(Exagerate animations) m'I alone on this one?

Erdun

Hello everybody.

The point of this thread is see the opinion of the people here about exagerate cast animations.
For example I really don't like the actual fire ball mage cast, does a mage really need to JUMP then make two turns in the air then come down and finaly cast the fire ball? I came from WoW, I played that MMORPG for 12 years and one thing I liked about the animations of cast was the simplicity of them, but one day they change the animations for more exagerate casting spells and i hated it, I mean I know this is a game and is cool see our characters do cool stuff but in some point I think is too much exagerate.

I want to know your opinion, thanks.

Xenotor

+1 this.
I found it strange as well and still think that the animation doesn't fit into AoC.
Now don't get me wrong devs, you have an amazing animation team but sometimes less is better then more.

The current fireball is one of those.
It downright breaks immersion every time i see it.

-does it look cool?
No
Personal perspective here but for me it just looks silly.

-does the animation make any sense from a mage perspective?
No
If the mage needed to spin in the air to launch a fireball then how the hell does he cast the meteor or any other kind of spell for that matter?

-does the animation make sense combat immersion wise?
Again no
If a person in reality had to constantly do 360° turns for their attacks then they would get disoriented very quickly.
That is also a big reason why this particular animation breaks immersion. It just doesn't make any sense.

Birthday

Where did you see this?

edit:
I found the video. hahahahaha!

Honestly doing that just to cast a fireball looks exaggerate. They should do that same animation but for some other spell, higher-grade spell, like for summoning a tornado or fire-tornado or whatever.

I like the animation but it just doesn't match the spell imo.

They should get rid of all the sparkly FX that look like flying glowing pixels. They obstruct vision and they are just a very lazy solution for a visual spell effect imo. You could use those for something that makes sense like fairy magic but again not too much cuz it obstructs vision.

Quintus

Hey OP, well said. I'm glad you brought this up. I prefer the adventure to speak for its self if that makes any sense. I find that an abundance of flashy animations and effects can ruin the whole experience. In my opinion, it happens when developers are trying to overcompensate for a lack of quality content.

CaptnChuck

I agree. I made a post about it as well.

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45454/combat-skill-animations-july-dev-update

Aside from the fireball ability, there's also a random swinging sword attack animation that locks you in animation for 2s. I talked about both in detail in the above post.

XerayReaper

I agree, some of the animations are questionable, and seem a bit over-the-top in a bad way. It'd be different if this animation was used in say, an AoE eruption from the ground, adjusting the animation into a slam instead of a fireball launch. It does just look strange, especially for a basic spell like that fireball.

They should change it to just a charging animation, after which the player tosses a fireball, or shoots it out of their palm. If you look at some of the other animations, they're pretty simple too; so I don't know why this one needs to be so...extra.

CROW3

Flashy animations are ok for finishers, but I prefer bread-and-butter spells/attacks to be quick and practical.

Hard to gauge at this point what the gold animations will be, since we’re still very early.

baconbread

I agree, it’s one of the few problems I got with the game.
I love most of the game, but the effects are over the top and the animations doesn’t fit or make sense sometimes. Not the end of the world, especially because I’m not planing on playing mage, but I don’t want similar things to happen to other classes.

Merek

Obligatory, "The animations are placeholder!" comment. Aware of this I'd like to say they really don't look like they have power behind them.

The previously mentioned fireball animation,

Far too acrobatic for a mage, it looks like something a monk would do. Also, you look locked in place when you're casting it. For such a simple spell I don't think movement should be restricted.

Now, some better animation examples:

BDO;

Sorcerer Cast,

ESO;

Sorcerer Crystal Shard Cast,

WOW;

Another Fireball,

I remember Steven saying he took some inspiration from ArcheAge but I'm not seeing it yet. Hopefully he wasn't talking about their monetization scheme, lol.

Paradoxically

Merek has the right idea. If makes are going up in the air it should look like flight or some type of mana boosting.

Caeryl

Ditto on this. Dramatic flair should be directly connected to how impactful and powerful the ability is. No spammable should look this...parkour-y. The animation itself doesn't look appropriate for the game at all, much less for a mage. Tbh I half-suspect it's some sort of inherent error that occurs because of the way something got coded into the ability.

