Warlords of Draenor: Visual clutter to be reduced

Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas has been tweeting about visual clutter and the developers' response to it in Warlords of Draenor.

There has been talk of this before, and with good reason too. When players go into melee and are faced with totems, pets, elementals, minions, imps, apparitions and more, it's hard to work out what's important and what isn't. At the PvP summit it was also raised, with discussion on making the most important visual cues really stand out, and the less important ones less flashy. The same is likely to apply in PvE, with emphasis added on your own animations and key ones from other players, mobs, bosses and so on.

This should have several effects. Not only will it make life easier for melee, and for PvPers as a group, it will also reduce strain on players' systems. While it's remarkable that WoW still runs on older systems as well as it does, it is slowly getting harder and harder for less current machines to cope. And as upgrades like the new character models continue, it's only going to get worse. Things like reducing visual clutter, especially in raids, will be a huge help for system resources.