So, as a supporter of the game and someone who is looking forward into what this game will hold, I can't help but take note of the combat animations and the AI animation and how they almost seem "Statue" like. I do understand completely that it is in such an early phase of development that it would be ludicrous to judge the combat and animations right now. BUT, that being said, I haven't heard much from the team as to what they plan to do with combat and the animations. I'll be honest, if the game gets thrown into a beta phase with the way the combat looks now... it won't hold up. It doesn't look smooth or fluent and it lacks..... pretty much everything. I feel every encounter, whether it be a raid boss, dungeon boss, a normal enemy in the open, should always have a mechanic or something to dodge while fighting. Asmondgold, though is not a person I would prefer to listen because of how ridiculous he can be with over glorifying World of Warcraft. But does he have some point regarding how the combat and animations look?
Am I wrong in thinking that the combat looks terrible in the state that it's in? I just need some kind of clarification. I've watched countless videos of folks voicing how the game's combat looks bad and would most likely stay that way. Of course I wouldn't feed into that, especially of how early the gameplay is. If you guys can help me out with this one, I would apprieciate it.
Mod Edit: Link removed, please do not share links of streamers/YouTubers as it is seen as promoting them and is against our forum guidelines.
I don't know what to say... are we talking about yesterdays stream? https://youtu.be/UNbcrIWk8B4?t=2721
I watched it, but they don't really go into depth with what they plan to do with raid encounters and how mechanics will pan out in HUGE fights. I guess I'm looking for a definitive answer on how group dungeoning and raiding will look like animation and combat/mechanic wise.
If you are looking for super fast paced fights, and combat effects that require immediate twitchy responces then I don't believe this is the direction they want to go. Combat in this game I believe is going to appeal to a more strategic, classic pacing that gives players a chance to figure bosses out on the fly rather than force 100s of wipes upon folks. This is because of two primary factors. One is the community and gamer they want to appeal to, and the second is that they want to make dying have big reprecussions and dying multiple times in a night could de level a character.
As for the animations themselves, like you said; it's ludicrous to judge such things in a pre alpha state. Once beta rolls around there will be a better idea of what they will look like in final product.
So when you say strategic, classic pace .. are you refering to a numbers/stats type gameplay? I look at it this way, raid encounters should be more than just numbers and button smashing. Tank and spank is a no no to me, there should always be a "Move here and kill this add before he enrages" or a "Spread out and dodge bullets" type encounters. Which I hope Pantheon is willing to do.
I wouldn't say theres "zero" risk in dying, the risk is just minimal. You wipe 100s of time, you need to re-organize your group, repair bills. Its overall time consuming. But what does having a non-crappy game come down to if the combat is rudimentary? People time and time again say that they would choose gameplay over graphics any day of the week, so what is the real goal here? Graphics or combat or gameplay? In my mind, they all mesh together.
Ghool said: I'd rather have a really good game to play overall than worry about something as inconsequential as character animations.
I really don't think character animations - especially combat animations - are "inconsequential". It is fairly early in development, though. These things can change.
Kravim1 said:I haven't heard much from the team as to what they plan to do with combat and the animations. I'll be honest, if the game gets thrown into a beta phase with the way the combat looks now... it won't hold up.
Well... they mentioned yesterday that they hired a talented new resource to work on the animations and presented some of his recent work on the warrior animations. Once all the animations of all the classes will be done, they will work on NPC animations (monster by monster). It takes time. Perhaps they will even have to design special racial animations as well for playable classes and NPC.
Reminder: Beta phases does not come after Pre-Alpha. Alpha is an important piece of the development phase. So it is fair to assume that 90% of the animations work will be done prior to Alpha and finalize during Alpha.
If you are looking for a WoW styled experiance where your always on the move with a ton things to interrupt and spamming your abilities on CD, and where one missed step will kill you and possibly wipe the group/raid. This might not be what you're looking for. Bosses will have mechanics and things that if aren't handled will probably wipe your group, but I wouldn't expect the pace of WoW mythic style raiding. The video linked above shows off a dungeon boss that had add mechanics, anti casting windows, and anti mellee windows. The characters outleveled the encounter a good ways, but there was still a moment or two during the encounter where the tank looked iffy.
From everything I've seen, this game is way more about the experiance and the journey than just the endgame. Things will take longer, rewards will come slower, and failure and setbacks will be more severe. They are putting systems that are designed to pull you into the experiance and focus on the details more so than jumping from one boss to the next to claim your reward. WoW kind of evolved into a state of what I like to call hyper competivity where every class had to be perfectly balanced against one another eliminating most forms of customization that eventually lead pidgeonholing class specs with no variety, and encounters designed so they had to be fought in pretty normalized strats. Furthermore it bred an elitist culture where if you were new and learning, or not one of the best players on a server, people wouldn't let you into raids or mythic groups because of websites tracking your dps, and mythic dungeons and crap like that. Plenty of people want that and I'm not trying to say it's bad, but if that's what you are interested in... lets just say they aren't trying to compete with WoW. They appear to be trying to attract those whom miss the early mmos like eq and others including vanilla WoW, where fights lasted longer and there was alot less instant gratification. When the game world was full of mysteries and things to discover and puzzles to figure out. Where stats, resistances, damage types, and being prepared matter just as much as moving out of a red circle. Where the amount of attempts you try to kill a boss isn't just limited by how many hours you have in the night, but also by how many levels you will lose and the length of time it will take to earn them back.
