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Effects and animation
Nyrath moves now. A sword leaves a bright arc, a hit lands with a flash and a push, drops fly out of what dropped them and shine by rarity, a level-up gathers light round you, and at night the meadows fill with fireflies. This page tells what you will see, where it lives, and how to turn any of it down or off.
The short version
| You do or see | What is new |
|---|---|
| Swing a sword, a hit, a critical hit | A bright arc, a white flash and a push on the Grown, sparks and a ring; a critical hit is bigger on purpose, in gold |
| A Grown dies | It falls apart in its own way: people into blocks, the undead into ash, beasts into motes |
| Something drops | It arcs out of what dropped it, bounces and settles; pick it up and it flies to you |
| A rare drop | A shine and a beam of light in its rarity's colour, from a faint glow to a prismatic column |
| Level up, new title, rebirth | Each has a small ceremony of its own |
| Mine, build, jump, swim | Cracks that grow, chips in the block's own colours, dust, splashes |
| Cast a spell | Fire, frost, storm, venom, shadow and stone each look like themselves |
| Walk the land at night | Fireflies, moonlight, mist, drifting pollen and leaves, torches that breathe |
| Walk a town or a dungeon floor | The same effects, and the Flame on Aldhearth's Grand Plaza flickers and lights its people |
Fights
The blow. A swing sweeps a bright arc, in the colour of the weapon's element. At the hit the Grown flashes white, is shoved back a few pixels (only as drawn: where it really is does not change), and sparks fly, a ring spreads on the ground, the damage number pops, and everything holds for a blink. The blink, the shake and the flash only happen for the hits you deal or take.
A critical hit is the same, made bigger on purpose: a wider arc, a ring that spreads further, gold rays, more sparks, a golden number with its multiplier underneath and, for a moment, a red tint on the Grown. It still keeps to the limits below.
How they fall. Every Grown dies in a way that suits it. People dissolve into drifting blocks and wisps, the undead crumble to ash, constructs break into chips and a rattle of sparks, slimes splat, beasts are knocked over and lift away as motes. A boss pauses first, flares, and sends one ring across the screen. Your own kills throw a few coins that arc and bounce; the real drops begin where that ends.
Marks on bodies. A Grown that burns, is poisoned, shocked, wet, oiled, shielded or slowed wears a small sign and a tint, so you can read a fight at a glance. A shocked Grown pulses slowly.
Bodies move. Characters, other players and Grown have poses on top of their old pictures: they squash before a jump and stretch in the air, land, lean into a swing, cast, draw a bow, swing a pick, flinch white when hurt, hop at a level-up, and breathe when they stand still. A Grown winds up before it lunges, so there is a tell. A few tells blink at full strength: the wind-up, a lit fuse, your own blink of safety after a blow, the crackle on a shocked body. With Flashes on Soft or Off, or for reduced motion, they stay steady instead, so nothing blinks for those who asked for less.
Drops and rarity
Nothing teleports. A drop arcs out of what dropped it (a body, a broken block, your hand), bounces with a puff of dust and settles where the server put it. Pick it up and it flies to you, the count shows over your head (+3 Iron ore), and several picked up in a moment add up to one line. A drop someone near you takes flies to them; one that goes away shrinks and fades. Things that reach your bag another way (a letter, a trade, the market, crafting, a reward) make the bag button pulse, and fly from the window if it is open.
Every rarity has a look of its own, from the shine on the floor to the light in the air:
| Rarity | What you see |
|---|---|
| Common | Nothing special, as before |
| Uncommon | A faint glow round it |
| Rare | A blue beam and a ring on the ground |
| Epic | A violet, taller beam with motes drifting up |
| Legendary | A tall gold beam, rings, twinkling stars and rays |
| Mythic | The tallest beam, prismatic: its colours slowly shift, with rays fanned out |
Only the beams nearest to you are drawn, and never one over your cursor. In the dark they are light, so you still see them from across a cave. Drop beams in the settings turns them off. See also Beams over rare drops.
