please GGG make the game less polluted with visual effects.
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Almost all the builds I played in the endgame transformed the battlefield (especially in the boss arena where it is important to see the ground) into something shiny and messy, where you can barely identify enemy moves and/or scene mechanics... simply impractical to play properly, especially for hardcore characters, where there is no second attempt. Last bumped on Mar 18, 2026, 9:13:33 PM
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++111
Despite all the problems, D4 absolutely mastered visual clarity. You can increase the visual contrast between characters/monsters against the environment with highlights. The vfx of skills in D4 doesn't use blur and bloom excessively like in poe 2. And, there's a graphical setting dedicated for corpses that make them not waste processing power unnecessarily, which is not only good for performance but also helps keeping the visual clarity of the game in check. Last edited by Vyend#2601 on Mar 17, 2026, 11:23:01 PM
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" thx for the suppoport It's been so long since I played d4 that I don't remember exactly what it was like, but certainly PoE1 and 2 are by far the games that fail the most in keeping control of the visual effects I don't believe it is something so impossible to be fixed or at least improved in the next updates |
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They already said they would not add skill transparency but i hope thats because the engine doesnt currently support it - and theyre working on it secretly.
https://imgur.com/a/GP2rciQ
I have truncated any names and am in accordance with the forums rules. This is not negative this is an image of a conversation with staff members. |
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From the moment that Mages came to RPG's, game gone from bad to worse with all of these ground effects. 90% of them coming from Mage skills. Check warrior, archer, mercenaries.... nothing special from their skills.
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" I see you have never used shockwave totems or fire fissures! Mercenary cluster grenade spamming could also literally come bundled with a seizure warning. I suppose that's included in that missing 10%? I don't think we can pin the blame on mages lol. But I do agree with the sentiment of this post/thread - which I think is that people just like to be able to see and intelligently parse what is happening on their screen so they can make deliberate and meaningful choices about how to play their character and use their skills. I don't think this necessarily means that the people who want visual clarity want it because it facilitates some ideologically precise and methodical "Dark Souls" combat in every single scenario. However, it is not difficult to imagine that if this game continues down a pathway of ever-decreasing visual clarity, it also runs the risk of design-drift towards having an increasingly chaotic "Vampire Survivors"-esque gameplay style, and we've been down that road already. That is exactly what happened to PoE1 over the last decade. poe1 history buffer for those who weren't there:
Spoiler
There wasn't much "combat" to begin with in PoE1, and I also think that this lack of opportunity for meaningful mechanical input contributed to it's design-drift. But if you want to be extremely amused, go watch some PoE1 videos from 2013 and marvel at how much slower the game was. Monster encounters were more sustained and this left room for some strategic mechanical engagement - which due to the design, was mostly limited to things like "don't stand in the fire" and "don't let the slow lumbering giant skeleton hit you".
As PoE1 became progressively more and more fast-paced, it also became more chaotic (including visually chaotic) and spammy. You could watch the values of the player base progressively shift along with this design over the decade. It was not a chicken/egg problem, it was entirely from design expanding into that direction and cultivating a player base that valued these design choices. The most prominent emerging values from the community went from one that felt like people desired above all to be challenged (believe it or not, the community used to be "hardcore or bust"), to one that now most prominently values the opportunity to engage in the numerical optimization of a div/hr math problem which is solved outside of the game, because the in-game gameplay has reached the natural and logical conclusion of this design drift: which is to play as a Cookie-Clicker deathball. PoE2 seems like it could be a bit more resilient to a similar kind of design "drift" just because the combat and skill system is architecturally different than PoE1, but once bitten, twice shy, right? I think it's especially wise to be wary of the impact that the influence from a large PoE1 player base could have in advocating for PoE2 gameplay design to be more like PoE1. You can add me to the list of people advocating to keep PoE1 gameplay in PoE1 and out of PoE2, and I think that starts with voicing up to maintain or improve things like visual clarity. Who am I to say anything, I don't respect my time either. Last edited by karsey#2995 on Mar 18, 2026, 3:17:41 PM
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I made a post on reddit to see if the community also agrees with us... 66 thousand views in less than 24 hours and it was the most viewed post of the day with a simple question: Who else thinks games should be far less polluted with visual effects?
I hope with all my heart that this reaches someone at GGG. We want meaniful battles, just like during the campaign, not just blowing everything up without seeing anything and hearing ding. This is a thing for gambling addicts heres the link for the post, still having a lot discoution there https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1rwsl4v/who_else_thinks_game_should_be_far_less_polluted/ Last edited by Cannabian#3189 on Mar 18, 2026, 9:14:51 PM
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