The uncertain direction of animations

Before I start, I am aware that the animations are either placeholder or not tuned but I came across a comment when watching the recent showcase for the tank skills which kind of hits the head of the nail for me.

The comment was the following:
"I'm really looking forward to Ashes but the animations seem quite disappointing all round to me, the movements seem really inhuman, disjointed or impractical and it dose not seem to be an issue with them being unfinished or placeholder. The main concern for me seems to be down primarily to artistic direction or lack of it. The decisions made and the thinking behind the culmination of these animations worries me. I feel like the animation department needs new leadership and quickly. A cohesive direction needs to be made and enforced.
These animations are all over the place, a unified design philosophy is what is missing. As it stands this seems like inexperienced forced spectacle and there is little more cringe educing."

I don't want to be negative or like some people would call it, "being picky", but I truly share the concerns of this comment.

I just wanted to create a discussion to see what other people think about the subject.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Songcaller

If a caster shouldn't be able to cast a meteor instantly due to lore, I don't think a caster should be able to levitate. Its not just the casters that rise with skills, even the tank has weird rises in some skills. The artistic style is not conducive to fluid combat. I don't care for Action Combat or Tab Combat, I care about fluid combat. Fluid combat can be either tab or action. In a Hybrid System though neither Tab nor Action can be more fluid than the other for balance purposes.

I hope the Devs do port from UE4 to UE5. UE5 has better options and more refined movement compared to UE4.

Blandmarrow

Neurath wrote: »

If a caster shouldn't be able to cast a meteor instantly due to lore, I don't think a caster should be able to levitate. Its not just the casters that rise with skills, even the tank has weird rises in some skills. The artistic style is not conducive to fluid combat. I don't care for Action Combat or Tab Combat, I care about fluid combat. Fluid combat can be either tab or action. In a Hybrid System though neither Tab nor Action can be more fluid than the other for balance purposes.

I hope the Devs do port from UE4 to UE5. UE5 has better options and more refined movement compared to UE4.

Their plan is to port it to UE5, that's what I've heard earlier in interviews at least.

Songcaller

Sounds perfect. UE5 will be radically different. We might also get Ray Tracing too. The game will blow BDO out of the water in terms of graphics and the animations should be much smoother. I hope they move away from static skills, elevated skills and animation locks. I do not mind animation locks (I don't like Animation Cancels which was a bug originally) but you must be able to 'stick' to your target. In terms of combat, there is no point having a flashy move if the opponent can simply dance away/move out of range.

Edit: Do you remember which interviews so I can listen?

Double Edit: I'm all for long cast abilities. Obviously, long cast abilities have risk and reward. Sometimes they'll be decimation sometimes they'll get you killed.

Frostshot1

I hope that they can port it to UE5 easily and it doesn't add more years to the production time.

As for skills, I would like to see a mixture of fast cast and slow cast abilities for each class. Following the risk vs reward mantra. If your going to drop an anvil on someones head and completely obliterate them, the cast time should be longer than flinging a dagger at them. Who know's, some of the fancy levitating skill casts might not even be intended for the skills we were shown. It might all still be placeholder.

Songcaller

Perhaps they should mix meteor and levitation. In terms of lore, both are high end skills

Edit: Looking at the Mage Preview again, I definitely think Fireball and Meteor animations should be reversed. that's if we have to have levitation at all.

Dreoh

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

If they even somewhat replicate in part Guild Wars 2 combat AoC would most likely become by far my favourite MMO. GW2 combat is just solid, fluid and ACTUALLY fun, unlike other MMO's.

I think the guild wars 2 combat should be what the *tab* combat should be like. Not at all how the action combat should be. Guild wars 2 was not action at all, you lock a target and you press your 1-5 keys. Sure you could move during most skills but compare GW2 to BDO or Vindictus (the two examples I will continue to use every time) and there’s a huge difference.

So to reiterate:
GW2 combat for the Tab-combat portion of the game.
BDO/Vindictus for the Action-combat portion.

Well GW2 combat is already hybrid combat since it's tab-target but also not really since you can do everything without having a tab target, if they actually make a whole separate system that would be very bad. Having two whole separate combat systems makes balance incredibly more difficult and also just feels jank as fuck

Have you played BDO? If you did you would realize what action combat is. Actual action combat is new to the MMO space relatively speaking and GW2 is not action or hybrid. It may have an “action cam” but you’re still actually tab targeting enemies and playing the boring and repetitive hot bar game. Just because you can move your camera without holding RMB does not make the system action combat.

