Thank you for not caring about your players, Anet

[LucianDK.8615]

spell effects needs to be tonedownable.

[Sobx.1758]

Adjust monitor settings and use protective glasses. Nobody is showing you middle finger, but also life doesn't revolve around you. You have ways to get over it, so get over it.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Follyfoot.2803]

There is also far to many white-outs in the game and they do hurt.  I have to look away quick.

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

On 7/27/2021 at 10:42 PM, BlueJin.4127 said:

For years, players have been complaining about the extremely bright flashing lights and particle effects that are painful to look at. They’re painful for players with sensitive eyes, and bad for EVERYONE! Not only have you not addressed these, you keep adding more and more. I saw the video and saw that when you unsheathe the gen 3 greatsword, there’s yet another bright flashing particle effect that is painful to look at. I already can’t use the Pharus because of the same reason. I can’t use Holosmith because of the spam of flashing lights for every freaking skill. I have to close to eyes every time I interact with a Vista. I cannot look at the screen when a player gathers a mining node with the Volatile Magic mining tool. I have to go somewhere else when somebody with radioactive infusion combination is trolling a bank. The list goes on and on.

 

Thank you for giving players like us the middle finger.

 

EDIT: Sorry, but suggestions about adjusting the monitor’s brightness are completely useless. Many players who complain about these issues already have tried something so BASIC as adjusting the monitor’s settings. It doesn’t work. It’s not possible to remove the brightness of these lights without affecting everything else, such as making the rest of the game so dark that you cannot see in caves and dungeons.

 

Many players, such as myself, already have adjusted monitor settings, PC settings, game settings, tried 3rd party softwares, use gaming glasses, etc.  The only legitimate way to resolve this issue is, as players have been saying for years, for Anet to implement an option to turn these bright effects off. Even an indie game like Deadcells has an option to turn off bright flashing effects.

 

As for me neglecting myself by not seeing doctors... Not sure what these random assumptions are even based on…

i'm sad for the 5 players with this issue.

[Fuchslein.8639]

For me its not about hurting or somewhat. I just can't see the kitten*** boss. I get downed and don't know why, because i only see shiny thunderstorms.

I didn't put character models down for nothing. It should be absolutely not difficult to lower effects further so that I can see what a boss does and dodge properly...

[Follyfoot.2803]

4 minutes ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

For me its not about hurting or somewhat. I just can't see the kitten*** boss. I get downed and don't know why, because i only see shiny thunderstorms.

I didn't put character models down for nothing. It should be absolutely not difficult to lower effects further so that I can see what a boss does and dodge properly...

Oh yes.  I must have been in 10,000 boss fights and have yet to see what most of the bosses look like.  I have helped destroy 9,990 disco balls.  

It's kitten.  In other games they have great effects but I know what I'm shooting.  What is wrong with this picture?

Edited July 28, 2021 by Follyfoot.2803

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

I have light sensitivity and have never really had a problem with effects.  In fact, I have the opposite problem where the game won't load enemy effects and I die to an aoe I never see.

What really effects visuals for me:
Gamma at 1.0
Antialiasing set to SMAA High
Textures set to High
Shadows set to Ultra
Shaders set to High
Postprocessing set to None
Character model limit set to Lowest
Character Model Quality set to Medium
Effect LOD is the only box checked out of the several at the bottom.
Motion Blur Power at 50%

I don't wear glasses at all, but I do play in a well lit room.  Perhaps what I have isn't nearly as bad as yours, but I'm curious as to what you've tried to reduce the impact of these lights on your eyes, OP.

[DeceiverX.8361]

I get photosensitive headaches and have generalized focal to bilateral epilepsy.  While the latter is not affected by flashing lights in terms of seizure induction, the patterns are absolutely out of hand and sometimes I feel a need to divert my eyes away from the screen and reset my vision because it's just that bad.  I have been MMO gaming for nearly 20 years and in no other game has it felt this way.

 

One of the biggest appeals to GW2 for me was the fact that when it launched I didn't feel like I was in a particle effects/strobe rave like in so many other games.  It's now *worse* than those other games.

 

It's bothersome in PvE and ruinous in WvW.  You can't actually see what's going on.  Being able to watch your enemy as declared in the game's early design decisions is no longer true, because animations and AoE circles and the likes are all obfuscated from visual noise.

