Visual Clutter

Elyu

The ethos: Give players the ability to control how much "visual clutter" is present on their screens.

There exists in game 2 options that make an attempt at this:
"Limit followers in town" which hides combat pets + assistants + companions (I think just those 3) near (VERY small radius) crafting stations + bankers etc
"Show additional ally effects" which can be used to hide e.g. wall of elements from friendly players - used to help performance and make it easier to see combat mechanics.

However in my opinion there should be more such options, especially with the soon-to-be-added scribing.

1: Expand "limit followers in town" to apply to the whole town, not just in a 2 metre radius near crafting stations
2: Add "hide/reduce combat pets" options - hides or reduces visibility of allied combat pets (no more deadroth in the tank's face)
3: Auto-desummon assistants when combat is entered - no more deconstruct assistants getting in the way during dungeon/trial runs during combat (still allows them to be summoned outside combat ofc)
4: Hide non-combat pets - if you want to see them, your choice, but very much too much visual clutter for me (especially in trials when everyone has them) - alternatively just suppress during combat
5: Turn off skill reskin - this is for the pvpers out there. With this being added during scribing, I can see it being extra annoying in pvp, when you need to take an extra second to work out what skill is being used through all the various skill reskins. Using visual clues to work out what skill is being used against you is a crucial part of being to react in time to enemy attacks. With the addition of skill reskins it becomes a subtle P2W tactic as people with the most bright and flashy visuals with have a slight edge on those not using the reskins.
EDIT: Misunderstanding of visual effect, but stand by the inclusion in the list - allow people to choose their immersion

tsaescishoeshiner

As far as skill skins:

Based on my PTS experience, the reskins just change the color, and they're not more flashy (I think Trap Beast has more of a glow--if anything, that's a nerf by making it more visual lol). It's not pay-to-win to have pink Grand Healing and it's not really more visual clutter, especially once players get used to them.

This hasn't been an issue with gray warden bear, and I don't see it being an issue for purple wall of elements or red poison arrow.

vsrs_au

My take on the limit followers in towns feature (which I've posted before in other threads) is something like: hide followers (companions, combat pets and non-combat pets) at a certain distance from:

• crafting stations
• outfit stations
• bank tellers
• merchants
• guild traders
• wayshrines

This shouldn't affect how people play the game, but will significantly reduce the visual clutter (i.e. fewer twilight wings flapping, flapping everywhere).

katanagirl1

PS doesn’t have the ability to hide other players combat visual effects like PC. We deserve the same option as well.

ArchangelIsraphel

I like your ideas. I'd also like to add:

I once played an MMO where we had a "hide players" option in overland quest zones and towns, so that during new releases, we could toggle other players off and only see people within our party.

It was implemented to allow players to enjoy new expansions more, by toggling other players off so that quest NPC's and other features weren't completely swallowed by other players standing around them.

It was a nice way to declutter NPC's when following a quest line.

I'd really like to see something like this in ESO, at least within towns. Overland might be too confusing.