Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
That's fair. They're a part of Black Mage's mechanics, tracking whether you're at Astral/Umbral 1/2/3, but I see why they'd be an issue for some. Aside from that though, the animations are pretty simple and straightforward but fairly nice and well done.
Irkallu discord: https://discord.com/invite/CB3ZrnD
At the time, the simplicity was needed, due to lack of hardware. Remember the 40 man raids back in 2005? 15 frames per second because of all the spells. Imagine if they went all over the top.
Honestly, one thing that has bugged me greatly, to the point of annoyance is the animations in Ashes. I love the game and the concept. But during the castle sieges and stuff they've shown I could barely see the character Steven controlled. Never-mind the other players. Never-mind recognising a cast and have a chance to react accordingly. The larger the battle, the more of a clusterf**k it'll be. This is true for any game. But even in a dungeon they ran with 3 people. The animations, whilst gorgeous, are way and I mean WAY too distracting. They definitely need to be toned down.
Hiya friend! As we mentioned both before and after the segment that highlighted recent Castle Siege footage during our live stream, and we do our best to continue to reiterate in a variety of places, all of the animations and FX you've seen so far are works in progress/placeholder that will continue to be improved upon as we continue down the testing path! You may have even noticed some recent progress on that front in between videos as well
We also still do plan to give you a variety of options for adjusting those on your end through the UI as well, so you can tune them to your appearance and performance desires!
i disagree on the getting rid of the sparkly fx as its an alluring and interesting thing to see and looks pretty sick
i personally dont find them to be a visual distraction at all and honestly just enhances and enchants the battle for me
i also think its a pretty fundamental part of magic for this game as its basically a reminder to people
and actually has a very solid use in pvp as not only does it give the enemy player a visual queue but it sets the class apart
from my understanding there will be no obvious cast bars or things like that in AoC
so i definitely think that over the top animations will be a massive + for the opponent aswell as just looking cool for the caster
especially considering the relatively realistic graphics i can see from this game
i don't expect myself to spot a mage casting a fireball from 30-40m away in a forest thats fairly dark cuz of the canopy
so those sparkly effects would really help in identifying the mage and potentially assisting in the dodging of magical projectiles/spells
I know, but in order to iterate and improve, having some feedback on how it is at this point in time can help guide development in the right direction.
But I don't mean to say. My direction is the right direction. I'm merely making observations from what I can see, and identify possible issues
+1
Should be a little sprocket icon in the top right of your post, which allows you to Edit.
I find it difficult to believe I actually missed that! Thanks a lot, that's going to help me in the future
All abilities currently look over the top. This is Alpha and they are still working on things like VFX and animations. Mages do a floating twist in the air to throw a small fireball.
Surely one of the blessings of an open development such as this, is to provide feedback on the things we see. Imagine we say nothing about it and they fine-tune but keep going into the same direction. At least when they iterate now, they'll know which way we'd like them to go. (we as in those who think the animations are too flashy and distracting)
I mean, I really never understood the argument. They'll iterate on it. Most people are well aware of this, though these are forums for an unreleased game, the devs constantly talk about wanting feedback. This is just providing exactly that. We know animations are unfinished, but we want to make sure, they iterate in the right direction. The only way I see this as a valid argument is when the OP proclaims this is a reason for leaving, or something like that,
We're all here because we're excited and thirsty for a good mmo. Posts like this are an attempt to 'steer' development into what they/we perceive to be the right way. You can disagree with it being the right way. By all means, please do.
ooh love the examples here! I couldn't agree with OP more. The fireball cast animation was mentioned more times than I can count. Hopefully they'll change that.
If I were to guess, the spells they showed off in the cleric video are much closer to the kind of visuals we'll be seeing.
First, I'm a fan! I only come with critique because I want the best for the game, and see it fulfill its true potential.
Who made the decision to introduce a 3 second animation with movement-lock to a Fireball skill that is so often used, and introduced so early to the game? And why is instant movement-lock even a thing in 2020?
I can see that the combat system for melee already utilize animation blending between the lower and upper body. So why isn't this utilized for casting of abilities too?
Instead of a "whoopdydoo 360 ninja jump" that doesn't make any sense if you want to throw something which makes the character movement-locked on top for 3 seconds for the fireball skill, why not utilize Unreal Engine's animation blending in a better way?
The combat would feel way more fluid and involving if the game as much as possible give us options throughout combat, to make us decide more for movement restraints an ability gives us.
