A better solution to Effects filtering

[SpaceMarine.1836]

The new June 6 update intends to bring new Effects filtering option, allowing us to disable ally effects to reduce the visual clutter. Unfortunately, as often happens with Anet, this is good idea, since the problem is real, but poor execution.

One of the main problems I see, especially in WvW, is that allied players tends to avoid boon zones, such as fields, wells or guardian symbols as if they were plague.

A great example is Warrior's Combustive Shot longbow skill. The effect of this skill is a burning circle on the ground. The only thing which differs allied fire field from the enemy one is a faint red circle, which blends with the orange outline of the fire field.

This makes perfect sense. Many allied players see allied AOE effects with very menacing looking animations, and rather than taking time to look closely if they are surrounded by the red circle or not, they rather just dodge out of the way.

SOLUTION:

Rather than giving us ability to completely disable allied effects, which will negatively impacts skills that AOE boon or heal allies, because allies won't be able to see them, why not just color code the skills? Just introduce option which turns the extreme visual variety of skills into Red and Green circles. The gameplay becomes very simple then, simply try to avoid red circles as much as possible while trying to stand in green circles as much as possible. It would make it a lot easier to communicate to players where the allied support AOE effects are.

There are multiple ways to approach it. One would be simply to at least double the visibility of the enemy red circle outline, and introduce green circle outline to all supportive (not damage only) allied AOE effects of the similarly increased visibility.

Another option could be to simply give red/green tint to allied/enemy effects. 

Either way, shader effects aren't that difficult, especially when it comes to just tinting them. This should not be that hard to implement and execute. 

[Randulf.7614]

I thought these were being made exempt from the filter?

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

Seems like a l2p issue not a visual effects clutter issue

[Parasite.5389]

this feels likee a case of "I heard something, but didn't read it myself"so just incase people are confused.

Quote

The June 6 release will also introduce a new option in the settings menu, Hide Ally Visual Effects, that will give you control over whether visual effects are shown for allied players, pets, and minions. While the default setting hides no visual effects (just as it works now), you will now be able to choose from three new options to hide visual effects for all allied players, hide them for allied players who aren’t in your squad, or hide them for allied players who aren’t in your party.

Some high-impact allied visual effects that convey important information in combat, such as combo fields, cannot be hidden.

Note: this option only applies to allied players, so you won’t be surprised by any invisible attacks from enemy players or creatures!

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Parasite.5389

[SpaceMarine.1836]

1 hour ago, Parasite.5389 said:

this feels likee a case of "I heard something, but didn't read it myself"so just incase people are confused.

 

I read that, but just combo fields do not encompass all supportive AOE effects, so it's very unspecific. Guardian Staff Holy strike is a great example. It's not a combo field, but it would help players a lot if it had a "go stand here" green circle in the same way enemy skills have "get out of here" red circles.

Second of all, did you actually read what I proposed? 

5 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

A great example is Warrior's Combustive Shot longbow skill. The effect of this skill is a burning circle on the ground. The only thing which differs allied fire field from the enemy one is a faint red circle, which blends with the orange outline of the fire field.

If the friendly combo fields remain displayed as they are now, without any additional visual clue, it will still be hard to distinguish many enemy AOE skills from the friendly ones. The exact same problem will keep happening. You will want to support friendly players in PVP/WvW while you watch them dodge out of the combo field in panic.

3 hours ago, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

Seems like a l2p issue not a visual effects clutter issue

What? If it was l2p issue, then why would Anet themselves decide to add filtering options? In that case, you'd be better of explaining to them that they need to learn to play, not to me.

Edited May 2, 2023 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Gendalfs.7521]

Ofc its l2p, but it would really be better if ally skills green, enemy skills red. Simply as that.

[Shuzuru.3651]

2 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

What? If it was l2p issue, then why would Anet themselves decide to add filtering options? In that case, you'd be better of explaining to them that they need to learn to play, not to me.

Well, simple, to reduce clutter, basically, the filtering is there to remove allies effect that doesn't affect you, like an Elem meteor shower or Ranger arrow rain, because it's not a big deal to not see it. 

 

It's not meant to change anything about allies skill that affect you, like a combo field.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

2 minutes ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

Well, simple, to reduce clutter, basically, the filtering is there to remove allies effect that doesn't affect you, like an Elem meteor shower or Ranger arrow rain, because it's not a big deal to not see it. 

 

It's not meant to change anything about allies skill that affect you, like a combo field.

Yes, that's exactly my point. It's not meant to change anything about ally skill effects, but if it made ally skill effects better recognizable as allied, it would be even better than what they plan to do. If they are already planning to improve recognition of skill sources, why not do it even better, instead of just halfassing it?

Edited May 2, 2023 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Shuzuru.3651]

3 minutes ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

Yes, that's exactly my point. It's not meant to change anything about ally skill effects, but if it made ally skill effects better recognizable as allied, it would be even better than what they plan to do. If they are already planning to improve recognition of skill sources, why not do it even better, instead of just halfassing it?

Well, if I read it well, your solution is basically to remove almost all the meaningful info about all the skill, if you ask me, it's worse than any actual visual clutter

[Infusion.7149]

Honestly being able to turn off bloom with post processing on would be a great improvement regardless of what ally effects options are implemented.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

On 5/2/2023 at 6:50 PM, Shuzuru.3651 said:

Well, if I read it well, your solution is basically to remove almost all the meaningful info about all the skill, if you ask me, it's worse than any actual visual clutter

Then you misunderstood it. The ally skills currently have their main graphic + various colors of their outline rings, while enemy skills have their main graphic + always red outline rings. My proposal is for the ally AOE effects to always have green outline ring instead of various colors, plus their main graphic.

In fact, current Anet's proposed solution is what will remove almost all the meaningful info about all the skills.

[loregnum.3619]

The field system is just incredibly poorly done and seems like it was designed in a way to simply troll people. I feel the same way about all the other visual effects which I really do hope will be improved when that feature is put in the game next month and it'll be interesting to see if I get hit less in bigger boss fights when I'll be able to see a bit more of what is going on.  I mean, how did all this get put in the game way back when it did and nobody at that company said "You know what? This is cluttered and will be hard to read for most players"

I feel the same way about a lot of other designs in this game. I simply can't believe they were not put in a way to troll because anyone that is mentally sound can come across these things and within 3.2 seconds point out how crazy they are. 

Enemy fields should just be one colour/design and nothing else should come close to looking like it. This is a common sense, non-trolling approach.

[Shuzuru.3651]

9 hours ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

Then you misunderstood it. The ally skills currently have their main graphic + various colors of their outline rings, while enemy skills have their main graphic + always red outline rings. My proposal is for the ally AOE effects to always have green outline ring instead of various colors, plus their main graphic.

In fact, current Anet's proposed solution is what will remove almost all the meaningful info about all the skills.

So, basically, in your system, you won't be able to see if your are on a ally reflect, healing field, or simply in a meteor shower. 

Same thing for enemy field, you can't determine what is the content of the field. (Oh bad luck, it's a reflect field, you're dead 😄) 

In Anet solution and in the first case, the only thing you won't see is the meteor shower, but actually, seeing it is probably irrelevant in most case...