Some of you migh have seen my other post about animation, Combat Animations: A Resource (https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4615/combat-animations-a-resource). In that topic there started popping up discussions about the more technical and mechanical aspects of animation, as the post was more meant for the aestethics of animation, working as a potential resource for an animator to draw inspiration from and not a discussion about animation itself I asked for that to stop as it felt to be off-topic. But I also felt these where interesting and important topics so I am not making this post for hopefully just that. Let me lead a little with some questions I feel people might have strong and interesting opinions about.
- What do people feel about animations locking one in place when they execute? (Not talking spells with cast times but melee animations mostly for this.)
- What about slowing down movement considerably while the animation is executing?
- How detailed do you feel animations should/needs to be?
-How much of a light-show do you want spell-casting to be, how flashy do you want it?
-How important is the belivability of what is being performed? (Is "realism" a must?)
Those are some questions I can think of that might be fun to discuss and maybe this will help VR make descisions and give them some ideas about things,
Cheers and thanks for reading!
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
When it comes to improving animations, I think a big part of what makes them look good is the transition between them to prevent jerky animations. Sometimes that may be hard. Especially when you can execute an action faster than the animation can play. Sitting and standing multiple times is an example of this. In those situations, it might almost be better to block the ability while the animation is still playing. As fun as sit spamming was in EQ, I think limiting it might actually be a good thing.
For instance, one of the issues I had with old FPS games back in the day was the ability to jump, prone continuously or "dophin dive". Over the years, they have placed limitations on the players ability to bunny hop or dolphin dive by putting those actions on a timer with the animation and by also reducing movement speed to prevent players from moving in a way that acts or looks unrealistic. That kind of thing would be a big step in the right direction.
Specifically in Pantheon, I noticed the strafe run currently triggers a super fast walk animation. Then you had to opposite problem with side strafing which has a nice slow animation, but the movement speed isn't reduced so it also looked out of place.
I'm sure they're aware of such things and will be working on it.
Yea, I hope they are able to strike a balance with such animations so that they are not so locked down to completing that you get frustrated over the time it takes to sit up/down or whatever but also that not what you described happes.
I also think the running animations are very much still in the works.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
My opinion on this is mostly just based on how I've played games for years.
1. Being locked in place during combat animations in an MMO, I don't agree with. In Dark Souls for instance, it works very well as it is intrinsically tied to the entirety of the combat system. In an MMO like Pantheon and the type of gameplay we viewed on stream though, I think it would sacrifice too much freedom of movement in exchange for some admitted realism. TERA is a game where combat animations would stop you from moving your character normally as well, however, TERA's entire combat system was also built to feel a lot more "manual" like Dark Souls.
2. Honestly, I've played other games that have slown character movement speed to a crawl while casting spells. The same was not done for melee attacks. In these games, I actually much preferred it that way to the EQ way of forcing you to remain completely still or face an interrupt. It made complete sense to me as well, as healers and casters in particularly rarely have to deal with positioning issues that melee do. When a mob is moving around constantly, maintaining line of sight on a caster is trivially easy compared to staying lose behind a mob's hitbox. The boss fight in the last stream where they were constantly kiting mobs/the boss around to avoid dealing with the AE is a perfect example of this.
3. In terms of detail, it depends on what you mean. I like smooth animations without any rapid, buggy feeling transitions. EQ2 for instance had numerous animation issues between the use of combat arts and auto attack that often led to really jerky movements. As long as the animations are varied, interesting, and visually pleasing, I have no complaints. As a matter of fact, Dark Age of Camelot still stands the test of time as having some of my favorite combat animations in the entire genre. Vanguard is a close second. I loved the animations of the various shield bashes, spinning attacks, etc. Rzor Parts Silk will always have one of my favorite animations. While it certainly wasn't a realistic animation style, it fit the context of the world and looked amazing.
4. I personally would like more limited, simple, short duration particle effects. Long duration particle effects like EQ tend to obfuscate the view and cause performance issues. Limiting them to 1-3 seconds of unique particles that convey enough visual information to let you know what someone is likely casting is good enough for me.
5. Realism isn't really a factor for me. This is a high fantasy game which posits a world so farfetched from reality that making allowances for typical flashy, fantasy-style combat animations seems like a no brainer to me. The fighting style of Witchers like Geralt of Rivia, for instance, would not be functional in the real world. However, within the context of the game, the animations are beautiful and really sell you on the concept of deadly, cat-like reflexes.