Actually you're wrong. Your skills do indeed get "aim assisted" by tab-targets if you prefer it, but you can fire your skills in any 3d-vector direction, and if they happen to hit a creature, they hit that creature, unlike tab-target games where your fireball will not cast unless you have a target and will fly through ignoring enemies until it gets to it's target. It seems more that you just have a bias against non-BDO-like combat and aren't really critically thinking about what you're saying, or are just misinformed.

You also completely missed the point I was making by a mile.

If AoC has BOTH a tab-target/hybrid-target (WoW or GW2) AND a separate action combat system (Like BDO) it would only be detrimental.

Players aren't going to want to use different gameplay depending on which skill of theirs they want to use, they're going to want all of their skills to use the same targeting and casting mechanics universally.

The good thing about GW2 is that all abilities are tied to the same mechanics, it's just the targeting that changes.

Bot

Neurath wrote: »

I mentioned the issues in the other thread about tanks. I mention the issues every now and then. I can't mention the issues too often because I don't like to whine lol.

UE4 is a difficult engine for movement. If you don't spend a long time fixing the issue with UE4 movement then everything that is built on top the of unchanged engine will be flawed and lack relational vibes. You can make gorgeous scenery in UE4. The engine isn't the worst engine. The problem comes when the amalgamation process takes place. You can lift an element from a third source but if you lack the flare and the engine to pull it off it just looks weird.

The team are veteran MMO designers for the most part. None of them seem to have worked with UE4 before. The combat should be fluid like Archeage, not static like Lineage 2. Polish can't rectify an inherent flaw unless you start from the very fabric of the movement systems. I do not know if the team have the time or the resources to go back to the base source.

If I was paying a monthly sub then I would expect better. There is no box cost but I've spent more than 8 times the amount of a box cost for packages and cosmetics. The issues are still very blatant and it is fortunate we are in Alpha 1 area. The iterations will be improved but I wonder just how much improvement can be made without resetting the iterations entirely. There is no reason to have lifts/levitation/jumps. The skills should be activated while running or moving. It is the essence of a good combat system.

The animations themselves are long winded and animation locked. I do not mind an animation lock for some skills, there will be no animation cancelling though so every active skill will be a chore. You can animation lock while allowing movement. Animation lock and static abilities do not blend well together.

This is a great take on exactly how I feel. I was actually explaining a similar thing to someone else a few days ago. Animation locking is awful and too long of animations also make a game feel clunky. I'd say Archeage is the smoothest game I've played with ancestral skills. Never feel like I'm stuck not being able to move and the ability to animation cancel is essential.

Cypher

Dreoh wrote: »

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

If they even somewhat replicate in part Guild Wars 2 combat AoC would most likely become by far my favourite MMO. GW2 combat is just solid, fluid and ACTUALLY fun, unlike other MMO's.

I think the guild wars 2 combat should be what the *tab* combat should be like. Not at all how the action combat should be. Guild wars 2 was not action at all, you lock a target and you press your 1-5 keys. Sure you could move during most skills but compare GW2 to BDO or Vindictus (the two examples I will continue to use every time) and there’s a huge difference.

So to reiterate:
GW2 combat for the Tab-combat portion of the game.
BDO/Vindictus for the Action-combat portion.

Well GW2 combat is already hybrid combat since it's tab-target but also not really since you can do everything without having a tab target, if they actually make a whole separate system that would be very bad. Having two whole separate combat systems makes balance incredibly more difficult and also just feels jank as fuck

Have you played BDO? If you did you would realize what action combat is. Actual action combat is new to the MMO space relatively speaking and GW2 is not action or hybrid. It may have an “action cam” but you’re still actually tab targeting enemies and playing the boring and repetitive hot bar game. Just because you can move your camera without holding RMB does not make the system action combat.

It seems more that you just have a bias against non-BDO-like combat

You’re right, I do have a bias against boring combat, as it’s the primary factor stopping me from truly enjoying GW2, even worse for FF14 or anything similar. The whole bias argument is a bit weak considering you have your own bias. Everyone has a bias. It’s called liking one thing and disliking another. You dislike action combat, and I dislike tab. Call GW2 whatever you like, it’s not action combat. It’s tab target with a reticle.

