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I can't see my ship! A modest request concerning visual effects.
eionp
Member Posts: 12 Arc User
The reason I've created this thread is that I feel the animations created by bridge officer power activations have become too numerous and too overwhelming visually and I genuinely feel that this is hurting the aesthetic quality of space combat.
Aux2Sif turns my entire ship yellow. Hazard emitters turns my ship green. Teams create big spinning rings of color around me, EPTS and RSP create semi-opaque shield bubbles. Kemocite-laced weaponry creates points of light which, on a small hull like the defiant, completely obscure the view! And on and on and on with every other power we use in each battle.
One of the most important elements of Star Trek that would draw the viewer in was always what I call the starship TRIBBLE. The long sensuous camera pans across the painstakingly detailed ship models that would make you feel as if you were right there watching two spaceships duke it out. In this game, however, we are assaulted by too much visual information and we don't get to appreciate the simple beauty of our ship firing a phaser blast or a torpedo spread at some enemy vessel we're bearing down on.
And it is completely unnecessary! We have a UI with skill bar activation counters, floating numbers, on ship and on HUD shield displays. All of which is more than sufficient for the purpose of informing us our skills have been activated.
Why not give us a Visual FX [OFF] option in the UI that drastically reduces the BOFF power animations to almost nothing??? In the end, all we really want to see is our ship, the phaser beam, and the resulting explosion of our foe. A little more simplicity would make it feel a LOT more Trek.
Aux2Sif turns my entire ship yellow. Hazard emitters turns my ship green. Teams create big spinning rings of color around me, EPTS and RSP create semi-opaque shield bubbles. Kemocite-laced weaponry creates points of light which, on a small hull like the defiant, completely obscure the view! And on and on and on with every other power we use in each battle.
One of the most important elements of Star Trek that would draw the viewer in was always what I call the starship TRIBBLE. The long sensuous camera pans across the painstakingly detailed ship models that would make you feel as if you were right there watching two spaceships duke it out. In this game, however, we are assaulted by too much visual information and we don't get to appreciate the simple beauty of our ship firing a phaser blast or a torpedo spread at some enemy vessel we're bearing down on.
And it is completely unnecessary! We have a UI with skill bar activation counters, floating numbers, on ship and on HUD shield displays. All of which is more than sufficient for the purpose of informing us our skills have been activated.
Why not give us a Visual FX [OFF] option in the UI that drastically reduces the BOFF power animations to almost nothing??? In the end, all we really want to see is our ship, the phaser beam, and the resulting explosion of our foe. A little more simplicity would make it feel a LOT more Trek.
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"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Interestingly, I relied on these graphics you are discussing to help get through the STF as they still triggered and help me keep my bearings somewhat.
I fly cruisers and generally don't notice it like the guys in Escorts or the Novas, but that Battle of Procyon V is insane. Even my Oddy gets overwhelmed. I have to pull out of the mix to get my bearings and dive back in. I assumed they did this intentionally in BoP5though to give that sense of confusion in the third round.
I can understand that in PvP you may want to see what an opponent may be using, but outside PvP, what is the point in seeing what other folks have clicked? Bad guy ship explode so fast these days, does it really matter that you saw Player X hit APA 0.76 seconds slower than you?
Give us some options to reduce FX clutter, please.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Now we have the console version, and the camera is so screwed up as to nearly ruin the entire point of this game.... the ship models.
I never did get the point of making awesomecool spaceships, selling them at a premium, and then obscuring them so readily.
Yes this is an important point I may not have been clear about in the OP. Traits as well are a problem. ANYTHING which creates obscuring superfluous battle animations which don't representany actual energy source or matter should be removed.
I appreciate the reply but I just don't see what Sidney Poitier has to do with this
Actually, I'm surprised the "it's oh so wonderfully informative and if you don't like it tough luck" -brigade hasn't found this thread.
Because the alternative, that people would stop objecting to options they don't have to use if they don't want to...well that'd never happen, right?
I believe the PvP players need to know what powers they are trying to counter or the foes are activating..and I assume these days who is stacking what on whom. But not sure PvE players need all the information.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
The vast majority are not
They don't care about pvp so it seems unlikely to be their real reason for keeping it this way
The pvp player would simply not choose to turn the option to OFF so there would be no problem
Furthermore in pvp I don't remember observing the target's animations too closely...I was more focused on his shield/hull display and my own shield/hull display...That way I could judge whether I was hurting him and whether he was hurting me. This was how I planned my next move, more so then careful observation of his tiny little ship's light shows. If his shields were rapidly regenerating I knew he had RSP on, and if my hull was rapidly deteriorating as I shot I knew he had FBP on and so forth.
Obviously if the power in question is creating an actual environmental entity; something which does exist and which should be represented. Then if thats the case, I have no problem. For example, a warp plasma cloud, or a subspace integration circuit effect etc.