels of progression. There would likely be a lot fewer high level characters with lots of effects for the server to process, potentially making battles less taxing on the server.

    Not really true, for two reasons.

    First, 90%+ of all time played in MMO's is played at the level cap.

    Second, visual effects aren't processed by the server, they are processed by the client. If you are seeing "lag" due to visual effects in an MMORPG, don't blame the server, upgrade your graphics card.
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