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Turn off bloat visuals from ET,ST, and TT, and other buff and de-buff abilities PLEASE!!!

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  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
    DRB is cast against a single enemy that can be up to 10 km away. And it's only active for 10 seconds.

    That may also be why it's not the first thing people mention in threads like these. I find it less annoying than stuff that is placed over your own ship or an anomaly that takes up one specific spot.


    Still, for those who do find those abilities annoying too: just give us that option to disable/enable all visual effects from abilities, traits and passives. At this point I don't even care anymore whether they'll allow us to differentiate between different things, like seeing some and others not.

    Even having the option to see nothing at all is much better than not having that option at all... and still seeing nothing.
    (The truly sad part regarding the state of the game in this sense is of course that everyone understands why I didn't write down a contradiction there.)
  • alcyoneserenealcyoneserene Member Posts: 2,413 Arc User
    DRB is among the top offenders personally, and I use it by turning my camera away from the effect while it's active - sorry to those that have to endure the effect.

    If the forums aren't representative of player opinion, they must like the seizure-inducing beams, full screen flashes on many NPC explosions, beacon of kahless blindness, or they would complain too and actually cut into their bottom line with profit and play time, and Cryptic could no longer brush it aside while adding more, and something would actually be done about it.

    Imagine grinding a long time and paying real cash only to lose performance and all the space barbie work because the game itself obscures your ship under layers of effects to add to the fact that all powers don't reliably toggle because they can't track the issue and actually fix it like every other MMO or online game of any type.

    Don't really have viable alternatives on a sci ship when FBP + trait remains super weak and situational, viral matrix with matching 2nd deflector takes ages to proc, polarize hull has no pve use when engineer boff and other traits can provide reliable armor, and so on.
    Y945Yzx.jpg
    Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
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  • mneme0mneme0 Member Posts: 498 Arc User
    One could write a macro in Photoshop to load all the VFX images in a particular folder, set the transparency to 90% rather than 50%, and save them, and that change would solve a lot of problems across the board.
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    Of all the things that cause visual vomit in this game, the various little blips for the team abilities are basically on the bottom of the list. We have an ability that blinds EVERYONE in the queue for heaven's sake.

    True, these abilities don't blind.

    But for players who are zoomed in on their ship because they want to look at it while playing, it can break immersion to see all sorts of weird icons appear on it, all the time.
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
    And underneath it, and above it, and around it...
  • garaffegaraffe Member Posts: 1,353 Arc User
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    Of all the things that cause visual vomit in this game, the various little blips for the team abilities are basically on the bottom of the list. We have an ability that blinds EVERYONE in the queue for heaven's sake.

    True, these abilities don't blind.

    But for players who are zoomed in on their ship because they want to look at it while playing, it can break immersion to see all sorts of weird icons appear on it, all the time.

    I completely agree, and I am one of those players. However, I think the blinding, flashing, screen-encompassing, headache-inducing visual effects should be addressed first, and then there can be a second option to hide the closer to home visuals like sci/eng/tac teams, etc.
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    So many traits/passives have animations I don't even recognize. Like from time to time a orange arrow just appears that points to my ship. I have no idea what is causing this, the animation itself conveys absolutely no useful information. Why does it have to exist?
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • garaffegaraffe Member Posts: 1,353 Arc User
    angrytarg wrote: »
    So many traits/passives have animations I don't even recognize. Like from time to time a orange arrow just appears that points to my ship. I have no idea what is causing this, the animation itself conveys absolutely no useful information. Why does it have to exist?

    This is so true! There are so many abilities out there it is impossible to know what every little visual blip is supposed to be telling you. Even if you memorize all the visuals for the abilities you are using, this is not help you when it comes to abilities that might be activated by your teammates that affect you.

    There is this sci/tac/eng team like animation that appears sometimes that is purple, and I have no clue what it is. It is not one of my abilities, so it must be an ability of a teammate that is giving me an unknown buff. On Xbox, there is no way to check to see what my active effects are, so to this day I have no clue what this unknown ability is doing to me.
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    > @garaffe said:
    > This is so true! There are so many abilities out there it is impossible to know what every little visual blip is supposed to be telling you. Even if you memorize all the visuals for the abilities you are using, this is not help you when it comes to abilities that might be activated by your teammates that affect you.
    >
    > There is this sci/tac/eng team like animation that appears sometimes that is purple, and I have no clue what it is. It is not one of my abilities, so it must be an ability of a teammate that is giving me an unknown buff. On Xbox, there is no way to check to see what my active effects are, so to this day I have no clue what this unknown ability is doing to me.

