Poll: Death animations vs. more attack animations

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

To be honest, I don't care about animations at all.

 

If I had to choose, I would go for combat(includes dodge, block, and parry) animations over death animations.

[PrimeJunta]

Just a tangential thought. It's kind of a shame that there isn't (apparently) an open-source library of animations you could use. Imagine if P:E contributed all of its human(oid) animations to the library, and the next game that used the library contributed any new animations it did, and so on. That'd free up a big chunk of animation budget for the next game. "Standard" animations like basic attack, run, walk, sneak, crouch etc. aren't so unique and exciting that it would hurt a game's character to have the same ones show up in multiple games. You could always keep the ones done specifically to add character to your game.

 

We already have Unity, an OSS game engine. Why not add stuff like this on top of it?

[Adhin]

They did that for the past infinity games, used pre-existing resources from the last games into there newer games, its one of the ways they saved time. Added new stuff, picked which stuff to update, used a vast array of old monster graphics. And will work great for PE's expansion and PE2. Speaking of which, unless they did some bad stuff like with the NWN engine and literally writing in limitations to how much could be stored for animation sets (hell if I know why they did that, just bit them in the ass for expansion). But they could easily add in more weapon swing animations in a patch if they didn't have time before a release date.

[PrimeJunta]

True, but nowadays there are standard formats for models and animations, so there's no reason it'd have to be restricted to a single developer, engine, or series. I think it'd be nice if these relatively generic, easily reusable assets were put into a common pool everybody could dip into. Would lower the cost of small/indie projects.

[Run-D.M.C.A.]

Outcome has more of a lingering effect than process, so when people have played enough to be completely familiar with all of the attack and death animations, I think it's typically the case that death animations will have had the greatest effect.  Accordingly, more varied death, rather than attack, animations would have the greatest impact on perceived workmanship. 

[Adhin]

I half agree with you but you could say the same thing for any of it. Pool of detailed models, graphical art, music, sounds. Anytime you find a 'pool of assets' it costs money, people had to make it. Yeah sometimes you find little bits of freebs, often music or sound but they're often unfinished. Models and animation take time, they have to get refined and consistently checked for errors. That and game files tend to be there own 'thing', own format written specifically for the game engine in question to handle said library of animations.

 

Either case work they do on PE they can keep around for future projects which will be nice for the future.

[PrimeJunta]

Yeah, you could. I'm sometimes imagining a community of game devs contributing all of their generic-ish things into a common pool. Like a big collection of sets, props, and extras you could grab and reuse. So you could quickly assemble your generic fantasyland and then spend your time doing what it takes to give it character and personality. You could build up libraries based on themes -- ancient Rome, say, or medieval Europe, or Wuxia.

 

So a small team who decided to set their game in one of these types of settings could get a head start by grabbing what's already in the library, then expand on it, contribute back the "generic" stuff they added, and finish off by using relatively lightweight assets to give their thing a personality of its own. It's not a free lunch by any means; they would be operating within some fairly tight constraints, but I think this way it would become possible to make rather splendid things with rather small teams and little money.

 

But then I like art-house cinema too.

[Adhin]

Yeah I know what you mean, a lot of modding communities around games are that way but mods are 100% non-profit. It's a hobby, its stuff people like me and others do because we just... do I guess. I'd frankly rather actually work in game development but I have no idea how to manage that. In the end though they're a business. The community for which they'd be doing that would be with in there own company. I could see that working with some indie stuff.

 

Putting business and money side though animations, modeling, texture work, all that stuff on an individual basis is art. Folks can argue all they want about games being art or not, I don't really care, but on the individual basis the pieces of the lego beast of games are art. It's not like building a computer where you just go find the pieces you want and slap them together its a rather involved process. The way stuff animates in relation to how it looks and how its sound is what gives a game its distinctive soul and personality to try and sound like an artsy ****. Of course game mechanics and how the base controls handle and feel also play a massive role in that.

 

My point is, you can't really share art assets across multiple platforms all willy nilly and expect them all to be unique, or at least feel like there own thing. I still get where your coming from but its like asking a painter to give away his **** so someone else can re-frame it so they don't have to do as much work to slap there name on something. It's kinda bull****, money or no.

[PrimeJunta]

Well, the Creative Commons community is very big, vibrant, and growing, and people in it do exactly that. I put everything I make (privately; my day job is different unfortunately) into CC, and some of it has wound up remixed and reused in some pretty surprising ways, some of the commercial, most not. A photo from this series ended up as a CD cover for a piece of classical music, for example -- I thought that was kinda cool:

 

 

 

But then here it would go both ways. It would need a couple of studios to get together to start with, but the synergies would be apparent pretty quickly. It's the same model as with open-source software. And yeah, losing some of that unique feel would be a trade-off. I've no doubt that games made in that kind of community would develop a common "feel," even if each studio puts its distinctive spin on it. Whether that would be a bad thing is a matter of opinion of course.

