Do you want an ultimatum over cosmetic effects? [guess not]

[Veprovina.4876]

@Hesione.9412 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:No, because the effects are not the problem. Modern hardware can do ray tracing at 4k yet Guild Wars 2 doesn't manage a few effects without dipping to unplayable?This game needs an engine upgrade ASAP, if not before, then after EOD comes out. That's the only thing it's going to fix the effect problems, and with an engine upgrade, they will probably be more balanced visually or added options to disable. That cannot happen without an upgrade though, and an upgrade is needed to optimise performance. Especially on older hardware.

It's not just the problem with fps. It's also the problem that my eyes bleed from all the effects. That I can't see NPC telegraphs because of all the effects. That I can't see red circles on the ground because of all the effects. Moving to a better engine, and increasing my fps, isn't going to fix that problem.

I have post processing on minimum and it's still a problem. I have reduced character numbers and it is still a problem. How many options do I have to set to low or turn off in order to not see all the effects?

I have not encountered any other game that has this amount of avoidable, cosmetic-only visual clutter.

No, i know, but my hope is that, when they upgrade the engine, they'll implement some more visual control options.Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!That's why i said engine upgrade. And i don't necesarily mean a different engine, but i think they need to do something to the current one to even enable effects scaling. Because right now, every effect is on 100% full blast 100% of the time. Maybe they could upgrade it so that if idk, X effects are on screen, all of them have less intensity or whatever, don't know the solution. But it would certainly help with FPS as well.

[jokke.6239]

Nope .....

[The Fear.3865]

I hate suggestions limiting what we have now, so huge no.

[Omega.6801]

Would I like to have more options when it comes to the visual clutter? Sure. Would I like to benefit from more fps, if the partices were turned off/down? Yup, would be swell. Maybe, at this point it's easier to upgrade the engine for GW2, if done right, ANet might keep GW2 running for however long it takes to move on to three? I don't know, I'm not a dev. Would I boycott/escalate communication/leave over this issue? Nah, doubt it.

@Excursion.9752 said:Ultimatums most never work in most places in life and are typically manipulative. No one wants to be forced to do anything for any reason. Its a typical power play move of people that are fed up or feel out of control.

It would take an inordinate amount of people to feel the same way you do to make anet even consider this. As people have suggested there are better ways to handle the cosmetic effects. I know nothing has been mentioned by anet about this but I believe that they have something brewing like an effects tab or whatnot. I personally don't mind people showing off their creative side. I personally would love to turn off the 7 orbs floating above my characters head.

Also this^^

[Hesione.9412]

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Hesione.9412 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:No, because the effects are not the problem. Modern hardware can do ray tracing at 4k yet Guild Wars 2 doesn't manage a few effects without dipping to unplayable?This game needs an engine upgrade ASAP, if not before, then after EOD comes out. That's the only thing it's going to fix the effect problems, and with an engine upgrade, they will probably be more balanced visually or added options to disable. That cannot happen without an upgrade though, and an upgrade is needed to optimise performance. Especially on older hardware.

It's not just the problem with fps. It's also the problem that my eyes bleed from all the effects. That I can't see NPC telegraphs because of all the effects. That I can't see red circles on the ground because of all the effects. Moving to a better engine, and increasing my fps, isn't going to fix that problem.

I have post processing on minimum and it's still a problem. I have reduced character numbers and it is still a problem. How many options do I have to set to low or turn off in order to not see all the effects?

I have not encountered any other game that has this amount of avoidable, cosmetic-only visual clutter.

No, i know, but my hope is that, when they upgrade the engine, they'll implement some more visual control options.Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!That's why i said engine upgrade. And i don't necesarily mean a different engine, but i think they need to do something to the current one to even enable effects scaling. Because right now, every effect is on 100% full blast 100% of the time. Maybe they could upgrade it so that if idk, X effects are on screen, all of them have less intensity or whatever, don't know the solution. But it would certainly help with FPS as well.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Hesione.9412 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:No, because the effects are not the problem. Modern hardware can do ray tracing at 4k yet Guild Wars 2 doesn't manage a few effects without dipping to unplayable?This game needs an engine upgrade ASAP, if not before, then after EOD comes out. That's the only thing it's going to fix the effect problems, and with an engine upgrade, they will probably be more balanced visually or added options to disable. That cannot happen without an upgrade though, and an upgrade is needed to optimise performance. Especially on older hardware.

It's not just the problem with fps. It's also the problem that my eyes bleed from all the effects. That I can't see NPC telegraphs because of all the effects. That I can't see red circles on the ground because of all the effects. Moving to a better engine, and increasing my fps, isn't going to fix that problem.