Well, for one...did anybody else feel embarassed for yourself after having listened to that angry little dude in the link? I gave him about 2 minutes of my time and I feel a little embarassed for myself. Anyways...
I do think there is some work required on the fluidity of motion in the animations. They come off a bit too fast at time and a little too slow at others and when tied together something doesnt seem 100% right with it.
That being said, even on yesterdays stream they showed some of the warrior animations they are working on and all impressions I am getting from what they are saying is that it is still a work in progress. This game is in the Pre-Alpha stage still. You need to take that into consideration.
In the end, I have a high end gaming PC and I've chosen to play on an EQ TLP right now, so for me content over cosmetics is paramount. I do not think it is a bad looking game at all though. I like what they are going for and the environment from what I have seen seems beautiful and immersive, at least from what I have seen so far. I like the style they are going for. I do think it still needs polish, particularly with the animations but the execution of the gameplay itself is more important to me.
They have emphasized the focus on a slower paced, old school gaming experience which is what I think many here are looking for. If someone has been brought up on the post vanilla WoW type MMOs any game with this as their goal is likely not going tot have the same appeal as it would to someone who started up MMOs on Classic EQ, DAoC and the like. This is more or less taking that old school model and giving it the technological enhancements of today to improve that model, not conform to the current model.
Kravim1 said:So, as a supporter of the game and someone who is looking forward into what this game will hold, I can't help but take note of the combat animations and the AI animation and how they almost seem "Statue" like. I do understand completely that it is in such an early phase of development that it would be ludicrous to judge the combat and animations right now. BUT, that being said, I haven't heard much from the team as to what they plan to do with combat and the animations. I'll be honest, if the game gets thrown into a beta phase with the way the combat looks now... it won't hold up. It doesn't look smooth or fluent and it lacks..... pretty much everything. I feel every encounter, whether it be a raid boss, dungeon boss, a normal enemy in the open, should always have a mechanic or something to dodge while fighting. Asmondgold, though is not a person I would prefer to listen because of how ridiculous he can be with over glorifying World of Warcraft. But does he have some point regarding how the combat and animations look?
Personally I find that there are a couple of issues with the video you sorced.
1. First and formost the video was from last November and alot of developmental process has been made towards the graphics and from the newest stream with Cohh they have stated they brought in a new team member dedicated to just character animations. They leaked some of the new warrior ability animations iat the very end of that stream as well, and have stated that all classes will be getting their own unique spell animations as well as different auto attack animations.
2. The second issue is that the video you sorced is of Asmon. I love Asmon and I think hes a great streamer who is willing to call people out for their actions. That being said Asmon is what I would consider a very WoW centric player, I don't think I've ever seen him play any other MMO other than WoW. I would personally argue that he is biased towards WoW and compares everything aginst WoW. There is nothing wrong with loyality I played WoW for NINE consistant years before I quit in MoP and then came back for Legion and the start of BFA, but I would consider loyality up to the point that it leaves you closed minded a flaw.
As for how combat looks... I would say that it is a system that is going through a polish phase. They stated in the stream that there are still alot of place holder animations for certain ablitites. Spell and ability animations from the latest stream look like they are coming along really well, the enchanters mana drain that looks like a syphon is kind of awesome. The clerics celestial bond (im assumeing thats the light shield that goes arround the tank) looks good. I would also say that the warriors battle stands look good and would argue that compared to WoW's warrior's shots are more visually apealing to look at. I would also say that its nice to see what has been crowd controled vs what hasn't with out even having to click on the enemy. It would also argue that the class synergy is comming along nicely, but this observation is only based on the enchanters ability to restore mana to the cleric. Its hard to argue about class synergy with out being able to understand the debuffs/buffs being applied to the group and enemies.
On another note about combat animations and graphics... I would argue that neither one of them truely make or break a game. Take WoW latest expansion... I would argue that combat animations are visually appealing, and that the art team has done a visually impressive job on the world. I would say that for WoW's standards both are high quality. However I would argue that neither one of them did much to "save" the game from the azurite system/ island expiditions system that were implemented. I would say that neither one of them saved the game form the ever decreasing communal interactions between players, and I would also say that neither one of them did anything for the ever decreasing sense of meaning that loot holds. If you were to ask a player where they got an item in WoW's current state they probably wouldn't be able to tell you.
My point above is that a game is more than just combat and graphics... so much more. Other systems implemented hold more sway on player retention and over all game play. We havn't heard much about how the preception system is going to impact combat. We do know that eventually NPCs are going to have dispositions where they will target certain players, run off and grab more enemies, defend other enemies... etc.