    Not that it helps in any way, but what you describe should be intel team/fleet. But I don't what it does, I think stealth and flanking boni. But yes, my point - a purple circle or sone orange arrow pointing down on my ship doesn't tell me the least bit of information. If soneone heals me with HE I get a beam between ships, that is fine. The effect of TSS tells me I get shield power, also fine. Aux to SiF the integrity field shows, at least gibing a hint sonething happens with your hull armour. But those swirly lines, arrows that point to nothing, those glowy dots... No idea.
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • saurializardsaurializard Member Posts: 4,404 Arc User
    angrytarg wrote: »
    > @garaffe said:
    > This is so true! There are so many abilities out there it is impossible to know what every little visual blip is supposed to be telling you. Even if you memorize all the visuals for the abilities you are using, this is not help you when it comes to abilities that might be activated by your teammates that affect you.
    >
    > There is this sci/tac/eng team like animation that appears sometimes that is purple, and I have no clue what it is. It is not one of my abilities, so it must be an ability of a teammate that is giving me an unknown buff. On Xbox, there is no way to check to see what my active effects are, so to this day I have no clue what this unknown ability is doing to me.

    Not that it helps in any way, but what you describe should be intel team/fleet. But I don't what it does, I think stealth and flanking boni. But yes, my point - a purple circle or sone orange arrow pointing down on my ship doesn't tell me the least bit of information. If soneone heals me with HE I get a beam between ships, that is fine. The effect of TSS tells me I get shield power, also fine. Aux to SiF the integrity field shows, at least gibing a hint sonething happens with your hull armour. But those swirly lines, arrows that point to nothing, those glowy dots... No idea.

    And on the other hand, some abilities that could use a visual don't have one.
    For instance, the Altamid set bonus grants you +100% firing haste for several seconds. You'd think a significant boost like that would be worthy of a "wow, your weapons are on fire!" VFX, especially since it'd be short, on a 2min cooldown, and focused on your weapon "origin points", but nope, nothing.

    I guess devs think some people prefer to hear a loud "BWONG" every few seconds without stopping from other players' pets without you knowing what this is.
    #TASforSTO
    Iconian_Trio_sign.jpg?raw=1
  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    I remember making a post about this a couple years ago with a screen shot of my ship. You could literally only see the tips of my warp engines sticking out of a giant rainbow ball. Obviously not a priority to do anything about it. Sad since some of the ship models are super nice.
    Tza0PEl.png
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
    garaffe wrote: »
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    Of all the things that cause visual vomit in this game, the various little blips for the team abilities are basically on the bottom of the list. We have an ability that blinds EVERYONE in the queue for heaven's sake.

    True, these abilities don't blind.

    But for players who are zoomed in on their ship because they want to look at it while playing, it can break immersion to see all sorts of weird icons appear on it, all the time.

    I completely agree, and I am one of those players. However, I think the blinding, flashing, screen-encompassing, headache-inducing visual effects should be addressed first, and then there can be a second option to hide the closer to home visuals like sci/eng/tac teams, etc.

    Of course. The most serious offenders should always be addressed first. Just saying that, eventually, I want to see an option to disable all visual effects from traits and abilities.
  • newnjanewnja Member Posts: 137 Arc User
    Of course. The most serious offenders should always be addressed first. Just saying that, eventually, I want to see an option to disable all visual effects from traits and abilities.

    Yup, exactly this. Sadly, I'll probably die before they actually do something about it.
  • banditse1977#1368 banditse1977 Member Posts: 44 Arc User
    Was reading through the notes for the latest Ten Forward Weekly with VFX artist Chris Menard here:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/m7hs9l/ten_forward_weekly_17032021_vfx_artist_chris/

    and came across this part:

    "As the one who actually makes the effects, Chris is aware that every time the power he's making right now would be running alongside with "97 other" and the result would be seizure-inducing glowy mess, but hes bossed just see shiny and want it to be shinier."

    So doesn't look like anything is going to be done anytime soon!

  • garaffegaraffe Member Posts: 1,353 Arc User
    Was reading through the notes for the latest Ten Forward Weekly with VFX artist Chris Menard here:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/m7hs9l/ten_forward_weekly_17032021_vfx_artist_chris/

    and came across this part:

    "As the one who actually makes the effects, Chris is aware that every time the power he's making right now would be running alongside with "97 other" and the result would be seizure-inducing glowy mess, but hes bossed just see shiny and want it to be shinier."

    So doesn't look like anything is going to be done anytime soon!

