The death animation/Phoenix

Looks good but I don't like it.
Player corpses are nice and I think many, here or not, might feel the same.

Also it's too Marvelly. There will ALWAYS be that connection, a connection that breaks the 4th wall and is immersion breaking.

Suggestion:
When a player dies let it be a simple death. Let the body hit the floor. Let us loot the body.
As soon as the player hits "Respawn" let the animation with the incineration and the ashes play for a few seconds and then let the player respawn somewhere with the phoenix wings. Maintains the lore.

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Kionashi

Warth wrote: »

disagreed. We don't need garbage lying pn the floor.
#NoTrash, #NoLittering

agree, dead people is trash

Vhaeyne

Here is what the new death animation showed me.

It showed me that realism is not as high of a priority as I initially thought.

The game seems more like Lineage2, Aion, and Tera with the whimsical take on high fantasy.

Which is fine if that is what IG wants. The style don't bug me, its just not my favorite.

Marcet

I think its better if you can actually see the dead bodies and identify their gear, not just piles of ashes, but it's ok they can keep it.

Kionashi

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Here is what the new death animation showed me.

It showed me that realism is not as high of a priority as I initially thought.

The game seems more like Lineage2, Aion, and Tera with the whimsical take on high fantasy.

Which is fine if that is what IG wants. The style don't bug me, its just not my favorite.

I mean...they showed mages trowing fireballs from day 1...of course this wasn't going to be realistic...

Vhaeyne

Kionashi wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Here is what the new death animation showed me.

It showed me that realism is not as high of a priority as I initially thought.

The game seems more like Lineage2, Aion, and Tera with the whimsical take on high fantasy.

Which is fine if that is what IG wants. The style don't bug me, its just not my favorite.

I mean...they showed mages trowing fireballs from day 1...of course this wasn't going to be realistic...

Obviously...

What I mean is that you can suspend disbelief if a fantasy or sci-fi setting plays by a set of rules. The closer that set of rules is to our own reality, the more realistic it is to me. The death animation that we have now seems to be aliened further from the rule set of the real world. To me that makes it more whimsical that I thought they were trying to be.

Since I thought the game world was based off of Stevens own D&D setting, I thought Ashes would follow the illusion of realism D&D is known for in most setting. This is not a disappointment to me, it just sets my expectations of how much realism to expect lower. Again, not a deal breaker, just not my style.

VmanGman

Marcet wrote: »

I think its better if you can actually see the dead bodies and identify their gear, not just piles of ashes, but it's ok they can keep it.

Thank you for giving the developers permission to keep it.

Dreoh

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Kionashi wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Here is what the new death animation showed me.

It showed me that realism is not as high of a priority as I initially thought.

The game seems more like Lineage2, Aion, and Tera with the whimsical take on high fantasy.

Which is fine if that is what IG wants. The style don't bug me, its just not my favorite.

I mean...they showed mages trowing fireballs from day 1...of course this wasn't going to be realistic...

Obviously...

What I mean is that you can suspend disbelief if a fantasy or sci-fi setting plays by a set of rules. The closer that set of rules is to our own reality, the more realistic it is to me. The death animation that we have now seems to be aliened further from the rule set of the real world. To me that makes it more whimsical that I thought they were trying to be.

Since I thought the game world was based off of Stevens own D&D setting, I thought Ashes would follow the illusion of realism D&D is known for in most setting. This is not a disappointment to me, it just sets my expectations of how much realism to expect lower. Again, not a deal breaker, just not my style.

People turning to ash isn't as far out there as you're making it out to be.

It's literally just one lore mechanic. Sure the players don't collapse to the ground all splayed out as a cold corpse, but player characters tend to be special in all settings.

NPC's and mobs have regular death animations as we've seen already.

VmanGman

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Kionashi wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Here is what the new death animation showed me.

It showed me that realism is not as high of a priority as I initially thought.

The game seems more like Lineage2, Aion, and Tera with the whimsical take on high fantasy.

Which is fine if that is what IG wants. The style don't bug me, its just not my favorite.

I mean...they showed mages trowing fireballs from day 1...of course this wasn't going to be realistic...

Obviously...

What I mean is that you can suspend disbelief if a fantasy or sci-fi setting plays by a set of rules. The closer that set of rules is to our own reality, the more realistic it is to me. The death animation that we have now seems to be aliened further from the rule set of the real world. To me that makes it more whimsical that I thought they were trying to be.

