as we know, Pantheon is in pre-alpha stage and there will still be lots of improvement in combat animations,
I think that the animation improvement should include the following:
1- damage effect over the screen on crit: when the player is hit by critical physical damage, the screen get blood splashes all over it, if the damage type is fire, then the whole screen get flame animation, if the damage type is cold, you get frost on your screen , if you get critical disease/poison damage your character puke on the ground, etc etc.
2- different hit animation on crits, for example simple axe swing is a swing of arm from above to below, but when the axe swing crit the animation can be a spin of the whole body.
simple dagger/knife hit is a poke with a dagger criticall hit can be a spin of the dagger in the hand before the hit, spell criticals can have more animation, more flame, or different color of the flame, etc
I dont want anime style overload , I just want to notice critical hits when they occur and not only have it as a line in the combat chat or floating combat text above the mob.
3- flinching on hits, I believe it is very important to have good flinching animations for hits, both for players and NPCs. without flinching the combat feels robotic and floaty...
4- small movement (position shift) on hits ,or at least crits, when you get hit, your character or the mob should move a little bit in the direction of the hit, bosses can be immune to this effect in order to avoid abuse.
same when you succesfully evade; you move a little bit back or to the sides as an effect of the evade.
what kind of improvement you think will add to the immersion of the game?
I prefer a simpler less "in your face" approach.
Things like blood splashes or fire all over would be far too distracting.
Showing all kinds of little things like flinching can overload the server with need to make endless calculations and lead to lag.
In short, the less effort put into combat animations the better from my perspective. Showing the character moving when it attacks or defends is plenty.
I honestly don't care about flashy animations, or over the top stuff, I just want simple animatimation that feel responsive when the abilities are used/land , for the animations to have "weight" and to actually connect with the target. (right now I think leeway in the melee attack range is to large, so some melee classes seem to reach the target with their attacks even tough they're severeal meters away, and their weapons and attacks are not connecting with the mob (just attacking the air basically) )
Also another important thing is movement animations (running/walking/strafing) and how right now they are super floaty and have no weight, but that's also getting improved.
As for the enemies moving back when they're hit, I think that's a bad idea, it will make it a bit weird, when a mob get's constatly pushed back a few inches.
I think sound like some cool idea's as long as they don't create animation locks, exploits, and to much clutter on the screen to the point where you can't see. I have seen the effects of animation effecting gameplay first hand and it can be game breaking.
As for what I would like to see! I would just be happy with some strong crowd control animations so that you can see what form of crowd control is used on the enemy without having to click on it. Like roots/ice shackling them to the ground if they are rooted and maybe a drunken/confused animtion if they are mezzed. As a paladin I would prefer a strong stun animation since they don't last long and I have abilities that take advantage of them. I have never been a fan of super flashy spell animations as I usually have to turn them off to be able to see anything so if they are put in I would prefer some pretty advance options of which ones I want to see and which ones I don't. I want to be able to tell when something has been crowd controled but I don't need to see any strictly damage spells ever.
Watching streams, the animations definitely seem very stiff and, yes, "floaty". Character animations play a MAJOR role in how combat can feel, and it's important that one's character (and others, as well as enemies) have weight and dynamic movement. Overall, I've found the combat animations to be too stiff and jerky, and I'm not a fan of the long pauses of static character between each animation. It makes the combat look very unnatural. The pauses could be fixed by extending animations to the full duration of the GCD, so that movement from one ability to the next is more fluid. There's also too much sliding across the ground. Watching people walk/run around feels less like watching people walk/run through a world and more like watching some paperdoll hover over the land.
Hopefully they'll fine tune this stuff over time!
dorotea said:I prefer a simpler less "in your face" approach.
Things like blood splashes or fire all over would be far too distracting.
Showing all kinds of little things like flinching can overload the server with need to make endless calculations and lead to lag.
In short, the less effort put into combat animations the better from my perspective. Showing the character moving when it attacks or defends is plenty.
