card effects: needed animations and superfluous animations
andrewvanmarle
Posts: 661 Critical Contributor
Being able to choose how much animations you want to see is a good step in the right direction, but the choices made what to show and what not are counter productive:
Needed animations:
spells supports and creatures played by the opponent.
Also the cards you draw yourself (think of playing BFZ: know what is drawn gives you the insight what to play and what to pause.
Unnecessary animations: tokens spawing after the first (the reinforce animation is sufficient),
the big long streams of loyalty created by huatli. (just do it all in one go, or maximise it at 5 loyatly per animation),
end of game animation where you have to click on the amount of ribbons your earned,
and the new player experience animation you have to click.
can we move some stuff around in the "no visual aid" setting?
Needed animations:
spells supports and creatures played by the opponent.
Also the cards you draw yourself (think of playing BFZ: know what is drawn gives you the insight what to play and what to pause.
Unnecessary animations: tokens spawing after the first (the reinforce animation is sufficient),
the big long streams of loyalty created by huatli. (just do it all in one go, or maximise it at 5 loyatly per animation),
end of game animation where you have to click on the amount of ribbons your earned,
and the new player experience animation you have to click.
can we move some stuff around in the "no visual aid" setting?
2
Comments
Agree that you need to see cards you draw yourself, but at the moment you still need to tap the screen to dismiss them faster; they should dismiss at top speed anyway if you have 'fast mode' active. Or, alternatively, dismiss at top speed if you hold the screen, like the cards do when you open booster packs. Actually, yes, I like that second idea better.
- cards played (only the card itself, not its effect)
- gem movement
- creature attacks (with a max of 3 creatures these arent really a problem anyway )
Superfluous:
- anything secondary to cards/triggers
-- mana/loyalty gains
-- tokens spawning
-- creature/support destruction
-- mana drain
-- buffs/ability gains
Newbie players would still see all these lovely animated graphics, of course, and everything would run at speed for them because they're only playing one card every couple of turns, but more seasoned players wouldn't have to put up with lag while playing their legacy combo decks.
There's nothing pretty about graphics which have been designed to run at a particular speed lagging and stuttering.
I don't think we need to see an opponent's creature card because it's pretty obvious when one shows up on the board. Supports are less obvious and spells are a total mystery so I wouldn't mind being able to have those pop up briefly and auto-dismiss just like with the card draw suggestion.
Token reinforcements however are a terrible terrible thing. If i cast March of the Multitudes with full mana, it should plop a 12/12 soldier token into play with an 11x. I don't need an animation showing it be reinforced 11 times. The same goes for loyalty and to a lesser degree spell and mana streams. Sure they look pretty the very first time you play the game but after years, they are just tedious time wasters. I like starfall's suggestion for a flash effect for damage and lifegain, the same could be applied to loyalty and mana gains.
Also, I personally would advocate that the game tone down the trail of light effect, such as when your spells buff ALL your creatures, Approach of the Second Sun damage/drain effects etc. Could help speed up the game (and reduce processing strain, methinks)
I appreciate that, at the moment, while the mastery system is new, and also broken, a lot of players are using the information that it shows (and isn't shown anywhere else in the game).
But in the long run I don't think advanced players will need it to see XP gain every single game.