Basic attack animation should reflect the unskilled character and progress with weapon skill tree

I think the basic weapon attack animations should be less awesome in the first levels, make it so we feel our character is unskilled in the handling of the weapon, and the more we assign points to a weapon skill tree and the more we use the weapon, the animation changes to a more skilled combatant, to finally change to reflect a master of the weapon.

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Ludullu

Imo this is a feature for future expansions. There's no gameplay benefit to this, but the amount of animations required for this to work is insane (all weapons x all races x all sizes of characters).

Zepo

NiKr wrote: »

Imo this is a feature for future expansions. There's no gameplay benefit to this, but the amount of animations required for this to work is insane (all weapons x all races x all sizes of characters).

yep it would be a lot of work, but it would only be all weapons x all races if i'm not wrong, also the novice animations would be easier to do

Ludullu

Zepo wrote: »

yep it would be a lot of work, but it would only be all weapons x all races if i'm not wrong, also the novice animations would be easier to do

If anything, it'd be harder to do, because it gotta still look and play nicely. Because that's gonna be literally the first impression for the game. So if the combat looks like shit - people like Asmon will call it shit.

And considering how modular the animations are supposed to be (cause movement attacks and all that shit), I feel like my first approximation might've been low.

And while height of chars might not be all that different within one race, I'd definitely hope a dunirian stump is animated differently from a renkai giant. And then we gotta remember the entire mess that are all variations of tulnar and your suggestion becomes an utter nightmare to scale imo

Aszkalon

Nobody can rival Lord NiKr's Activity here ! (lol)

I think this may not be that much of a Challenge later. We can have for Example "Auto-Attack"(?) looking totally meh and unimpressive, similar like in WoW,

and all the strong Abilities look kinda flashy and powerful. I too am kinda impressed of HOW. THICC.(lol) the rapid Fire-Ability of the Ranger looked in the last Presentation,

how flashy some other Abilities looked - or this gorgous Jump with the Shots than can root/stun/trap an Opponent when he is in the Place they hit,

but that just makes me wonder how insane the Abilities of Spellcasters later towards Alpha Two, Beta and Release will look.

Zepo

NiKr wrote: »

Zepo wrote: »

yep it would be a lot of work, but it would only be all weapons x all races if i'm not wrong, also the novice animations would be easier to do

If anything, it'd be harder to do, because it gotta still look and play nicely. Because that's gonna be literally the first impression for the game. So if the combat looks like shit - people like Asmon will call it shit.

And considering how modular the animations are supposed to be (cause movement attacks and all that shit), I feel like my first approximation might've been low.

And while height of chars might not be all that different within one race, I'd definitely hope a dunirian stump is animated differently from a renkai giant. And then we gotta remember the entire mess that are all variations of tulnar and your suggestion becomes an utter nightmare to scale imo

Yeah you are right, but there may be lots of variables that could make this easier or harder, so lets leave that to developers! we players should just think of cool ideas, the devs will then choose what they can or can't do.

Regardless I think it would be really immersive to have that in this game.

Mag7spy

To me this sounds like a lot of work for no reason. Times for animations will all be the same so its going to take effort to make any kind of animation that is good.

Not to mention character growth already exist as you lvl up you gain access to new abilities that will in turn be more flashy and powerful. I see no reason to do this extra for work basic attacks, make them look good and leave it at that. Or if they want to put in extra work monetize different animations for players to buy.

Noaani

Aszkalon wrote: »

Nobody can rival Lord NiKr's Activity here ! (lol).

Some of us can.

As to the idea in this thread, it doesnt add anything in terms of gameplay.

Deciding to do it now would mean new hires, and it really isnt worth adding new staff for something that adds no gameppay value, and minimal value in any other aspect.

If it turns out that the animation team finish up everything well before release, have everything polished and nothing needing to be done, then something like this could well be worth getting them on to.

It isnt worth deciding to do now and thus either hiring staff for, or holding other animation projects off for.

xDrac

Personally I feel like this is going the route of "too much realism will kill the fun".
Not to mention the additional workload this would create to do this for all the different attack animations.

Scarctic

Mag7spy wrote: »

To me this sounds like a lot of work for no reason. Times for animations will all be the same so its going to take effort to make any kind of animation that is good.