I have post processing on minimum and it's still a problem. I have reduced character numbers and it is still a problem. How many options do I have to set to low or turn off in order to not see all the effects?

I have not encountered any other game that has this amount of avoidable, cosmetic-only visual clutter.

No, i know, but my hope is that, when they upgrade the engine, they'll implement some more visual control options.Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!That's why i said engine upgrade. And i don't necesarily mean a different engine, but i think they need to do something to the current one to even enable effects scaling. Because right now, every effect is on 100% full blast 100% of the time. Maybe they could upgrade it so that if idk, X effects are on screen, all of them have less intensity or whatever, don't know the solution. But it would certainly help with FPS as well.

Ah, now I understand. I thought you were hoping for more clutter!

[Veprovina.4876]

@Hesione.9412 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Hesione.9412 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:No, because the effects are not the problem. Modern hardware can do ray tracing at 4k yet Guild Wars 2 doesn't manage a few effects without dipping to unplayable?This game needs an engine upgrade ASAP, if not before, then after EOD comes out. That's the only thing it's going to fix the effect problems, and with an engine upgrade, they will probably be more balanced visually or added options to disable. That cannot happen without an upgrade though, and an upgrade is needed to optimise performance. Especially on older hardware.

It's not just the problem with fps. It's also the problem that my eyes bleed from all the effects. That I can't see NPC telegraphs because of all the effects. That I can't see red circles on the ground because of all the effects. Moving to a better engine, and increasing my fps, isn't going to fix that problem.

I have post processing on minimum and it's still a problem. I have reduced character numbers and it is still a problem. How many options do I have to set to low or turn off in order to not see all the effects?

I have not encountered any other game that has this amount of avoidable, cosmetic-only visual clutter.

No, i know, but my hope is that, when they upgrade the engine, they'll implement some more visual control options.Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!That's why i said engine upgrade. And i don't necesarily mean a different engine, but i think they need to do something to the current one to even enable effects scaling. Because right now, every effect is on 100% full blast 100% of the time. Maybe they could upgrade it so that if idk, X effects are on screen, all of them have less intensity or whatever, don't know the solution. But it would certainly help with FPS as well.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Hesione.9412 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:No, because the effects are not the problem. Modern hardware can do ray tracing at 4k yet Guild Wars 2 doesn't manage a few effects without dipping to unplayable?This game needs an engine upgrade ASAP, if not before, then after EOD comes out. That's the only thing it's going to fix the effect problems, and with an engine upgrade, they will probably be more balanced visually or added options to disable. That cannot happen without an upgrade though, and an upgrade is needed to optimise performance. Especially on older hardware.

It's not just the problem with fps. It's also the problem that my eyes bleed from all the effects. That I can't see NPC telegraphs because of all the effects. That I can't see red circles on the ground because of all the effects. Moving to a better engine, and increasing my fps, isn't going to fix that problem.

I have post processing on minimum and it's still a problem. I have reduced character numbers and it is still a problem. How many options do I have to set to low or turn off in order to not see all the effects?

I have not encountered any other game that has this amount of avoidable, cosmetic-only visual clutter.

No, i know, but my hope is that, when they upgrade the engine, they'll implement some more visual control options.Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!That's why i said engine upgrade. And i don't necesarily mean a different engine, but i think they need to do something to the current one to even enable effects scaling. Because right now, every effect is on 100% full blast 100% of the time. Maybe they could upgrade it so that if idk, X effects are on screen, all of them have less intensity or whatever, don't know the solution. But it would certainly help with FPS as well.

Ah, now I understand. I thought you were hoping for more clutter!

Haha, oh god no! :tongue:I'm not against flashy effects, but it's definitely different when 5 flashy effects are on screen as opposed to 500! :smiley:

So yeah, to avoid the onslaught, they'd need to do some effect culling, maybe tone down all effects if X or more are on screen, something...But i think, to do this, Anet would need to upgrade the engine because the current one doesn't seem to support something like that, it looks like it's all or nothing.

[BlueJin.4127]

@Veprovina.4876 said:Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!

As someone who used to work in the game industry, I just roll my eyes when I see this excuse from game companies. A lot of times, it is much easier than they claim, but they just don’t want to put in the effort and resources to make changes. So, they claim it’s harder to fix than it really is. Other times, it’s an outright lie. Rarely is it legitimately as hard to fix as devs claim. This is particularly common near the end of a project, or for games already released.

A funny story...

Once, for weeks, a development team didn’t want to fix a bug that a 1st party company wanted changed. So, the devs sent emails back and forth between themselves trying to come up with lies that the 1st party company would buy. IIRC, it was the usual “hard coded, too risky to change, blah, blah, blah.” They were pleased with the lie then all of a sudden, the 1st party rep replied asking, “So, you’re gonna fix this, right?” The devs had accidentally included the 1st party rep in their email chains. =) The “unfixable bug” got fixed real fast after that.