Moments that matter
A level-up gathers light round you, bursts, and raises a column with rings on the ground and sparkles rising, then the banner says LEVEL and your new number.
A new title drops its card in with a little spring, in the colour of its rarity, with a band of light over its name; then it asks if you would like to show it. A new spell, pet or achievement, or a finished quest, gets a sparkle round the thing.
Rebirth is the biggest one. The world dims, a sigil turns on the ground, pillars of light rise, you lift, there is one white burst, and then REBORN and your new rank, in the rank's colour. It lasts three and a half seconds at most, and any key or a click skips it. For someone who asked for reduced motion (see below) it is a quiet one: a dimmed world and the words. Through the level-up banner, the title card and the rebirth, your cursor stays on top and clear, and the title card's sparks stay off its buttons.
Windows and the screen's edges. Windows open with a soft spring and a band of light once, close with a quick fade, toasts slide in and shine, the slot you choose on the hotbar pops, numbers count up, bars ease instead of jumping, buttons press, and Epic and better things in your bag have a shimmer. That part is on at Normal and High only, and never for reduced motion.
Moving, mining and building
Moving. Take-off dust in the colour of the ground, a ring of light on the double jump, a landing puff that grows with the fall (and chips of ground after a hard one), a skid when you turn at speed, a splash and rings when you swim, climbing dust, afterimages and speed lines for a dash, wings or a mount.
Mining. The block cracks in four stages, one more with every blow; it shakes; chips fly in its own colours; ore glints white; when it breaks it bursts, and what it drops comes to you. A block you place pops into its place.
Magic and pets
Every element has its own spell look: a charge at the hand, a trail behind the shot, an impact, and a mark on the ground for a moment. Fire throws embers and ends in a burst of flame; frost sheds flakes and ends in ice shards inside a rune ring; storm arcs with lightning; venom blooms in a toxic cloud; shadow collapses inward; stone ends in a burst of rock. See Spellcraft for the spells themselves.
Pets sway while they wait, hop when you feed them or when you level up, and glow in the colour of their rarity (Pets and rarities).
The living world
Everything in this part is ambient life: small, slow things that nobody asked for and everybody sees. It follows where you are and what the sky is doing.
- At night (the game's night on Aldhearth's clock: 19:00 to 05:00 Stockholm time, eased in and out over an hour and a half) fireflies drift over meadows, woods and marshes, and shafts of moonlight fall through the sky.
- By day and by land: pollen on the wind, leaves from leafy blocks and petals from flowers, mist on cold and wet ground, snow glitter on the white lands, blown sand in the dunes, spores in the marsh, ash and cinders in the burnt lands, crystal sparkles in the geodes.
- Fire and light. Torches, braziers, candles, campfires, shrines, Home Stones, waystones and lit furnaces throw embers, and their flames flicker as layered tongues. Their light breathes a little, never faster than about once a second. Dust catches the torchlight.
- Lava glows, bubbles and shimmers with heat. Ore in the rock glints now and then (never over a name). Water sparkles and ripples, and rain splashes on it.
The light only breathes in the picture of the darkness, so what monsters see, and how far you see in fog, never change.
In towns and on floors
The same effects, with the same settings, run everywhere: in the open world, in towns (seen from above), and on the floors of dungeons, rifts, events and the arena pit. In a town lamps glow and breathe with light, flowers drop petals, trees drop leaves, and at night fireflies drift over the grass; in Aldhearth the Flame on the Grand Plaza flickers with sparks and a warm light that breathes. On a floor, sparks and rings are hidden behind walls, drops fly out of what dropped them, and the people you see from above swing, stretch, land and breathe like anywhere else. A sword's arc points the way you swung, in all eight directions. After a reconnect or a new login the effects start clean, with nothing left over from before.
