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i already gave initial suggestions during test realm, but with their live realm release, i want to give an up-to-date collection of feedback on the revamped blade graphics.

to start, i will share this link to some image edits i made of the revamped blades to show the changes i suggest. i hope they can be a visual aid that helps make some of my feedback easier to understand!

general changes

animation effects: reduce or rework the visual effect for when blades are used or broken. the current effect looks like a giant flashbang that is extremely obnoxious and distracting -- like a massive blob of white light right in our faces. the effect for when blades are cast is really nice though!

lighting/shading: right now, the shading overpowers & overdefines the new designs to the point of them losing visual clarity. the look is too shiny, with strong glare lighting and deep, sharp shadows. this plays a big part in messing up the colors; the palettes become too dark & washed out, so the blades end up not distinct enough from eachother. soften the shading, especially the shadows, for a more familiar "matte" style that lets vibrant colors define the design rather than abrasive shading. this is what makes the original artstyle so distinct and appealing. please take this to heart; it's a questionable trait in newer art (too-shiny, overshaded, overdefined) that keeps repeating itself.

color changes

: return iceblade to the "correct" school colors of light blue & white. the current dark blue & cyan is too dark and lacks contrast. it also clearly contradicts the card art.

• note: "correct" quoted because ice's colors are actually... weird. light blue & white are the official colors -- written in the school book, used in the school's original design (seen in classic mode), used in furniture, etc. but the dark blue & cyan palette is seen with the ice icon used for game UI (eg. spells tab), and then became the palette used for the school's updated design. turns out there's always been two palettes... so i can't fault KI for using the alternate palette. i still don't believe iceblade should use it, though. besides the reasons mentioned, i think the official palette is more eye-catching with its brighter, more familiar "snow, frost" vibe to ice.

: return deathblade to the school colors of white & black. the current grey & grey palette has zero contrast and just looks plain. but i do believe there is room to go either way with the palette, as shown in my edits -- either the original white base & black trim, or an inverted black base & white trim. but keep in mind, the inverted palette will contradict the spell card art.

: balanceblade needs a full redesign; the current revamp is a big misunderstanding. as we all know, balanceblade is not a balance damage blade. it is a universal damage blade. this is why it needs to continue using the "universal" style with the spiral symbol, the way revamped bladestorm properly does, although the too-intense shading dampens its colors. save a school-specific design for a true balance damage blade (though if it ever happens, please use a better tan instead of the cold, dark bronze seen right now.)

• also note that the inaccurate design is very weird when it's used in dark pact, which is a death spell. and again, it doesn't match either spells' card art at all.

: return fireblade to the school colors of vibrant yellow-orange & deep red. similar to deathblade, fireblade lost its color contrast. the base orange is too cold (desaturated) and dark, while the trim is too orange. the shading issues add to this.

: darken lifeblade's trim color to a more earthy brown, which is more accurate to the school colors. the current brown looks more like gold, though the shading issues are partly at fault for this.

: make mythblade's yellow base color brighter and more vibrant. i do think myth's color issues are created much more by the shading, which makes the base too dark and muddy. but still, a small hue & value adjustment makes a great difference.

: make stormblade's purple base color lighter, and perhaps lighten the yellow trim also, to resemble the old blade colors more. similar to myth though, the too-dark purple might come mostly from the too-intense shading.

minor changes

could the blade model be smoothed to a more round and less angular shape (the obvious 12-sided polygon) with a thinner/flatter border? to soften the shape overall and make it less chunky/blocky (intensified by the shading).

• the old blades were also polygonal, but they had less planes (10-sided polygon) and it was much less obvious because of the smoother 2D style.

maybe the single-target blades' "sword" icon could be changed to the more angular style that's on bladestorm, rather than the current "bubble-y" round style?

maybe the school symbols on the blades could be a bit smaller, the way they were on the original designs, rather than filling up the entire blade surface?