Dreoh

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Cypher wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

If they even somewhat replicate in part Guild Wars 2 combat AoC would most likely become by far my favourite MMO. GW2 combat is just solid, fluid and ACTUALLY fun, unlike other MMO's.

I think the guild wars 2 combat should be what the *tab* combat should be like. Not at all how the action combat should be. Guild wars 2 was not action at all, you lock a target and you press your 1-5 keys. Sure you could move during most skills but compare GW2 to BDO or Vindictus (the two examples I will continue to use every time) and there’s a huge difference.

So to reiterate:
GW2 combat for the Tab-combat portion of the game.
BDO/Vindictus for the Action-combat portion.

Well GW2 combat is already hybrid combat since it's tab-target but also not really since you can do everything without having a tab target, if they actually make a whole separate system that would be very bad. Having two whole separate combat systems makes balance incredibly more difficult and also just feels jank as fuck

Have you played BDO? If you did you would realize what action combat is. Actual action combat is new to the MMO space relatively speaking and GW2 is not action or hybrid. It may have an “action cam” but you’re still actually tab targeting enemies and playing the boring and repetitive hot bar game. Just because you can move your camera without holding RMB does not make the system action combat.

It seems more that you just have a bias against non-BDO-like combat

You’re right, I do have a bias against boring combat, as it’s the primary factor stopping me from truly enjoying GW2, even worse for FF14 or anything similar. The whole bias argument is a bit weak considering you have your own bias. Everyone has a bias. It’s called liking one thing and disliking another. You dislike action combat, and I dislike tab. Call GW2 whatever you like, it’s not action combat. It’s tab target with a reticle.

You're correct that everyone has bias, however the problem you're having is that you're not allowing yourself to critically think beyond your bias.

Granted you are entitled to your opinion about GW2 combat being boring, however you haven't said in what way it's boring other than it's "not action combat". If by "action combat" you mean "controls like a fighting game" then sure that's a valid fact.

Now I don't know where you got the idea that I "dislike action combat". I never once even hinted at that. All I said and have been reiterating is that having two separate systems is bad game design. I enjoy fluid mobile combat and have argued many times on this forum against a stagnant outdated tab-target combat system.

And again, you're wrong, GW2 is hybrid combat, which is a fluid blend between tab and action. All skills are tab and also action skills, it's only the way you target enemies that changes it. You don't NEED to have a target to hit enemies with abilities, as I said clearly before but you are refusing to acknowledge. It's becoming apparent that you aren't actually critically thinking on this matter, which is why I'm saying your bias isn't letting you do so.

Blandmarrow

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

Dreoh

Blandmarrow wrote: »

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

I have mixed feelings about this

On one hand GW2 having the first 5 abilities be tied to weapons was very neat and having to choose your "loadout" made it so that you could be semi-unique even within your class. This of course means you can't use everything you have access to at any time, but I think it worked very well and helped make balance and gameplay interesting. It makes your gameplay more focused and solid, but also more limited.

On the other hand you have vanilla WoW (I say vanilla WoW because retail dumbed down classes to only need really 1 hotbar at any time) where you have access to 50 abilities. This made you feel like someone who had accumulated a lot of techniques along your journey to fit many situations. The downside is that it could be very bloated and a lot of the abilities became useless or very niche. Also, every Marksmen Hunter had pretty much the exact same kit as every other Marksmen Hunter (save for differences in a few talents), whereas in GW2 two Chronomancer Mesmers might not have a single shared ability.

Both have pros and cons, and they both fit their game. AoC just has to figure out what fits it's game.

I am enjoying this discussion though it did get off topic lol

Sathrago

Dreoh wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

I have mixed feelings about this

On one hand GW2 having the first 5 abilities be tied to weapons was very neat and having to choose your "loadout" made it so that you could be semi-unique even within your class. This of course means you can't use everything you have access to at any time, but I think it worked very well and helped make balance and gameplay interesting. It makes your gameplay more focused and solid, but also more limited.

On the other hand you have vanilla WoW (I say vanilla WoW because retail dumbed down classes to only need really 1 hotbar at any time) where you have access to 50 abilities. This made you feel like someone who had accumulated a lot of techniques along your journey to fit many situations. The downside is that it could be very bloated and a lot of the abilities became useless or very niche. Also, every Marksmen Hunter had pretty much the exact same kit as every other Marksmen Hunter (save for differences in a few talents), whereas in GW2 two Chronomancer Mesmers might not have a single shared ability.