 

I don't want to ruin the fun for others who like them by requesting disabling them, but seriously, we desperately need a slider or toggle option to remove particles and trim clutter on skills.  It's excessive and reduces accessibility.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by DeceiverX.8361

[Obfuscate.6430]

I do think they should add more filter options to the game. 
The only option you currently have is to use basic models and turn post processing off and turn everything down to low. But visually that is very ugly and some of the blinding skill effects would still be there. 

I would definitely start a more mature petition to add filter options. It will be a lot of work for them; especially when trying to pare down skill effects. I think they'd have to make new ones just for that filter. 

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Those particle explosions overwhelming the screen while you are flying and dashing through those Skyscale magic tracks is a prime example of pain.

[BlueJin.4127]

2 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

I get photosensitive headaches and have generalized focal to bilateral epilepsy.  While the latter is not affected by flashing lights in terms of seizure induction, the patterns are absolutely out of hand and sometimes I feel a need to divert my eyes away from the screen and reset my vision because it's just that bad.  I have been MMO gaming for nearly 20 years and in no other game has it felt this way.

 

One of the biggest appeals to GW2 for me was the fact that when it launched I didn't feel like I was in a particle effects/strobe rave like in so many other games.  It's now *worse* than those other games.

 

It's bothersome in PvE and ruinous in WvW.  You can't actually see what's going on.  Being able to watch your enemy as declared in the game's early design decisions is no longer true, because animations and AoE circles and the likes are all obfuscated from visual noise.

 

I don't want to ruin the fun for others who like them by requesting disabling them, but seriously, we desperately need a slider or toggle option to remove particles and trim clutter on skills.  It's excessive and reduces accessibility.

 

 

I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t really have problems with my eyes, just slight dryness and allergy, but having had a tremendously stressful life as a child, have to deal with a myriad of issues such as eye pain. Dealing with extreme stress for long term can really screw up a person’s body in ways most people do not realize. You could have perfectly fine lungs, yet have breathing problems because stress is affecting your overall bodily functions.

 

And yeah, GW2 is the only game I’ve ever played where the effects are so bad, it seriously hurts my eyes. I don’t have a single other game where I have to turn off so many effects for health reasons. This game needs at least 3 different sliders. It needs a slider to adjust visibility of the player’s own effects (I’d probably set this at 50%). It needs a slider to adjust visibility of other players’ effects (I’d set this to 0%). And it needs a slider for all other effects, such as gathering Volatile Magic, environment effects, enemy effects, etc.

Edited July 28, 2021 by BlueJin.4127

[CashCow.9548]

The problems some people have nowadays.

 

You're spending your life away staring at pixels on your monitor. 

And you complain about brightness and particle effects on a video game because apparently THAT is bad for your eyes.

Oh the irony.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

I just wanted to post in this epic thread before it gets nuked.

[Heisen.2315]

Yes, they should definitely change the draw effect of the upcoming legendary weapons. Also the eye blinding Pharus draw effect is also the reason and only reason I didnt craft that lovely bow, it is getting sad.

[Hoover.6394]

Well, there are those people that scream "no extremely bright flashing lights and particle effects!" but the player who actually buy stuff do prefer them, so it's easy decision. Anet just follows what sells best, and bright beautiful things sells well, if flat and simple armor sells better im sure they gonna move to that direction too

Edited July 29, 2021 by Hoover.6394

[Asum.4960]

You may have heard of or done this already, but just in case not - turn off Post-Processing. 

Unfortunately there is a slew of settings rolled into that one option, which really should be split up some, but one major thing it's doing it making the game extremely bright, vibrant, and flashy (with increased bloom & glares). 

 

That along with effect LOD at least really helped me counter the increasing flashyness of the game over the years. 

It may make the game subjectively prettier to some and it does add some visual effects and ambience you will miss out on by turning it off, but whenever I turned it on again in the past to test, my eyes started hurting within minutes and I genuinely wonder how anyone can still play like that for extended periods.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

There was a dev post on the issue of an effects slider a while back.  Might have been on the old forum, not sure.  Essentially, the dev explained that building an effects slider into the engine would have best been accomplished when they were designing the game originally.  However, re-engineering things to add one after the fact would be extremely complicated and resource-intensive, and also for that reason extremely unlikely.

 

An effects slider would be at the top of my list of wants for GW2.  Sadly, I don't think it's in the cards.

