Skill Progression Animations

Tufguy

I was wondering what the community or Intrepid's stance is on AION if they have played, one thing i really enjoyed in that game was as you leveled up using the same abilities over and over when those abilities leveled up new animations would come in to play. for example: mages when casting level 1 fireball it was a flame ball in your hand, however once leveling it up to rank 4 or 5 when you casted it a flame ball was in your hand but also now a circle was around your feet. It is subtle but nice touch to feel you was getting more powerful as you leveled up.

Hinotori

This is a neat idea. I'm curious about the future on this because I think intrepid might be looking to sell alternative cosmetic animation packs on the ember shop. There's alternative skill animations for kickstarters so the ability to make different effects exists.

Fenixz

Animations and particles will be fully scalable and customisable on the client side.

You want a bigger fireball that causes you a mini skinburn everytime you cast, you got it. Just push the slider in the right direction.

NiKr

Fenixz wrote: »

Animations and particles will be fully scalable and customisable on the client side.

You want a bigger fireball that causes you a mini skinburn everytime you cast, you got it. Just push the slider in the right direction.

Visual representation of your character's progress is not the same as performance/visual settings.

Tufguy

NiKr wrote: »

Fenixz wrote: »

Animations and particles will be fully scalable and customisable on the client side.

You want a bigger fireball that causes you a mini skinburn everytime you cast, you got it. Just push the slider in the right direction.

Visual representation of your character's progress is not the same as performance/visual settings.

NiKr gets it lol

akabear

Great idea for progression... love it!

As for scaling animations user side, always a concern when that opens the opportunity to maximise pvp ability for those that care less about graphics.

JamesSunderland

Those are the types of subtle details that i really like, not something i look at as a necessity, but certainly a nice thing to have.

The problem would be applying this progression to both the original skill and all of its augmented variations...

Nazty

Good idea. That the fireball then not only starts in the hand but as the ring now forms the fire crawls up and around the body. Also on the subject of Aion is they did bring one of the best things I have seen in an MMO, which is the skill chaining. Being able to make skill chains with your abilities. Maybe something to look into.

Voxtrium

An excellent suggestion imo.

Abarat

Great Idea. I think i would prefer to have this implemented after launch as polish, but a great idea.

Voxtrium

I have also thoroughly enjoyed games in the past where my attack speed and movement speed increased with my level as well.

Atama

I believe this is what augments are for in Ashes. Your vanilla fireball can turn into a lightning ball, or a giant fireball, or a flaming snake summon, or whatever. But it depends on what augments you have slotted.

I don't believe that on their own your skills will look different as you progress.

But that's good! Because in this game's system, you choose how your skills develop. In the AION system you described, it sounds like this is something that happens automatically as the character progresses. I like having choices, and not having the game dictate those changes. Just my opinion.

Voxtrium

Atama brings up a good point, depending on the number of augments a character typically has, the level 50 setup for a player may look very different from the level 25 even if using the same abilities

Tufguy

Atama wrote: »

I believe this is what augments are for in Ashes. Your vanilla fireball can turn into a lightning ball, or a giant fireball, or a flaming snake summon, or whatever. But it depends on what augments you have slotted.

I don't believe that on their own your skills will look different as you progress.

But that's good! Because in this game's system, you choose how your skills develop. In the AION system you described, it sounds like this is something that happens automatically as the character progresses. I like having choices, and not having the game dictate those changes. Just my opinion.

I want to clear something up, yes augmentations do this however I don't think I should have used the word animations more as like more particles and effects, so even if you augment it the particles keep evolving as you level up. So for example lightning ball when you keep leveling that up if you choose lightning strikes around you as you cast it etc. When lower level it would just be some electric in your hand etc.

WHIT3ROS3

Is this not already in Ashes of Creation with the skill ranking system? Take the Fireball as an example. At Rank 1 the Fireball is a Fireball. At Rank 2 it increases damage, and at Rank 3 it burns the target for addition damage over time.

I do think it would be a nice addition to have some kind of distinguishing element to the animations so that you could see what Rank of fireball a person is using.

Atama

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

Is this not already in Ashes of Creation with the skill ranking system? Take the Fireball as an example. At Rank 1 the Fireball is a Fireball. At Rank 2 it increases damage, and at Rank 3 it burns the target for addition damage over time.

At least in Alpha 1 that is how it worked. The skills evolved if you devoted your build points into them while leveling.

But specifically, augments are closer to what the OP is suggesting. Because much of it is cosmetic (though not fully, there are also functional changes to them).

Personally, I don't think that someone using a basic spell should have something flashier because they are a higher level. If you are casting Zappy Finger as a level 1 Mage, and you are running around at level 35, your Zappy Finger spell shouldn't look like a Hadoken. If you want something impressive, cast the Storm of Doom spell you learned at level 32.

I also don't like this because it seems to be only a benefit for arcane classes. No love for fighters, tanks, rogues, and so on?

This is again why this isn't needed. You want flashy, mix in augments. We already have them. And they're better because you pick them and build up your character with them. They aren't automatic.