Not to mention character growth already exist as you lvl up you gain access to new abilities that will in turn be more flashy and powerful. I see no reason to do this extra for work basic attacks, make them look good and leave it at that. Or if they want to put in extra work monetize different animations for players to buy.

Given the modular systems the devs built in UE5 the animation pipeline should also be affected positively like the other systems in design which profit from that. If one "asset" or core feature is done the next one needed can be grabbed from the already existing ones and just adjusted so it fits.

They won't have to develop everything from scratch anymore once the core systems and features involved in the process are there.

"No reason" is your own opinion and something Intrepid has to decide after taking in our feedback.
If they like the idea because it adds to the fantasy of the game so be it.
If basic attacks are important for the combat in this game we need to build systems supporting it or it's just a tedious game mechanic... I hate redundant clicking or button mashing in games there is no strategy or interesting combat rotation or mechanic behind it. And when the animations suck or always stay the same I get bored of constantly pressing the same button...
It works somewhat in single-player games but not in an MMO where I invest thousands of hours into playing that character archetype.

-> If I were Intrepid I would scratch the basic weapon attack completely and build this system around combo skills with proc synergies around them, like in Final Fantasy XIV.
instead of 3 individual buttons, fuse them together like in their pvp skillsystem.
Now there could be 1-3 different combo rotations, witch different combat effects like selfheal or dotting, additional thread generation, proccing other skills, or building up a class resource.
You could add extra combo hits when skilling into them and so on...

Doesn't sound that more interesting than just clicking to fill the space between cooldowns in hope of a proc for whatever you skill into?

Personally, I'd like that because it adds flavor, immersive combat progression and brings the genre forward.
If that's a feature for past release i could live with that.

And another thing... mhhhh... monetisation?! Seriously?!...

Noaani wrote: »

Aszkalon wrote: »

Nobody can rival Lord NiKr's Activity here ! (lol).

Some of us can.

As to the idea in this thread, it doesnt add anything in terms of gameplay.

Deciding to do it now would mean new hires, and it really isnt worth adding new staff for something that adds no gameppay value, and minimal value in any other aspect.

If it turns out that the animation team finish up everything well before release, have everything polished and nothing needing to be done, then something like this could well be worth getting them on to.

It isnt worth deciding to do now and thus either hiring staff for, or holding other animation projects off for.

I'm sure you can.

It adds nothing because clicking around for no reason is already nothing to begin with.
I don't like that massive weapons swing fast and their fast weapons are even more unrealistic because the animations can't follow the speed... but that opens a bigger can of worms I'm willing to do right now.

But if we incorporate gameplay value with combo skills like I described before, that's another story.

They wouldn't have to hire more staff. Steven is already hiring to no end

and the work could be allocated to the existing team, already working on animations, no biggie esp. if that's work for after the release.

Mag7spy

Scarctic wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

To me this sounds like a lot of work for no reason. Times for animations will all be the same so its going to take effort to make any kind of animation that is good.

Not to mention character growth already exist as you lvl up you gain access to new abilities that will in turn be more flashy and powerful. I see no reason to do this extra for work basic attacks, make them look good and leave it at that. Or if they want to put in extra work monetize different animations for players to buy.

Given the modular systems the devs built in UE5 the animation pipeline should also be affected positively like the other systems in design which profit from that. If one "asset" or core feature is done the next one needed can be grabbed from the already existing ones and just adjusted so it fits.

They won't have to develop everything from scratch anymore once the core systems and features involved in the process are there.

"No reason" is your own opinion and something Intrepid has to decide after taking in our feedback.
If they like the idea because it adds to the fantasy of the game so be it.
If basic attacks are important for the combat in this game we need to build systems supporting it or it's just a tedious game mechanic... I hate redundant clicking or button mashing in games there is no strategy or interesting combat rotation or mechanic behind it. And when the animations suck or always stay the same I get bored of constantly pressing the same button...
It works somewhat in single-player games but not in an MMO where I invest thousands of hours into playing that character archetype.

-> If I were Intrepid I would scratch the basic weapon attack completely and build this system around combo skills with proc synergies around them, like in Final Fantasy XIV.
instead of 3 individual buttons, fuse them together like in their pvp skillsystem.
Now there could be 1-3 different combo rotations, witch different combat effects like selfheal or dotting, additional thread generation, proccing other skills, or building up a class resource.
You could add extra combo hits when skilling into them and so on...

