Death animations and finishing moves

[Jarmo]

So the finishing moves thread by Boretti got sidetracked a little, so I decided to make it a poll.

Because a) Polls are cool and b) because I hear Obsidian is going to make the game totally based on poll results.

 

 

 

1. Pretty much the standard nowadays, the grander the killmove the better the game. Even Witcher 2 has these all over.

Stop the action, zoom in and let me enjoy the moment!

 

2. Fallout endbosses, long sequences seeing them just squirt stuff and die. Very rewarding, I hear.

This option also contains everything from choice 3. Just because.

 

3. Fallout *ka-splooch* when the opponent suddenly has a huge hole in the center, or twitches while being filled with tiny holes, or is burnt to crisp, or the way BG opponents would splatter all over the place like wet red fireworks.

 

4. Keep it simple and don't focus on the fluff. Spartan is the way I want them.

 

5. Just show me extended hand to mark an attack. All these new fangled 3D animations are crazy, crazy!

 

6. Animations, we didn't have any stinking animations in the day and that's the way we liked it!

Just tell me I'm likely to be eaten by a grue and I'll imagine the rest. Although a few pics by Justin Sweet would be fine.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Jarmo

[max8472]

For me, special death sequences only for bosses (even with player losing control of his character, like in Fallout: NV). Also, I enjoy random death animations during "normal" fights (without player losing control of his character).

[Piccolo]

All I want is basic animations that reflect realistic and plausible fighting. No fruity bull**** or attempts at making my character seem "badass" by a 12 year old's standards.

[Kaldurenik]

i dont think the BG death animations were random... Or do i remember wrong? They depended on dmg / spell used on them and so on.

[teknoman2]

the thing i want most of all is to see the attacks connect. i swing a sword, i want to see it hit the enemy or be blocked or avoided like in kotor. not just see the character waving it around and get a message every few seconds "you hit for x damage" or "you miss".

and as an optional feature, i want to see the enemy fall according to the way he got hit with the final blow. if the last hit is from a sword that comes from bottom left upwards, he should turn 90 degrees to the right and fall on his side. if the same hit comes from a hammer, he should fall flat on his back. if he is hit by an arrow or bullet, he should drop on his knees and then fall, if he dies by fire he should run around in flames screaming and so on.

if its a critcal hit you can have a special move like a decapitation or pierce his chest with the sword or an arrow in the neck.

of course for bosses and especialy non humanoid bosses some sort of special finishing move is needed. you can see the enemy leader, who is a human warrior, fall with a simple sword swing that connects and its fine, but what if you are fighting a manticore or a dragon? the character in that case will have to give the last hit in a way that makes sense like piercing the heart with a spear, slicing the neck open with an axe, putting the sword in his spine or an arrown in the eye or sending an ice lance through his mouth.

Edited September 26, 2012 by teknoman2

[Sensuki]

I think you had to hit an enemy to -10 HP for a monster to 'gib' in BG. Not all monsters would do it. Mostly humanoid ones.

[cyberarmy]

I always like FO 1-2 s death animations. Especially "lead dance to death"

 

Im OK for Eternity if they have none at all but if they gonna add that i would like to see something similar to FO.

Melting/burning/disentegrating magic, decapitations/flying body parts with swords/axes. Also they can copy some from Braveheart

[Jarmo]

I'm kind of halfway there myself.

 

The special animations are actually, sorta, hella annoying. Particularly if it's like DA where my mage flays the super ogre with flames, fireballs, then coup de grace with a meteor strike and then.. there's a shot of my mage runs to the ogre with and goes stabbity stab with a stinking dagger, like what THE ACTUAL HELL!!!

 

Or even more mundane matter like Fallout, shoot the supermutant 20 times, 3 of which are criticals and then the last critical blows a huge big hole right through his whole body, like.. what, the gun can do that now? I'd have liked to do that on the first shot thank you very much.

 

On the other hand, if I have the Vorpal Blade of Utter Destruction, a divine strength of twenty men and the skills of Lancelot, I'd like to see the fool kobold in front of me to not just ouuh collapse in its place when hit, I'd like to cleave him in half, and the split halves to fly 20 feet in the air!

 

So.. when it makes sense. A good strong critical might severe the head or limb, go through all the way, disintegrate the head or the whole body.

But only if it's a really good strong hit to begin with, preferably the kind that would kill the opponent right away even if he's at full health.

 

And actually, since these are 3D models we're talking about, severing limbs isn't quite as big a task as one might think, not trivial but not completely crazy hard either.