I very much agree on most of your points Liav. But on the topic of the first question and locking one in place for animations would not be for the sake of "realism" imo. But to make a higher risk/reward way of play and changing the way of play. The original Guild Wars (as I remember) had you be locked in place for pretty much all melee animations, making it so that you needed to evaluate if it was safe to use your abilities a lot more. I think it is a fitting mechanic for a slower paced game such as Pantheon. Another reason for locked animation I would argue is that it is easier to animate, for you will not have to consider and tweak the animation to fit the character if they are moving. Locking them down also means you can make animations which feel a lot better, you can make the character engage thier legs and hips in the strike instead of just the upper body (normally you need to consider movement which leads to animations where they ignore the lower half).
On the point of "realism". I am someone that does swordsmanship, but I would have no problem with more fantasy type moves, I would just want them to keep it fitting to the world we are in. TERA can use thier extremely ludacris animations for it fits the world they are depicting in. I would be totally accepting of someone spinning while doing an attack (not too much of this though please), but someone jumping high in the air, doing a volt and then landing with a strike would feel out of place.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
Liav said:My opinion on this is mostly just based on how I've played games for years.
1. Being locked in place during combat animations in an MMO, I don't agree with. In Dark Souls for instance, it works very well as it is intrinsically tied to the entirety of the combat system. In an MMO like Pantheon and the type of gameplay we viewed on stream though, I think it would sacrifice too much freedom of movement in exchange for some admitted realism. TERA is a game where combat animations would stop you from moving your character normally as well, however, TERA's entire combat system was also built to feel a lot more "manual" like Dark Souls.
2. Honestly, I've played other games that have slown character movement speed to a crawl while casting spells. The same was not done for melee attacks. In these games, I actually much preferred it that way to the EQ way of forcing you to remain completely still or face an interrupt. It made complete sense to me as well, as healers and casters in particularly rarely have to deal with positioning issues that melee do. When a mob is moving around constantly, maintaining line of sight on a caster is trivially easy compared to staying lose behind a mob's hitbox. The boss fight in the last stream where they were constantly kiting mobs/the boss around to avoid dealing with the AE is a perfect example of this.
3. In terms of detail, it depends on what you mean. I like smooth animations without any rapid, buggy feeling transitions. EQ2 for instance had numerous animation issues between the use of combat arts and auto attack that often led to really jerky movements. As long as the animations are varied, interesting, and visually pleasing, I have no complaints. As a matter of fact, Dark Age of Camelot still stands the test of time as having some of my favorite combat animations in the entire genre. Vanguard is a close second. I loved the animations of the various shield bashes, spinning attacks, etc. Rzor Parts Silk will always have one of my favorite animations. While it certainly wasn't a realistic animation style, it fit the context of the world and looked amazing.
4. I personally would like more limited, simple, short duration particle effects. Long duration particle effects like EQ tend to obfuscate the view and cause performance issues. Limiting them to 1-3 seconds of unique particles that convey enough visual information to let you know what someone is likely casting is good enough for me.
5. Realism isn't really a factor for me. This is a high fantasy game which posits a world so farfetched from reality that making allowances for typical flashy, fantasy-style combat animations seems like a no brainer to me. The fighting style of Witchers like Geralt of Rivia, for instance, would not be functional in the real world. However, within the context of the game, the animations are beautiful and really sell you on the concept of deadly, cat-like reflexes.
My quick short replies: All i'm good for : P
1. I agree, i've been playing ESO and then watching the twitch stream of Panthoen i'd love to see a balance where i'm not locked in place but i'm also not rolling and tumbling every 2 seconds.
2. Possibly some impairment to casting while moving, more chance to fizzle but not impair movement speed?
3. I Played Dark Ages of Camelot for 2 days, thought the character movements when running looked like they had a stick up their ass and stopped playing.
4. This should be able to be scaled, I don't want to fight staring at my feet due to lag. One of the things I am dissapointed about is that games are being geared toward low end machines. I like having to buy a high end rig and though Vanguard had some issues I loved the high quality graphics.
5. I love the look of Vanguard and Pantheon, Vanguard was my wifes first MMO and now I can't get her to play anything else because they all look to cartoony, just her opinion but I have to agree with her WoW did not do it for me for that same reason.
My 2 cents.
Youmu said:I very much agree on most of your points Liav. But on the topic of the first question and locking one in place for animations would not be for the sake of "realism" imo. But to make a higher risk/reward way of play and changing the way of play. The original Guild Wars (as I remember) had you be locked in place for pretty much all melee animations, making it so that you needed to evaluate if it was safe to use your abilities a lot more. I think it is a fitting mechanic for a slower paced game such as Pantheon. Another reason for locked animation I would argue is that it is easier to animate, for you will not have to consider and tweak the animation to fit the character if they are moving. Locking them down also means you can make animations which feel a lot better, you can make the character engage thier legs and hips in the strike instead of just the upper body (normally you need to consider movement which leads to animations where they ignore the lower half).
