Weapon Sheathe/Unsheathe. Function and animation duration.

Remember the older mmorpgs in which the character was always holding the equiped weapons?

Then mmorpgs evolved and we have a sheathe button.
But in most mmorpgs an action of combat will make the character quickly draw the sheathed weapons with an ugly animation, whereas the actual sheath/unsheath button causes the character to do that at a slower more natural animation.

I propose that unless a player unsheathes their weapon, they wont be able to cast combat abilities or use normal attacks.

I think this way by "drawing your weapon" a player is ready for action and doesnt want to be surprised by an enemy attack.

If someone walks around with their sword sheathed, then they need to spend a whole second in an animation of drawing the sword before being able to strike an attacking enemy or monster.

What do you ppl think?

Should the activation of an ability or a normal attack unsheathe the weapon automatically or should a player have to draw the weapon before using attacks?

I would like my proposition because I hate glitchy animations in mmorpgs, I like the moment when warriors draw their swords, and I think that it adds a tiny bit of interest when it comes to having to tgink about walking carefree, or realizing that outside of the city walls you may want to be rdy for trouble.

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Comments

Nagash

While I like the idea I think its a lot of busy work just for a cool aesthetic

Wandering Mist

What we're really talking about here is the idea of immersion vs function, and animations play a huge part of that. Yes it is more immersive to have your character slowly drawing their weapon than for the weapon to magically appear in their hand. However, that slow unsheathing animation is very cumbersome, especially if you have to do it lots of times.

Let's say you are out in the open world farming mobs. You kill a single mob and then go out of combat every time, and every time you go out of combat your character has to do the sheath weapon animation. Let's say this animation takes 0.5 seconds. That doesn't sound like a lot right? But now imagine you are having to kill 50 mobs. That's 25 seconds wasted just from animations that have no practical purpose in the game.

These animations interrupt the flow of gameplay which is why they are shortened or ignored in most situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmuJyykzLwI

This video does a much better job of explaining the relationship between animations and immersion by looking at Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that takes immersion way too far.

George_Black

I played rdr2 recently and I didnt notice any incovenience.

If I kill a mob I am not going sheathe my weapon, walk to the next, draw, start the attack.
Obviously I wont sheathe my weapon till I know that I want hit anything for a while

Jahlon

Honestly I see no need for this at all.

I've seen games that reduce your movement speed by 20% to 50% when you are in a "combat ready" stance and when you want to increase your speed your sheath your weapon and that puts you into a "travel ready" stance. Not really needed.

But what if we want realism?

Then we get into a whole different dynamic of draw speeds, i mean we are doing this to adds some realism, so then we need to add some really real realism.

I can draw and ready a dagger in less than half a second, but it would take 2-3 seconds to bring a bow from my back and nock an arrow. It would take several seconds to ready a weapon from a back scabbard vs a side scabbard, and it takes even less time if someone carries a katana properly and properly execute an Iaijutsu draw which actually combines an initial attack with the drawing of the weapon.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

If someone walks around with their sword sheathed, then they need to spend a whole second in an animation of drawing the sword before being able to strike an attacking enemy or monster.

Sounds to me like nothing more than a way for people to get a jump on unsuspecting players in PvP.

It also won't be long before people complain that they shouldn't get corruption for killing a player if they unsheathe their weapon.

Mechanics and balance trump immersion, and this is something you well know. This make me think you have an ulterior motive for this suggestion.

In short, no.

Sarevok

George Black wrote: »

I played rdr2 recently and I didnt notice any incovenience.

If I kill a mob I am not going sheathe my weapon, walk to the next, draw, start the attack.
Obviously I wont sheathe my weapon till I know that I want hit anything for a while

I like it. BDO had similar mechanics. They also had attacks that instantly drew your weapon. I.e. I played the warrior and while sprinting with my weapons sheathed I should left click and it did a sprinting slash attack that instantly unsheathed my weapon and locked me into that animation. I could press Z to unsheathe my weapons but it was a longer animation. Catching an unsuspecting player off guard was always satisfying in pvp.

Wandering Mist

Sarevok wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

I played rdr2 recently and I didnt notice any incovenience.

If I kill a mob I am not going sheathe my weapon, walk to the next, draw, start the attack.
Obviously I wont sheathe my weapon till I know that I want hit anything for a while

I like it. BDO had similar mechanics. They also had attacks that instantly drew your weapon. I.e. I played the warrior and while sprinting with my weapons sheathed I should left click and it did a sprinting slash attack that instantly unsheathed my weapon and locked me into that animation. I could press Z to unsheathe my weapons but it was a longer animation. Catching an unsuspecting player off guard was always satisfying in pvp.

