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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.
Disappearing weapons during spell casts and abilities
Valdek
Member
I noticed in a video that when a mage was casting its spells, the staff it was wielding blinked out of existence. I completely understand how this isn't necessarily a priority and I don't know how difficult it would be to create animations for the different weapon types, but I have always particularly been a fan of spells being cast using the magical staff or wand which is equipped. Is this a possibility in the future for AoC?
2
Comments
It would seem weird for the weapons to just disappear, but it makes sense from a game point of view.
I feel fortunate the Devs are willing to do 9 Racial Differentials for each class. Some Devs do gender and race locks for classes to cut down on Animation Costs. I'm not sure how much work Racial Augments amount to though. I also prefer magic to come from hands rather than wands, but, I understand some people would consider a full hand spec to be a tad bland.
I believe I remember this too since weapons will not be locked by class so they'd need to make an animation for every weapon, for every class, for every skill and potential augment if it changes the skills appearance.
So taking into consideration there will be 18+ weapon types, 64 classes, and with (let's just say 25 for the low end) skills for each class, this already comes out to 28,800 different animation types that'd need to be made. This also doesn't include potential augment changes, future weapons, and new skills. Not to mention the animation's might look even wonkier if let's say a person was using a two-handed axe to cast heal (I will slice you to health! muwhahaha...oh you're just dead...oops)
Considering if this ever was added in it would probably be years down the road, I'd suspect that by that time everyone would've grown accustomed to the setup that the shift would be jarring. But there's always a possibility, just a low one.
They might need to adjust the starting height of that SFX for different races. I hope that doesn't start another fantasy racism bun fight.
Not necessarily. They could use any weapon. Certain weapons will of course be more effective with certain classes, but the Spellsword could equip a bow or staff just as easily.
The weapon animations of a Spellsword will not be optimal, just so that bow and staff are available, but useless.
That's wrong.
Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. Do you mean like, it's wrong that animations won't be optimized because any weapon could be used, or that I'm wrong in my information, or something else?
Suggestions:
1. Create a set of 'weapon' animations for each weapon that can adopt the spells cast by a character. (e.g. staff has a ranged target animation already created for weapon specific skills, which can now take on a class ranged target skill with that abilities flavour and particle effects.)
2. Have a default 'hold weapons in offhand while casting the spell with a single hand.' Again, this would mean that no matter what weapon, that hand held to the side would be the same animation for any spell otherwise created.
3. Create an algorithm that automatically converts the animations made for one character using a spell with a weapon to other races and classes. This could then be tweaked slightly to iterate and improve vs clipping and for flavour.
What do you think?
I think I want too much...
I’d like each race to have a sort of “flavor” for how they cast. Additionally, I’d like each class to add some sort of special touch to each racial style of casting. And finally, I think casting with a weapon is important. Having the weapon disappear just doesn’t seem logical from an immersion standpoint.
Having the weapon float in front of you or channeling the cast through the weapon both interest me, despite the complexity involved in animating that for each weapon type, for each class, for each race.
Ultimately, I’d be content with each class having a personalized casting method, and maybe 3 types of “weapon” casts (unarmed, 1-handed and 2-handed) per class.
That's the impression I got from discussion about the cleric skill animations.
Partly to save on animations, combat is split into 3 parts:
- weapon skills
- passives
- spells
Weapon skills will be specific to the weapon type that you equip - nothing new here.However, spells are unrelated to the weapon you have equipped - so they won't have specific animations for each weapon type. I don't think this design will change in the ongoing combat redesign, but it's possible.
Personally I would prefer spells to have weapon specific animations, but that's asking for a lot.