For example:
While pressing down the Fireball button, it starts to channel the ability with the upper body, while the lower body still have full movement. The longer the ability is pressed, the more movement impairment is introduced until the character stands 100% still while channeling for most damage. That means that players are able to decide to cast a fireball with 0.5 second channel time, or a fireball with a 3 second channel time from the same skill on the hotbar with almost no effort for the devs outside of the initial implementation of it in UE.
If all abilities, buffs, skills etc had their upper body animations blocked out first, to then balance gameplay, it would be far easier for the devs to approach this type of combat-style to reach a good balance and feel for it throughout testing, before animators spend hundered of hours on finalizing them.
Example for the Fireball skill with example numbers:
Damage has its basis of 100 damage at 1 second channeling time.
Movement is impaired above X seconds with an ongoing multiplier.
If the devs still want a flashy animation for max effect on any skill, then introduce that animation when the character reaches full animation lock for any skill. This would then give max damage. So:
The point here, any flashy animations for this approach to reach balance for combat could be introduced later in the development cycle. This would be far easier to balance, and adjusting animation timing is also easier. Plus the game would feel way more involving and fluent with less sudden animation locks until we the players introduce it our selves by channeling spells and skills long enough for it to trigger.
Adding "stagger" while being hit, can also be based on movement speed, or if the animation blending for X ability is so that the character starts to lower him self down to a "creep", then that time-window is over for the opponent. So we would also see way more anticipation in combat through such a system. Easier to read, and also way more fluent to play.
PS: Melee combat seems to already utilize animation blending If I'm right? There you can hold an attack for an heavy attack, and release it faster for a light attack. So what I'm asking for is to make the combat system more logicall for ranged abilities to, and intigrate it the same way melee combat works, but since ranged attack often requires longer cast time, introduce the penalties gradually instead of right away, and balance it through "channeling time" while cast.
For an AOE buff, pressing short would make the AOE 2 meters big for example. Pressing it longer would increase the reach and make it 10 meters big. But pressing the button would be avaliable to start channeling at speed. And the movement penalty is simply balanced through a multiplayer through two or even three states of animation on the lower body.
We will only be able to "judge" any of the reasons behind their decisions after we get to play the game.
Please also remember, this is Alpha. Alpha 1 at that. They are currently working on making the game systems like Caravans etc something thats engaging. They have time to make better animations.
I don't mind that a 3 seconds channeling time to make a lot of damage. Its the way its implemented I have a problem with. We're talking 2020 now, and Unreal Engine have animation tools that should remove sudden animation lock if necessary. Especially for abilities that will be spammed so often. An ultimate? Fine. But a Fireball skill that is learned so early in the game? No! Remove the flashy spinny-twisty-jumpy animation and make that skill fluid. Introduce channeling time for us to make our own decisions on how much damage it does, with a logical ceiling of course where the spell is cast automatically above X seconds.
To anticipate the end of a skill by max seconds, then add sound. Make the character scream or something to release the max potential of X skill.
Which makes me sceptical. They've already released it out to bigger player tests, and I'm questioning why such a decision came through in the first place. Why would any animation-lead/head think that a 3 second animation on a Fireball skill that will be used so often were a good idea? And especially when it also introduces full movement-lock to it?
The time to animate it took probably at least half a day, or more, and the same for the VFX artist. Why introduce those steps if the combat doesn't feel right yet? Someone at the office must think that the combat is fine, to make those decitions. Or do they just wing it? "Hey, lets make Fireball animation last 3 seconds, and I want the character to do a twisty-jump animation for it - dear animator." And then they see that it doesn't work? Thats 15-20 hours of development time on animation and VFX they toss away in that case.
This is really just a tip towards the developers. Please develop the game in a smart way. Animate and block out the animation for the upper body first so that you can tweak the combat, and then finalize it once the timing fells correct. Is it too op? Introduce a lower stance in the run/walk cycle and blend into it in X seconds. Is it still too OP? Adjust damage, and introduce the movement lock earlier, and/or add risk by increasing the multiplyer for the stagger-effect while channeling. Guaranteed crit or something. Balancing those things should be easier of the timing is perfected first. So perfect the timing of the combat and skills first, then balance it next by introducing the next layer for animation and blend it in. UE support this.
(in other words, this isn't the final rendition.)
1) The animations are first pass place holders. They are the ones used on the base 50 or so abilities testers will have access to so Intrepid can get some data so they can make data driven decisions about the MMORPG. They've already gotten data from the BR on action combat, and they've made some decisions based on that. These first four combat tests will give them more data and they will move on forward with that.