The settings
Press O (or Esc, then Settings), open Graphics in the list on the left, and find Effects there. Everything is saved in this browser, on this computer, and nowhere else.
| Setting | What it does | |
|---|---|---|
| Quality: Off, Low, Normal, High | How much may be drawn at once. Low is fewer and smaller, for a phone or a slow computer. Normal is as designed. High is more of everything. Off draws none of the new effects at all: no glow, rings, shake, pause, flashes, poses, ambient life or beams. The damage number, the hit flash and the red edge when you are hurt always stay, because they tell you something. On the floors of rifts, crypts and events it also decides the light: see [[rifts#light-in-the-dark | Light in the dark]]. |
| Screen shake | From 0 to 100 percent of what the game asks for. 0 is none. | |
| Hit pause | A very short pause of the picture when you land a hard hit. Never a pause of your own moves, your keys or the connection. | |
| Flashes: Full, Soft, Off | Soft keeps every flash fainter (see the limits). Off has no flash at all, and the storm's lightning goes with it: the thunder stays, the light does not. | |
| Damage numbers: S, M, L | Smaller, as designed, or bigger. | |
| Ambient life | The fireflies, mist, falling leaves, embers and the other small life of the world. | |
| Drop beams | The columns of light over rare drops. | |
| Try it | Shows a few sample effects round you, through your settings. | |
| Lower effects by themselves if the game runs slowly | On to begin with. Lets the game take Effects down a step when it struggles (see below). Turn it off if you would rather decide yourself. | |
| Reset effects | Puts every effects setting back as it was at first. |
The older Weather effects switch (also in Graphics) still turns the sky's veil, rain, snow and storm flashes off; rain splashes follow it. A storm's lightning is a flash like any other, so it keeps to the same limits and follows Flashes.
A phone starts on Low. So does anyone whose device asks for reduced motion (a setting in your system's accessibility options): for them the shake is 0, flashes are Off, ambient life and beams are off, the windows do not spring, and the rebirth is the quiet one. Every one of those can be turned back on. Until you save a choice of your own, the game follows your device.
If the game runs slowly for a few seconds (and the switch above is on), it lowers Effects one step by itself, and says so in the chat. That lasts only until you leave: the level you chose is never overwritten, and next time you start where you were. It takes at most one step every ten seconds, never goes below Low, and never goes back up by itself; if a step does not make the game any faster, it stops there. Pick a level yourself, and the game gives it a fresh few seconds before it judges again. To get a little more out of a slow phone or computer yourself: set Quality to Low, turn off Ambient life and Drop beams, and Screen shake to 0.
The limits that never change
These are fixed. No setting raises them, and one gatekeeper in the game decides every flash, shake and pause, so no effect can slip past it.
- Flashes: at most 3 a second, never one closer than a third of a second to the last, and the white never more than 25 percent opaque (12 percent on Soft, and none on Off).
- Lightning is a flash too: it keeps to the same limits as every other flash, is dimmer on Soft, and does not flash at all on Off, at Quality Off or for reduced motion. The thunder stays.
- Nothing blinks faster than 3 times a second. Flames flicker no faster than about two and a half times a second, a light breathes about once a second, and a firefly blinks at most every other second. With Flashes on Soft or Off, or for reduced motion, what used to blink (a wind-up, a fuse, a blink of safety, a shocked crackle) is steady.
- Screen shake: at most 5 pixels (6 on High), and only ever the picture moves: never your aim, the cursor, or what a click hits.
- Hit pause: at most 70 milliseconds (80 for a critical hit), one at a time, and never your own moves.
- Nothing covers your cursor, a damage number or a prompt, not even a ceremony.
If anything ever feels like too much, set Flashes to Soft or Off and Screen shake to 0 first; both take effect at once.
Where the pictures come from
Every picture on this page is the game itself: real frames of a real game on a test server, one frame at a time, with its clock held so each step is at an exact moment. The same pictures are on the front page, and move there too.