[DaFishBob.6518]

@The Fear.3865 said:I hate suggestions limiting what we have now, so huge no.

What is limiting about adding another option to reduce unwanted effects on the screen?

[Veprovina.4876]

@BlueJin.4127 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!

As someone who used to work in the game industry, I just roll my eyes when I see this excuse from game companies. A lot of times, it is much easier than they claim, but they just don’t want to put in the effort and resources to make changes. So, they claim it’s harder to fix than it really is. Other times, it’s an outright lie. Rarely is it legitimately as hard to fix as devs claim. This is particularly common near the end of a project, or for games already released.

A funny story...

Once, for weeks, a development team didn’t want to fix a bug that a 1st party company wanted changed. So, the devs sent emails back and forth between themselves trying to come up with lies that the 1st party company would buy. IIRC, it was the usual “hard coded, too risky to change, blah, blah, blah.” They were pleased with the lie then all of a sudden, the 1st party rep replied asking, “So, you’re gonna fix this, right?” The devs had accidentally included the 1st party rep in their email chains. =) The “unfixable bug” got fixed real fast after that.

Well to be fair, that's just my assumption honestly... Anet didn't actually say anything about not being able to implemet this.Though, i get what you're saying and i kinda agree lol. It's never that difficult lol, there's professionals working on this, it can't be impossible do do, it's just probably a lot of work for small or no gain so they don't want to do it. And all companies do this, if it doesn't direcly translate into money, they won't do the work even if it might bring in money a little later or indirectly.

And funny story indeed! :sweat_smile:

[Ashen.2907]

Excessive visual effects are actually slowly pushing me away from this game, but ANet knows that this is the case for some portion of their player base. That is what a forum discussion is for. Ultimatums are inappropriate in this context in my opinion.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

I voted no.

Anet is overloaded with tons of things to do. Cosmetic effects is just one thing out of several others. I would love that we can turn off cosmetic effects freely, but to my eyes, it's a "nice to have" and doesn't have the highest priority compared to other issues (I don't name any because no need to start a debate on where are highest priorities). Anet knows perfectly well what players are all complaining about. They have a constant eye on this forum and on reddit where the same is also discussed regularly. No need for more. At the top of it, I believe that a boycott action would be very detrimental to the game and in the end, the negative consequences would be for us.

[Obfuscate.6430]

Immersion breaking particle effects are a problem that is endemic to a game where "flashy" represents prestige, or a fun way to irritate other players. It's ubiquitous not only in infusions, and weapon skins but now a feature in mounts and certain armor pieces. Some people use as many of these items in combination as they can to I suppose - stand out- but honestly I have had to stop using Mist Lock because my computer has trouble loading them all.

Will this stop me from being invested in the game? No. Will I demand the developers to change this "or else"? No.They already introduce a plain re-color weapon set as a reward once and the community complained so ardently that they added a glow effect to it to please them.The only viable solution I see is to ultimately give players the option to shave down the visual noise with a toggle or slider. I think at this point, if they tried to introduce less flashy skins as rewards for hard content, people will lose their minds.

[Smoosh.2718]

@BlueJin.4127 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Because right now, i think they literally can't tone down the effects. It's like they're baked in, and uncontrollable by even the programmers at Anet!

As someone who used to work in the game industry, I just roll my eyes when I see this excuse from game companies. A lot of times, it is much easier than they claim, but they just don’t want to put in the effort and resources to make changes. So, they claim it’s harder to fix than it really is. Other times, it’s an outright lie. Rarely is it legitimately as hard to fix as devs claim. This is particularly common near the end of a project, or for games already released.

A funny story...

Once, for weeks, a development team didn’t want to fix a bug that a 1st party company wanted changed. So, the devs sent emails back and forth between themselves trying to come up with lies that the 1st party company would buy. IIRC, it was the usual “hard coded, too risky to change, blah, blah, blah.” They were pleased with the lie then all of a sudden, the 1st party rep replied asking, “So, you’re gonna fix this, right?” The devs had accidentally included the 1st party rep in their email chains. =) The “unfixable bug” got fixed real fast after that.

This is why I do not buy the 'its too hard to let all classes wear all armour types' or the arguement to not implement tools for players to prevent seeing X things to improve performance.

[Svarty.8019]

I was going to answer 'don't care', because I do not. But for the sake of the poll... I answered 'yes'. Because it MIGHT affect WvW performance, how am I supposed to know?