Arelith

Is kind of obnoxious, since so many head models don't have properly lined up eyeglow. And it shows through most helmets, which in some cases doesn't look good.

I liked that warlocks don't have to have glowy eyes anymore if they don't want to, but now instead everybody has to have them.

You can stack see invis with ultravision and get the eyes over your head again. You can also polymorph and leave polymorph and have eyes over your head.

Personally I like the change, I hate the eyes over the head effect, it makes my character look dumb in screenshots. The only thing I want to know is if on heads or helmets where the glow isn't visible, if the eyes over the head will be returned? I like knowing who has see invis up.

Seeing how none of the spells show any effects in PnP, I think it's a good compromise to have something less obnoxious than big floaty eyeballs that we're all supposed to pretend are normal.

I like the new VFX.

Glowing cheeks for everyone!

I definitely don't mind the eyeglow change, tbh. It's a lot less distracting than the floating eyes. And hopefully, it might cut down on vfx load a bit.

Aren wrote: ↑

Tue May 17, 2022 8:49 am

I like the new VFX.

Glowing cheeks for everyone!

*blushes in yellow*

MissEvelyn wrote: ↑

Tue May 17, 2022 6:09 am

Seeing how none of the spells show any effects in PnP, I think it's a good compromise to have something less obnoxious than big floaty eyeballs that we're all supposed to pretend are normal.

Concur. I would prefer no vfx, but this is already better than a constellation of eyes following you around.

Very in favor of less intrusive spell vfx (stoneskin when?), but I'm split on the eyeglow for mostly ultravision since this will remain the most intrusive for the following reason:

A lot, like a lot, of RP is conveyed through a character's eyes - whether motion, color, or some combination. Eyes are just important.

With ultravision, though, tons of PCs will have bright blue eyes which sort of elbows that communicative method out.

One solution is to not use ultravision, naturally, but I really rely on this spell just so I can see the screen half the time. With darkvision clicking on and off at every tiny candleflame the UD can be just super dark and hard to see as a player, and I really appreciate the QOL and consistency (not flickering) of UV.

Either way it's a significant upgrade, but this is my little gripe about it.

(I think UV should just have no VFX at all)

I really like this update. Had a problem with my goblin not showing the glow last time i tried it, but could be something needs updating.

The whole eye glow thing is something I find greatly obnoxious (especially on monks). It might look cool on a warlock when invoking their patron but I would much prefer if noone else had it. But honestly I almost prefered the old vfx or that vfx was reduced to a bare minimum in nwn:ee

I really love this update and the direction it takes spell effects. Much, much better than dumb floaty eyes.

My only feedback would be .. much like the spirits a shaman summons, having eyes glow specific colours can be a little annoying, especially when it does not match your character's colour palette/theme/whatever. Would be good if we could either choose the glow colours ourselves, or they were all white, or something, but that's such a minor concern it's probably not even worth addressing. This is a big improvement over what we had.

My only criticism is that I wish I could pair See Invis and UV without gaining the floaty eyes again. On a caster with Extend it's not too difficult at all to maintain both so now I typically have more vfx going on than before.

Personally, I’d much rather if all spell effects that don’t come with obvious visuals (flame shield, as an example) required a spellcraft check to recognise their existence, which is triggered by examining the character and then comes up under their description. This would be far more in keeping with the mechanical foundation of NWN (D&D 3.x edition), as things like ultravision and see invisible aren’t supposed to have visual indicators.

I get that this is a video game and therefore different, but I don’t see why the person trying to sneak invisibly/use darkness should get the benefit of knowing what others are doing… it should be a risk for them, as the active party.

I don’t mind the glowy eyes myself, but they do seem a bit odd for a number of reasons, not least of which being the whole “warlock” thing.

I really like the change - however I'd like it if there was a way to properly align the effect with the character's eyes. Its just really offputting for me to have glowy cheeks. Only head it seems to work with is the default Human Male Head.

That said its definitely an improvement. I haven't cast UV for years now as I just generally loathe the intrusive VFX for long duration buff spells.

Hazard wrote: ↑

Tue May 17, 2022 2:06 pm

My only feedback would be .. much like the spirits a shaman summons, having eyes glow specific colours can be a little annoying, especially when it does not match your character's colour palette/theme/whatever. Would be good if we could either choose the glow colours ourselves, or they were all white, or something

I really agree.

Despite the dated graphics, this can be a fairly engaging game visually and the customization options are really incredible.

It's cool when a character or a group of characters maintain some sort of visual coherency. For example there was a gang in the underdark (The Syndicate?) that liked to run around wearing black and purple with glowy green weapons. The costume looked greatl, even though they were totally just copying the pig.