2) Your entire press > hold > charge > damage that isn't an animation thing, that is a style of combat thing, and its not the style of combat they are going for.
1: Welcome to the community is good to see new faces.
2: Start at 18 minutes they talk about this.
3: They are hiring. You seem knowledgeable about this stuff.
We shouldn't address conserns with constructive feedback, really? I'm addressing something that they introduced to streamers. That means it got through internal quality assurance for something they think they can build upon, and a basis for the combat system.
1. How did they end up here? How did that fireball animation get approved? How are them implemented in UE?
2. It's an animation and UE thing refuarding implementation and development hours spent while trying to reach a good direction for the feel of combat. Right now they utilize 1 animation for 1 skill. I'm asking them to animate 1 time, split it in 3 sections to build a database of animations, where they can be tweaked way easier while rapid testing.
For example.
Fireball animation is 3 parts. First section is the initial generation of the fireball, second section is a looping animation that can run over and over again, and last part is sending it.
With blending in UE this type of building block means they can test same ability on 1 seconds, and 5 seconds with only one adjustment in the game engine. They can test full
Movement lock from button press to gradually over X seconds with easy tweaks. And the middle looping animation can be swapped for a new ability.
1. Way easier to test and develop, and way more robust with more options open for them.
2. They can remove casting bars with VFX effects and sound instead.
3. Abilities and spells are anticipated also visually more easily from other players.
4. The combat system is streamlined.
Short press with a sword = light attack.
Long press = heavy attack.
Short press with bow and arrow = light attack.
Long press = heavy attack.
Short press with fireball = light attack.
Longer press = heavy attack.
Short press with AoE healing wave = 5 meter range.
Long press = 10 meter range.
RInce and repeat.
End state for looping animations for some abilities can after X time trigger "epic" animation state and damage. All being adjustable within a few seconds in the game engine for the devs to test rapidly.
No, it's the opposite. I don't want to see completed VFX and animations while the timing for combat isn't finalized.
The animators time is way better spent building building-blocks that they tweak rapidly while testing. Once the timing and feel is correct, they do a overhaul and finalize animation.
I'll try and explain with more depth.
Lets say the art director and animation lead wants content for a spell called "Aura Heal".
What the art director and animation lead don't know yet, is how things will work perfectly in combat before its tested, thus there is no need to ask for animation that lasts for 60 frames or 90 frames for a 2 or 3 second animation. What they should be asking for is content for an Aura Heal in three different parts where they standardize "in-going" and "out-going" timeframes for animation regarding all spells and abilities as a start Lets assume thats 1 second.
The animator would then:
1. Animate the first part where the spell is produced. Lets say its supposed to flow out from the body to form an aura, and this lasts 25 frames.
2. The last frame of the first part, is the same as first frame of this looping animation, where the aura lingers around the body, where one "loop" lasts 25 frames.
3. Last frame of the looping frame (which is the same frame as the outgoing frame of part one) is then utilized to animate the end goal for the effect. Lets assume he pushes his hands back and throws his aura away towards the target, and this part also lasts 25 frames.
With this they have started to build a "bank" of animations. When this is implemented it looks like one pointcash of one animation, but since the middle part can be looped, they can rapidly adjust the length of the animation to last 50 frames (they skip the lopping part) towards 250 frames where the looping part repeats 8 times if they really want with just one simple adjustment within the game engine.
This means in testing, they are way quicker to find a good feel for the game. And all three parts can be adjustet and split up and treated differently. What if during part 1 they have more staggering effect while taking damage to balance this out later? Or the middle part?
After a while they've got hundereds of these building blocks of animations, where a ton of them will end up having the same first and last frame. That means they can build hundereds of different animations only through the game engine it self for different type of effects and abilities later without having to wait for animators to build one and one new animation for each iteration of testing.
When the combat feels right, and the timing is perfect. They go back for a finishing round. This time we actually know the length of each animation needed, and they can be perfected.
Well they've been making these reusable 'building blocks' to streamline the creation of textures, materials, models/skeletons, and environments, so you'd think they're already doing it with animations as well.
I mean, having experience in that role is the only way you can make this statement.
Holding a button to increase the damage of an ability at the cost of movement isn't something often seen in an mmorpg. In fact, I can't think of a single game that has a mechanic like that. The closest I can think of is ESO where you do a short button press for the weapon light attack and a long press for the heavy attack, but that doesn't apply to abilities.
Not sure how I'd feel about a mechanic like that for every spell. At the very least it would be quite a learning curve to get the timing down so use the right "level" of spell that you are aiming for.