Since I thought the game world was based off of Stevens own D&D setting, I thought Ashes would follow the illusion of realism D&D is known for in most setting. This is not a disappointment to me, it just sets my expectations of how much realism to expect lower. Again, not a deal breaker, just not my style.

It’s actually based on a Pathfinder campaign. Not a D&D one.

Also, it was very clear from the beginning that he created his own universe and was using the Pathfinder rule set to play the campaign. The setting of these campaigns can be different every time based on who the DM is and what campaign he/she wants to build. There is no such thing as a more realistic norm. The DM determines where they want to take the campaign and especially so when it’s a custom made one such as Steven’s. So I’m not sure why you had the expectation that you had.

Marcet

VmanGman wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

I think its better if you can actually see the dead bodies and identify their gear, not just piles of ashes, but it's ok they can keep it.

Thank you for giving the developers permission to keep it.

It's okay you can try to diminish people who have their own opinion. Have a good day man.

VmanGman

Marcet wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

I think its better if you can actually see the dead bodies and identify their gear, not just piles of ashes, but it's ok they can keep it.

Thank you for giving the developers permission to keep it.

It's okay you can try to diminish people who have their own opinion. Have a good day man.

I’m not diminishing your opinion. I’m just pointing out that your wording is baloney... the developers don’t need our permission to do anything. Your statement comes off a little entitled.

Vhaeyne

Dreoh wrote: »

People turning to ash isn't as far out there as you're making it out to be.

It's literally just one lore mechanic. Sure the players don't collapse to the ground all splayed out as a cold corpse, but player characters tend to be special in all settings.

NPC's and mobs have regular death animations as we've seen already.

I understand that, it just looks whimsical. Blood and corpses is more in line with how people die in reality.

VmanGman wrote: »

It’s actually based on a Pathfinder campaign. Not a D&D one.

Also, it was very clear from the beginning that he created his own universe and was using the Pathfinder rule set to play the campaign. The setting of these campaigns can be different every time based on who the DM is and what campaign he/she wants to build. There is no such thing as a more realistic norm. The DM determines where they want to take the campaign and especially so when it’s a custom made one such as Steven’s. So I’m not sure why you had the expectation that you had.

You are talking to someone who has player a lot of tabletop games.

Pathfinder is a just rules system inspired by D&D. Pathfinder is also close enough in its original setting to generic D&D to not have the deal with lawsuits be basically be D&D. So saying it is based off D&D to me is not that far off. It would have been based off of D&D anyway if 4E was not what it was If you want to be extra annoying and specific "Yes Ashes is based off pathfinder.", but we all know that pathfinder is so derivative of D&D that it really does not matter. Before you say that D&D is just based off Lord of the rings or something stupid. Remember that D&D is far more different to Lord of the rings than pathfinder is different than D&D. Especially 10 years ago.

The Verra setting could easily be ported to one system to the other. It is uncommon for a DM to go in and drastically change the way everything works in these games. If I had just the lore of Verra in a nice setting book explaining the world. I would make enough notes in a few hours to be able to DM verra in D&D 3.5e or 5e.

There is a realistic norm. More than 75% of every setting in D&D is the same monsters, spells, items, and rules, and most of it is compatible with each other via Planescape and Spell Jammer explanations.

Most campaigns don't re-right the way death works the way Ashes has. At most you might get some explanation about where your soul goes based on a different planner system.

So my expectation was never that people would just turn into dust instead of corpses. Like I said, it is fine. I don't mind it. I just expected the realism that D&D and its derivatives is normally known for when dealing with humanoid body's.

I also would bet that in the table top version death was normal. This whole dust thing is more likely just a cool effect they wanted to use to fit the whole phoenix theme, but that is all speculation.

VmanGman

@Vhaeyne All I’m saying is that you’re making a lot of speculation regarding a custom made campaign. I don’t understand your expectation... it’s a custom made campaign... he can do whatever he wants with it.

It’s just odd for you to claim that it’s weird and unexpected to see what they’re doing with the death lore.

Vhaeyne

VmanGman wrote: »

@Vhaeyne All I’m saying is that you’re making a lot of speculation regarding a custom made campaign. I don’t understand your expectation... it’s a custom made campaign... he can do whatever he wants with it.