Now with the realities of combat being what they are, this group needs to present with glowy blue eyes most of the time, and will always appear this way in raids and major PvP plot arcs. Maybe it looks kinda cool, maybe it doesn't. What if the devs went with yellow eyes? They would look like The Lakers. If they had green costumes and the devs settled on red they would look like Santa's elves. This may seem petty to some, but it seriously cramps my style.

Issues with color coordination aside, there's the whole idea of glowy eyes in general. A lot of people play in this lowish fantasy setting to escape things like glowy eyes, everyone having wings, goblin paladins on steampunk motorcycles, kung fu pandas, etc. I'm not saying that this single minor change will turn us into WoW or trying to invoke a slippery slope argument, but it does seem like a tiny baby step in the wrong duration.

The old visual was a bit weird, the new one is visually awesome but imposes a lot of aesthetic baggage.

forgotten realms is not low fantasy. it's the defining example of kitchen sink high fantasy

The eyes look dope imo, tho.

Feylock eyeglow is pretty much tossed out the window. It was a very unique aesthetic. Now it's not.

elftv wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:04 am

Feylock eyeglow is pretty much tossed out the window. It was a very unique aesthetic. Now it's not.

This is good though. Why would you want to be more easily detected or immediately noticed as "THATS A WARLOCK!". It actually might even give warlocks the ability to exist on the surface without being as instantly metagamed.

Northern Kings wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:31 am

elftv wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:04 am

Feylock eyeglow is pretty much tossed out the window. It was a very unique aesthetic. Now it's not.

This is good though. Why would you want to be more easily detected or immediately noticed as "THATS A WARLOCK!". It actually might even give warlocks the ability to exist on the surface without being as instantly metagamed.

I did always find it a bit jarring that 'glowing eyes' = KILL IT, in a fantasy world where basically anyone capable of a cantrip could give themselves glowing eyes if they wanted to.

It's a part I like about this update and if we could choose the colours, I think it would go a long way to get rid of PvP on sight because eyes glowing and instead shift the culture more towards, hey .. Let's RP with this eye glowing lunatic to see if they're actually a warlock or just some wizard.

I wanted the spells to be both recognizable and distinguishable from each other, that's why I haven't enabled color streams. And I say this as a player of a character whose outfit definitely will clash with blue eyeglow :D

Northern Kings wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:31 am

elftv wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:04 am

Feylock eyeglow is pretty much tossed out the window. It was a very unique aesthetic. Now it's not.

This is good though. Why would you want to be more easily detected or immediately noticed as "THATS A WARLOCK!". It actually might even give warlocks the ability to exist on the surface without being as instantly metagamed.

Oh no, only Feylock. The others are still flagrantly blatantly warlocks with unique aesthetics. Evil red glowing eyes, doesn't walk fast? Instant.

Also, why wouldn't I want that? You make storylines out of being outed.

elftv wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 2:13 pm

Northern Kings wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:31 am

elftv wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 6:04 am

Feylock eyeglow is pretty much tossed out the window. It was a very unique aesthetic. Now it's not.

This is good though. Why would you want to be more easily detected or immediately noticed as "THATS A WARLOCK!". It actually might even give warlocks the ability to exist on the surface without being as instantly metagamed.

Oh no, only Feylock. The others are still flagrantly blatantly warlocks with unique aesthetics. Evil red glowing eyes, doesn't walk fast? Instant.

Also, why wouldn't I want that? You make storylines out of being outed.

You can make storylines out of being outed only if you've got enough grounding beforehand. Otherwise, if you're outed when you're low-level and don't have a support network or the means to survive on your own, you basically just have to roll because you can't access the basic needs of existence--writ agents, basic supplies, people to group/RP with, etc.

I don't think anyone's arguing for warlocks to be able to entirely sail under the radar; what people would like is enough uncertainty/gray area that these characters can establish a narrative before they have to go on the run.

Warlocks dont have to use the eyeglow and it was never a point of meta-gaming. Warlock is very easy to spot oocly and when something is evil and easy to spot oocly people will not resist the temptation to call them out. Even if they dont use eye glow or eldritch blast at all, their infinite uses of some mid level spell will instantly trigger the suspicion, and then connecting the dots is super easy.

I was thinking maybe if the spellcraft DC on their blast was higher it would help a little as it would make it less college 101 for every wizard in the game, but that's just a minor help in that regard.

Over all, this change doesnt really matter much for warlocks. People dont meta-game warlocks all that much from my experience but when they do, no eye-glow change or spellcraft DCs will stop them because of how easy this class is to detect.

I'd like to see how a dark version would look just for the deal with it vibe haha

Rei_Jin wrote: ↑

Tue May 17, 2022 3:30 pm

Personally, I’d much rather if all spell effects that don’t come with obvious visuals (flame shield, as an example) required a spellcraft check to recognize their existence, which is triggered by examining the character and then comes up under their description.

This was a part of vanilla NwN. I think our Arelith wizards could enable this again and probably make it work if they so chose. I, for one, would love this solution.