Combat in this game will always remain slow compared to most modern day MMOs. I doubt you will rarely if ever see a speed run of a dungeon done by characters who are the same level as the mobs they are fighting. What you will see though is: death having meaning on your leveling process, classes having unique identities that arn't homogenized, classes having synergy with each other, control making a comeback leading to strategic based combat. They also stated in their latest stream that boss encounters will have mechanics tied in with them, and one that they are currently working on will envlove climbing as a mechanic. They also talked about dynamic weather encounters and showed off visuals for the storm climate they are working on.
I would suggest that you watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi8Cq9nQV-E. Its 1 hour of my life that I found well spent. At the end they talk more about what is in the works for animations, climate, climbing, and a tease at the end.
Dissolution said:Maybe I was too hard on Asmon. First time seeing the guy's stream and fast forwarded to about where the OP was at and he was in mid tangent. Bad first impression. He may be a pillar of wisdom, /shrug.
nothing wrong we being hard on someone. it just means you care ^_^
I could have just non-moving sticks with text scrolling the combat and be just fine. I know some like all the fancy arcade look, and I am not against it, but if I have to choose between that and a solid target based, round based combat system, then I don't care how it looks. There are so many games out there that look fancy, amazing, pew pew, woooosh amazing combat animations and play, but they are shallow arcade garbage. If I wanted that, I would play a console game. /shrug
I know what you mean. Statue-like fighting to me means both feet planted on the ground.
There were 14 combat animations in the last stream and of those: the Shield bash and Shield block had a ballet plie look to it, Strike of breaking had a jump, Battering ram looked like a workout lunge, Formation had a waltz quality to it, Close the gap almost looked like half a burpee, Shout like half a charleston, and Storm although they called iombat animation it looks like a sprint to me.
The remaining 7 make sense to be mostly stationary in battle.
Kravim1 said:So, as a supporter of the game and someone who is looking forward into what this game will hold, I can't help but take note of the combat animations and the AI animation and how they almost seem "Statue" like. I do understand completely that it is in such an early phase of development that it would be ludicrous to judge the combat and animations right now. BUT, that being said, I haven't heard much from the team as to what they plan to do with combat and the animations. I'll be honest, if the game gets thrown into a beta phase with the way the combat looks now... it won't hold up. It doesn't look smooth or fluent and it lacks..... pretty much everything. I feel every encounter, whether it be a raid boss, dungeon boss, a normal enemy in the open, should always have a mechanic or something to dodge while fighting. Asmondgold, though is not a person I would prefer to listen because of how ridiculous he can be with over glorifying World of Warcraft. But does he have some point regarding how the combat and animations look?
Am I wrong in thinking that the combat looks terrible in the state that it's in? I just need some kind of clarification. I've watched countless videos of folks voicing how the game's combat looks bad and would most likely stay that way. Of course I wouldn't feed into that, especially of how early the gameplay is. If you guys can help me out with this one, I would apprieciate it.
Mod Edit: Link removed, please do not share links of streamers/YouTubers as it is seen as promoting them and is against our forum guidelines.
thank you i was thinking this exact same thing.
As far as animation seeming statue like, I do feel that different classes should have a few aditions in movement to the in between swings or abilities, such as a sword twirl or an axe tap, maybe a bit more of arm movement to match the apparent shoulder breathing movements. A bit more use of a shield animation if one is equiped with the correct foot stance while wielding one, most animations show a shield facing the left side rather than the mob during combat. There are things to improbe yes, personally I am more interested in game mechanics being polished however I understand the need for others that this is tweaked for the inmersion part of the game, Just my two cents for all they are worth.
Stumbled upon another Asmongold video regarding Pantheon and Im going to take my prior reaction back. I think he is being relatively fair in his assessments. This is prior to the most recent show of improvements as well.
Anyone crying about animations in PRE Alpha needs to look up what PRE alpha is. Who gives a flying rat-turd what Asmon says. he's an idiot.
Flapp said:Anyone crying about animations in PRE Alpha needs to look up what PRE alpha is. Who gives a flying rat-turd what Asmon says. he's an idiot.
My initial reaction as well (never seen the guy until the original post and bashed him just because of first impression), but it shows even those who want to hate it can't help but notice improvement. I cannot say I disagree entirely with some of his observations. I also think that for pre-alpha, and knowing they are actively focused on the animations is a reassuring sign for those who have the graphical aspect as a concern.
Flapp said:Anyone crying about animations in PRE Alpha needs to look up what PRE alpha is. Who gives a flying rat-turd what Asmon says. he's an idiot.
Agreed! He is a moron. He has no idea about what he is talking about. His first comment about Pantheon a year ago when watching a Pantheon stream was about "graphism"...
Ignore the idiots just like VR does. Asmon is a streamer, his job is to enternain his WOW following. His opinion about Pantheon is worth nothing, he never played a succesful MMO other than WOW.
VR know what they are doing and what the community that will support them for many years want.