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Unpopular Opinion - Abilities Particles
Turjilin
Member
I believe that Ashes of Creation should reconsider the use of particle effects for basic abilities. While Steve mentioned the inclusion of a slider to adjust the visual effects, I suggest implementing the ability to toggle particle effects based on ability types, rather than having one slider for all abilities. A more nuanced approach, such as having basic abilities with 0% particle effects, thresholds with 25%, and ultimate abilities with 100%, could better enhance the overall gameplay experience. What are your thoughts on this suggestion?
2
Comments
Flashy effects on base attacks with non-epic or better weapons seem way over the top to me and in fact hurting the gameplay as with an 8 player group the amount of effects will rob us of the ability to see what the enemy is up to. And even with epic or legendary weapons, I would only want small scale effects.
If there are too many effects on the screen no matter what abilities are being used, it is impossible to learn or execute strategies against enemies.
And this is just for one group against 1 mob (like in the recent stream), it becomes even worse if we were to have a raid or a large scale siege battle where hundreds of player could be clashing. That would turn into a flashing clusterf*** where focusing a target or reacting to a charged ability basically won't exist, as everything drowns in special effects. And there is no fun in blind button mashing, hoping your enemy is actually still there or doing that one move you need to counter.
What about having effects have different LOD based on how close the camera is to the effect.
So if you zoom out to see a whole group fighting , or the effect you see is from someone further , it has thinner/lighter LOD. But if you are solo in the world , zoomed in , you see these nice fully fleshed effects.
I would agree, that I also like fancy effects in themselves. The issue for me is: fancy visuals shouldn't limit the possibility of creating interesting mechanics. There would be almost no point to an enemy lifting his sword for a powerful sweep attack we need to dodge, when we cannot see that due to the amount of effects on the screen. And since the game is said to be balanced/optimized for group gameplay we basically have to be think about whether we can see these types of attacks with 8 players on screen attacking and casting.
Yep, most things people worry about in regards to Ashes like corruption and so on really are things that can only be assessed by testing the game. And this is definitely one of these points.
It's not unpopular. The majority is like "Steven please finally fix the f**** visuals of the skills" everything is so much over the top.