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that's all. i sincerely hope this feedback is helpful and reaches those at KI who will consider it. and i ultimately hope it helps clean up the style so that the future revamps to traps, debuffs, prisms, etc. come out more successful upfront and better fit this game's unique artstyle. i look forward to future changes! thank you for your time

I like these a lot, and personally I feel like certain blades (i.e myth and ice blade) look way to similar and can be easily confused.

sword tree on Dec 10, 2021 wrote:

I dislike the new blades, and I never heard anyone say the old blades didn't look good. They were clear and simple (other than balance and dragon blades that needed to be distinguished). I just find the new blades less attractive and somehow much harder to see. There are so many bugs and graphics in this game that could be improved, I don't understand why this was a priority, and rather than spending more time fixing them again, why not just give us back the perfectly fine old blades?

i fully agree with you. it's a funny story... the lemuria balance spell introduced a new "prism blade," which resembles most of the newer graphics: heavily shaded, shiny, overdetailed, alongside off colors (eg. myth prism blade's palette is inverted). after it was shown off on twitter by devs, players commented how our blades now looked super old and should also get updated. to KI's credit, they actually did it... but it's yet another change that's not working for those outside that subset of the community, who had no voice in the matter.

i also constantly struggle to see the blades, and like olStellar said, many of them look too similar. the intense shading makes them both too dark and too shiny, so the color palette is barely distinguishable. this is a huge problem because the colors are literally the designs' defining trait. they're the #1 thing that make the blades actually look different from eachother and root them clearly in their schools. that's why i emphasize palette changes, alongside shading fixes, as necessary for improvement.

these types of changes especially bother me because, like you said, nobody had a problem with the original blades. i'm not opposed to graphic updates at all, but i cannot understand why the original style's successful traits can't be maintained & improved on. why consistently change the artstyle into something so different that it retroactively makes everything else look "old" where it often didn't before? how much better could new graphics work if they were in a polished style that actually blends into the rest of the game? vibrant colors, soft shading, simple stylization? "realism" isn't everything. people love cartoons & comics for a reason.

i would be on-boardto revert the blade graphics, and maybe even redo the prism blades to match. but based on past updates, i don't think KI is willing... take the UI update or player model update as some big examples. thus, i thought talking about how to improve the new blades would be more productive & helpful in the long run, especially since devs on twitter have stated plans to now update the rest of the hanging effects. but i do recognize that it's kinda silly to have a drastic change, then need to change the change to fix it... when things could've been left as is with no problem.

thank you for sharing your perspective! i think it's a very important viewpoint to involve. i hope our feedback is acknowledged and improvements happen soon

p.s. Fable Finder & olStellar: thank you for your compliments! im glad my edits could help

rsilverblood101 on Dec 14, 2021 wrote:

I like the new blade design, for adding a more modern breath of fresh air to those more classic designs. But I agree with your feedback. The new designs lack contrast, clarity, and could use some further refinement, and your edits are very nice @megalithia

I do think that the little bit of metallic-feel to the blade icons is a welcome change. Not sure if that was intentional, but it made the blades just feel more interesting to look at, and it made using blades feel more special. Even though it's a small change, I think there's a lot to like in the new designs. Could just use some refinement, that's all.

thanks for your kind words!

i've started to like the added 3D-ness of the new designs -- i think the reason i didn't like this at first was because the shadows make it so stark. but outside of this, i now actually enjoy that the blades aren't flat anymore!

i also would enjoy the almost "metallic" style of lighting if it just wasn't so intense, obscuring the colors & the sword icon. i do think the shadows are more a problem than the lighting, but maybe the lighting could either be less glaring or cover less area? with adjustments, i think you're right that it would add an eye-catching magical look.

if the designs aren't adjusted, then i would wish they be reverted. but i agree that with refinement, the designs would end up pretty nice! thankfully, i believe its been said that polishing is planned, so i hope that turns out well.

another issue with the revamps that i noticed while playing: the neon-blue border effect from aegis protection no longer fits the new blades' thickness. because of that, blades "stick out" behind the aegis protection border; they're not wrapped fully by the aegis effect. on top of that, the aegis effect makes the new blades look even more polygonal than they already do, almost in a glitchy way.

i hope its OK that i quickly summarize all of my feedback so far (and probably in total) on the new blade designs, so that it's all more accessible and understandable.

feedback summary
im starting to like that the blades are more 3D, but this still needs polishing. right now the 3D-ness is too polygonal and chunky. part of this is the shading's fault, but it's also from the overall shape. if possible, perhaps flatten & smooth out the blade model's border so it sticks out less & is more joined to the blade surface. i also think making the blades' shape less polygonal overall would help a lot. maybe 12 sides is too many? perhaps the old 10-sided shape would look better like before?

the new animation effects are pretty, but they're too strong. this is especially true for the "blade used" effect, which looks like a giant flashbang. lessening all of the effects' particles/density should be enough. i feel that the old effects were clear without being too much. adding some magical flair is cool, but it could be more creative & eye-catching without just layering sparkles on thick to the point of being distracting & eye-straining.

