As a spectator, floating text needs to go

I like watching GW2 sPvP. Most games are lopsided, but the nail-biters are always fun to watch. Here are some VODs I recommend:

But after watching some of these matches, I realized something--floating texts clutters up the screen.

We all know that GW2 has issues with special effects cluttering up the screen, I mean, look at this (http://i.imgur.com/u0mDq0y.jpg). But that’s an exaggeration. sPvP is at least toned down since there is a 10 player limit. However, the mess is still present because of the floating text.

Here are some pics how text clutters a fight:

In DOTA2 and LOL as a spectator, floating text doesn’t clutter the screen. But in GW2, you can see the floating text on the focal character and their targets on a single frame. Too much information is being fed that they become meaningless for spectators. The only thing that the spectator needs are positioning and visual cues.

Positioning is already present through the mini-map. Visual cues are already built-in with skill telegraphs and animations.

A bird’s eye view does omit these floating texts. Here are examples:

But even if the floating text were taken out, fights may look static. To fix that, damage and healing could be indicated through health bar animation.

In DOTA2 and LOL, when a damage is dealt to a character, their health bars inflate and show the damage done with a faded portion of the health bar. In the Path of Fire Beta, there was a health bar damage animation that, I believe, is currently scrapped (

). They could use this health bar animation to show damage done instead of floating text.

The health bars could also be animated for evaded, blocks and interrupts. Evaded could render the health bar invisible. Blocks could turn the health bar’s border to gold. Interrupts could turn the health bar color to purple.

That’s for long-term, at least. But currently, at least give spectators the option to disable floating text.

Though this might not help GW2 esports, it is a small step in the right direction. As a spectator, I enjoy watching great fights, but the floating text is distracting. It inundates the spectator with unnecessary information along with the visual clutter that goes with it.