Look at Titan Quest on how to properly make auras.

"

Russell wrote:

I still don't think people understand why we changed them. They turned your character into a glowing disco. This was both laggy and looking cheesey as. I love Warcraft so yes I know what their auras look like. However their auras are EVEN BIGGER than our old ones. If you havnt noticed the thorns aura is pretty much a high res version of the warcraft thorns aura. Thats fine however because its only on monsters. You need to be able to instantly tell what auras the monsters have on so thats how its stayed. Players however its less important as its a buff .

I know people like glowy mushy big cover your screen effects but that is not the place for auras. The smaller we make auras the bigger we can make combat effects.

Never the less im sure someones going to tell me how lazy and amateur I am no matter how many times I try to explain this :P

why not just keep the old animation but make them more compacts and tighter to the character so they don't look too big on screen? instead of reducing just a swirling circle? it looks cheap to be honest.

and i'm pretty sure most people on the forum suggest to have the "option" to change it back to the original aura animations, so this way people with higher spec pcs can still enjoy their flashy characters, while lower-end pc users can have the tone down version to run their games smoothly.

"

07Ghost wrote:

and i'm pretty sure most people on the forum suggest to have the "option" to change it back to the original aura animations, so this way people with higher spec pcs can still enjoy their flashy characters, while lower-end pc users can have the tone down version to run their games smoothly.

+1 graphics option

Russel I think clarity was quite fine as it was (but new one not bad either) and clarity was done in quite the style of warcraft 3. Just tone down the glowing aspect of the auras and the size. The main idea is that some of the swirls (bit too many) would be a relative simple shape on the ground. Stacking auras or these shapes would only add to the aura figure (more complex shape). You get a triangle with a ring around it and around that ring a small ring with runes.

I imagine the blending of the colors would make it 1 uniform color thus also removing the Christmas tree effect.

I don't understand why people like the old system:


That was just stupid and what it has become is better. I do understand the complaints however if you did not stack too many they weren't too bad and almost all variation in auras has gone now.

If you look at that picture however one of the more annoying things is Determination or the shields it has (Russel some love towards molten shell still needed). What actually is quite brilliant on determination is the 3 cylinders with runes around those 3 shields. Now one of such a cylinder or 3 of such cylinders around your character (just that) would easily blend very well with the 2D projected on ground stuff.

If in the old style you had just clarity and determination they would blend quite nice already (both blue) apart from those tiny shields.

Hope I got my idea across better now as it seems some didn't look beyond the warcraft 3 pictures, that is just the base idea based off on outdated graphics. Most of the wc3 auras would not blend well with one another.

Here's an example of dota2 where the auras are alreday a lot smaller, but these just represent the base idea, best reference would be the old clarity.



Clarity old + blends well with Discipline (slight tone down on size and blur/ shiny effect(?)):


A tone down on this graphic and a few other auras in this manner making sure their shape blends (the whole color thing can be omitted, postponed, was just an extra idea towards it).
The reason why a forced (color) blend came across my mind, is because of the old situation:




I think every-time you change instance all auras are recast and all synch with at the start of their animation, so you can work with that and would not need any programming till you wish to do more at a later point?

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Russell wrote:

Never the less im sure someones going to tell me how lazy and amateur I am no matter how many times I try to explain this :P

You lazy amateur, I miss my glowing-7-aura disco ball, not.

Great job on the new auras. It's been a while since I was able to actually see my character in combat.

"

Russell wrote:

I still don't think people understand why we changed them. They turned your character into a glowing disco. This was both laggy and looking cheesey as. I love Warcraft so yes I know what their auras look like. However their auras are EVEN BIGGER than our old ones. If you havnt noticed the thorns aura is pretty much a high res version of the warcraft thorns aura. Thats fine however because its only on monsters. You need to be able to instantly tell what auras the monsters have on so thats how its stayed. Players however its less important as its a buff .

I know people like glowy mushy big cover your screen effects but that is not the place for auras. The smaller we make auras the bigger we can make combat effects.

Never the less im sure someones going to tell me how lazy and amateur I am no matter how many times I try to explain this :P

+1

Imo The auras on this game are superb.. The dont cause extreme lag, they look good, and the visuals fit the effects... However the "MAIN" reason for lag in this game, is the areas.. I agree that with the lower graphics settings a few excessive particle effects should be removed from some auras/skills.. But whats gonna make this game more playable is allowing the removal of map effects, such as (flowing rivers of blood that could be dumbed down to not lag.. Rain effects that could easily be removed.. and the #1 Lag issue for low gfx players, The millions of unneeded black dots that crawl on the ground in weavers..)

I would suggest at this time instead of improving effects that already look great.. I would work on making the game more playable for low spec computers (I play on an Nvidia GeForce 7300, with windows xp 32 bit.. There is no reason i should get as much lag as i do on lowest visual and highest performance settings..) When these issue a focused on, i can see atleast a 25-50% increase in players which in the long run, more supporters..

Note: Im not saying remove ANY of these lag issues.. Im saying give the players a way around it.. Make it to where ANYONE can play hardcore if they want, without risk of constant desync caused by overloading of map effects.. (Give the players options..)

"

Russell wrote:

I still don't think people understand why we changed them. They turned your character into a glowing disco. This was both laggy and looking cheesey as. I love Warcraft so yes I know what their auras look like. However their auras are EVEN BIGGER than our old ones. If you havnt noticed the thorns aura is pretty much a high res version of the warcraft thorns aura. Thats fine however because its only on monsters. You need to be able to instantly tell what auras the monsters have on so thats how its stayed. Players however its less important as its a buff .

I know people like glowy mushy big cover your screen effects but that is not the place for auras. The smaller we make auras the bigger we can make combat effects.

Never the less im sure someones going to tell me how lazy and amateur I am no matter how many times I try to explain this :P

If the main reason is making them look less disco-like why do you say in the patch notes that it's for performance reasons?

And then still you are planning on making the skill effects BIGGER? They are the main performance-ruining thing out there! And not just for wooden PC users. Examples - Poison arrow and practically anything with GMP.

The effects need to be worked on as well for the same disco impression reasons the auras were AND performance reasons.

PS. the auras on mobs should match the ones on players, even the ones players don't use, it's really weird now, not very consistent.

I've always enjoyed the "auras" from Kingdoms of Amular - always cool looking. But I'm sure that those types can't be placed in this game as they are "intense" but still very cool looking nonetheless.

"

Udja wrote:

I've always enjoyed the "auras" from Kingdoms of Amular - always cool looking. But I'm sure that those types can't be placed in this game as they are "intense" but still very cool looking nonetheless.

If its anything like this then yes its too large haha :P

The new aura graphics are 100% better. Performance is better, everything is easier to see, and the new style fits the game much better.