Enemy Attack Cues Feedback/Suggestions

[hellsqueen.3045]

For about 2/3 months I took a small break from Guild Wars and most of the games I was playing and binged Final Fantasy XIV until I completed the story. I didn't really watch much of the story, somehow my goal just ended up being to get to the end and get my money's worth which I still don't think I have. However, I do have some things that I observed that I feel really make FFXIV stand out for someone new to their game and would do wonders to help for GW2, even for Veteran players.

 

As we all know and reference a lot, GW2 has a bunch of visual clutter but FFXIV is no different with it's visual clutter and they don't even have as many people gathered at events as we do a lot of the time. At most they might have 24 people in their largest instanced content, and they manage to have their boss fights look as flashy as our World Bosses. However, their enemy boss attacks are significantly easier to notice in amongst all the flashy garbage and this tends to result in newer players being able to at least notice mechanics they need to learn/ask about much faster and veterans making less mistakes.

 

After a lot of time doing a fair amount of main and side content (dungeons, raids, alliance raids, fates) I picked up on some of the things that made their Enemy Attack Cues stand out a lot more.

1. The circles they used were just a bit more opaque
2. The visual circles under the player tended to pulse outward to imply the need to spread out
3. Bouncing arrows above the head for a bad attack that a quick wiggle could help you tell if it was yours (rather than just the circle on the floor hidden under all the clutter, arrow was over the clutter)
4. Arrows pointing in on a player from 3 directions that pulsed inward to show other players when to stack on someone (a good aoe if you will)
5. Audio cues! This is the biggest thing, if a bad attack was on you there was a buzzing/humming danger type noise if you had something on you. This was huge because audio queues were a really big way that it snapped me out of the damage/healing tunnel vision and warned me to move to not endanger my team.

 

I know Guild Wars utilizes some of these tricks but not quite as aggressively and I know people get really upset at hand holding, but at the same time we manage to suffer from population in our end game content and along with lack of difficulty levels, I think things that make enemy attacks more noticeable would really make the content more welcoming because attacks you can notice above all the clutter, will really increase your ability to survive and can make players more confident.

This really only works for PvE though.

Edited October 11, 2021 by hellsqueen.3045

[Khisanth.2948]

Actually all of those are already used ... except maybe 3 but that is because I have no idea what you are talking about there.

The only problem is that they haven't gone back to update old content.

 

8 hours ago, hellsqueen.3045 said:

I think things that make enemy attacks more noticeable would really make the content more welcoming because attacks you can notice above all the clutter, will really increase your ability to survive and can make players more confident.

A lot of that simply comes down to people being willing to actually observe enemies and bothering to remember the attacks and associated cues.

Not everyone wants to engage the game at the same level.

[Gatzy.1043]

agreed, this game is visual diarrhea when more than a couple players are involved. the ground indicators are really poor (except the newish HoT/PoF ones, those are good, and many attacks don't have them and start without even an animation tell.  

[Klowdy.3126]

6 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Actually all of those are already used ... except maybe 3 but that is because I have no idea what you are talking about there.

The only problem is that they haven't gone back to update old content.

 

A lot of that simply comes down to people being willing to actually observe enemies and bothering to remember the attacks and associated cues.

Not everyone wants to engage the game at the same level.

He's talking about for soak mechanics, or something that is meant to get extra attention. Just an arrow over the character's head, pointing down at them while slowly moving up and down. I don't know if GW2 uses anything like that. I've not seen it, or don't remember if I have. 

[hellsqueen.3045]

5 minutes ago, Klowdy.3126 said:

He's talking about for soak mechanics, or something that is meant to get extra attention. Just an arrow over the character's head, pointing down at them while slowly moving up and down. I don't know if GW2 uses anything like that. I've not seen it, or don't remember if I have. 

 

Any AOE that is attached to a player in FFXIV has your standard circle underneath the player as a visual tell, but they also have a marker above the affected players head that appears over visual clutter and while I have seen small target markers appear over players heads, they are very subtle in my opinion and aren't that easy to see due to their style and their lack of flashiness.

With all the flashy actions in this game, your attack cues need to really stand out above all of that.

 

7 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Actually all of those are already used ... except maybe 3 but that is because I have no idea what you are talking about there.

The only problem is that they haven't gone back to update old content.

 

A lot of that simply comes down to people being willing to actually observe enemies and bothering to remember the attacks and associated cues.

Not everyone wants to engage the game at the same level.

 

Yeah, GW2 uses a bunch of the techniques but they don't make them (for lack of a better term) strong enough. Most of their cues are easy to lose behind all the blinding flashes of player attacks and for a lot of people it is very easy to tunnel vision on your role as DPS and lose sight of mechanics in it all.

But I think the two things FFXIV does that actually make their targeted AOE attacks stand out is the big flashy icons above a players head that indicate either a target who should move away from the group or the target of an attack that needs people to stand together to withstand the damage and the Sound/Audio cues which Guild Wars does not really utilize as much or does not nearly do well enough in comparison.

I say this as a player of GW2 for 7500 hours across 6 years.
FFXIV and GW2 provide a pretty different gaming experience, FFXIV being much closer to a classic MMORPG which I typically don't like but definitely a more heavy fashion focus like GW. I was able to get into FFXIV and not have a too terrible time, but more importantly I was able to really quickly pick up on mechanics.

 

Unfortunately, you are right that old fights have not been updated and that definitely causes some major issues (I feel like Shadow Behemoth is a good example, that tiny red ring circle that encompasses so much of the floor most zoomed in players won't even see it). However, I even feel in some of our current content, the cues can still be kind of lacking to make sure people can spread their focus better and learn much more quickly.

[Khisanth.2948]

14 hours ago, hellsqueen.3045 said:

Unfortunately, you are right that old fights have not been updated and that definitely causes some major issues (I feel like Shadow Behemoth is a good example, that tiny red ring circle that encompasses so much of the floor most zoomed in players won't even see it). However, I even feel in some of our current content, the cues can still be kind of lacking to make sure people can spread their focus better and learn much more quickly.

The bigger problem with Shadow Behemoth and others is the the carpet bombing approach to AoEs. The are some fights where it gets so ridiculous that you can't avoid being in a at least one AoE. To make it worse some of those AoEs are worse than others but you can't tell if you are standing in one that is going to be a light tap or one that is going to oneshot you.