[lychee26]

the thing i want most of all is to see the attacks connect. i swing a sword, i want to see it hit the enemy or be blocked or avoided like in kotor. not just see the character waving it around and get a message every few seconds "you hit for x damage" or "you miss".

and as an optional feature, i want to see the enemy fall according to the way he got hit with the final blow. if the last hit is from a sword that comes from bottom left upwards, he should turn 90 degrees to the right and fall on his side. if the same hit comes from a hammer, he should fall flat on his back. if he is hit by an arrow or bullet, he should drop on his knees and then fall, if he dies by fire he should run around in flames screaming and so on.

if its a critcal hit you can have a special move like a decapitation or pierce his chest with the sword or an arrow in the neck.

of course for bosses and especialy non humanoid bosses some sort of special finishing move is needed. you can see the enemy leader, who is a human warrior, fall with a simple sword swing that connects and its fine, but what if you are fighting a manticore or a dragon? the character in that case will have to give the last hit in a way that makes sense like piercing the heart with a spear, slicing the neck open with an axe, putting the sword in his spine or an arrown in the eye or sending an ice lance through his mouth.

 

Yeah... I don't think that's going to happen in an oldschool isometric game like this , where you're not really close enough to see anything like that.

[Gecimen]

Fallout is the way to go when it comes to death animations.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Again, my issue with them is not about the animation or when they happen, it's when they slow the game down, take control away, or involve QTE. Fallout wasn't random, they were either due to Bloody Mess or critical hits that caused death. They have to be appropriate to the context, if I score a critical that causes death, with a spell like a fireball, seeing them burst into flames and dance around a bit would be cool. There doesn't need to be slow-mo or taking control away. If at an end of a boss fight, the combat stops, and the boss starts exploding like The Master, that's fine too.

[Tobi]

one vote for Fallout 1 & 2 - style death animations!

 

LOL, I love this: "because I hear Obsidian is going to make the game totally based on poll results." that's what I heard too

[Adhin]

I am seriously confused by this poll. Are you talking about the cutsense non-sense in DA2 or the kill animations.. tha tthey didn't 'do' in DA2 but where in DAO? Cause if its actual kill animations mid fight then yes. I like me some kill animations to finish off enemies (like assassins creed, or DAO though DAO was very basic). Granted I think a lot of the kill animations you get in some more recent games are just silly. I like a good bit of them in Skyrim but, some of em are just awkward. Best example I have of good kill animations is Assasin's Creed 2, Brotherhood. Add quick kill animations for finishing off enemies, to me at least, adds A LOT to the combat as far as my overall enjoyment. No infinity game had that, DAO had about 5-6 animations vs humanoids with melee weapons and that was it.

 

Now, if your talking about cutscence on boss type fights where it ends up some crazy non-sense which obviously wasn't tailered to the specific class and play style? No, screw those. Or more specifically make them based off the actual style of combat your doing. Just like the stuff I said above. If you have nice kill animations (quick, not to crazy but fun to watch) high % chance of happening for majority of enemies with any weapon or dmg type (like a dude rolling on the ground as he dies from fire) and just do a speical one for each type for larger unique bosses? Then sure, but that seems to be completely different then anything on your poll.

 

Seriously though AC kill animations are some good stuff, probably the only reason I find the combat even remotely satisfying. Add that to Infinity engine style gameplay and I'd be about as happy as I can get.

 

-edit-

To clarify the stuff im talking about is things like seeing your fighter types, say sword/shield stabs the his opponent in the gut to 'finish him off' and pushes him away with with the shield. Quick, clean, something you only see as an actual finisher, or a quick decapitation or whatnot. Same kind of stuff can be applies to bows with the finishing shots being square in the face with a specific animation of the guy dying from being pelted with an arrow vs just a generic 'falls over'. Plus elemental effects like fire or negative energy or whatever, blah blah. Yes to that, no to bad cutscenes (and really, no to any cutscene that isn't going to be tailored to your class/race choice).

Edited September 26, 2012 by Adhin

[Jarmo]

I am seriously confused by this poll. Are you talking about the cutsense non-sense in DA2 or the kill animations.. tha tthey didn't 'do' in DA2 but where in DAO? Cause if its actual kill animations mid fight then yes.

 

Guess there's a bit of ground the options didn't cover.

But basically 1.) means the cutscenes and the in fight things fall into category 3.) although what DA2 had was a bit more than I had in mind.

But the same basic thing, you're up close all the time in DA2, or Witcher so the animations are as well.

[TrashMan]

I'm just gonna post this here:

As this is one of the best kill animations out there.. PERIOD...if somewhat impractical.

Now a REAL space marine would use his other hand to kill orks with a bolt pistol while punding the current one to dust. Any second not spent killing xenos is an offense to the Emprah!

[LordCrash]

I like the death animations in Fallout 3 and NV, especially the headshots. That sounds brutal, I know, but hey, it's a game and yes, killing IS brutal. So it's only realistic to really SHOW the brutality of fighting and warfare. And when it comes to that I always like a high degree of realism, even in fantasy worlds.

