Underwhelming Visual FX

[Scarlet Shocker]

There are some visual effects that are completely underwhelming in this game and it seems strange.

 

I first noticed this when using Pyronic Judgement - perhaps I did myself no favours having swapped out Ionic for thematic reasons but Ionic looks boss - I mean you know you've been hit with a power that literally makes you look like a statesman (pun intended). Pyronic, on the other hand looks like somebody's just tried to light a fart, without much success. Void doesn't look awful... but it doesn't compare to Ionic.

 

I can't necessarily speak to other Judgement powers but this did get me thinking and then a following discussion re poison for Defenders - with a particular emphasis on Venomous Gas. And then it struck me - you can barely see VG. Even if you customise the colours, it's very very difficult to see - and yet it's got a 15 ft radius. That's a 30ft diameter and I cannot for the life of me see the edges of the power which does rather mean you've just got to throw yourself into the middle of a mob and hope for the best. It makes using the power tactically incredibly difficult and it would be nice to think something could be done to improve the powers VFX. Given that this is kind of Poison's signature power it seems visually most underwhelming and disappointing.

 

So what other powers do you think need to be improved visually? What leave you thinking "doesn't matter how great it is, it looks really sucky"?

 

Do our devs have the capacity to change visuals?

[biostem]

I have pyronic on a few characters.  I actually appreciate its no-nonsense fast activation time and straightforward effect.  Ionic may look epic and iconic, but sometimes pragmatic beats out cool...

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

There are some visual effects that are completely underwhelming in this game and it seems strange.

 

I first noticed this when using Pyronic Judgement - perhaps I did myself no favours having swapped out Ionic for thematic reasons but Ionic looks boss - I mean you know you've been hit with a power that literally makes you look like a statesman (pun intended). Pyronic, on the other hand looks like somebody's just tried to light a fart, without much success. Void doesn't look awful... but it doesn't compare to Ionic.

 

I can't necessarily speak to other Judgement powers but this did get me thinking and then a following discussion re poison for Defenders - with a particular emphasis on Venomous Gas. And then it struck me - you can barely see VG. Even if you customise the colours, it's very very difficult to see - and yet it's got a 15 ft radius. That's a 30ft diameter and I cannot for the life of me see the edges of the power which does rather mean you've just got to throw yourself into the middle of a mob and hope for the best. It makes using the power tactically incredibly difficult and it would be nice to think something could be done to improve the powers VFX. Given that this is kind of Poison's signature power it seems visually most underwhelming and disappointing.

 

So what other powers do you think need to be improved visually? What leave you thinking "doesn't matter how great it is, it looks really sucky"?

 

Do our devs have the capacity to change visuals?

I love it for a number of toons. Playing around with it I’ve created a number of visually satisfying fireballs

[Nayeh]

,

Edited January 19 by Nayeh

[twozerofoxtrot]

As someone who's seen a fair amount of explosions firsthand I deeply appreciate the speed and violence with which Pyronic animates.  It's one of my favorite Judgements for that reason.

 

I'm also the kind of person who likes seeing their character more than a mass of particle effects. I'm more of the mind to request a 'Hide All' option for my character, including external buffs.  No thanks, I don't want to look like an invisible flaming bubble icicle.

[Captain Fabulous]

5 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

As someone who's seen a fair amount of explosions firsthand I deeply appreciate the speed and violence with which Pyronic animates.  It's one of my favorite Judgements for that reason.

 

I'm also the kind of person who likes seeing their character more than a mass of particle effects. I'm more of the mind to request a 'Hide All' option for my character, including external buffs.  No thanks, I don't want to look like an invisible flaming bubble icicle.

Yeah, people sometimes forget that other people have power effects too. Just because you can make your powers excruciatingly bright and/or fluorescent doesn't mean you should. I find myself on way too many teams where I can't see a damned thing because one person thought bright green was a good choice, another thought bright red was just what their powers needed, and yet another thought megawatt electric blue was perfection.

[Solarverse]

Visuals in this game were once a lot more fascinating to look at. Over the years players have complained away many visuals, not only visuals, but sounds as well. As a small example, Ice Armor on Tanks used to be far more appealing, but certain players complained of headaches if they stood near them, so the graphics were toned way down and made very transparent. So by the time the OG Devs created Judgements, they new better to make anything too flashy, since they knew it would be a matter of time before somebody took issue with it. The game we have today is but a husk of what it once was all across the board. I wouldn't expect anything in the future to change that, so what we have is what we can expect from here out.

[Scarlet Shocker]

8 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Yeah, people sometimes forget that other people have power effects too. Just because you can make your powers excruciatingly bright and/or fluorescent doesn't mean you should. I find myself on way too many teams where I can't see a damned thing because one person thought bright green was a good choice, another thought bright red was just what their powers needed, and yet another thought megawatt electric blue was perfection.

 

I totally agree with this too - it's a circle that's difficult to square. When you've got a 24 person league all wailing on the same AV it can be almost impossible to distinguish anything of note - just a mass of colours and patterns, like a rainbow on bad acid.

 

I guess I could look on the issue from the other perspective: some VFX are simple overwhelming.

 

And again I need to reiterate I was not offering a critique of the efficacy of said powers, just how they look.