It’s just odd for you to claim that it’s weird and unexpected to see what they’re doing with the death lore.

I have seen a lot of custom campaign settings in my day. I can't recall anyone changing it so your corpse is dust.

Never said he could not do what he wants, that is what is great about custom world building.

Like I said, what people normally change about death, is where your soul goes and how hard it is to bring that soul back to the material plane. The fact that Verra is this universes material plane makes the death animation even stranger to me. Normally the idea behind a material plane is that it is a place that is most in line with a human centric understanding of the universe. Other planes are the places where more whimsical and unexpected things can happen.

So yes my original expectation of Verra was that it was not so whimsical. This whole death animation thing has shown me that it is more whimsical than I thought. Which is fine. It also explains the over the top animations every chance they get.

VmanGman

Vhaeyne wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

@Vhaeyne All I’m saying is that you’re making a lot of speculation regarding a custom made campaign. I don’t understand your expectation... it’s a custom made campaign... he can do whatever he wants with it.

It’s just odd for you to claim that it’s weird and unexpected to see what they’re doing with the death lore.

I have seen a lot of custom campaign settings in my day. I can't recall anyone changing it so your corpse is dust.

Never said he could not do what he wants, that is what is great about custom world building.

Like I said, what people normally change about death, is where your soul goes and how hard it is to bring that soul back to the material plane. The fact that Verra is this universes material plane makes the death animation even stranger to me. Normally the idea behind a material plane is that it is a place that is most in line with a human centric understanding of the universe. Other planes are the places where more whimsical and unexpected things can happen.

So yes my original expectation of Verra was that it was not so whimsical. This whole death animation thing has shown me that it is more whimsical than I thought. Which is fine. It also explains the over the top animations every chance they get.

This is actually ridiculous. You’re arguing that a custom made world is too custom made. Alright my man. Have a good one.

bloodprophet

The most interesting parts of these threads is we are all here looking for something different and yet every time they show something different a new thread pops up concerned about it being different.

Vhaeyne

VmanGman wrote: »

This is actually ridiculous. You’re arguing that a custom made world is too custom made. Alright my man. Have a good one.

What is ridiculous is that I started the thread by admitting that my expectations about the games setting was wrong.

You pushed me for a explanation.

I gave you a honest reasoning behind my initial expectations.

Then you said that I am "arguing" that a custom campaign is too custom for me.

Which is not the case.

I said it is not what I expected. I never said there was anything wrong with it.

I never said whimsical is bad.

zammwich

I personally prefer the animation, it sounded like a pile of ash will remain where the body normally would showing someone died there and the visual on death is just so much more impactful.

FuryBladeborne

I've never played Pathfinder but I just looked up an article about the differences with D&D. Pathfinder was originally released as a group of supplemental rules for D&D 3rd edition. So, the similarity is there. However, Pathfinder is focused on far more fantastic. Specific examples were, "gnomes can literally die from boredom, demons fight an eternal war against nightmarish squid monsters, and the cavernous underworld lives in fear of flying psychic worms the size of dragons." It seems Pathfinder is generally more weird.

All of this and the death changes fit into the description of Ashes being High Fantasy; which, is a world that is similar to earth but has a different ruleset for existence and is focused on extreme or epic events.

https://www.cbr.com/pathfinder-vs-dnd-which-is-betterdungeons-dragons-wizards-coast-paizo-publishing/
https://fantasybookfanatic.com/high-fantasy-vs-low-fantasy-a-detailed-guide/

Vhaeyne

FuryBladeborne wrote: »

It seems Pathfinder is generally more weird.

You underestimate how weird D&D Can be...

For good time see: "How beholders are born." (It is probably not what you would think)

I just generally never expect humanoid deaths on the material plane to be so extraordinary.

I stand by my speculation on this. The death animation is just a cool way to fit the phoenix theme. I doubt it existed in the original table top incarnations of the setting. I would be surprised and amazed to learn that the "Ashes" death existed before development on the MMO.

Again, I don't think anything is wrong with it. It will definitely help the game have a identify that stands out.
Which is great for the overall health of the game.

LieutenantToast

Hiya everyone!

We definitely appreciate all the feedback folks are sharing so far on our new "death designs", and hope you enjoyed learning more of the lore behind it!

As a personal note, I would probably call this more "fantastical" than "whimsical", and I think it's right in line with the more magical elements that pervade Verra!

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