Besides if the screen was "too busy" I would find that distracting and would be looking for a way to toggle it off...and possibly lessen lag...specially in raid situations. :)
Cana
Naunet said:Watching streams, the animations definitely seem very stiff and, yes, "floaty". Character animations play a MAJOR role in how combat can feel, and it's important that one's character (and others, as well as enemies) have weight and dynamic movement. Overall, I've found the combat animations to be too stiff and jerky, and I'm not a fan of the long pauses of static character between each animation. It makes the combat look very unnatural. The pauses could be fixed by extending animations to the full duration of the GCD, so that movement from one ability to the next is more fluid. There's also too much sliding across the ground. Watching people walk/run around feels less like watching people walk/run through a world and more like watching some paperdoll hover over the land.
Hopefully they'll fine tune this stuff over time!
Yup nothing is written in stone at this point, lots of time and room for improvement. :)
Cana
I have played games that had those kind of animations and when you have a full party fighting a mob it ends up spazzing out trying to keep up with all of the animations. Would be hard to smooth them out if you have too many animations going off at once.
Now if you are talking about your character animations that might be interesting. I would like to see damage skins, only played one MMoRPG that had them. I think it was Asheron's Call 2.
Naunet said:Watching streams, the animations definitely seem very stiff and, yes, "floaty". Character animations play a MAJOR role in how combat can feel, and it's important that one's character (and others, as well as enemies) have weight and dynamic movement. Overall, I've found the combat animations to be too stiff and jerky, and I'm not a fan of the long pauses of static character between each animation. It makes the combat look very unnatural. The pauses could be fixed by extending animations to the full duration of the GCD, so that movement from one ability to the next is more fluid. There's also too much sliding across the ground. Watching people walk/run around feels less like watching people walk/run through a world and more like watching some paperdoll hover over the land.
Hopefully they'll fine tune this stuff over time!
Of course it will be tuned. Much is going to improve - this is still pre-alpha! )
dorotea said:I prefer a simpler less "in your face" approach.
Things like blood splashes or fire all over would be far too distracting.
Showing all kinds of little things like flinching can overload the server with need to make endless calculations and lead to lag.
In short, the less effort put into combat animations the better from my perspective. Showing the character moving when it attacks or defends is plenty.
I can see how that would bother you, but there does need to be something to add to the depth of game. Perhaps not overkill. Looking forward to more streams.
@MyNegation Some cool ideas, and I like the flame, frost, and poison puking :)
MyNegation said:as we know, Pantheon is in pre-alpha stage and there will still be lots of improvement in combat animations,
I think that the animation improvement should include the following:
1- damage effect over the screen on crit: when the player is hit by critical physical damage, the screen get blood splashes all over it, if the damage type is fire, then the whole screen get flame animation, if the damage type is cold, you get frost on your screen , if you get critical disease/poison damage your character puke on the ground, etc etc.
2- different hit animation on crits, for example simple axe swing is a swing of arm from above to below, but when the axe swing crit the animation can be a spin of the whole body.
simple dagger/knife hit is a poke with a dagger criticall hit can be a spin of the dagger in the hand before the hit, spell criticals can have more animation, more flame, or different color of the flame, etc
I dont want anime style overload , I just want to notice critical hits when they occur and not only have it as a line in the combat chat or floating combat text above the mob.
3- flinching on hits, I believe it is very important to have good flinching animations for hits, both for players and NPCs. without flinching the combat feels robotic and floaty...
4- small movement (position shift) on hits ,or at least crits, when you get hit, your character or the mob should move a little bit in the direction of the hit, bosses can be immune to this effect in order to avoid abuse.
same when you succesfully evade; you move a little bit back or to the sides as an effect of the evade.
what kind of improvement you think will add to the immersion of the game?
I don't mean to be overly critical, but exactly how often do you think you're actually going to notice some of these, especially points 2, 3 and 4? Probably not often at all, if ever. Oh, and if you think about it more, some of what your asking for would technically happen AFTER the attack was completed. You don't first get a critical then swing. Animations are also not directly correlated to actions. If you get abilities like double attack, or NPCs getting quad attacks, visually representing them in the timespan in which they happen would be visually confusing.
