I am sick of the "swirly" mechanics every single fight has: an essay

[Fauxstrasza-stormrage]

It isn’t the only mob mechanic.

[Jarnock-moon-guard]

I’ve been sick of swirlies since BFA but they just keep designing every fight around some kind of ground spam or another. It’s kind of ridiculous.

[Skalpy-darkspear]

It’s not a single mechanic, it’s a warning indicator of a dangerous spot you shouldn’t be in as a result of many different mechanics. You’ve lumped every mechanic that results in a dangerous place to not be in as a single thing.

The only alternatives are something that directly targets the player rather than an area, or something that targets everywhere.

If you remove the swirly you remove the danger of the spot or the warning of the danger of the spot.

So yes

@Skalpy-darkspear

you want fights where you don’t need to move for the whole fight, or aoe effects that don’t warn you to move beforehand.

[Siameren-lightnings-blade]

@Eyebeamsoncd-area-52

I’ve noticed since Shadowlands in particular, a lot of dungeon and raid mechanics have essentially just devolved to swirls on the ground to indicate to players “don’t stand here.”

People said "We like the raiding system in FFXIV. It’s a breath of fresh air. "

And Blizz said “I got you!”

And then the swirlies were born.

[Qaccy-baelgun (Qaccy)]

I think that the complaint’s being somewhat overblown, probably because it’s being made by a melee player who indeed is generally a bit more ‘punished’ when they have to dodge things. However, ranged players also have to dodge plenty of things (and a lot of times mechanics will prioritize targeting ranged players), and in general these things are intended to provide somewhat more engaging gameplay.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Diablognomis-staghelm

The main issue with all the effects is on their own each one is fine, but when you add all the mobs with five to twenty people also throwing something on the ground it’s one nonsensical mess.

There’s other issues like no design guidelines or design standards. There’s no learning the game, just every individual effect. Red circle, run away or run into? Blue circle, run away or run in? Depends, there are no rules to how the game displays it’s game play so there’s no learning other than brute force experience with them all. And that’s a big part of the end game gate keeping. You don’t learn the game, you have to learn every individual encounter.

IMHO the solution is opening up every effects opacity and priority to the modding API and let moddders sort it out. There’s only a couple of friendly effects I need to see and I’m not sure I trust blizzard to sort it out.

And there should be a special place in hell for any designer that puts things like tornadoes in. Above ground and all over the place, if your in melee you end up having to look through all of them.

Individual soaks, group soaks, and “move out” all have unique and consistent animations and have since Legion.

[Neomagam-whisperwind]

In Legion (and specifically for Antorus), there were extremely specific visuals and colors for each type of mechanic and it was the pinnacle of well-indicated area mechanics in WoW. I never felt the indicators were overly obvious or immersion breaking, but for some reason these standards have slowly degraded since then.

A perfect example is comparing the fire balls during the Imonar fight and the fire balls during Rashok. The bridge on Imonar is a hectic moment with lots of ground effects, but it is very easy to quickly find the edges of the rolling fireballs and avoid them even with lots of other effects on the floor. On the other hand, the rolling fireballs during Rashok are abysmal to dodge because the edges are ill defined.

And this isnt even talking about the problem of having red swirls and red tornados and red lines on the red floor like during Smolderon.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Neomagam-whisperwind

In Legion (and specifically for Antorus), there were extremely specific visuals and colors for each type of mechanic and it was the pinnacle of well-indicated area mechanics in WoW. I never felt the indicators were overly obvious or immersion breaking, but for some reason these standards have slowly degraded since then.

A perfect example is comparing the fire balls during the Imonar fight and the fire balls during Rashok. The bridge on Imonar is a hectic moment with lots of ground effects, but it is very easy to quickly find the edges of the rolling fireballs and avoid them even with lots of other effects on the floor. On the other hand, the rolling fireballs during Rashok are abysmal to dodge because the edges are ill defined.

And this isnt even talking about the problem of having red swirls and red tornados and red lines on the red floor like during Smolderon

Tbh I don’t think over ever looked at the lava wave on Rashok and thought to myself “this is hard to see/dodge”

As for color pallet, the only one I think is bad is the green lines on Nymue.

The fire on Smolderon is a super bright very orange ish red compared to the ground being a very dull red. They are very different. And it’s a fire boss made of fire, his attacks and casts and such should be fire colored.

[Thunderfist-thrall]

@Myzrym-area-52

Be nice if they didn’t seem to always make the swirlies from the same colors as the dungeons they are in. Transparent bronze swirlies in DotI, red swirlies in vault, transparent grey swirlies in Algethar.

100% this. I’m not completely color blind, but I have trouble seeing variations of the same color, so of course they use blue lines on Nymue, red lines on Smolderon, white areas on the ice boss in HoI, brownish in Nogood Hold- it has to be intentional.

I miss the days of green=good and red=bad.