    And this is the sad fact of the matter. People are more likely to pay large amounts of money for a new ship if it comes with some big flashy effect of one kind or another, and the folks making decisions at Cryptic know this. Those same players may later on complain that all the electrified, spore-infused, giant glowing red grav wells combined with other effects are ruining the game, all the while forgetting that their giant red, electrified grav well is one of them.

    My best advice, if you are complaining about the visual spam, stop using the traits/abilities that cause this spam. I stopped using my plasma storm because it was too much, and I never used beacon of Khaless or the risan vortex console because they are too much. I still use grav well, but I do not slot the electrified or spore infused anomalies traits because they are too much. If I am going to sit here and complain about the problem, I sure as hell am not going to contribute to the problem.
  • alcyoneserenealcyoneserene Member Posts: 2,413 Arc User
    They could have had a win-win with an options toggle, but excuse me while I continue supporting other gaming companies who actually value all aspects of their gameplay and player base.
    Y945Yzx.jpg
    Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
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  • newnjanewnja Member Posts: 137 Arc User
    valoreah wrote: »

    Since most all abilities have some degree of visual vomit, your advice is to essentially stop playing the game.

    Sadly, I hardly play anymore. Just too much for my taste. If they add the on/off switch on the visual effects I will gladly return. Till then, I can play other games and hope.

  • banditse1977#1368 banditse1977 Member Posts: 44 Arc User
    garaffe wrote: »
    Was reading through the notes for the latest Ten Forward Weekly with VFX artist Chris Menard here:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/m7hs9l/ten_forward_weekly_17032021_vfx_artist_chris/

    and came across this part:

    "As the one who actually makes the effects, Chris is aware that every time the power he's making right now would be running alongside with "97 other" and the result would be seizure-inducing glowy mess, but hes bossed just see shiny and want it to be shinier."

    So doesn't look like anything is going to be done anytime soon!

    And this is the sad fact of the matter. People are more likely to pay large amounts of money for a new ship if it comes with some big flashy effect of one kind or another, and the folks making decisions at Cryptic know this. Those same players may later on complain that all the electrified, spore-infused, giant glowing red grav wells combined with other effects are ruining the game, all the while forgetting that their giant red, electrified grav well is one of them.

    My best advice, if you are complaining about the visual spam, stop using the traits/abilities that cause this spam. I stopped using my plasma storm because it was too much, and I never used beacon of Khaless or the risan vortex console because they are too much. I still use grav well, but I do not slot the electrified or spore infused anomalies traits because they are too much. If I am going to sit here and complain about the problem, I sure as hell am not going to contribute to the problem.

    Good point about not contributing to the problem.

    Think the only big effect I would have access to at the moment is last years one with the Risa even ship,and I haven't played that yet.When I do get around to it I will just remove that console.

    I use the grav well and a couple of other small boff ones as well,they don't blind me or the other players when in use!
  • fleetcaptain5#1134 fleetcaptain5 Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
    Not using traits and abilities that cause visual spam, isn't a serious solution.

    Sure, the Kahless beacon can easily not be used and you could still do whatever you want in all the content. It's obviously different with the most basic healing powers (team abilities, hazard emitters) and captain abilities.
  • nixie50nixie50 Member Posts: 1,317 Arc User
    garaffe wrote: »
    angrytarg wrote: »
    So many traits/passives have animations I don't even recognize. Like from time to time a orange arrow just appears that points to my ship. I have no idea what is causing this, the animation itself conveys absolutely no useful information. Why does it have to exist?

    This is so true! There are so many abilities out there it is impossible to know what every little visual blip is supposed to be telling you. Even if you memorize all the visuals for the abilities you are using, this is not help you when it comes to abilities that might be activated by your teammates that affect you.

    There is this sci/tac/eng team like animation that appears sometimes that is purple, and I have no clue what it is. It is not one of my abilities, so it must be an ability of a teammate that is giving me an unknown buff. On Xbox, there is no way to check to see what my active effects are, so to this day I have no clue what this unknown ability is doing to me.

    That sounds like Subnuke, a science power. next time you see it look at your timers, if they are slow that's what it is. Science Team clears it
    u7acy6aymfw7.gif
    We Need BERETS in the tailor
  • tmassxtmassx Member Posts: 827 Arc User
    We can make a ranking of the "best" effects here. My suggestions:
    1) Neutronic Eddy - because we like nothing but purple on the monitor
    2) Beacon of Kahless - to be blind is fun!
    3) Plasma Storm module - let's take a huge visual effect across half the screen from the Badlands, yay!
    4) Electrified Anomalies - yellow flashes do nothing but have a sound effect

    What's worse, the game runs on the old engine and if more of those effects appear, fps crash dramatically.

