jk: a purple effect for a blue laser o_O (also it doesn't fit to a precision laser)
Licho: I dont mind improved recolored effect. I just dislike original completely boring blue ray.
Saktoth: visuals in a game must always be functional first and foremost- the effect of the anni must accurately reflect its nature and AoE.
Licho: not at all - take flash of light. It never represents extent of damage caused by explosion, its just pointing out to high energy blast temporarily overloading your visual sensors. Or even simple sparks which look terryfing but do no damage in real world. Effect looks nice, looked powerfull (fitting 6000 damage caused by weapon), and nobody from the ranks of players has ever complained. Effects should fit the feel of weapon and not some exact AOE range. Nobody expects that and imo its not always desirable.
Saktoth: In one game, players were complaining of precisely that. 'Why did you guys give the anni AoE? Thats dumb' etc. Realism aside, it is important that the visuals, in all ways, remain iconic and easy to interpret- that their first role is to convey information to the player, with being pretty as secondary to that. I am often still fooled by the large explosion on the Raider and Stumpy- if not for groundscars and crater being so small, i would assume it has a much higher AoE than it does.
jK: Yeah, I also prefer unobtrusive effects/designs (that's why i hate the new uf). And if the effect like here (or the comm explo), doesn't fit either the Damage,AoE nor the laser color itself, then is something totaly wrong, and it is very distracting ingame. Also a lot more players complain this problem, they only rarely talk about it. At most, thn they really think the laser does HUGE damage and call it unbalanced ... see old HLT.