Both have pros and cons, and they both fit their game. AoC just has to figure out what fits it's game.

I am enjoying this discussion though it did get off topic lol

I definitely see ashes going in a more "loadout" direction, and this is because of two reasons. One, it is easier to balance out mass pvp when you can only have so many abilities at a time and two, because mass pvp will put the server under a lot of stress, similar to how barely 40 people pvping cause a ton of lag on WoW. If they reduce the amount of abilities you can load out with, this will reduce the amount of unique animations being thrown out at one time.

Now I am no game designer or coder or any of that nonsense, this is just sort of my understanding of mmos from playing them for so long so I could very well be wrong.

Dreoh

Sathrago wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

I have mixed feelings about this

On one hand GW2 having the first 5 abilities be tied to weapons was very neat and having to choose your "loadout" made it so that you could be semi-unique even within your class. This of course means you can't use everything you have access to at any time, but I think it worked very well and helped make balance and gameplay interesting. It makes your gameplay more focused and solid, but also more limited.

On the other hand you have vanilla WoW (I say vanilla WoW because retail dumbed down classes to only need really 1 hotbar at any time) where you have access to 50 abilities. This made you feel like someone who had accumulated a lot of techniques along your journey to fit many situations. The downside is that it could be very bloated and a lot of the abilities became useless or very niche. Also, every Marksmen Hunter had pretty much the exact same kit as every other Marksmen Hunter (save for differences in a few talents), whereas in GW2 two Chronomancer Mesmers might not have a single shared ability.

Both have pros and cons, and they both fit their game. AoC just has to figure out what fits it's game.

I am enjoying this discussion though it did get off topic lol

I definitely see ashes going in a more "loadout" direction, and this is because of two reasons. One, it is easier to balance out mass pvp when you can only have so many abilities at a time and two, because mass pvp will put the server under a lot of stress, similar to how barely 40 people pvping cause a ton of lag on WoW. If they reduce the amount of abilities you can load out with, this will reduce the amount of unique animations being thrown out at one time.

Now I am no game designer or coder or any of that nonsense, this is just sort of my understanding of mmos from playing them for so long so I could very well be wrong.

You're right in that assumption, but it's not as big of a deal as you may think, a lot of assets are reused in many abilities and other things

Sathrago

Dreoh wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

I have mixed feelings about this

On one hand GW2 having the first 5 abilities be tied to weapons was very neat and having to choose your "loadout" made it so that you could be semi-unique even within your class. This of course means you can't use everything you have access to at any time, but I think it worked very well and helped make balance and gameplay interesting. It makes your gameplay more focused and solid, but also more limited.

On the other hand you have vanilla WoW (I say vanilla WoW because retail dumbed down classes to only need really 1 hotbar at any time) where you have access to 50 abilities. This made you feel like someone who had accumulated a lot of techniques along your journey to fit many situations. The downside is that it could be very bloated and a lot of the abilities became useless or very niche. Also, every Marksmen Hunter had pretty much the exact same kit as every other Marksmen Hunter (save for differences in a few talents), whereas in GW2 two Chronomancer Mesmers might not have a single shared ability.

Both have pros and cons, and they both fit their game. AoC just has to figure out what fits it's game.

I am enjoying this discussion though it did get off topic lol

I definitely see ashes going in a more "loadout" direction, and this is because of two reasons. One, it is easier to balance out mass pvp when you can only have so many abilities at a time and two, because mass pvp will put the server under a lot of stress, similar to how barely 40 people pvping cause a ton of lag on WoW. If they reduce the amount of abilities you can load out with, this will reduce the amount of unique animations being thrown out at one time.

Now I am no game designer or coder or any of that nonsense, this is just sort of my understanding of mmos from playing them for so long so I could very well be wrong.

You're right in that assumption, but it's not as big of a deal as you may think, a lot of assets are reused in many abilities and other things

Fair enough, I just take from what I know like in Albion online doing Zerg vs Zerg content. After the leader gathers the entire zerg together they have "lag tests" where everyone blows all of their spells and cooldowns in one direction at the same time. This does two things for them, the first thing is testing peoples connections, allowing the group leaders to refill people who's game crashed and do not come back. The second is that this "pre-loads" the animations for all of the abilities used, making it easier to load when a fight breaks out. This normally lasts until you log off, so you have to do it again everytime you log on to reduce the lag that it causes during ZvZs.