the biggest problem is the shading. it makes blades too dark & harshly defined, as well as too reflective. it also makes them all look too similar & hard to see in general, which is really bad, as many players have said multiple times. to me, the shading creates the same look on all the blades where the shadows are a sharp, dense black while the highlights are a shiny white glare. they cover up & drown out the colors and the sword icons, which are crucial to the blades' identity. i feel it's necessary to soften the shadows & reduce how much area the highlights cover. not only would this improve visibility & color quality, but i think it'd also help make the blades' 3D-ness less harsh & chunky-looking if actual model changes aren't possible.

the second biggest problem is the colors. many color palettes are off & even wrong. thus, many blades lack contrast (important for visual clarity) and don't match their school colors. major problems are with ice, death, balance, fire; minor problems are with myth, life, storm. specific problems & suggestions for color improvements are in my original post & visualized in image edits linked there. note that the shading adds to this problem too, combining with it to further make blades too dark, washed out, hard to see, hard to differentiate. even blades with good colors still suffer in these ways (example: bladestorm; base color comes out too grey, hard to see overall.)

and finally, again, the aegis protection effect no longer fits the new thicker blades, now looking like a glitch or just a really unflattering effect compared to how cool it looked before.

that's everything, aside from a few very minor comments i mentioned at the end of my original post.

thanks once again for listening. i don't mean to sound like a broken record; i just wanted to collect all my feedback so far and make sure nothing is confusing or not communicated, so that it's as helpful as possible. appreciate your patience. take care & happy holidays

WolfNightShade7 on Jan 8, 2022 wrote:

I agree. The change wasn't necessary. If you want to change the percentage values to something more universal, that's cool, but I don't like the art.

A word about the percentage changes for the blades and traps-

I feel like what they had in the beginning was wrong and I feel like the percentages now are wrong too. They should have done it backwards. Weaker schools get weaker blades and traps and stronger schools get stronger blades and traps. It makes sense to accent the school differences and force school related play styles as opposed to trying to equalize the schools in the ways that make them different.

For example, a 40% blade makes more sense to give to the storm school, as they have the lowest health and accuracy and they need the harder hit to stay competent in the fight.

The fire, death and myth school are relatively strong, but not quite as strong as storm, so they get a 35% blade (which is what it is now).

Ice and life are the weakest so they get the weakest blades (30%).

Balance is universal so they get their original 25% buff.

I think this would accentuate the differences rather than try to compress the game into something equal. It is what they should have done from the beginning. I'd like to see something like this implemented along with the visuals reverted. Same goes for the school specific traps in terms of percentage differences (not including feint, curse or hex).

What do you guys think about this idea?

- Seth M.

i think you make a fair argument re: changing blade percentages. if a major design goal is to strengthen school identity & make the schools more distinct from eachother, then i can see how giving offensive schools the stronger blades over the defensive schools could be a good way to do this. but i feel there's more that'd need to be examined & discussed to understand the change's large-scale impact. storm already has a pretty big advantage in spell DPP over the other schools, even though fire gear gets higher damage stats late-game. would storm getting the strongest blade give them too much of a damage boost over the other schools? or would that actually be a good way to strengthen its school identity as the glass cannon? would giving ice and life the weakest blades make them too weak? or would that give them room to better excel at the defensive side of their identity? would changing blade percents the way you describe limit schools into one part of their identity too much, or no? those are just a few questions i'd have.

another point re: a % change is that offense is supreme in the late-game PvE environment; you get absolutely wiped if you cant kill PvE enemies within a few turns. that's why i'd worry about bringing the mid- to low-offense schools down even more with weaker blades. but ultimately, i think changes to other parts of gameplay need to happen before another blade % change could work best. the main one is the upcoming gear audit. if gear changes so the defensive schools have more defense/sustain to make up for their weaker offense, then i do think your blade changes would be viable. but only time will tell how that all will pan out.

re: the visuals: i seriously hope KI is planning to clean them up. if not, id want them reverted like you and others have said. i really dont want this to become another situation where KI made a haphazard change that many players have problems with, only for our concerns to be ignored & the changes left untouched for a year or more, if not indefinitely. what worries me is that the dev who said the blade visuals would be "polished" was Mattnetic, who has since left the company. will his statement now be completely dropped and amount to nothing? will KI instead just change the rest of the hanging effects to have the same serious problems the new blades have, making things even worse? i really hope not...

i appreciate you & everyone else who has left feedback on this change, not just on this thread but in other places too. fingers crossed that our concerns are addressed.