On the point of "realism". I am someone that does swordsmanship, but I would have no problem with more fantasy type moves, I would just want them to keep it fitting to the world we are in. TERA can use thier extremely ludacris animations for it fits the world they are depicting in. I would be totally accepting of someone spinning while doing an attack (not too much of this though please), but someone jumping high in the air, doing a volt and then landing with a strike would feel out of place.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
I see what you're saying, but, I still have to say that I don't like it.
The reason I don't like it is that melee are already penalized severely compared to casters. Freedom of movement has always been less of a consideration for casters than it has to melee. As such, any system to compromise freedom of movement for melee animations will inherently be biased against specific classes.
You could say that this can be countered by game design, which perhaps it can. However, I imagine that the combat system repercussions of that would be quite devastating and would require a complete redesign of the way players interact with enemies. It also restricts how liberal you can be with fight mechanics involving repositioning.
I'm very objected to it for the above reasons, but I respect your point of view. I think we can find alternative ways to make players utilize their ability usage more judiciously, without restricting freedom of movement.
Zahlhedren said:My quick short replies: All i'm good for : P
1. I agree, i've been playing ESO and then watching the twitch stream of Panthoen i'd love to see a balance where i'm not locked in place but i'm also not rolling and tumbling every 2 seconds.
2. Possibly some impairment to casting while moving, more chance to fizzle but not impair movement speed?
3. I Played Dark Ages of Camelot for 2 days, thought the character movements when running looked like they had a stick up their ass and stopped playing.
4. This should be able to be scaled, I don't want to fight staring at my feet due to lag. One of the things I am dissapointed about is that games are being geared toward low end machines. I like having to buy a high end rig and though Vanguard had some issues I loved the high quality graphics.
5. I love the look of Vanguard and Pantheon, Vanguard was my wifes first MMO and now I can't get her to play anything else because they all look to cartoony, just her opinion but I have to agree with her WoW did not do it for me for that same reason.
My 2 cents.
1. Pantheon luckily is not a hybrid action-traditional combat system like ESO so manual dodge rolls and such won't be a factor. I agree in disliking it.
2. I hate fizzling for reasons I've mentioned in another thread. However, the two options generally seem to be "severely slow movement speed" or "restrict movement altogether", going by other games. I prefer the idea of slowing movement speed instead of it causing spells to be interrupted like EQ. Both EQOA and Vanguard functioned this way.
3. Funnily enough, I use this same justification to use Luclin models in EQ. I hate the old models, passionately.
4. Agreed. Too many games go way overkill on particle effects.
5. Pantheon looks many times more beautiful than Vanguard, which I love. I too am a fan of graphics that bias towards realism than stylization. However, I can recognize the value of stylization in how it reduces performance costs and stands the test of time better.
Another alternative I've have pondered a little on which might fix the entire thing with only animating the upper body when characters attack is that when engaged in combat, you have a different animation for moving. A more martial stance where you could more easily make melee attacks look good from, more bent knees and lower to the ground instead of standing upright in a walking fashion.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
Youmu said:Another alternative I've have pondered a little on which might fix the entire thing with only animating the upper body when characters attack is that when engaged in combat, you have a different animation for moving. A more martial stance where you could more easily make melee attacks look good from, more bent knees and lower to the ground instead of standing upright in a walking fashion.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
Vanguard had that, actually. Well, sort of.
Basically, when you were engaged in combat (actively on an enemy's hate list), you unsheathe your weapons and assume a different stance from your normal standing pose. I'd never thought of the combat animation repercussions of that, but it did look a lot more natural, particularly the lower body.
Although, if you moved during combat I believe you would slide back into the normal running animation, then transition back into the combat stance when not moving again, so if you used melee abilities while moving you wouldn't assume that stance. They were halfway there but not the whole way.
If they could make it look good I think it would be a great help toward improving animation quality.
Slowing movement speed has been done before in other games and it depended on the class. Wizards in Vanguard could cast while moving slowly and I liked it. It felt very natural. Melee, on the other hand, I'd have to say no way, unless there was a trade off; big Greatsword of dismemberment or Hammer of one-shoting, yeah that should slow you down when you swing it or at the very least, when you carry it. Other than that, I don't think anything should impair movement speed in combat.