Now this is something I can get behind, as the animation plays into the combat and gameplay, rather than just being for "immersion".

Plateau

I don't think the animation time is that much of a problem. A 0.5-second draw animation for 30 seconds or more of fighting, isn't that inconvenient. Especially considering all the time we already spend approaching/recovering from every fight: things like moving between targets, mounting/dismounting, waiting to regen health, preparing buffs. And as someone said already, you can just keep your weapon unsheathed if you're going to be doing several fights in the same area.

I only have a problem with it if having your weapon out automatically puts you in a combat state with slower movement speed and HP regen. Or if I have to press a separate button to perform the sheathing or unsheathing. (Doing anything that requires a weapon should trigger the draw action, and anything requiring the weapon to be put away should automatically do that. Simple stuff, right?)

Honestly, if anyone thinks that sheathing/unsheathing animations are an issue, then they should be absolutely furious about 5-second gathering animations.. But I don't see many people complaining about that.

Ravudha

George Black wrote: »

I think this way by "drawing your weapon" a player is ready for action and doesnt want to be surprised by an enemy attack.

Doesn't this mean players will want to/have to have their weapon unsheathed at all times?

Personally I'd rather go without the mechanic; it feels like it'd be tedious, like eating food just to stave off hunger.

@leonerdo I don't know if I'd compare combat to gathering. Gathering is meant to be 'relaxing' to a degree and combat has many time-critical elements. Still, 5 seconds does feel long..I'm happy with 2-3 seconds.

Ishka

I think that unsheathes/sheathes a weapon should be of equivalent time no matter the weapon and the situation, but always needs to be done by the player. Pressing an ability should not make your character automatically use it while unsheathing. I've got no real reasons to why it should be like this. It's very subjective.

But the player needs to willingly put his character into a "combat state" and not the game doing it for him.

Wandering Mist

Ishka wrote: »

I think that unsheathes/sheathes a weapon should be of equivalent time no matter the weapon and the situation, but always needs to be done by the player. Pressing an ability should not make your character automatically use it while unsheathing. I've got no real reasons to why it should be like this. It's very subjective.

But the player needs to willingly put his character into a "combat state" and not the game doing it for him.

That sounds like over-complicating things just for the sake of it. Why am I having to press 2 buttons instead of 1? Does pressing 2 buttons add anything meaningful to the game? On it's own it doesn't, so why have it in the game?

Now, if you had access to multiple weapon sets that all had different abilities, then I could understand having a dedicated "weapon unsheathing" button because you need to tell the game which weapon you intend to use. So if you had a sword and a bow, you would press 1 button to unsheath your sword and a different button to unsheath your bow.

Alternatively if your character moved slowly with their weapon drawn it would make sense to have an unsheathing button because it feeds into the risk-reward gameplay and player choice. Do you keep your weapon drawn and prepared for battle and suffer the slower run, or have the weapon sheathed in order to run faster but risk not being prepared for a surprise attack.

Unless you have one of these 2 kinds of systems in the game I see no reason to make players draw their weapon before attacking.

Ishka

You are right ^^, like I said I got no real reasons, it's just a the way I see this. It's like saying I like potatoes and you can't further explain why the taste of the potatoe in your mouth feels satisfying, it just does.

But answering what you said. I don't think it is over complicated at all, it is just a step before the fight. The same duration for unsheathing different weapons is because, if you get CC'd before unsheathing, if you wear a huge ass greatsword, hell you're going to suffer before you can even retaliate. So just for the sake of "being fair & coherent" at least coherent with my view, it's better to have the same duration for all weapons.

Caeryl

I hate being animation-locked as a concept. At no point do I want more inconvenience tied to animations, especially one as basic as being able to use a weapon.

Lock me into an animation while I charge a huge attack? Sure that’s fair.

Make me effectively stun myself for .5s when I want to retaliate in combat? Absolutely not.

Ventharien

I'm all for immersion, and will even take immersion and worldbuilding over other things, but i don't feel this adds anything. You drawing your sword and swinging as a first base swing is perfectly viable, and if they want to have that included as a actual additional attack type, or sheathed swing like some games do, thats fine too. It's unecessary and cumbersome to have an additional button be pressed to be in "fighting mode". Now add a button that sheathes/ unsheathes as a purely aesthetic option and that grants just enough of a cool option, while having no impact on game play.

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