Dreoh

Sathrago wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

I have mixed feelings about this

On one hand GW2 having the first 5 abilities be tied to weapons was very neat and having to choose your "loadout" made it so that you could be semi-unique even within your class. This of course means you can't use everything you have access to at any time, but I think it worked very well and helped make balance and gameplay interesting. It makes your gameplay more focused and solid, but also more limited.

On the other hand you have vanilla WoW (I say vanilla WoW because retail dumbed down classes to only need really 1 hotbar at any time) where you have access to 50 abilities. This made you feel like someone who had accumulated a lot of techniques along your journey to fit many situations. The downside is that it could be very bloated and a lot of the abilities became useless or very niche. Also, every Marksmen Hunter had pretty much the exact same kit as every other Marksmen Hunter (save for differences in a few talents), whereas in GW2 two Chronomancer Mesmers might not have a single shared ability.

Both have pros and cons, and they both fit their game. AoC just has to figure out what fits it's game.

I am enjoying this discussion though it did get off topic lol

I definitely see ashes going in a more "loadout" direction, and this is because of two reasons. One, it is easier to balance out mass pvp when you can only have so many abilities at a time and two, because mass pvp will put the server under a lot of stress, similar to how barely 40 people pvping cause a ton of lag on WoW. If they reduce the amount of abilities you can load out with, this will reduce the amount of unique animations being thrown out at one time.

Now I am no game designer or coder or any of that nonsense, this is just sort of my understanding of mmos from playing them for so long so I could very well be wrong.

You're right in that assumption, but it's not as big of a deal as you may think, a lot of assets are reused in many abilities and other things

Fair enough, I just take from what I know like in Albion online doing Zerg vs Zerg content. After the leader gathers the entire zerg together they have "lag tests" where everyone blows all of their spells and cooldowns in one direction at the same time. This does two things for them, the first thing is testing peoples connections, allowing the group leaders to refill people who's game crashed and do not come back. The second is that this "pre-loads" the animations for all of the abilities used, making it easier to load when a fight breaks out. This normally lasts until you log off, so you have to do it again everytime you log on to reduce the lag that it causes during ZvZs.

Well they've already stated that all races will use the same animations for mostly that reason, but also in huge battles they will have people show up as default models

Blandmarrow

Dreoh wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

I think GW2 did combat fine, my biggest issue with that game was the execution of the abilities themselves. To specify, the fact that the class fantasy and fluidity of abilities felt extremely limited.

Sure you could choose your own combinations of abilities, but it just didn't feel right for me when I've been used to having 50+ binds on a MMO character for ages because of WoW.

All in all, if they made the combat much like GW2 but didn't execute the abilities the same I would actually be satisfied.

On the other hand you have vanilla WoW (I say vanilla WoW because retail dumbed down classes to only need really 1 hotbar at any time) where you have access to 50 abilities. This made you feel like someone who had accumulated a lot of techniques along your journey to fit many situations. The downside is that it could be very bloated and a lot of the abilities became useless or very niche. Also, every Marksmen Hunter had pretty much the exact same kit as every other Marksmen Hunter (save for differences in a few talents), whereas in GW2 two Chronomancer Mesmers might not have a single shared ability.

Both have pros and cons, and they both fit their game. AoC just has to figure out what fits it's game.

I am enjoying this discussion though it did get off topic lol

Yeah, I think that might have been something I felt was off with GW2, the lack of unique and niche abilities.

What about Tera combat then, because when I played that in its early days I enjoyed the shit out of that game. Sadly that was pretty much the only part they nailed.

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

I almost missed the existence of this thread and almost created a new one ......😅

As Blandmarrow-san mentioned in the OP, I've been wondering if we're on the right track as far as the fundamentals of animation go.

My discomfort is that the battle animations look like cartoons, even though the characters and natural environment are very photorealistic.
If this were a game with Marvel or DC characters, I would not have felt any discomfort, but considering that it is a hard fantasy, I feel that it is a bit incompatible.

For example, Mage's levitation, which many people have discussed, I don't see a problem with levitation itself.
I don't think there's anything wrong with floating itself, but I think it can be animated more convincingly by changing the speed of the ascent, the character's posture in the air, and the sequence of actions.