[OldRPG'sAreGood]

I'd say the end boss death animations like FO's, though perhaps toned down a liiiittle bit. Or I don't know, a fantasy version of those bloody gore shows might be humorous. But when it comes to the standard enemies, I'd like the death animations to be like splattering into pieces like in BG because I don't think the Fallout way works without turn based so well. Though if there's too many flashy death animations it just becomes dull, especially when some weakling enemy constantly dies in that fashion due to a killing critical hit, which might be just one blow.

[teknoman2]

 

Yeah... I don't think that's going to happen in an oldschool isometric game like this , where you're not really close enough to see anything like that.

the first Neverwinter nights had some similar things happening sometimes even if it was isometric. i had a sword and shield fighter and at some point i was fighting vs another fighter and an archer. when the enemy fighter attacked and his roll was bellow my AC, my character evaded by crouching, made a hit roll and stabbed the enemy with a thrust, then he turned his body and stopped an arrow with the shield (the archer failed the roll) and then he succeeded in a counter roll on the next enemy fighter's attack and used the shield to bash the enemy's sword away then made a spinning attack. so why it should be hard or bad to have animations on the characters to show how the battle is played out?

[descalabro]

I voted for "Random brutal death animations, like FO or BG", but not so random that when you kill a wolf with a critical hit it explodes human legs and arms like it did on later Infinity Engine games. FO was perfect on this aspect, but it was turn-based so it was a lot easier to have the proper animations for each creature back then.

[Adhin]

Yeah NWN did some interesting stuff with its animation triggers in relation to combat rolls. The 'use shield to block' thing (wasn't much of an animation for it really) happens if they would of hit you if not for the 1-8 AC from your shield was the last bit stopping it. Game actually lacked kill animations but a lot of the 'dodged then attack' stuff could produce some fun events. I don't think the actual 'view' would ruin kill animations (if there quick and simple). As they're still fun, even from that perspective. The issue I see, honestly, is in relation to the players race and what they're fighting. I mean in AC, as my previous example which has an amazing array of crazy actual kill moves which are just... delightfully horrible things to watch (love em so much heh). Is your always playing a dude of a specific hieght vs humans that're all the same height (more or less).

 

In this game looks like we'll have a huge array of races to pick from, of verying heights going up against a large list of monster types of questionable appendage number and standing. So... I don't think it really applies I guess ultimately. Just not feasable with the general viaraty in this kind of game. DAO, as another exmaple, mostly had humanoid enemies to fight. One that weren't had no kill animations. Skyrims the only game I've seen so far that has any amount of real variation with and A LOT of its super janky... super janky.

 

-edit-

Ahh as per the old FO/BG style 'death by crit'... yeah, I could see more violet animation playing out 'not' linked up to anything the player did happening based off you killing them via a crit (or just a lot of dmg in relation to HP left, say twice hp left). But definitely can't see them doing any real custom animation where you 'see' your guy stabs them directly in the face or neck or whatever like the stuff I was talking about.

 

Though with that 'overkill' type secondary death animations, donig that and basing it off dmg type delt would be nice. You know physical is just extra painful looking, fire like I mentioned in another post, and so on. Could add a bit more entertainment to it all with out needing to link up heights and monster types and all that non-sense. Elementals could explode instead of just fall apart or... whatever. Things man, things could happen you know?

Edited September 26, 2012 by Adhin

[teknoman2]

I voted for "Random brutal death animations, like FO or BG", but not so random that when you kill a wolf with a critical hit it explodes human legs and arms like it did on later Infinity Engine games. FO was perfect on this aspect, but it was turn-based so it was a lot easier to have the proper animations for each creature back then.

at that time it had to be scripted and turn based to be compatible with the low processing power of the PCs of the time. today's game engines and PCs can do the same thing easily in real time. besides you usually fight 2 or 3 types of enemies in every battle not all types of enemies the game has to offer at the same time, so it doesn't have to load ALL the animations and run out of memory.

[Darkpriest]

If it would have a Turn based combat, I would definitely like to see different combat animations, sparring animations and finishing moves.

 

As it is a RTWP, sync kills would have to be really short if done at all, like in Dawn of Wars. I'd prefer though to have smooth combat animations and not spend too much time on getting resources into combat for eye candy. Resources placed here are not spend elsewhere, like map design, etc.

[Jarmo]

Looks like the majority would like something a bit special now and then, as long as it's not zoom in cutscenes.

[Kissamies]

Seriously, most of the DA:O deathblow animations are not huge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4uJxXQW-eo

 

(A mod that forces them all the time, apparently)

 

I think something like those shorter ones would be fine, especially if they only happened with last enemy of the group. I wouldn't like enemies just chunking into generic gibs like in BG. Too cartoony.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Kissamies

[Adhin]

Yeah I do not like exploding enemies, turned that off in NWN cause its just... stupid. Like I said earlier the idea of having linked up animations like that gets a bit funky when you take into account all weapon type, racial types and monster types. But doing 2 death animations per monster would be a bit less work, i guess. More just more crazy that happens for some (always on a crit-death type thing).

 

Either way some kinda special stuff is always nice.