[Uun]

I'm totally fine with the vfx for Pyronic and Void (and the other Judgement powers for that matter), but agree 100% regarding Venomous Gas. I have two lvl 50 Poison characters, one with  the original color scheme and one with a different color palette, and I can't see where the AoE ends on either one. Perhaps something similar to Time's Juncture, which has pronounced vfx on the ground plus vfx on each affected foe.

[Marshal_General]

I for one would like to turn the effect off for radiation armor. If your body is leaking that much radiation that it is visible, then you are killing the people around you.

[Hyperstrike]

45 minutes ago, Marshal_General said:

I for one would like to turn the effect off for radiation armor. If your body is leaking that much radiation that it is visible, then you are killing the people around you.

You're assuming the radiation being leaked is something deadly.

Remember, visible light is still radiation.

[Doomguide2005]

     More importantly, probably, is it's a game.  Don't examine it too closely.

Visible Light (i.e. Radiation) can be lethal albeit you'll need a lasers worth coming at you.  And "Fireballs etc." are remarkably selective (no friendly fire).  I can stand right in my teammates Burn patch with no resistance unharmed but a Demolitionist can burn me to a crisp.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I think it's very important, regardless of suspension of belief that VFX that harm mobs should be visible to us. If mobs had VFX that were invisible, there'd be an outcry from the player base - and rightly so. Being able to actually see what your damaging effects are actually damaging is kind of vital in this and any game.

[DoctorHugh]

A number of games I've enjoyed over the past few years have a different set of graphics settings for your own visual effects, and visual effects created by others. In some cases suppressing the visual effects of others entirely, but often it's different particle count, bloom, brightness etc.

 

Not sure if CoH code supports that splitting, and I myself am not asking a volunteer dev team for this (I've had no FX problems in my admittedly short CoH:H time). Just saying the options out there.

[ZemX]

[Mighty Core Final Judgement].  I literally do not care if this power does more damage.   [Mighty Radial Final Judgement] does massive knockup.  Are you having a bad day?  Wander into the middle of a pack of Scrapyarders and fire off this baby.  THAT will turn your frown upside down...

 

...and put up to 32 Scrapyarders into near Earth orbit.  Take THAT, organized labor! 😈

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

...and put up to 32 Scrapyarders into near Earth orbit. 

This is why both of my Seismic Blasters have Meteor six-slotted, with a Boosted KB enhancement in the sixth slot. With careful positioning, it's good for herding (*bam* all the mobs are in that corner), and watching mobs disappear at Mach 1 is entertaining.

[Captain Fabulous]

13 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

This is why both of my Seismic Blasters have Meteor six-slotted, with a Boosted KB enhancement in the sixth slot. With careful positioning, it's good for herding (*bam* all the mobs are in that corner), and watching mobs disappear at Mach 1 is entertaining.

Meteor is quite a satisfying power and I will NEVER apologize for the knockback 😂

[Andreah]

On 1/18/2023 at 9:05 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

I'm also the kind of person who likes seeing their character more than a mass of particle effects. I'm more of the mind to request a 'Hide All' option for my character, including external buffs.  No thanks, I don't want to look like an invisible flaming bubble icicle.

 

I go to the graphics options and turn the Max Physics Particle setting down to minimum. Most of the visual effects become much easier to see through. 

[DoctorDitko]

I find

 

/macro OFF SuppressCloseFX 1$$SuppressCloseFXdist 300$$Noparticles 1

 

helps a great deal with overly flashy teammates.

 

/macro ON SuppressCloseFX 0$$SuppressCloseFXdist 0$$Noparticles 0

 

Will change things back when you are back among the civilized.

 

Edited January 29 by DoctorDitko

[UltraAlt]

On 1/19/2023 at 2:40 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

If mobs had VFX that were invisible, there'd be an outcry from the player base - and rightly so. Being able to actually see what your damaging effects are actually damaging is kind of vital in this and any game.

 

On 1/18/2023 at 10:05 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

I'm also the kind of person who likes seeing their character more than a mass of particle effects. I'm more of the mind to request a 'Hide All' option for my character, including external buffs. 

 

This is why I tend not to play the later levels in the game, and I tended not to play in leagues. I simply could not see what I was fighting through the fog of player SFX; the game was simply a light show of SFX. The only way that I know what I'm targeting in those situation is to look the target window. I'm blindly utilizing powers at that point because I know that they will hit the target even though I can't see them, but that is no fun to me. Also, I'm going to admit that a screenful of flashing lights gives me eye-strain (so does power sets that are all white or have been color customized to be all white. It blinds me, and I have had to leave teams over it)

 

The following works best for me to clear this fog. There is still some powers that have power SFX that are busy that are not removed.

1 = Particles off, 0 = Particles on. <--- which makes no sense to me why the command was named this way, but it is noparticles 

So in my macros; fx0 = no SFX, and fx1 = SFX on

/macro fx0 "noparticles 1"
/macro fx1 "noparticles 0"

You can turn off the particles at any point, but you have to zone after turning the particles back on for them to be fully restored.

 

Of course, this means that I can't see my own powers SFX, which is annoying. However, I can deal with that because I enjoy playing the game.

Most of the time I don't have to turn off the SFX.