That goes the same for being locked in place or rooted during combat. Aion had that and I hated it. It felt very counterproductive and over-thought, like most far-eastern mmo's are.
As far as spell effects go, thats easy; low levels should have minimal effects, and the effects should grow and morph as you level up. They should look beautiful and be identifiable. But, not to flashy ie., asian mmo's.
@sdcord
I like the idea of particle effects becoming more complex as you level, as long as they don't become performance inhibitive. In every MMO I've ever played, I've disabled every particle effect that wasn't necessary to preserve performance. If they can find a way to do that without breaking performance, it sounds like a great idea.
With the whole locking in place for animation, I think I would like to see that for certain melee abilities. Imagine using a rapier, and doing a lunge attack, how would they do the movement without basically just sliding around? They would have to make it look stupid, lock you in place or not have such attacks, and fighting with a rapier and not having a lunge is just wrong. Also locking more special attacks could make them feel more special and give them reason to make them stronger.
On the subject of particle effects, I would like the to be pretty timid. The shaman's green effect on the stream felt a little too much for me. Save the flashy stuff for when casting big powerful spellls.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
Youmu said:- What do people feel about animations locking one in place when they execute? (Not talking spells with cast times but melee animations mostly for this.)
Really don't like the idea, I fat finger controls to often and this would drive me nutts. As stated by Liav it makes sense in game like Dark Souls because the game was designed for specific type of combat, but imho its more about keyboard versus controller, the precision is just not the same. I get the underlying issue that was mentioned in the other thread about transitions. Really if you have played with Maya animations and working them into Unity, its really not hard to create transitions from whatever previous position to the desired new position. Most of the problems we have seen in older games with transitioning issue are based on really the lack of transition period.
The topic of animations and transition or jerkyness issues does get complicated when you also consider network connectivity, packet loss and how that effects your PC actually interpreting others player actions. I dont mean to get to technical, but it is a factor is our experience.
Youmu said:- What about slowing down movement considerably while the animation is executing?
Slowed movement makes sense for casting and in some cases melee attacks.....but there may be a caveat when it comes to melee attacks, could get really annoying if your the tank of the group, your movement is slowed and you have just lost agroe, you now are fighting to regain agroe but also fighting the system that has reduced your movement. Seems like one of those artificial confines that is going to be way more annoying then it does good. I'm all for your movement slowing while casting, maybe even have to completely stop moving for some spells, but it really does not sound like a good idea for melee.
Youmu said:- How detailed do you feel animations should/needs to be?
I guess I would say, detailed enough to make its believable. In an MMO you are always struggling for a balance between what looks cool and whats practical for what could be a high numbers of players in a given area at a time.
Youmu said:-How much of a light-show do you want spell-casting to be, how flashy do you want it?
I prefer less of a light-show, but more then anything I would like a slider so I can take it from none to the 4th of July.
I think WoW vanilla did a really good job with the amount of particles present when a spell was cast, EQ1 just went crazy with it to the point you couldent see anything. One of the things that drove me nutts in EQ1 on my Wizard was the lack of projectiles(other then Ice Comet) when I nuked something. I realize alot of that was limitations of the time, but in 2016 if I cast a fire ball, I want to see it travel from my character to the mobs I am blowing up, super easy to do in Unity.
Youmu said:-How important is the belivability of what is being performed? (Is "realism" a must?)
I don't feel like I need to 100% believe all actions could actually be performed, it just has to be to the point where I don't do a double take and think "WTF!?!?", i.e. almost everything from Everquest Next.
Youmu said:With the whole locking in place for animation, I think I would like to see that for certain melee abilities. Imagine using a rapier, and doing a lunge attack, how would they do the movement without basically just sliding around? They would have to make it look stupid, lock you in place or not have such attacks, and fighting with a rapier and not having a lunge is just wrong. Also locking more special attacks could make them feel more special and give them reason to make them stronger.
On the subject of particle effects, I would like the to be pretty timid. The shaman's green effect on the stream felt a little too much for me. Save the flashy stuff for when casting big powerful spellls.
To be fair though, plenty of MMOs that have included rapiers have excluded lunge attacks for exactly that reason. You say it's "just wrong", but realistically it's general practice.
I still would rather not lock any attacks. As I said before, it punishes melee very unfairly.
What is the point of having a rapier (as a seperate category and not just as "one-handed sword") in a game if you're not using it as a rapier. We pretty much know rapiers is a thing in Pantheon from the rogue class description, and not using it the way it was supposed to rubs me very much the wrong way, everyone (except the spanish, they did things... differently) used the lunge for the rapier, and if Pantheon chooses to include rapier as a seperate category of weapons and not include the lunge I will be very dissapointed.
