A friend and I were talking the other day about how long some animations are. And we both agreed that if there was a way to toggle animations off so that you can get through fights quicker it would be really nice. We both have 5 or more Grandmaster Wizards and we have both seen all the current spells in the game multiple times (possibly thousands of times each).
The idea of turning off animations is purely to speed up fights. Rather than watching as the animation runs its course, you get a still of the animation at some point to show what spell has been cast. This still image should be chosen from one of the most iconic sections of the animation (such as a wraith standing in front of the headstones for the death spell Wraith, or a motionless tornado for the balance spell Sand Storm). The still image lasts for only about one to two seconds (play testing would be needed to get the proper duration). Then the effects of the spell would be applied, possibly the effects of the spell could be applied simultaneously with the still image to speed things up even more. Even the spell casting, spell hit and defeat animations should be turned off.
I know through experimenting that spell animations seem to be triggered for all wizards within the spell's viewable area. And the complexity of checking to see if animations are on or off for each wizard is a monumental task. Not to mention there would be a time lag between people with different settings, either those who have their animations turned off would get no benefit from doing so (i.e. they would have to wait for the animation to run its course but would see nothing), or those who have their animations turned on would always be a few seconds behind while the animation runs its course. Both scenarios are not good and would lead to more problems then without the option.
So, my thoughts are that only in an instance where everyone agrees to turn spell animations off throughout the entire instance would spell animations actually be turned off. That way, in an instanced dungeon or fight, a global variable can be set that only affects the spells cast in that instance. One simple check made when the instance loads and all animations would be off for the extent of that instance.
I think the best approach would still be to have an option to toggle spell animations on or off for each wizard in their preferences. So, that the option can be selected once and checked on loading any instanced fights or dungeons.
Now, on loading an instance with sigils, I am not sure if it should be majority rules or if it should be set as unanimous. This should be debated below and perhaps a fair solution can be reached.