And while the splash screen imagery may be nice, it really only works if you're dealing with just 1 NPC affecting you with 1 ability at a time. Start piling NPCs up and soon enough your screen is jus awash in visual trash. This is also true for reactions to attacks. While an NPC can easily do various physical animations in reaction to hits, missing, dodges or blocks, how do they visually represent that when you have 4 melee all attacking? Or a raid of 24? Sure you could program the system to such that animations are controlled client side such that it only shows responses to what your client is doing but if you're not engaging in melee and that NPC is not attacking you, what would it be doing? Standing there?
Animations need to be fluid, yes, but not so detailed as to be timed/tied to everything that is going on. Rough approximations of the battle is enough.
Designing weighty combat can be difficult in an MMO, yet it does make a difference. One of the biggest complaints ESO has, for example, is its floaty combat. If the devs can find a way to make combat more weighty, I think it'll really help with the "stickiness" of combat and that feeling of it being good. Regardless, I would much rather the devs focus their efforts on making an otherwise finished product, but do hope they find the time to return their attention to combat/combat animations at a later stage.
Personally, combat animations are around item 5000 on my list of priorities. Making it look pretty doesn't mean anything if it doesn't play well first, and have plenty of content to consume second. I've filled more than my quota of great looking yet craptastic games.
Overall every aspect of the art so far has already exceeded my expectations, let alone my requirements.
While fine tuning the animations would be nice (and I have no doubt that eventually they will be), I'd much prefer that the art team be spending the character dev/animation cycles they have on loads of creature types for us to experience in alpha/beta.
Edit: And I'm 100% in agreement with Canadina, in that I would really rather there not be all kinds of flash and splatter, and ... clutter on the screen. If it exists, I'd like a way to turn it off. It's meaningless to me, and serves only to distract from things I'm actually trying to see for tactical reasons.
Feyshtey said:Edit: And I'm 100% in agreement with Canadina, in that I would really rather there not be all kinds of flash and splatter, and ... clutter on the screen. If it exists, I'd like a way to turn it off. It's meaningless to me, and serves only to distract from things I'm actually trying to see for tactical reasons.
There definitely should be a distinction on this topic regarding the desire for weighty, impactful combat vs particle effects/flashiness. The last thing Pantheon needs is to implement the super arcade-like flashy particle effect mess of combat that the Korean MMOs have exemplified over recent years. Fortunately, I think the devs are of the same mindset, but it's still worth pointing out.
Vandraad said:I don't mean to be overly critical, but exactly how often do you think you're actually going to notice some of these, especially points 2, 3 and 4? Probably not often at all, if ever. Oh, and if you think about it more, some of what your asking for would technically happen AFTER the attack was completed. You don't first get a critical then swing. Animations are also not directly correlated to actions. If you get abilities like double attack, or NPCs getting quad attacks, visually representing them in the timespan in which they happen would be visually confusing.
And while the splash screen imagery may be nice, it really only works if you're dealing with just 1 NPC affecting you with 1 ability at a time. Start piling NPCs up and soon enough your screen is jus awash in visual trash. This is also true for reactions to attacks. While an NPC can easily do various physical animations in reaction to hits, missing, dodges or blocks, how do they visually represent that when you have 4 melee all attacking? Or a raid of 24? Sure you could program the system to such that animations are controlled client side such that it only shows responses to what your client is doing but if you're not engaging in melee and that NPC is not attacking you, what would it be doing? Standing there?
Animations need to be fluid, yes, but not so detailed as to be timed/tied to everything that is going on. Rough approximations of the battle is enough.
As much as I think the orignal posters ideas sounded really cool, I agree with Vandraad that these ideas would not really work and would be more fit for a action combat game. Its possible they could work but they would have rebuild their entire combat system from the ground up to support these ideas and It would probably slow down combat a ton so you could see all the animations.
I think what might give off the same effect without causeing to much of problem is some good sound work where you might get some different noises when anything dodges or crits. I'm also a sucker for a comic book type bubble that goes WHACK for crit and a WOOSH for dodge as long as you can only see them for yourself.
