Spell Visual Effects

[kid]

In some cases, you don't want to lose the effects as they vital to the spell eg circle of invisibility or any other group protection spell which shows it's range.

while this it of course true... it is doest mean it should be like that.
people dont know where the circle of invisibility ends,
the dont have magical line they can see. so they either need to have a good
esstimation of the distance or they learn from experience.

[NESchampion]

In some cases, you don't want to lose the effects as they vital to the spell eg circle of invisibility or any other group protection spell which shows it's range.

while this it of course true... it is doest mean it should be like that.
people dont know where the circle of invisibility ends,
the dont have magical line they can see. so they either need to have a good
esstimation of the distance or they learn from experience.

I view it as a function of the game, not the world. It feels wrong to punish players for lack of ability to estimate ranges in a simulated game world where cameras aren't static. Aiming a fireball in NWN1 was difficult as all hell because of this, as is not knowing how far your Circle of Protection from Alignment extends in NWN2.

[Zelknolf]

One might note the silliness of those examples. Neither AoE has a visible border in ALFA's implementation of NWN2.

Amusingly enough, Magic Circle does canonically have a visible border when drawn on the ground, rather than cast on a person. Might actually be worth our time to add it for that case of the spell.

[NESchampion]

One might note the silliness of those examples. Neither AoE has a visible border in ALFA's implementation of NWN2.

Amusingly enough, Magic Circle does canonically have a visible border when drawn on the ground, rather than cast on a person. Might actually be worth our time to add it for that case of the spell.

Circle of Invis has a visible border in ALFA, at least for the caster, unless it was specifically removed in the last couple months.

[Swift]

At what point do we draw a line between functionality and fluff? I'm sorry, but getting rid of virtually all spell effects just because the 'trouble' it causes is a few people rolling their eyes just doesn't cut it for me. Many of them are functional trade offs for the platform we are using.

ALFA is already slanted towards the Melee classes, let's not make buff management more difficult than it needs to be and further tilt the scales.

[kid]

In some cases, you don't want to lose the effects as they vital to the spell eg circle of invisibility or any other group protection spell which shows it's range.

while this it of course true... it is doest mean it should be like that.
people dont know where the circle of invisibility ends,
the dont have magical line they can see. so they either need to have a good
esstimation of the distance or they learn from experience.

I view it as a function of the game, not the world. It feels wrong to punish players for lack of ability to estimate ranges in a simulated game world where cameras aren't static. Aiming a fireball in NWN1 was difficult as all hell because of this, as is not knowing how far your Circle of Protection from Alignment extends in NWN2.

its not meant to punish players. but its a cool differance between a vetran group that
works togather long and knows how the spell worked ICly (as they've used it before)
and a new one trying it for the first time.
*shrugs* I say kill all viasual that are not on PnP.
we will learn to adjust. would be harder at first but would be cooler in the longer run.

[NESchampion]

its not meant to punish players. but its a cool differance between a vetran group that
works togather long and knows how the spell worked ICly (as they've used it before)
and a new one trying it for the first time.
*shrugs* I say kill all viasual that are not on PnP.
we will learn to adjust. would be harder at first but would be cooler in the longer run.

I'm not sure how you measure "cooler" because it simply seems like it'd just be more frustrating for players. Combat takes place at a rapid pace and being able to quickly identify that your buddy just got their wards dispelled for example is important from an OOC perspective, and something that isn't an issue in PnP where a given round could take minutes of time to play out.

[Blindhamsterman]

in agreement with NES and Swift here... the stuff like a circle around the person... it can make total IC sense. Wizard says 'stay within the circle, I have centred it around myself' . Party can see it and know what to do. More importantly, while many things can be made more like pnp and probably should... other things are there to make playing in a real time, non grid based online RPG playable. Stuff like markers for AoE spells and markers for aura type spells/abilities are such things.

I /can/ see some point to at least toning down certain other spell effects - most notably, spiderskin/stoneskin. We already got barksking, so why not these? I'm not for removing the affect entirely though, just making it less in your face.

[Ithildur]

Somehow the topic shifted from removing over the top visual effects like SS/barkskin to removing AOE visuals for fireball and such... I didn't even know fireball AOE visuals were taken out in ALFA; that would explain why Laniara launched one in the middle of the party last week.

The former I can understand and be fairly supportive of; SS/BS are failry easy to keep track of even without the obnoxious visuals, especially stoneskin, you can see that 'slash' next to the PC's portrait.

Getting rid of the aoe visual for stuff like fireball seems... well, I simply don't get it, maybe I'm misunderstanding something. In pnp you even have AOE markers cut out of paper or using strings, etc to make it clear beyond a shadow of doubt where the periphery of the AOE is; no one has to guess at it. So why did we make it even harder in a realtime platform to guess where the AOE is??