Doesn't sound that more interesting than just clicking to fill the space between cooldowns in hope of a proc for whatever you skill into?

Personally, I'd like that because it adds flavor, immersive combat progression and brings the genre forward.
If that's a feature for past release i could live with that.

And another thing... mhhhh... monetisation?! Seriously?!...

Noaani wrote: »

Aszkalon wrote: »

Nobody can rival Lord NiKr's Activity here ! (lol).

Some of us can.

As to the idea in this thread, it doesnt add anything in terms of gameplay.

Deciding to do it now would mean new hires, and it really isnt worth adding new staff for something that adds no gameppay value, and minimal value in any other aspect.

If it turns out that the animation team finish up everything well before release, have everything polished and nothing needing to be done, then something like this could well be worth getting them on to.

It isnt worth deciding to do now and thus either hiring staff for, or holding other animation projects off for.

I'm sure you can.

It adds nothing because clicking around for no reason is already nothing to begin with.
I don't like that massive weapons swing fast and their fast weapons are even more unrealistic because the animations can't follow the speed... but that opens a bigger can of worms I'm willing to do right now.

But if we incorporate gameplay value with combo skills like I described before, that's another story.

They wouldn't have to hire more staff. Steven is already hiring to no end and the work could be allocated to the existing team, already working on animations, no biggie esp. if that's work for after the release.

You are so lost in the pot I don't know if i can dig you out...

you are very wrong on the modular system int his case if you were talking about effects sure that would work, int his case it does not work at all.

I want you to take a moment to think for a second if you are making a animation for a two handed sword swing in one way, and are trying to make another animation for another type of swing. What on earth is modular about 2 unique animations??????

Literarily nothing that isn't how unreal engine works, unless you are talking about making broken or subpar animations perhaps. A good animation is going to be unique, you are going to feel the weight and have a mind of the weapon in hand / motion.

This game isn't expected to be new world where you main dmg should be swinging your weapon with a mouse click. Even if we say for some reason it goes as high as 40% of the time cause you are fighting some static mob that sits in one place and your throw dps at the highest efficiency. You are still cycling the rotation of your skills, skills you get at lvl 5, skills you get that are even more power at lvl 35. Skills you augment and change and make even more power up to lvl 50. Meaning you are using new abilities, and powerful ones that have different effects, different mechanics, different animations.

You are getting what you want in a better way than spamming a basic attack...If the game is about spamming your basic attack most of the time the combat is bad. The only variation basic attack needs is directional input and a decent chain of attacks based on input. That does not need to change later on, your growth of character is shown through your abilities (ranger showcase as an example)

*edit I legit don't think you understand the work that goes into animations btw, I'm not a animator but i have done basic animations, know the rules, worked with rigs and made some basic rigs. Its not just like triple the work load and hire more and its good....

CROW3

Does it have to be a visual increase in skill?

There are two very practical (and intuitive) proxies for simulating a character’s skill curve: chance to hit and damage on impact.

No extra art and no ‘the combat looks like crap.’ Worst case, you’ll have scrub influencers complaining they can’t take on 12 mobs at level one and AoE chad their way to 50. And those folks can be effectively fed a ‘git gud’ response will little to no ‘elitist jerks’ blow back.

Pretty easy business case.

Enigmatic Sage

CROW3 wrote: »

Does it have to be a visual increase in skill?

There are two very practical (and intuitive) proxies for simulating a character’s skill curve: chance to hit and damage on impact.

No extra art and no ‘the combat looks like crap.’ Worst case, you’ll have scrub influencers complaining they can’t take on 12 mobs at level one and AoE chad their way to 50. And those folks can be effectively fed a ‘git gud’ response will little to no ‘elitist jerks’ blow back.

Pretty easy business case.

I agree with the part about it being a visual representation of how clean the ability looks.

If it affects the animation pacing and it directly affects output numbers on top of the lack of skill points allocated into the weapons skill tree based on level then it could become problematic with Ashes design choices.

I prefer action combat with physics being more constant rather than situationally optional design choices. If it had more horizontal significance over RnG success than it could work better for the way the OP was talking about if I am to be honest. It's like lifting weights, a clean rep VS a sloppy rep.

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