Yeah, to me this is the same as perma vfx for day long buffs, except that if I find something visually jank I can usually play through that, whereas if it's sound related that'll stop me. Stutters, hums that sort of thing. If I'm on the laptop I unplug the headphones after drinking that one and try to white noise it with the jet engine fans. Not the most practical solution I can imagine.
For me this is like the audio equivelant of when hair clips through a helmet or weapons clip through a cape, at that point I'd rather just hide the offending article of gear. VFX like the longstrider swirl or the warding rings and squares, equipment with perma fx, I think they make the overall presentation in exploration/combat too busy and more confusing than it needs to be. My preference there would be a temp VFX/SFX, much shorter duration that's just an extension of the spell animation, at least for Allies.
It makes more sense for enemies to light up light Xmas trees when they're being buffed/debuffed, so the player can tell what's going on, but within the group we have those icons and can mouse over. Or take Daylight as another example, which will raise the brightnes/ lower the contrast and backlight the character in most cases (like if they're wearing it on their backs, which they typically are) as a way to convey that. Then I have to choose between the mechanical benefit for blinding undead or dispelling shadows vs the visual presentation that results on screen. For me the contrast kinda strains my eyes and begins to give me a headache if I keep it up for any real length of time. Just would be nice to tell the game that we know what's going on, but would prefer not to have it visualized the entire time, in a setting specifically for that. Just trying to extend the analogy, for me it's worse with sound fx than visual fx. In the Audio settings might read something like on/off or maybe a pulse when it first activates/deactivates, but otherwise hidden. That sort of thing
Last edited by Black_Elk; 17/01/24 10:19 PM.