I'm aware of course that it's still in development, but I'm worried if the folks at IntrepidStudios think that we're just going to change it because the community is unhappy, so I ventured to mention it.

However, I am vastly lacking in experience with PvP games……
I also think it's nonsense to compare it to games like Soullike Games or SEKIRO, which are based on single-player and have great motion, so I'd love to hear lots of opinions.

Gobln

It's worrying.

I think this has to do with less of a lack of direction for animation, and more of a lack of art direction for the whole game.

I recently came across this beautifully done deconstruction of Shadows of the Colossus's animations.
What I can tell here, is the art direction is consistent - from message, mood, character design, music and animation. Every decision was made to support the games vision and intent.

I see a very serious lack this in Ashes of Creation. I know basically this: It's a high fantasy setting. But to me, from animations, props, character designs, monster designs environments - it feels very directionless. It feels like an asset store drop. It FEELS like "Two Steps from Hell: The Game" - a highway straight to epic. To me, that's an art direction that fails to capture what this game really is, and what it wants to be.
The game has extremely high aspirations when it comes to it's mechanics - bringing people together in long lasting community efforts that build relationships, test teamwork, creating player made faction identity, an growing from nothing to something incredibly formidable.

If you go to this moment and watch just for a minute or two, you can tell the amount of intent the artists had when creating. I don't see this in the game at the moment. I don't see the animations representing what the game is about, or what a race is about - But that's not the worst part.

I'm sorry, but right now I have yet to see consistent technical excellence. There are some phenomenal animations, for example the turtle mount walk - it's technically well done, but the consistency just isn't there yet - which makes this an incredibly hard vision to get behind. The animations "get the job done". But lack soul and character, unfortunately like the rest of the games art - in my opinion.

I want to see this game succeed. But right now I'm unsure the technical skill, or direction is being met to do so.

I want to help. I sincerely do. I think this game needs something of an identity.

Intrepid, if you see this, I'd love to talk. I'd love to help.

ogre

Blandmarrow wrote: »

Before I start, I am aware that the animations are either placeholder or not tuned but I came across a comment when watching the recent showcase for the tank skills which kind of hits the head of the nail for me.

The comment was the following:
"I'm really looking forward to Ashes but the animations seem quite disappointing all round to me, the movements seem really inhuman, disjointed or impractical and it dose not seem to be an issue with them being unfinished or placeholder. The main concern for me seems to be down primarily to artistic direction or lack of it. The decisions made and the thinking behind the culmination of these animations worries me. I feel like the animation department needs new leadership and quickly. A cohesive direction needs to be made and enforced.
These animations are all over the place, a unified design philosophy is what is missing. As it stands this seems like inexperienced forced spectacle and there is little more cringe educing."

I don't want to be negative or like some people would call it, "being picky", but I truly share the concerns of this comment.

I just wanted to create a discussion to see what other people think about the subject.

I have the exact same worries, in it’s current state the game looks like a console game from 4 generations ago. The concept for AoC is great but the fluidity of the combat/animations/character and enemy movements will need some serious work before release if it wants to compete in the market and become a new long-term sustainable MMO. The combat and consistency of the overall look and feel of the game need to be AT LEAST on par with WoW/GW2/BDO. It should be really cool seeing how they improve the current systems.

Just looking at the concept art you can tell that the art team does have some serious talent/skill at what they do. I am hopeful that things will improve greatly post-placeholders as they iterate on the art/animation side of things.

That said there is still likely years before release so it’s early to speculate on the art imo. It’s excellent to bring these things up on the forums however, if only to(maybe) put them on the devs radar.

Noaani

ogre wrote: »

I have the exact same worries, in it’s current state the game is looks like a console game from 4 generations ago.

While I agree with your general sentiment, I do have to say that at this point in development, that is exactly how they should look.

Intrepid need animators in the last few months of the games development, when the combat system is being finished.

Due to this, they need work for those animators leading up to that final crunch. Since that crunch is a few years away still, that means they need work for the animators that lasts a few years.

If the animations were in a finished state now, I would be asking questions as to the general management at Intrepid, as that would mean they either need to let the animators go and re-hire leading up to release, or they need to keep them on and task them with jobs they may not be willing or overly capable of doing.

Child Item