@Eyebeamsoncd-area-52

I do agree with this. My vision is excellet and there are times where I’m obliterated by mechanics I was certain I was well away from. Im not sure if this is an indicator issue, or if not all indicators are accurate, which is a mkre substantial logistics issue in itself.

I think a big part of the problem is that many ‘ground effects’ aren’t actually on the ground- the visual floats above it. So if you’re looking at it from an angle (which you usually will be because you’re looking at the boss) the danger zone sticks out quite a ways from the actual animation.

Its not fun to play looking straight down on your character, but sometimes it helps.

[Momonohime-malganis (Momonohime)]

Not everyone has the same visual acuity. I don’t personally have an issue seeing most mechanics, but I can understand how individuals with varying degrees of colorblindness could have trouble seeing red on red, even if to us they’re clearly very distinct.

Sometimes it’s not even a matter of the colors. Ill-defined swirls made of a flat texture also don’t play well with uneven terrain and textured floors. I’ve had plenty of times where I got hit by something that I couldn’t see because the swirl indicator was partially hidden by the raised bit of floor I was standing on.

[Ametrine-sargeras]

@Diablognomis-staghelm

There’s other issues like no design guidelines or design standards. There’s no learning the game, just every individual effect. Red circle, run away or run into? Blue circle, run away or run in? Depends, there are no rules to how the game displays it’s game play so there’s no learning other than brute force experience with them all. And that’s a big part of the end game gate keeping. You don’t learn the game, you have to learn every individual encounter.

This is, as others have mentioned, something FFXIV handles waaaaaay better and I’ve love to see WoW take lessons here. An orange circle always means “AoE, get out”, a pulsing blue circle always indicates a knockback, a red danger looking symbol over someone’s head always means “cleave incoming, get away from me”, meteors always have to be soaked by a tank, etc. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a low level dungeon or a high level raid, the standard markers are consistent.

If you die to a mechanic in XIV it’s usually because you didn’t handle it correctly, not because you didn’t know what it was in the first place.

[Fauxstrasza-stormrage]

But you die once to a mechanic, now you know what it is. And it’s more immersive to have different colored abilities.

[Zenli-draenor]

@Kanamë-dreadmaul

give us more donuts or pizza slice mechanics

I like this idea, more food mechanics.

[Keymah-moon-guard]

@Kanamë-dreadmaul

yea give us more donuts or pizza slice mechanics

Do the pizza slice mechanics have pineapple?

[Ainde-argent-dawn]

Voidzones are DPS killers. Stop doping dps and move. It is possible to go through entire fights without inflicting any damage on a target due to this. They also kill the use of many cooldowns. Cast a powerful ability then proceed to not use it due to the voidzone that just appeared under your feet. Move and a new one appear. And quick heals are small heals. You want something powerful then stand still when casting, if it wasn’t for that voidzone under your feet.

I can definitely see a problem here.

[Bleish-kiljaeden]

@Momonohime-malganis

This is one of the things I think FFXIV does better. There’s a greater variety of AoE patterns and nearly all AoE has very clear and well-defined boundaries.

BIG NO. The more well-defined a telegraph is, the more immersion-breaking it is.

edit: I’d like less mechanics in general. Less required movement, less enemy cleaves, less interrupts needed. More dps/hps checks (throughput).

[Diablognomis-staghelm]

@Argorwal-ysera

Individual soaks, group soaks, and “move out” all have unique and consistent animations and have since Legion.

Care to define what makes them unique?

Because it’s not at all apparent. If you make something unique in a way that no one can tell without a 20 page manual, did it serve it’s purpose? To be useful you should be able to describe the indicators in a couple of words and they should be easily distinguishable.

[Hpellipsis-whisperwind (Hpellipsis)]

@Diablognomis-staghelm

Care to define what makes them unique?

All “Stand in this or we die” individual soaks are textured outlines on the floor with no fill, and a “plume” rising from them if they are currently unsoaked.

All “Split the damage or we die” soaks are textured outlines with a helix pattern and plume that doesn’t disappear if someone is inside it.

All “Move out of this or die” mechanics are block filled, either as swirls, lines, or pizza slices.

[Xiata-bloodhoof (Xiata)]

This is one reason though I find it funny when people need addons to raid/dungeon. Like 99% of fights are “oh look a swirl, move out of the way”

The only time I mess up is when there’s something I have to stand in, because I know 99% of this game is don’t stand in stuff lol. It’s why I never used any addons

[Hpellipsis-whisperwind (Hpellipsis)]

@Xiata-bloodhoof

This is one reason though I find it funny when people need addons to raid/dungeon.

Usually add ons only reach that when content hits a level where reacting to something as it happens or is telegraphed isn’t enough, and instead you needed to be somewhere / do something to be ready for the telegraph.

I’d say 99% of content in this game isn’t that.