#10 - Aug. 12, 2012, 6:20 p.m.
It's a very valid concern.
IIRC we just turned on the Emphasize my Spell Effects option on by default. There is probably still a way for mods to hook into it if it really offends you. But ultimately the difference is pretty subtle, probably too subtle.
Furthermore, the main emphasis on that option is chilling out impact effects on targets. At the time spells like Moonfire and Incinerate did very over the top visuals relative to how important it was to convey that information to the group. But much of what you're seeing now are also the effects a player has when they are casting or under the effect of a buff or the ground effects created by a lot of spells. They all make you look cool when solo, but the combined noise is just too much for large group encounters.
This has something I've been working on personally off and on with our technical director and artists. We need to revisit it and come up with some smarter solutions. I agree that we have an obligation to make this experience better.
We could certainly offer players options to tune effects up and down, and this is understandably a solution players often suggest, but we view options as the last resort. What I mean by that is that the game should play well without players having to go find the options.
Another feature we have been trying to get in forever (and are making progress, though probably not in time for 5.0 launch) is treating a target for purposes of spell impacts as the entire model and not just a point in space. Instead of all of your missiles converging on the same point, some could hit the dragon's wing or the ettin's heads. This would just be eye candy. It would have no effect on combat numbers.