CaptnChuck

I'm ok with long animations as long as the caster is able to move at a slowed pace. I just don't like it when animations completely lock you in place. Just let it slow your movement speed by 70%. It will just make the game a lot more fluid.

XerayReaper

I'm hoping these will be tweaked later down the line, during their polishing phase of the game. It's really distracting to see an animation like that for such a basic spell you'll be using most of the time during fights.

I think it'd be better to just have the mages stretch out their hand in the direction of the enemy, while charging up the spell cast a magic circle rotates around their wrist, then BAM! Fireball. Looks simple, but just as cool, if not cooler than what we've got now.

Birthday

One thing I'd like in terms of spells visuals etc is to have a difference between schools.
In WoW it doesn't matter if you are casting a fireball, frostbolt or arcane spells. It's the same charging animation for everything with a difference to the color of the glowing orb. That's stupid and lazy.

I'd like to see things that make sense and add a small but significant amount of difference.


https://imgur.com/JgkXQT3

https://imgur.com/RJtGwOJ

https://imgur.com/gscXAhd

You can clearly see how Arcane Magic uses symbols, diagrams and letters from ancient language to cast it's spell.
Would be nice to add that to the casting animation of arcane.
And do small but significant things like that which make sense for all the schools of magic and different ability trees(non-spell abilities).

apmax

The fireball animation we saw is ridiculous, especially for a skill you will be casting so often. It definitely should be changed.
Maybe that animation would make sense for some other class or some other skill, but for a mage it doesn't seem all that appropriate.

Valento92

As far as we've been told in multiple occasions the animations cannot be given as finished because it requires many passes so they work smoothly with the f-ton of simultaneous systems working in the world. That's not to say that the current animations with magic are fine, because they're not, but keep in mind that this is very rudimentar, this is the animations not the effects. These are two separate things that require too many tweaks.

Valento92

Valento92 wrote: »

As far as we've been told in multiple occasions the animations cannot be given as finished because it requires many passes so they work smoothly with the f-ton of simultaneous systems working in the world. That's not to say that the current animations with magic are fine, because they're not, but keep in mind that this is very rudimentar, this is the animations not the effects. These are two separate things that require too many tweaks.

Just to add a little more depth, I don't remember exactly when Steven said it but he stated that they would be working on animation even on launch day because it touches all of the systems and can't be successfully finished in a few passes.

Voidwalkers

on the other hand ...
that animation could make sense for the mage-bard hybrid (if you rename it fire dancer or something).
Every spell-cast comes with a dance or some acrobatic performance, with some buff to party members.

just make sure if that mage gets shot mid-air (by a ranger or something) while casting, he falls in an equally hilarious manner.

Vhaeyne

I don't mind flashy animations as long as they don't break the pace of combat or lock me into an animation that can't be canceled. Game play is main concern with combat animations.

One thing to consider is that flashy animations are a part of having a next gen look and feel. It is the type of thing that can help sell the game to new players. Right now the animations look like they are in the sweet spot between overly flashy and bog standard boring.

Ventharien

I think if the first reaction so many people are having to this particular animation is 'Why?' and not 'Wow!' there's a problem lol. It still has alot of passes so i'm not worried, but something this involved should be a high damage finisher, something that someone sees and knows either needs to be avoided or stopped, not a low or middle of the line repeatable skill.

Malapapas

+1, only thing worse than tab targeting combat is long animation lock....

Ventharien

Long animation locks are fine for me, so long as the cost of sitting is paid off by the effect. I don't want to be locked down for a low damage spell, but if its for a big cannon hit it's kind of cool to have.

Xenotor

Ventharien wrote: »

I think if the first reaction so many people are having to this particular animation is 'Why?' and not 'Wow!' there's a problem lol. It still has alot of passes so i'm not worried, but something this involved should be a high damage finisher, something that someone sees and knows either needs to be avoided or stopped, not a low or middle of the line repeatable skill.

Even as a high dmg finisher it would look silly.
There are better ways to show off power then to have the character spin around non stop.
I always loved the cast animations where you see a magic diagram or pentagram floating in front of or over the character.
like here
https://ibb.co/k8WZKHb
https://ibb.co/K0qn3Ct
https://ibb.co/z6TwdrD

You see the giant floating casting animation and know shit just turned serious.