    And my personal one:
    Na'kuhl Daemosh Science Vessel- the sound of the engines, which cannot be switched off in any way, is about as pleasant as when a neighbor drills into a wall

  • thetaninethetanine Member Posts: 1,367 Arc User
    I would love a toggle to turn off anything triggered by Boff abilities. Like the sparkles on Kemocite Laced Weaponry. Or the glow from Brace for Impact. Of the gigantic symbols that appear for Engineering Team, Science Team, etc.

    When I go into battle I look like a Unicorn on some spastic acid trip, not a Starfleet vessel. Kind of breaks the fun, and it covers up the really awesome looking ship in an explosion of lights and colors that makes no sense.

    Is there any way you guys can make this as a setting in the settings menu, you already can with toggling directional shield effects, now can you take one step further and make it for the other visuals that are triggered by buff and de-buff abilities.

    You do realize the setting for "Bloom" will greatly reduce the amount of lighting present on effects, right? Just move the slider to the left.
    STAR TREK
    lD8xc9e.png
  • solidshark214solidshark214 Member Posts: 347 Arc User
    tmassx wrote: »
    We can make a ranking of the "best" effects here. My suggestions:
    1) Neutronic Eddy - because we like nothing but purple on the monitor
    2) Beacon of Kahless - to be blind is fun!
    3) Plasma Storm module - let's take a huge visual effect across half the screen from the Badlands, yay!
    4) Electrified Anomalies - yellow flashes do nothing but have a sound effect

    What's worse, the game runs on the old engine and if more of those effects appear, fps crash dramatically.

    And my personal one:
    Na'kuhl Daemosh Science Vessel- the sound of the engines, which cannot be switched off in any way, is about as pleasant as when a neighbor drills into a wall

    Oh, man, that last one. Years back I scraped up the EC to buy the Acheros, 'cause who doesn't like a battle-cloaking battlecruiser? And then had to bench the ship right quick, because the engine noise drove me mad. Not amused at how much EC I wasted, all because of a stupid sound effect.
  • sthe91sthe91 Member Posts: 5,858 Arc User
    I would support a toggle for the abilities both for the summoner and the one seeing it who is not summoning it.
    Where there is a Will, there is a Way.
  • garaffegaraffe Member Posts: 1,353 Arc User
    sthe91 wrote: »
    I would support a toggle for the abilities both for the summoner and the one seeing it who is not summoning it.

    Yes, two toggles/sliders, one for own abilities and one for others abilities! I would prefer a slider that can change the transparency of the abilities from 0% (how they appear now) to 100% (completely transparent/no visual at all).
  • spacehermitspacehermit Member Posts: 358 Arc User
    It's not just space maps where this is a problem. I seriously haven't a clue what's going on on ground maps most of the time, because of the "effects spam". Even simple (old) things like shield generators make half the screen invisible.
  • garaffegaraffe Member Posts: 1,353 Arc User
    There could be separate toggles/sliders for space and ground. I hate running things like Bug Hunt because I can't see what is going on 90% of the time; I basically just spray-and-pray because I can't see what I am shooting at.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    Beacon of Khaless is the only one that really needs to be outlawed. Whiting-out the entire screen is just dumb design.

















    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • jennycolvinjennycolvin Member Posts: 1,100 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    Beacon of Khaless is the only one that really needs to be outlawed. Whiting-out the entire screen is just dumb design.

    There's actually many more effects that needs to be toned down - starting with the Eddies, for example. Even GW, especially if buffed with things like the spore anomalies, needs to be revisited: and this comes from someone that is proud of her mega-well build and ship. Still, I realize that it can be pretty bothersome.

    All in all, they should just give us a slider to tone down - or remove entirely - the visual effects.
    A double slider - for our own effects and other players effects - has was suggested would be even more appreciated, but I'll take even just one, as long as I can actually see what the hell is going on on my screen.
    kv1Ohsx.png
    Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.

    Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
    - quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
    - quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
    - quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;

    Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
    Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
  • ussvaliant2#1952 ussvaliant2 Member Posts: 402 Arc User
    I think the worst 2 maps for visual spam are Crystal Entity and Bug Hunt. In to the Hive can also be a problem where too much visual spam and sometimes I can't make out when the plates are plates charged.
    https://i.imgur.com/r6F7yxj.jpeg
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