[Ywerion]

  I go for death animations all the way, Aside FOs, Immortal, some bland ones in Arcanum and rather stylish and gory in Revenant, there wasn't any other old isometric RPG with them as far as my memory goes. Attack animations for me are just that - attacks you will see them all countless of times anyway by the time you finish game and it's not much of difference for me if there will be only one or four types of swings, I didn't mind it in old games I'm not gonna mind it even now. Death animations was rare and satisfaying and was for me sort of reward for a good fight, so Im gonna personally trade weaopn swings for stylish fatalities anytime.

  

[Ywerion]

Well, the Creative Commons community is very big, vibrant, and growing, and people in it do exactly that. I put everything I make (privately; my day job is different unfortunately) into CC, and some of it has wound up remixed and reused in some pretty surprising ways, some of the commercial, most not. A photo from this series ended up as a CD cover for a piece of classical music, for example -- I thought that was kinda cool:

 

 

 

But then here it would go both ways. It would need a couple of studios to get together to start with, but the synergies would be apparent pretty quickly. It's the same model as with open-source software. And yeah, losing some of that unique feel would be a trade-off. I've no doubt that games made in that kind of community would develop a common "feel," even if each studio puts its distinctive spin on it. Whether that would be a bad thing is a matter of opinion of course.

 

  Interesting, this has strong resemblance to part of village where my grandparents live. Very nice. 

[Adhin]

@PrimeJunta: true enough, I'm heavily in the camp its a bad thing. If the games im playing all feel similiar and they're not meant to be I just... I mean infinity engines are a good example to this. They used a lot of the same resources. BG2 vs the IWD series, IWD used a lot of pre-existing resources but also did a bunch of there own along with completely revamped spell graphics and interface which made it feel very different then BG2. PST had entirely unique assets compared to the other 2 series and it felt extremely different then the rest while keeping the same control and play style.

 

I think your idea fits indy games well, not so much big company projects... or small/big projects like PE but then re-using resources game to game of the same series, in a series like PE makes all the sense in the world to me. But then, that's also the idea behind the engine there using. Giving an easy, flexible engine for use in games of any caliber a good jumping point to make it simple to get off the ground. Rest is in the developers hands.

[Shadenuat]

Backstabs, close combat variety, magic, ice and fire => death animations. (Don't care how I throw fireball, if fireball can kill enemies in 5 different spectacular ways).

Edited January 19, 2013 by Shadenuat

[AGX-17]

There are a lot of ways to swing a sword, and a lot of bodily regions to put an arrow or a musket ball. I guess it wouldn't work in RTwP, but one of the best parts about Fallout was targetable body parts, which would work with some balance tweaks (I think it would work if there were no more eyeshot = massive damage and high chance of armor piercing criticals, both chances of head and eyeshots significantly lower for anyone but a Ranger.) Ok, I need to find a Ranger thread to propose this possibility of giving Rangers the option to target enemy body parts to stagger, cripple or do massive critical damage.

 

Anyway, tangent aside, in melee combat it wouldn't really be feasible to have a bunch of different player attack animations and only one enemy death animation or vice versa. If your berserker just swung his battleaxe up the groin and should have split an enemy in half bottom-to-top, and the enemy stays intact and just falls over it's kind of immersion-breaking. By the same standard, if you have one axe swing animation and several different dismemberment animations for every enemy, it makes no sense for your vertical battleaxe falling on an enemy to cleave them horizontally at the waist.

 

I don't see any real possibilities to magic having different animations except for different spells, and I see absolutely no possibilities for variation in enemy deaths by a single spell. Unless you've got targetable body parts.

Edited January 19, 2013 by AGX-17

[Sacred_Path]

Anyway, tangent aside, in melee combat it wouldn't really be feasible to have a bunch of different player attack animations and only one enemy death animation or vice versa. If your berserker just swung his battleaxe up the groin and should have split an enemy in half bottom-to-top, and the enemy stays intact and just falls over it's kind of immersion-breaking. By the same standard, if you have one axe swing animation and several different dismemberment animations for every enemy, it makes no sense for your vertical battleaxe falling on an enemy to cleave them horizontally at the waist.

Suspension of disbelief is your own problem IMO. It's just as immersion breaking if you bring your 2h hammer down on an enemy's armored head with full force and all you hear is a thud and the enemy loses 6 HP.

If we're going the most immersive route we should probably stick with 1 attack, 1 death animation. Otherwise, what about lopped off body parts flying around in the middle of a fight (not exactly an uncommon thing in the MA)?

