The spells look terrible

After watching all the classes currently released i went from being a big fan to considering even playing it. Its so much unicorn puke everywhere that it reminds me of retail wow where in the end you dont even know whats happening because everything is blinking in neon colors. The world looks very beautiful and natural but the spells look terrible. No problem if a mage has some ice and fire stuff sure if it does look realistic. A ranger having every shot being neon apart from autoattacks, like a star wars laser battle. And this is just an example and all the classes look wierd.
Why do you mess this game up like that? It just looks unnatural. It really turns me off now. I thought there is a beautiful game that looks somewhat natural and then they design all the spells like cyberpunk. It just doesnt look right and doesnt fit the landscape of the world, sorry. But thats just my opinion.

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Ravudha

Agree a bit with OP's reference to 'neon'.

I really liked how they toned down the saturation on the blues for the blizzard spell and think some of the spells with blue/green effects (especially the green ones) would look better with a slightly more muted palette rather than the current intense, vibrant colours.

Garrtok

I agree 1000% it seriously can't stay like that. In a single player game okay, but during the stream it was much too much. Like really really bad.

Laetitian

SoSpokeMika wrote: »

Skills are so oversaturated with color that at some points it looks like Sci-Fi shootout. Ranger is literally shooting green neon laser beams.

I'd rather have them oversaturated than blending in with the environment. Better visual clarity means less need for UI as a crutch to communicate all the visual information.

To be clear, the colours do need to be refined. Bright light green should largely be reserved for healing and only used in accents on other abilities.
More muted pastel colours and nuanced darker tones with accents would fix the sci-fi look, I think.

The meteor turning the area dark for a frame or two is somewhat questionable, but I assume they've thought about it before trying it out, and I think as long as there are very few, very strong abilities with effects like that, it can be a nice charismatic touch.

But in general, I'd rather have them err on the side of more visual clarity than make everything look aesthetically realistic and subdued, at the cost of being able to identify abilities by their effects.

I think what we're seeing is the vfx design team committing very hard to a mission directive of putting visual clarity first and aesthetics second, and I appreciate a team that stays true to a clear goal. That tells me that they don't compromise on their priorities, and any additional cosmetic adjustments from here won't come at the cost of gameplay. Clearly identifiable abilities that I can't distinguish from other abilities, or even notice happening in contrast to the environment.

novercalis

SnowElf wrote: »

Thank you for your unsolicited opinion! I bet you also go to kids' birthday parties and tell them that you also happen to have a birthday.

Thank you for your unsolicited opinion! I bet you also go to kids' birthday parties and tell them that you also happen to have a birthday.

Sathrago

The only critique that I think needs to be changed for the better of the game would be having a slight hue attached to abilities that are enemy (or) friendly. It doesn't need to be both but it has to be one or the other. This allows a lot of freedom for them to be flashy because you will still be able to at least tell the difference between a damaging spell and a spell that will help/not harm you. I would probably lean towards it being friendly hues rather than enemy hues but again I'm fine with either.

arkileo

Seems to come down to preferences. I personally really like the way spells look right now. I even liked the old lightning ball vfx. Some people just like visual clarity over everything else (Not saying that's necessarily wrong, it's just less of a priority for me.)

UE5 has particle limits that I'm sure could be configured on Intrepid's side. For the color clutter in large scale PvP vfx could theoretically be dynamically scaled back to be less heavy when needed.

nanfoodle

arkileo wrote: »

Seems to come down to preferences. I personally really like the way spells look right now. I even liked the old lightning ball vfx. Some people just like visual clarity over everything else (Not saying that's necessarily wrong, it's just less of a priority for me.)

UE5 has particle limits that I'm sure could be configured on Intrepid's side. For the color clutter in large scale PvP vfx could theoretically be dynamically scaled back to be less heavy when needed.

Ya I think they look "glorious" as Steven would say. Steven has already said this has not been scaled yet. This is to come. The problem is when you get 100 vs 100 and the partical effects are so busy you cant read the battle field. I 100% expect that's coming. Myself I hope this is answered with settings profile settings. One click your settings (including partical effects) are set for large scale war. Save state for small teams when you can just turn things up. Myself I would like at least 3 settings profile save slots. 1 large scale events 2 every day small teams and solo 3 picture mode that makes your GPU hurt.

