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A question of size


Kaladel.1670

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Aside from the Turai Ossa model, not sure which ghosts you may be referring to. In this case, this is more a reference to GW1 - Turai Ossa, aka the Ghostly Hero, was oversized for mechanical reasons. The Ghostly Hero model was used in PvP as a critical NPC you would need to kill in certain PvP matches; Prophecies was largely designed with the idea of "PvP is the end-game" (this didn't pan out, notably) so when you reach Turai Ossa in the Crystal Desert, the three missions with him are focused on PvP mechanics to teach players how to PvP match, as right after those missions you got access to Hall of Heroes arena (highest PvP which has the Ghostly Hero). This just ended up continuing a thing where Turai Ossa was a giant among men, but fully human. He's basically your outlier 7-foot-something tall guy that looms over everyone else.

So those models are large as reference to legacy game design choice reasons.

As for the Awakened Archers, Soldiers, and casters. I'm betting this is a mechanical thing. Their models are based off of the norn animation rigging, so their size is likely defaulted to the norn size because of this. They wouldn't bother altering it because it meant that enemies were easier to see in a flood of players (same reasons why veterans, champions, and legendary foes are increasingly larger in scale - visibility for players).

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Aside from the Turai Ossa model, not sure which ghosts you may be referring to. In this case, this is more a reference to GW1 - Turai Ossa, aka the Ghostly Hero, was oversized for mechanical reasons. The Ghostly Hero model was used in PvP as a critical NPC you would need to kill in certain PvP matches; Prophecies was largely designed with the idea of "PvP is the end-game" (this didn't pan out, notably) so when you reach Turai Ossa in the Crystal Desert, the three missions with him are focused on PvP mechanics to teach players how to PvP match, as right after those missions you got access to Hall of Heroes arena (highest PvP which has the Ghostly Hero). This just ended up continuing a thing where Turai Ossa was a giant among men, but fully human. He's basically your outlier 7-foot-something tall guy that looms over everyone else.

So those models are large as reference to legacy game design choice reasons.

As for the Awakened Archers, Soldiers, and casters. I'm betting this is a mechanical thing. Their models are based off of the norn animation rigging, so their size is likely defaulted to the norn size because of this. They wouldn't bother altering it because it meant that enemies were easier to see in a flood of players (same reasons why veterans, champions, and legendary foes are increasingly larger in scale - visibility for players).

Interesting.I was also thinking of Dahlah and Nahlah when I mentioned ghosts. (I believe other primeval kings and queens were bigger in the story too, but I'm not 100% sure)

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@Kaladel.1670 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Aside from the Turai Ossa model, not sure which ghosts you may be referring to. In this case, this is more a reference to GW1 - Turai Ossa, aka the Ghostly Hero, was oversized for mechanical reasons. The Ghostly Hero model was used in PvP as a critical NPC you would need to kill in certain PvP matches; Prophecies was largely designed with the idea of "PvP is the end-game" (this didn't pan out, notably) so when you reach Turai Ossa in the Crystal Desert, the three missions with him are focused on PvP mechanics to teach players how to PvP match, as right after those missions you got access to Hall of Heroes arena (highest PvP which has the Ghostly Hero). This just ended up continuing a thing where Turai Ossa was a giant among men, but fully human. He's basically your outlier 7-foot-something tall guy that looms over everyone else.

So those models are large as reference to legacy game design choice reasons.

As for the Awakened Archers, Soldiers, and casters. I'm betting this is a mechanical thing. Their models are based off of the norn animation rigging, so their size is likely defaulted to the norn size because of this. They wouldn't bother altering it because it meant that enemies were easier to see in a flood of players (same reasons why veterans, champions, and legendary foes are increasingly larger in scale - visibility for players).

Interesting.I was also thinking of Dahlah and Nahlah when I mentioned ghosts. (I believe other primeval kings and queens were bigger in the story too, but I'm not 100% sure)

They're all champion ranked. As I mentioned, veteran, champion, and legendary ranked foes get incremental size increases. Elites don't due to their origins as being "normal" foes in dungeons. So all veterans will be slightly larger than normal/elite versions, champions larger than veterans, and legendaries larger than champions. This is why, for example, the Legendary Bandit Executioner is larger than norn despite being human.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:They're all champion ranked. As I mentioned, veteran, champion, and legendary ranked foes get incremental size increases. Elites don't due to their origins as being "normal" foes in dungeons. So all veterans will be slightly larger than normal/elite versions, champions larger than veterans, and legendaries larger than champions. This is why, for example, the Legendary Bandit Executioner is larger than norn despite being human.I'd never really paid attention to that before, but yeah... that makes perfect sense.Thanks for your answers.

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@Westenev.5289 said:The GW series enlarges npc's a lot (especially enemies), often to comical levels. I think it's more for QoL than any lore based reason, since a bigger npc is easier to notice in a crowd.

This. It's like how Scarlet at one point (IIRC) appeared huge, but that was during a public, large scale boss event so everybody could see her. She was just a normal Sylvari in lore. Applies to bosses, etc.

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@Randulf.7614 said:Taidha could use the treatment too. I’m not sure in 7 years I’ve been able to see her in game model...

Taidha is weird in that she seems to be the only normal sized legendary foe I've ever seen. Given that the size increase is apparently hardcoded into the ranking designs, I'd guess that her normal model is the smallest human female size there is, making her on par to the tallest human female with the size increase.

@ErikTheTyrant.4527 said:I thought it had to do with how much magic they contained within them, or how powerful they are. kind of like the gods and Kormir, or like mathias in salvation pass. They are roughly normal sized but then they basically become supercharged.

Many of the champions/legendaries have nothing to do with magic.

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