Making Sense of Mage's Visual Clutter (Summons and Big Bang)

Hi!

This post I actually have 2 suggestions to make, one is straight forward and the other might have multiple ways to go around, but they both stem from the same issue.

The first is visually reworking mage summons - they're huge. Not only they block visibility of party members characters, HP bars, and skill usage, but also bosses too. In some bosses you basically have to give up your summon (reducing some much needed DPM) or you'll get someone killed by blocking view of what the boss is casting (Dunas' DR, CWK archer 1/1-poison, Nameless' claw attack, etc).

My proposition is make summons appear behind player characters, HP bars, and active boss sprites.

The second offender of mage visual clutter is the notorious 4th job skill Big Bang (which I will defend the viability of with my life).

The skill's release animation particles act as a flashbang against you and your party mates - with every cast you'll get almost a whole second of not being able to see anything in your proximity.



Not only that, but the little meter shown above your character as you charge the skill is obstructed by the animation itself, AND by literally anything else as well as summons which makes absolutely no sense. But wait! What if we don't have to rely on the visual cue to release Big Bang, why not use the audio cue for it! Well it is because the sound effect for Big Bang is completely broken. Watch a demonstration as I try to cast it multiple times, and for some reason instead of starting the audio from the beginning each time, it just repeats and starts from where it stopped on the last cast (??):


My proposition is make the Big Bang charge meter always appear on top of everything else, and also either making the release animation more opaque, or much faster so the clutter fizzles out faster, allowing visibility.


I feel these are much needed QOL changes for mages. Playing like this is very frustrating and having your skills be unviable just on the count of being visually cluttered feels dissapointing.



Thank you for reading and your consideration!
Edann

 

Holybased