Depraved

people will definitely get used to the effects and be able to tell whats going on. sure some effects look bad, and some cover the screen for 0.1 second (lol imagine complaining about this), but these things arent final.

for example, I can tell with 100% accuracy whats going on here, and I'm sure to veterans will be able to as well (yes I know some ppl disable the effects and some ppl play with that modified client that removes textures). these are random vids I found online. small guilds, small fights. they are still missing some things in their precast, but I've done 100 vs 300 and I can tell with 100% accuracy whats going on. its just matter of learning the skills and getting used to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZF_0V5ZCkM&ab_channel=LordKnightNecri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdL_WEgpISY&ab_channel=GameplayShadow

Sathrago

Depraved wrote: »

people will definitely get used to the effects and be able to tell whats going on. sure some effects look bad, and some cover the screen for 0.1 second (lol imagine complaining about this), but these things arent final.

for example, I can tell with 100% accuracy whats going on here, and I'm sure to veterans will be able to as well (yes I know some ppl disable the effects and some ppl play with that modified client that removes textures). these are random vids I found online. small guilds, small fights. they are still missing some things in their precast, but I've done 100 vs 300 and I can tell with 100% accuracy whats going on. its just matter of learning the skills and getting used to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZF_0V5ZCkM&ab_channel=LordKnightNecri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdL_WEgpISY&ab_channel=GameplayShadow

Basically this. whats happening right now is people have not played the game, leveled from level 1 with others their level around them casting a few spells and progressively more. Its why i can go back to playing world of warcraft or watching a current video and know exactly whats going on and whos doing what.

It looks flashy and over the top now, but once we get our hands on it this will only be a problem in very specific ways. For example- if spell effects where making you unable to see the tank wall on the ground. That would be a major problem.

Nepoke

This thread makes me mad.

Not because op is wrong. They are correct.

But because:
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REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WATCH THE STREAM

However, I am with you guys in spirit. The caravan pvp stream earlier this year showcased the problem already, and it would have been nice to see that steps are being taken towards the right direction. But I will reserve my feedback until the mythical lighting changes happen.

Texas

Many (most?) things need to be one-third size or one-third density. I don't even think the problem is too much shiny/neon/saturation. It's all just too big and occupies far too many pixels and this gets very noticeable in large scale combat.

For example: the Ball Lightning is larger than the characters. So is the Wand Beam effect when it hits the target. The wound effect applied by the Fighter is a comical amount of blood. The ranger traps look built for dinosaurs. All these can be drastically reduced in size and take very little away from the actual look Intrepid wants.

Diamaht

Texas wrote: »

Many (most?) things need to be one-third size or one-third density. I don't even think the problem is too much shiny/neon/saturation. It's all just too big and occupies far too many pixels and this gets very noticeable in large scale combat.

For example: the Ball Lightning is larger than the characters. So is the Wand Beam effect when it hits the target. The wound effect applied by the Fighter is a comical amount of blood. The ranger traps look built for dinosaurs. All these can be drastically reduced in size and take very little away from the actual look Intrepid wants.

That's a fair point. The sizes could be a lot more proportional without losing all of the visual appeal.

Laetitian

Texas wrote:

Many (most?) things need to be one-third size or one-third density. I don't even think the problem is too much shiny/neon/saturation. It's all just too big and occupies far too many pixels and this gets very noticeable in large scale combat.

No, then you get phasing into the landscape and abilities that can't be told apart from each other. Even before multiple different casts are happening simultaneously. The phasing into the landscape is *really* bad in ESO. Most fantasy-realism-styled MMOs struggle with this really badly, especially with action combat, and I am so happy to see Ashes doesn't make the same mistakes. Don't lead them away from the strides they've made in learning from the flaws of their precursors.

Less density is very similar to less opacity. They are tools that need to be used very selectively, if you don't want to risk making the skills unrecognisable.
Less size (I hope you don't mean AoEs??) gives up far too much visibility of skills.

If they listen to your suggestions as the primary tool for improving the skill vfx, they lose all the strengths that their current visual design philosophy has built up.

You can do it all with a more refined colour pool. (Use some darker colours instead of the neons, and generally replace more colours with pastel versions of themselves.) No need to sacrifice visual clarity and pixel count per ability.

I'm sure some abilities can be shortened in animation duration slightly, or adjusted with the density improvements you suggest. And there will definitely be some opacity changes for a few weak over-time-effects here and there. But as a general strategy, your suggestion is really destructive to the advantages that the animations currently offer.

Diamaht

Laetitian wrote: »

Texas wrote:

Many (most?) things need to be one-third size or one-third density. I don't even think the problem is too much shiny/neon/saturation. It's all just too big and occupies far too many pixels and this gets very noticeable in large scale combat.