I'm surpised no one agreed with me on what we need most is some solid animations for crowd control so you can tell whats effecting a mob and when it wears off. As a player knowing when crowd control breaks/cast on something is crucial in how I will react at that moment be it healing,taunting, or just getting out of the way. What would be even cooler if the animation changes as its closer to wearing off I think that would be a step above what any other MMO has ever done.
One of the things i remember liking when leaving EQ and entering Vanilla WoW was the "smoothness & fluidity" of the character movement, the timing with jumping/casting and subsequent animations was close fitting and synced up - made the game feel more responsive, not quite sure how to quantify it particularly but my perception on the current streams is it's pretty, but looks like combat animations feel clunky. might be to do with limb length/movement speed i suppose thinking on it.
I understand enthusiasm for combat to be centric. By that I mean if I am casting the secret fireball of death, something I cant do often, I like to see something awesome and deadly eminate outward. (first person PoV). if I am in a group and I happen to see a group mate cast a fireball of death, I will find it cool/enviable to see the awesome animation they have to match the fireball of death.
From a first person PoV perspective, I would not prefer splatter because I am not wearing goggles- plus its a bit fourth wall for me. If it hits, it hits- I cant see the splatter because the splatter blinds me or rather makes my vision blurry because I cant see around or through it, nor can I see the part of it that rests on my eyes.
Taking a lesson from hitchcock, lets apply a centric view towards monsters with suspense. Knowing that when the monster raises the hammer above his head and pauses for a moment, means the players are frozen and the hammer is about to come down- thats tension. It can be avoided if -something- is done. But whenever the monster raises that hammer its a butt-clenching(to coin a phrase from a recent streamer commentary) moment because of the suspense. It ties in with environmental awareness. Heck, Adds are butt-clenching moments on a bad pull but of a different sort. Ads are more like a jump-scare than suspense.
For the record, jump-scares in general are cheesy, adds on the other hand can be handled and are par for the course in some cases and allow pullers or cc'ers to show off their expertise.
Look at the combat in the Yakuza 0 series. granted its third person- all the hits rarely connect but its engaging enough and the timing seems to be right with the telegraphing on the boss fights.
Centric. I think how combat looks to the player is more effective than how combat affects a third person view.
dorotea said:Showing all kinds of little things like flinching can overload the server with need to make endless calculations and lead to lag.
A minor nit:
The server doesn't calculate that sort of thing. It already decides whether a hit was a critical and tells your client about it. Your client handles 100% of the graphics. Thus, any additional graphics load would be client-side and not affect the server at all.
Worst case is the extra client-side load very, very slightly increases the system requirements to play the game smoothly. Simply changing the type of effect, say from a little bit of blood spatter to some big twisty vapor effect like a spell, has a far greater impact on client performance than simply changing which character animation is used.
Like I said, it's minor but hey, The More You Know... :)
Damacon said:I'm surpised no one agreed with me on what we need most is some solid animations for crowd control so you can tell whats effecting a mob and when it wears off. As a player knowing when crowd control breaks/cast on something is crucial in how I will react at that moment be it healing,taunting, or just getting out of the way. What would be even cooler if the animation changes as its closer to wearing off I think that would be a step above what any other MMO has ever done.
I intend to play an Enchanter at release and I have no interest in a bunch of animations and effects on MOBs that are mezzed, stunned, asleep, etc. To me that will only confuse the melee (the event, not the physical fighters). For years and years this wasn't ever necessary in EQ and I can't imagine it would be all that helpful now. Dealing with mezzes that have worn off or been broken is just part of the game. A good group will /assist their tank or off-tank (or whoever their MA is) and a failed mez isn't a big deal; Re-mez, group steps back a few feet if you have AoE effects, carnage continues.
Nothing against a spell effect on the MOB when the mez/stun/whatever is applied but please, no neon status signs over the MOBs' heads. Trust your enchanter to know their craft and keep the room on lockdown. They're trusting you to taunt, fireball, stab or whatever it is you do.