Combat Defensive animations

DarkTides

Has any thought been given into more automated defensive animations? It would make combat look like art.

I have always found that continually hitting anything or being hit by anything looks ridiculous.

Would having to revisit the way combat is handled be the main reason this is not done?

arsnn

You are very vague here.
I‘d assume what you mean is having animation that react very precisely to the enemies attack, instead of the standard hitreact?

The implications of such a thing are very broad, id assume the pacing of combat would be heavily slowed down for both the attacker and deffender.
It doesnt sound engaging or fun, agency would suffer.

There are a lot of suggestions for features to make the game more realistic or artsy, but ultimately it should be fun, everything else comes second.

Mag7spy

Most quick example i could find but I believe this is what he means. In some games you just hold block and its static, i believe he wants more reaction while blocking than just holding a static pose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ig0n77obk

It shouldn't just be limited to swords but shield or any kind of weapon, it is more realistic and adds really good flare to combat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ondZD0FotBI

George_Black

Active bloocking is a must in todays mmos. How it's implemented is up to the combat design team (cooldown, costs, class/weapon restrictions).
Same for active dodge rolling.

Another feature that can enrich not only the visual aspect of combat, but also add layers to gameplay and strategy would ve the parry or counter attacks. So far I have only see them in Teras 2011 online mmo.

I think it would take way too much animation work to get passive blocks and evasions tied to crappy passive/stats gameplay. It would look good tho.
But if they want to spend time on animations, there are other, higher priorities, mainly unique animations for abilities per equiped weapon.

First you refine the basics. Without them you cant break new ground.
So far IS response was that it's not worth creating so many animations and that is why the skill animations will be the same, regardless of what weapon the hands of the char hold.

We have also seen (to my dissapointment) animations that briefly make the weapons dissapear while the skill is being casted, just like ESOs majority of class skills.

DarkTides

Thanks for the video references. Star Wars MMO did this over a decade ago as well, just didnt look quite as good.

When you immediately assume it would be slow, yeah, the conclusion is combat suffers. Never asked for combat to suffer, nor do I believe it has to suffer for this to be a thing.

It can be done

Solmyr

I really like this kind of thing. I know it's a ton of work on the animation front, but it gives so much life to the combat from a visual perspective. If done right, it can make blocking feel just as good as attacking.

Mag7spy

DarkTides wrote: »

Thanks for the video references. Star Wars MMO did this over a decade ago as well, just didnt look quite as good.

When you immediately assume it would be slow, yeah, the conclusion is combat suffers. Never asked for combat to suffer, nor do I believe it has to suffer for this to be a thing.

It can be done

Ya i remember it in swtor. Though its not needed in AoC it is one of those cherries on top. I feel this would only work well with active blocking though since there is action combat int he game. Rather then it being automatic like in swtor so animations don't interfere with each other or look broken-ish

DarkTides

A sword slash going through an opponent and generating a standard hit animation is getting old. Desperately needs some life at some point in the future, no matter what game it is.

Active dodge, with the rolling, feels like it takes too long to execute, taking up a large portion of the actions you take, making a fight become dull and monotonous.