No, then you get phasing into the landscape and abilities that can't be told apart from each other. Even before multiple different casts are happening simultaneously. The phasing into the landscape is *really* bad in ESO. Most fantasy-realism-styled MMOs struggle with this really badly, especially with action combat, and I am so happy to see Ashes doesn't make the same mistakes. Don't lead them away from the strides they've made in learning from the flaws of their precursors.

Less density is very similar to less opacity. They are tools that need to be used very selectively, if you don't want to risk making the skills unrecognisable.
Less size (I hope you don't mean AoEs??) gives up far too much visibility of skills.

If they listen to your suggestions as the primary tool for improving the skill vfx, they lose all the strengths that their current visual design philosophy has built up.

You can do it all with a more refined colour pool. (Use some darker colours instead of the neons, and generally replace more colours with pastel versions of themselves.) No need to sacrifice visual clarity and pixel count per ability.

I'm sure some abilities can be shortened in animation duration slightly, or adjusted with the density improvements you suggest. And there will definitely be some opacity changes for a few weak over-time-effects here and there. But as a general strategy, your suggestion is really destructive to the advantages that the animations currently offer.

I don't know. The tank wall could be smaller, thinner and more transparent and be fine.

The traps could definitely be 1/3rd the size. I actually think they should be regardless. It should actually be the case that you have to pay attention or get cought in one.

Sengarden

xlx wrote: »

After watching all the classes currently released i went from being a big fan to considering even playing it. Its so much unicorn puke everywhere that it reminds me of retail wow where in the end you dont even know whats happening because everything is blinking in neon colors. The world looks very beautiful and natural but the spells look terrible. No problem if a mage has some ice and fire stuff sure if it does look realistic. A ranger having every shot being neon apart from autoattacks, like a star wars laser battle. And this is just an example and all the classes look wierd.
Why do you mess this game up like that? It just looks unnatural. It really turns me off now. I thought there is a beautiful game that looks somewhat natural and then they design all the spells like cyberpunk. It just doesnt look right and doesnt fit the landscape of the world, sorry. But thats just my opinion.

I don't entirely disagree with you. I am a fan of cool looking spell effects, and I don't mind spreading the love between all classes to a degree, even non-traditionally magic wielding ones, but yes, there's a certain point where things can become over-designed or under-designed. As there are multiple facets of class creation, some results can be simultaneously over and under designed on a macro level.

For example, you could have well thought out VFX for a few signature abilities that would clearly be magically assisted, deserve some cool VFX, and they could look good, but then (due to an over-designed visual class concept where you thought everything needed to be color coded) you could have under-designed VFX for filler abilities that have no real call for being magically coded. Think the rapid fire or spread-shot ranger abilities. Because they don't have a strong base for being magically influenced, there are no conceptual design elements there to shape and graft your VFX designs onto. So you end up with a bunch of simple, underdeveloped, glowing green lights flying all over the place.

That being said, Steven reiterated SEVERAL times during this last stream that VFX are currently undergoing major redesigns, and therefore, Intrepid is not currently interested in design feedback in that area. This is not because they don't care what you think, but because what you think about the current iteration doesn't matter, because it's about to be very different (supposedly). Personally, if the most recent Mage rework says anything about their upcoming design goals, I'm not overly concerned, as I think all the Mage abilities currently look very good for the state of development the game is in.

On the whole, I think the team has a larger, overarching problem, and that's color theory and visual design philosophy in general.

I won't go too deep on it right now, because that's not the point of this thread, but yeah. There are some incongruous designs happening game-wide in my opinion. Armor designs and colors, creature designs and colors, spell colors, all versus a largely natural, realistic world.

Swifty00

At the alpha 2 (functional) stage of development the art design team are not finalizing anything. The spell effects, both visual and audible, need to be easy to differentiate and synchronize, and there will be a certain amount of throwing effects out there to see what the testers prefer.

I would definitely make your opinion on the effects known, but try to be more specific about what you don't like, so that the design team can use your feedback. Everyone has a different idea of what unicorn poop looks like (because it isn't real).

We have, unfortunately, gone through a rough decade of game development where game developers have ignored all principles of software development, and served up complete dross in a get rich quick approach..

Intrepid are very clearly not following that strategy and I think at this point that should be glaringly obvious. If you really cant get with the program, then you should let the rest of us give constructive feedback, and we will let you know when we have it sorted out.

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