The skill effects are pretty cool and the animation when you use a casting skill that slams into a foe is awesome.
However, when you are facing a challenge where the mechanic (and success when not completely overgeared) requires you to watch a foe and react to their movements (in this case specifically Floor 50 of Shadespire), those same effects can be quite troublesome.
For example, what has driven me to write this post is because when you hit Floor 50 of Shadespire and the boss covers the floor in darkness. The only way to see what he is doing is to watch his movements. As I am playing on a Sorceress with Casting skills, it’s nearly impossible to make any headway without pure luck. 90% of my abilities bury the boss in visual effects, and since he keeps attacking, it’s not like I can space out my own attacks to observe and then attack after that. We are attacking simultaneously.
This is where “fun challenge” becomes “frustrating near waste of resources”. At what point are 7 Large Harmony pouches worth the abundance of Battle Items I’ve been going through? Or not?
There are settings to turn off party and non-party member attacks, turn off everything (else) but keep party buffs, and turn off everything (else) but keep foe attacks. Why no setting to improve self skill visual clarity? Such as to reduce skills to outlines and casting circles on the ground?