Valento92

Xenotor wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

I think if the first reaction so many people are having to this particular animation is 'Why?' and not 'Wow!' there's a problem lol. It still has alot of passes so i'm not worried, but something this involved should be a high damage finisher, something that someone sees and knows either needs to be avoided or stopped, not a low or middle of the line repeatable skill.

Even as a high dmg finisher it would look silly.
There are better ways to show off power then to have the character spin around non stop.
I always loved the cast animations where you see a magic diagram or pentagram floating in front of or over the character.
like here
https://ibb.co/k8WZKHb
https://ibb.co/K0qn3Ct
https://ibb.co/z6TwdrD

You see the giant floating casting animation and know shit just turned serious.

I love these! We feel like powerful mages when we conjure these symbols to aid channeling powerful spells. Very fitting, I love it.

Tacualeon

Sholer wrote: »

Hello everybody.

The point of this thread is see the opinion of the people here about exagerate cast animations.
For example I really don't like the actual fire ball mage cast, does a mage really need to JUMP then make two turns in the air then come down and finaly cast the fire ball? I came from WoW, I played that MMORPG for 12 years and one thing I liked about the animations of cast was the simplicity of them, but one day they change the animations for more exagerate casting spells and i hated it, I mean I know this is a game and is cool see our characters do cool stuff but in some point I think is too much exagerate.

I want to know your opinion, thanks.

I agree. The animation is ugly, but it's a placeholder for the meantime.

MrPancake

I like cool animations but for a basic fireball. meh. I feel like animations at lower level should be really basic. Once you hit higher levels it should be more animated. I disslike wow for not having enough animations though. I like it when games get cool attacks after x levels.

Voidwalkers

Xenotor wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

I think if the first reaction so many people are having to this particular animation is 'Why?' and not 'Wow!' there's a problem lol. It still has alot of passes so i'm not worried, but something this involved should be a high damage finisher, something that someone sees and knows either needs to be avoided or stopped, not a low or middle of the line repeatable skill.

Even as a high dmg finisher it would look silly.
There are better ways to show off power then to have the character spin around non stop.
I always loved the cast animations where you see a magic diagram or pentagram floating in front of or over the character.
like here
https://ibb.co/k8WZKHb
https://ibb.co/K0qn3Ct
https://ibb.co/z6TwdrD

You see the giant floating casting animation and know shit just turned serious.

Ah that kind of effects also adds more depth to the balancing equation for mages.

Now you can let mages have long-casting, game changing spells in pvp. And for opposing players whenever you see huge pentagrams floating in air you know shit's about to happen and you NEED to interrupt that mage.

maouw

My only problem with the pentagrams is that if you're in a 40-man raid and 5 mages open pentagrams - I won't be able to see anything HAHAHAHA

Otherwise I agree that pentagrams (especially floaty ones) are the best.

Kazan Tenno

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is Final Fantasy 14. It has really nice animations and beautiful FX (though the magic can get a bit too much with lots of people) and I think the devs could learn a thing or two from that. This goes for idle and emote animations too. Lots of little things, but not usually over the top (talking just animations, not spell effects - they can be OTT).

Take a look at this youtube video on Black mage - it shows you their fireball attack and other attack animations.

Xenotor

Kazan Tenno wrote: »

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is Final Fantasy 14. It has really nice animations and beautiful FX (though the magic can get a bit too much with lots of people) and I think the devs could learn a thing or two from that. This goes for idle and emote animations too. Lots of little things, but not usually over the top (talking just animations, not spell effects - they can be OTT).

Take a look at this youtube video on Black mage - it shows you their fireball attack and other attack animations.

while most of the animations look good, i really dislike the energy balls spinning around your character.
They are distracting at best and super annoying at worst.
For me when something moves, my eyes automatically keep track of it.
That really good to counter ambushes but bad if you have something like the mage in the video or the sorceresses in BDO as allies.
For example during the video i had to concentrate really hard to not look at the dam balls of energy and see the rest of the cast animations.

Thats also the reason why i hate the current targeting circle in AoC. Spinning around and distracting while overlaying on ground target effects.
But thats another topic and personal preference.

Valiate

i feel like for the off screen the animation seems nice.but in game gameplay it seems way over (fireball)