[NESchampion]

Somehow the topic shifted from removing over the top visual effects like SS/barkskin to removing AOE visuals for fireball and such... I didn't even know fireball AOE visuals were taken out in ALFA; that would explain why Laniara launched one in the middle of the party last week.

The former I can understand and be fairly supportive of; SS/BS are failry easy to keep track of even without the obnoxious visuals, especially stoneskin, you can see that 'slash' next to the PC's portrait.

Getting rid of the aoe visual for stuff like fireball seems... well, I simply don't get it, maybe I'm misunderstanding something. In pnp you even have AOE markers cut out of paper or using strings, etc to make it clear beyond a shadow of doubt where the periphery of the AOE is; no one has to guess at it. So why did we make it even harder in a realtime platform to guess where the AOE is??

The targeting UI is still in game.

[Veilan]

Somehow the topic shifted from removing over the top visual effects like SS/barkskin to removing AOE visuals for fireball and such... I didn't even know fireball AOE visuals were taken out in ALFA; that would explain why Laniara launched one in the middle of the party last week.

The former I can understand and be fairly supportive of; SS/BS are failry easy to keep track of even without the obnoxious visuals, especially stoneskin, you can see that 'slash' next to the PC's portrait.

Getting rid of the aoe visual for stuff like fireball seems... well, I simply don't get it, maybe I'm misunderstanding something. In pnp you even have AOE markers cut out of paper or using strings, etc to make it clear beyond a shadow of doubt where the periphery of the AOE is; no one has to guess at it. So why did we make it even harder in a realtime platform to guess where the AOE is??

The targeting UI is still in game.

So what you're trying to achieve is that non-casters can't learn where to stand in safety from observation?

I think this bias in favour of primary casters is getting just a little over the top, heh.

[Blindhamsterman]

where on earth did you get the idea from either NES or Ithildur that they wanted to remove any such VFX? :/

[NESchampion]

Somehow the topic shifted from removing over the top visual effects like SS/barkskin to removing AOE visuals for fireball and such... I didn't even know fireball AOE visuals were taken out in ALFA; that would explain why Laniara launched one in the middle of the party last week.

The former I can understand and be fairly supportive of; SS/BS are failry easy to keep track of even without the obnoxious visuals, especially stoneskin, you can see that 'slash' next to the PC's portrait.

Getting rid of the aoe visual for stuff like fireball seems... well, I simply don't get it, maybe I'm misunderstanding something. In pnp you even have AOE markers cut out of paper or using strings, etc to make it clear beyond a shadow of doubt where the periphery of the AOE is; no one has to guess at it. So why did we make it even harder in a realtime platform to guess where the AOE is??

The targeting UI is still in game.

So what you're trying to achieve is that non-casters can't learn where to stand in safety from observation?

I think this bias in favour of primary casters is getting just a little over the top, heh.

What? Can you please clarify this?

[Zelknolf]

I was under the impression that the AOE sidebar to the discussion had more to do with the area of effect object in the engine. That is, persistent areas which have script hooks in them much like a mobile trigger, created with EffectAreaOfEffect() with constants referencing the area of effect 2da. Some of them doodle on the ground (also defined in said 2da, and any changes must be rolled out to clients in haks-- so when we do change those, they change slowly).

I believe that the people talking about fireballs and such are just folk thinking that talk of AoEs includes instant spells with cone / burst / etc effects (which is reasonable; we struggle with the terms because, in the common parlance, an "AoE" includes things that NWN2 would not).

I believe NES' response to Ithildur has more to do with saying that Gribo's mis-aimed fireball was still a player fail, because the targeting reticle is relatively-clear as to how much will blow up when a spell is cast.

I'd answer that Gribo probably targeted with the keyboard, and the bad guy to be fireballed likely closed the distance during fireball's 2.5 second cast time (can easily run the width of a fireball's blast radius during the cast time), and Gribo was likely exclaiming profanity during its 1 second cast-finish animation.

[NESchampion]

I was under the impression that the AOE sidebar to the discussion had more to do with the area of effect object in the engine. That is, persistent areas which have script hooks in them much like a mobile trigger, created with EffectAreaOfEffect() with constants referencing the area of effect 2da. Some of them doodle on the ground (also defined in said 2da, and any changes must be rolled out to clients in haks-- so when we do change those, they change slowly).

I believe that the people talking about fireballs and such are just folk thinking that talk of AoEs includes instant spells with cone / burst / etc effects (which is reasonable; we struggle with the terms because, in the common parlance, an "AoE" includes things that NWN2 would not).

I believe NES' response to Ithildur has more to do with saying that Gribo's mis-aimed fireball was still a player fail, because the targeting reticle is relatively-clear as to how much will blow up when a spell is cast.

I'd answer that Gribo probably targeted with the keyboard, and the bad guy to be fireballed likely closed the distance during fireball's 2.5 second cast time (can easily run the width of a fireball's blast radius during the cast time), and Gribo was likely exclaiming profanity during its 1 second cast-finish animation.

That's pretty much how I viewed it also.