[Adhin]

With magic, outside of some bizar special cased, they could have stuff for specific elements. Acid melting, lightning frying, fire ehh... burning? Vast majority of these games it doesn't matter what someone dies by they just fall over and play the same animation they always do. Nice thing about the elements is they don't need to extreme difference in animations as there using 3D models and will be using particle stuff for spells and all that. Point is, they can use particle generated stuff for monsters that would be effected by said stuff. I mean a texture bleedin/swap + on fire graphics, little jolting around animation and you got a something dying by fire. Swap the particle effects for acid and make the body disintegrate or... don't, just use greenish yellow gasses with sizzling noises. Either way theres a lot more universal like effects you can apply to the elemental side that would fit the vast majority of spells with out requiring overly special stuff that would add that kinda flavor into the game.

[AGX-17]

Suspension of disbelief is your own problem IMO. It's just as immersion breaking if you bring your 2h hammer down on an enemy's armored head with full force and all you hear is a thud and the enemy loses 6 HP.

If we're going the most immersive route we should probably stick with 1 attack, 1 death animation. Otherwise, what about lopped off body parts flying around in the middle of a fight (not exactly an uncommon thing in the MA)?

 

Your strawman of a more typical scenario is, well, just that. You stated what can be a hypothetically acceptable result depending on the variables, I stated what would be a hypothetically unacceptable result without some sort of wildly absurd cosmic intervention.

 

A full force blow from a physically weak character could logically yield the result you're talking about. Or a full force blow from a physically strong character brandishing a warhammer made of some light material weaker than steel plate. What I'm talking about is a situation of cognitive dissonance and violation of logic.

 

Would you accept a guillotine, nothing more than an unenchanted wood weight and steel blade (stated as such clearly,) falling on a man's neck, and instead of cutting his head off, causing him to burst into flames and burn to a crisp? It's a matter of cognitive dissonance. A horizontal slash cannot create a vertical slash wound unless the enemy defies gravity and rotates 90 degrees and floats in the air horizontally for a period of time before the hit connects and for the duration of the attack.

Edited January 20, 2013 by AGX-17

[Sacred_Path]

A full force blow from a physically weak character could logically yield the result you're talking about. Or a full force blow from a physically strong character brandishing a warhammer made of some light material weaker than steel plate. What I'm talking about is a situation of cognitive dissonance and violation of logic.

We could assume (if we weren't completely retarded) that said two-handed hammer isn't swung by a malnourished halfling. Also how many hammers with heads made of a soft, spongy material have you seen in CRPGs?

What was your point about strawman arguments again? ô.Ô

Edited January 20, 2013 by Sacred_Path

[IM GOD]

I think death animations would definitely be preferable. While I would prefer both, unique death animations would definitely add a bit more "personality" to the game. Unfortunately, since this is just somewhat over a shoestring budget, it is unlikely we will get a lot of visual flair. I just hope that, in spite of the probable simplicity, it still sells well so we can have the bigger, better, fully realized sequel.

[JFSOCC]

variety is the spice of life. I don't want to choose.

[Jarmo]

My compromise on this would be cutting down the number of monsters and creatures,

but having lots of animations for those in game.

 

*Snip* no more trolls *snap* no bugbears *whack* no crocodiles *whop* no wolves,

in exchange for 1 extra attack (for each weapons) and 2 extra death animations.

 

Opinions vary. I'd be happy with just humans (and if you want orcs or skeletons, you can have them as retextured humans).

Others seem to want a wide beastiary (and it seems the devs are on this side of the fence).

Edited January 21, 2013 by Jarmo

[Adhin]

Yeah and my opinion is freakishly further on the side of 'I'd prefer more monsters then more animations or a vast array of death animations'. It's kinda like how i don't want my games entirely in black and white. I want the variation, and I want that variation to have a gameplay impact. Also, attack animation again are the easiest thing to implement in comparison to new monsters or death animations. They'll probably end up with a little variation for the vast majority of them 'and' nifty death animations with hopefully a good list of monsters.

 

Like JFSOCC said, variety is the spice of life. And a lack of monsters just so you can have a few extra ways to stab a spear is the wrong direction for variety.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Adhin

[Adauli]

I personal dont realy care that much about both but Attack animations are much more important to me then any death animations.

[Kissamies]

I have no strong opinion, but I'd prefer sufficient attack animations. If there's a wide variety of weapons, there should be a variety of animations as well or we'll have the silliness like stabbing with an axe or repeatedly bashing foes in the head with a rapier again. That breaks my immersion much more than enemies always dying the same way. Ranged weapons don't really need multiple animations, but melee does. Also, as it was said before, it'd be nice if the animations reflected the attack rolls, but having good dodge and block animations and such may be too complicated to easily implement.

[Tsuga C]

One or two for death, the rest of the animation budget should be spent on other animations.  A dead opponent is of no concern to me (save for looting) and I anticipate paying little attention to death animations in the midst of combat where live opponents are still trying to take my head off.