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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.
Current animations are too much
Garrtok
Member, Alpha Two
Hi,
is it just me, or are the current animations of spells and weapon attacks just too much?
I get that some magical spells need some effect, it has to be visible etc. but does some Ranger skill really need some green stream that is of the size of a character, or does a standard hammer attack really need some big cleave animation?
You could see it in the last live stream, that even with just four people it's super chaotic and everything is flashing and exploding. What should happen with eight people or even while 500vs500? I feel like it's very close to a jrpg, and I have to admit that visually this is just too much for me. I don't say remove it, but pleaaase decrease the size and flashyness alot!
is it just me, or are the current animations of spells and weapon attacks just too much?
I get that some magical spells need some effect, it has to be visible etc. but does some Ranger skill really need some green stream that is of the size of a character, or does a standard hammer attack really need some big cleave animation?
You could see it in the last live stream, that even with just four people it's super chaotic and everything is flashing and exploding. What should happen with eight people or even while 500vs500? I feel like it's very close to a jrpg, and I have to admit that visually this is just too much for me. I don't say remove it, but pleaaase decrease the size and flashyness alot!
14
Comments
Yes, they are way too much.
Way over the top.
And these were just low level characters.
Just imagine what a burning christmas tree juggling with electric chainsaws the higher levels characters will be.
They need to tune the animations and attacks down a lot to make this work with 8, yet alone 300 players on the same battle-field, at the same time.
The way it is now just looks blinding, overwhelming, visually exhausting and challenging and honestly, silly.
But I feel like the standard should be on a much less flashy level. I don't want to customize everything until I have a non annoying experience 😅
There are no resistance when you hit the enemy at all and the hammer just goes from point A to point B. I would like of there to be more "crunch" in the hits.
Also the animations should be smoother, its very jerky robotic where it starts at point A, accelerates to 200 miles an hour and the stops abruptly at end.
Dark Souls has good hammer/mace animations but still not "meaty" enough
and For Honor (still not perfect either)
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
Yes the attacks should look less cartoony, less asian-mmo-rpg and more realistic, more like Dark Souls or The Witcher.
Or at least World of Warcraft Classic.
Nobody wants to look goofy or silly or even over the top.
The best look in general is a natural, paced and smooth one.
Wow. I'm really pleased they exaggerated the effects for groups of 4 when we'll face groups of 500. Really makes the game feedback worthwhile at such a minimal strain. End of sarcasm.
I can't see any of the characters in the combat, just a big annoying flash. It's not even pretty or anything, it's just BRIGHTNESS INTO YOUR EYEBALLS NOW!
Since the answer to this is 'we have a system for toning this down'...
We could ask for a showcase of the Work in Progress of THAT alongside some other things, right?
A longish development video with a lot of combat could definitely dedicate some time to 'showing us how the slider affects it'. Even if the slider itself isn't implemented yet, they probably have commands to change it and could just tell us.
The worst feedback they would get is the 'That seems good but I would like a slider to control it!'
As opposed to this.
There wasn't even a magic class there. Imagine if a mage was there. It was 3 physical damage classes and a cleric. 4 players total, and at times you couldn't even see the mob they were fighting because there was so much vfx.
Edit: Oh just now seeing where Nikr said "They've also stated before that they have exaggerated effects during testing, just to overburden the processing power, and it'll be toned down later in development."
If that's the case then ok. But man, if it's as easy as a button press, maybe tone down the effects for showcases. If not, ok fine.
These animations are way tooo slow for the style of game ashes is.
Aoc is much too fast right now
I will also say that the fighter really, really shouldn't have that hammer move. It gives off too much of a paladin vibe.
the very good node war stream prove my point. In my opinion the spell effects are in this form plain horrible, sorry. Everywhere vulcanos, circles aoe, neon flashy multishots covering half of the screen. Seriously it's just not fitting for a game that wants mass battles. There are situations where you can't see anything for multiple seconds, you don't see anything about the enemy group. In this state it's just not good. Every spell effect should be less flashy and especially MUCH smaller. This ranger multishot is the worst.
Especially none of these effects is doing significant damage, everything is exploding and noone is dying.
As for no one dying, that's a balancing thing, not an animation one.
What other games? And that you can decrease it is really just an excuse, why not doing a propper default?
BDO is probably the worst one of those. L2's and AA's combat is usually seen from orbit, so it's slightly easier to read, but the same will be the case for Ashes as well, so its visuals will be even more understandable. FF14 only has 8 people, but all the effects are blinding. WoW's 20 can be at times less understandable than AoC's 30 vs 30.
As for "proper default" - that's a very subjective thing. So it's easier to simply give players the option to control the vfx to some extent. Also, as Steven keeps saying each and every damn time - all of this is a WIP and none of the vfx are on their final passes. If enough people say that vfx are still too much - they'll get reduced.
BS, it's a pvp game, it's important that you can see what is going on.
they literally said probably 5 times or more (and that was just during yesterday's stream) that they know they have to fix the animations, effects, etc. to please provide feedback about other stuff and not that. they arent showing the final product, they are showing the stages of development of the final product. things arent refined yet.
Others may like them or want even more intensity. Since they can’t use strobe lights on their cars in real life, they need an escape. Because, after all annoying other players is “winning”.
Understand testing with the intensity set to 100% (or even higher), but not for a showcase which I hope would be set at an average level. Looks like there’s a gap between the developers and many would be customers on what “average” intensity means.
On several showcases they’ve had different POVs. Perhaps they could do a showcase where each view shows the different levels of effects/intensity so that everyone can decide which one they like. May not be the focus of a showcase, but it should reduce the distraction effect and yet another month where we are talking about it.