[Follyfoot.2803]

These treads pop up all the time and are usually in peoples list of what needs fixing.  What get's me is that they know peoples feeling on this, they know it's a kitten show for many but they won't comment or give use any explanation on why they can't do anything about it. 

The silence is condemning in so much as they know we won't like the answer.

[lezbefriends.7516]

9 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Adjust monitor settings and use protective glasses. Nobody is showing you middle finger, but also life doesn't revolve around you. You have ways to get over it, so get over it.

 

“Get over it” — Wow, such an enlightening, informative and helpful response!

Edited July 29, 2021 by Mortifera.6138

[Follyfoot.2803]

6 hours ago, CashCow.9548 said:

The problems some people have nowadays.

 

You're spending your life away staring at pixels on your monitor. 

And you complain about brightness and particle effects on a video game because apparently THAT is bad for your eyes.

Oh the irony.

Wow, you missed that target by miles m8.  It's our hobby and a large part of that hobby is discussing the good and bad.

You go to a football match and your team loses.  Should we no longer go to football matches?

What is your hobby?  I bet I can draw you a similar example.

[anduriell.6280]

On 7/27/2021 at 10:42 PM, BlueJin.4127 said:

Many players, such as myself, already have adjusted monitor settings, PC settings, game settings, tried 3rd party softwares, use gaming glasses, etc.  The only legitimate way to resolve this issue is, as players have been saying for years, for Anet to implement an option to turn these bright effects off. Even an indie game like Deadcells has an option to turn off bright flashing effects.

ah i see a man of culture with good taste in games. 

 

Anyhow the problem most of us have (including you) with the bloom in this game. Apparently DX912PY can disable bloom, so if you use that addon you may try it. WP has disabled it in his last videos and the game look so much better. 

 

Second option would be to use the Nvidia Freestyle Filters to remove brightness. Check in google on how to remove bloom from games. 

 

That should be enough, without removing the bright effects at least to make less painful. 

 

As side note i think with the DX11 implementation probably we will get more options to remove bloom and such. 

 

Here you can see how it looks with the Nvidia Filters enabled ( Highlights -100 Shadows +100), definitely you can play with the settings to make it look better. 

https://i.imgur.com/bP0mCsK.png

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by anduriell.6280
added example

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

After reading through all of this;

You all are aware that they're moving to Directx11,  correct?

This may mean more graphical fidelity.

[CashCow.9548]

2 hours ago, Follyfoot.2803 said:

Wow, you missed that target by miles m8.  It's our hobby and a large part of that hobby is discussing the good and bad.

You go to a football match and your team loses.  Should we no longer go to football matches?

What is your hobby?  I bet I can draw you a similar example.

Very poor analogue. Perhaps what you meant to ask is; if watching my team play was bad for my physical and/or mental health, would I still go back and watch them?

 

The answer is clearly no. I'd find a new hobby if it really bothered me so much. 

 

The OP is clearly exaggerating to the extremes here. Calling out Anet for not caring about their playerbase? I mean WHAT? Saying that the flashy effects are bad for EVERYONE?! Yeah they literally said that.

 

I LOVE flashy effects. In fact, I think there should be more of! So yeah Anet, keep them coming.

 

There are dozens of ways to reduce the flashyness, as pointed out in this thread. Rather than Googling possibilities, the OP came to the forums to moan and attack Anet and spead BS about their own agenda.

[krz.1327]

We're a minority. Most people seem to love flashy weapons and costumes even though it looks bad. You can't even see the details of the outfit over that glow but still everyone seems to think more effects = better look.
I cringe every time I see someone in a glowing armor, with glowing weapons and wings, with some auras and with the title "Fashion Collector".

[Dante.1763]

5 minutes ago, krz.1327 said:

We're a minority. Most people seem to love flashy weapons and costumes even though it looks bad. You can't even see the details of the outfit over that glow but still everyone seems to think more effects = better look.
I cringe every time I see someone in a glowing armor, with glowing weapons and wings, with some auras and with the title "Fashion Collector".

Nah, i love my flashy things but i have empathy for folks who have legit issues that they cant fix with the current settings.

 

empathy seems to be getting rarer and rarer these days.

 

This game has one of the most barebone settings screens for graphics ive ever played, and it boggles my mind that a true free to play MMO that came out around the same time has both made massive graphics improvments and added more settings for folks to control, while this one is still stuck with what its had.

 

Hopefully dx11 allows for more player controlled settings, we shall see though.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Dante.1763