How does it punish them unfairly? We are not talking animation locking that would laste the same amount of time a cast would, it would be risk vs reward. A stronger attack but it locks you in place when used, you would have to think a little more about if it is safe to use it instead of just mashing away. In the time of a 3sec cast I can easily make 3, if not more attacks where I lunge in and retreat to my original position, I would not be anything on the level of a spell cast.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
I imagine the point is that the practicality of certain animations (realistic as they may be) just isn't there, but the weapons are included anyway for variety. I mean, let's face it, your average MMO player is either unaware of ignorant of proper fighting mechanics and probably believes that FantasyMovie783 is a valid representation of swordplay.
I understand the gripes you have, though. Knowledge is a burden.
Even so, suspending the freedom of movement of melee classes (even for a very short time) is an arbitrary decision that is inherently negatively biased towards melee players, who already carry a naturally heavier combat burden than casters.
I don't see a way around it that is practical for a game like this. We've come a long way, but I don't think we're far enough along yet technologically to overcome some of these game design hurdles. There are echoing consequences of a choice like that.
sdcord said:I think one philosophy from WoW that should be adopted in regards to combat animations is "make it fun". If it's not fun, it needs more work.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
Animations are all about immersion. For immersion there has to be plenty of them. Meaning, when the mob just stands there doing the same thing over and over, the repetitiveness of the animation reduces immersion. Obviously, they have to function with gameplay, but a variety of animations from the mobs and players is the key.
Still haven't seen a good argument for allowing animation spam. Game doesn't have to be "action combat" or "Dark Souls" to justify not allowing certain movements over and over. Better looking, more realistic animations with smoother transitions is just better even if it means you can't sit 5 times a second.
Youmu said:sdcord said:I think one philosophy from WoW that should be adopted in regards to combat animations is "make it fun". If it's not fun, it needs more work.
Fun how? Visually? We need a definition to some degree, and making things look fun/good and feel fun/good are pretty different(although looking fun/good helps).
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
It should be inspiring, and evoke a sense of excitement.
If a halfling warrior can't dual wield wurmslayers and 1h slash everything, then the animations/realism is garbage :p
To be honest, combat animations arnt that important to me, im more focused on making sure the fight is going our way. Class specific animations would be cool. Monks should kick ***. Race and class would be even more cool, but a ton of work. Run/travel animations i notice more. Realism is appreciated here.
Let us use a slider for particle effects. I noticed projectile spells in the stream and that's awesome! I may have a wizzy alt because of this. It would be even more cool if comets came down vertically onto the target (might not work underground/inside). The scaling of particle effects to character level is cool, but id like to see the effect on target scale, with the base casting effects the same. I.e. a low level fireball hits the target a small burst occurs. A high level fireball really explodes on contact.
sdcord said:Youmu said:sdcord said:I think one philosophy from WoW that should be adopted in regards to combat animations is "make it fun". If it's not fun, it needs more work.
Fun how? Visually? We need a definition to some degree, and making things look fun/good and feel fun/good are pretty different(although looking fun/good helps).
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
It should be inspiring, and evoke a sense of excitement.
We are talking more about animation on a mechanical level rather than an artistic, I made a thread more about astethics and the look of animation called Combat Animations: A resource. Feel free to share more of your thoughts of the visual aspects of animation there, I am interested in what ways you think we could evoke excitement.
More on the topic of particle effects, I think seeing the projectile of what you cast is a must, seeing your ball of fire fly through the air feels much better. The more complex animations using a lot of particle effects and and motion should be kept for more epic spells, make the things used alot not be overly bright and complex to not clutter the screen and make those big rare spells feel even cooler.
//Voices of Terminus' Yoiumu Svartie
I'm fine with gaudy, flambouyant animations in a fantasy game filled with spellcasting. If we're going to go realistic for melee abilities, I think they aren't going to look as enticing as the spellcasters.
Animation locks can be both good and bad.
The Good:
You have to make sure it's safe to use that ability and time it properly. It can cause fight's to be more challenging.
The game looks more realistic and abilities and spells are seen in their proper glory.
Animation locks would allow for a smoother console port of the game. The player can move to their next ability while the animation fires.
I'm ASSUMING that animation locks allow for easier development of animations.
The Bad:
Some player frustration. "I hit the button, why didnt it work!"
Doesn't allow for much twitch gameplay.