OK, I'm going to totally get frivolous with this one, but something that's always bothered me in MMOs is how bad the animations look when your character casts a spell while holding a weapon. I've never seen a game do it right.
This issue I have is the animation will look good if they aren't holding anything, Clerics, in particular, are going to be holding a heavy hammer. When they cast a spell this hammer is just waved about like its featherweight.
Take this crit as a grain of salt but I'd love to see characters actually look like they are holding something hefty when they cast if they have a weapon in their hands.
Grimseethe said:As long as i swing my sword the milisecond i push a button, thats all i care about.
Fluid and reactive.
The game is time based combat, not action combat, so I doubt you will see that response.
As far as the OP, I don't think I ever paid much attention. Now I will say, the casting while running was hilarious. in most games they look like imbiciles running from a fire.
Keep in mind, the scenario you described would require individual animations for an assortment of held items. That means far more dev work, additional resources to run animations and additional network demand for every additional animation. Generally today, it is not so much that it cannot be done, but that the requirements to make it work with little additional impact to users and system is quite difficult. We still require certain compromises for better performance.
Compare what you see today on screen to what we saw just 5 years ago, you can certainly see improvements, but the lowest common denominator still has to be taken into consideration.
Fulton said:Grimseethe said:As long as i swing my sword the milisecond i push a button, thats all i care about.
Fluid and reactive.
The game is time based combat, not action combat, so I doubt you will see that response.
As far as the OP, I don't think I ever paid much attention. Now I will say, the casting while running was hilarious. in most games they look like imbiciles running from a fire.
I understand what both of you are saying here, and you are both correct in a sense. It is time based combat, but there are also triggered abilities for melee (action combat). I also agree that when you implement action combat that if you miss the boat on the timing of animation, sound (equally important), and ability execution you create a large gap in the uncanny valley perception. (This is what killed EQ2 and made WoW as succcessful as it was/is). Easiest way to immerse "some" players if done well or fastest way to turn "some" players away from a game if done poorly. If I hit Backstab, and my character does a kick animation from a skill I used 5 seconds ago, and then I hear a CRUNCH sound from my backstab, swing a few times and then do my backstab animation I will likely not play a melee even though this doesn't matter to some people. It makes a big difference to some people though. add: EQ1 had decent combat action when it came to timing a bash or stun or timing your auto attack swings for jousting in PvP, but EQ2 was just god-awful. I think EQ2 did that because of the need to button mash due to having so many abilities. Its safe to say PRotF will be nothing like EQ2. I hate comparing PRotF to other MMOs, but people will have expectations because there are other MMOs out there now. -shrug-
An easy fix for the O.P. would be to sheath weapons when casting. The animation doesn't need to show the actual sheathing motion, but just show the items equiped on the character's waist/back accordingly.
Darch said:(This is what killed EQ2 and made WoW as succcessful as it was/is).
I know this was just an aside but it's not correct. At least not in a general sense. It may be what killed EQ2 *for you* but it's not what killed it for me and I'm pretty certain other former EQ2 players left for their own reasons. Animations alone can't kill a game nor can they make a game successful. It's great when a game gets the animations and sound effects right, it makes for very satisfying combat, but VR could bone both completely and still have a successful, popular game on their hands. You may not play it but plenty of others would.
The main thing that killed EQ2 for me was the shared exp loss when grouping. I returned to EQ2 some years later (shared exp loss had been removed) and left the second time out of boredom. Their animations never bothered me.
Just sayin'.
macgregoroi said:...something that's always bothered me in MMOs is how bad the animations look when your character casts a spell while holding a weapon. I've never seen a game do it right.
Black Desert combat was thoroughly satisfying. You should give it a try. And VR should take notes.
In DAoC you could not cast spells with unsheathed weapons.
Problem solved! Quick and easy fix.
*Ups sorry Darch, I didn't see your reply being the exact same thing*
While just not making use of the weapons while casting is an option, I have to say I always enjoy casting animations that actually employ the weapon as a focus instead of it just hanging out at one's hip or on one's back as a lifeless stat stick.
I always wished that my esper in WildStar weilded her psyblade like the sorcerers in TERA.
Akilae said:Darch said:(This is what killed EQ2 and made WoW as succcessful as it was/is).
I know this was just an aside but it's not correct. At least not in a general sense. It may be what killed EQ2 *for you* but it's not what killed it for me and I'm pretty certain other former EQ2 players left for their own reasons. Animations alone can't kill a game nor can they make a game successful. It's great when a game gets the animations and sound effects right, it makes for very satisfying combat, but VR could bone both completely and still have a successful, popular game on their hands. You may not play it but plenty of others would.
The main thing that killed EQ2 for me was the shared exp loss when grouping. I returned to EQ2 some years later (shared exp loss had been removed) and left the second time out of boredom. Their animations never bothered me.
Just sayin'.
He was correct in what he was saying. Part of the immersion for me is my character having good animations and sounds during combat. They don't need to be the best around, but they definitely need to be tight and on queue when an action is preformed. One example in WoW right now is, for some strange reason directly after combat, my warrior will do one final smack to a corpse on the ground and the mob will yell in pain. It is funny sometimes that the sound and my overhead swing animation is triggered after combat has ended, but overall I find it distracting and annoying that the animations/sounds are not matching the actions.
sevnptsixtwo said:Akilae said:Darch said:(This is what killed EQ2 and made WoW as succcessful as it was/is).
I know this was just an aside but it's not correct. At least not in a general sense. It may be what killed EQ2 *for you* but it's not what killed it for me and I'm pretty certain other former EQ2 players left for their own reasons. Animations alone can't kill a game nor can they make a game successful. It's great when a game gets the animations and sound effects right, it makes for very satisfying combat, but VR could bone both completely and still have a successful, popular game on their hands. You may not play it but plenty of others would.
The main thing that killed EQ2 for me was the shared exp loss when grouping. I returned to EQ2 some years later (shared exp loss had been removed) and left the second time out of boredom. Their animations never bothered me.
Just sayin'.
He was correct in what he was saying. Part of the immersion for me is my character having good animations and sounds during combat. They don't need to be the best around, but they definitely need to be tight and on queue when an action is preformed. One example in WoW right now is, for some strange reason directly after combat, my warrior will do one final smack to a corpse on the ground and the mob will yell in pain. It is funny sometimes that the sound and my overhead swing animation is triggered after combat has ended, but overall I find it distracting and annoying that the animations/sounds are not matching the actions.
At risk of being repetitive, it's still not correct. For clarity, he claimed that the animations killed EQ2. Period. That implies that everyone who stopped playing EQ2 did so due to bad animations. The animations didn't kill EQ2 for me and I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom the animations were the least of EQ2's worries. I don't dispute that it killed the game for you and for Darch but your experience is not automatically the same for everyone else.
Further, the animation you mention in WoW doesn't seem to have killed that game for you. Certainly there is room for "bad animations" in a game you will keep playing.
I'm not arguing that good, well synced animations are not better than the alternative. Only that animations are not the primary concern of all players. While many games have had silly and even annoying animations most were still successful.
What I look for in animations are variations on a theme. Swinging a 1HS, why is it always the same overhand swipe, high to low? Why not left to right then right to left. Think of sequences where the end of one swing animation then leads into another. This way you avoid the stiff repeating swing. The same needs to apply to casting animations. Casting should have some movement involved, not just some tiny hand-swirly or frozen pose while some particle effects build up. I want the animation to take place during the casting time, not happening after the spell completes its cast. Yes, this will require a bit more work as long-casting spells will need more animation filler, but, frankly, take some time away from noodling with stuff like the length of grass and put it into something more worthwhile.