Combat Animation

[Zwiebelchen]

I think the problem isn't really the long downtime between attacks. It's the animations themselves that are too static and not dynamic enough.

 

The problem is, imho, that the animators didn't account for the top-down perspective of the game. Proportions and animations are usually exaggerated in strategy games. This not only goes for attack swings, but also the idle animations inbetween weapon swings.

 

Here are some examples from popular strategy games:

http://classic.battle.net/war3/images/orc/units/animations/blademaster.gif

http://classic.battle.net/war3/images/human/units/animations/spellbreaker.gif

http://www.succubus.net/wiki/images/8/8e/Succubusw3.gif

http://www.abload.de/img/worgendkt10special1h.g017z.gif

 

Look how over-the-top these animations are. Wide swings, long arches backwards and forward, often even exaggerated by motion blur.

 

 

There's also a lot you can learn from fighting games when it comes to Idle animations between weapon swings:

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/309/4/f/league_of_legends_fighting_game_by_iurypadilha-d6t5nrm.jpg

 

Just look at the posture of Katarina. It just screams "I'm gonna punch you in the face at any moment!" even if she is just standing there. She looks like she is actually taking cover when not attacking.

 

PoE's animations lack this. If you have a game from isometric view, you need to exaggerate animations to give them enough weight and impact.

 

 

And while I understand that these games can hardly be compared, I think there's a lot to learn from this video; imho, it's a perfect analysis about what are the key features of well done animations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coCsLWqT3v0

Edited March 4, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Baladas]

Well put Zwiebelchen.

 

We are not asking for much in terms of combat animation, just some simple tweaks to give it a more visceral feel.

 

So we feel like  "*ouch* that hurt, when our characters are hit" and "ooohh that's gotta hurt", when the enemy takes damage. And that in between attacks its not like watching a stop motion video during the "stopped" phase. 

 

Its not about this:

 

"I think I said it before in another thread but considering the amount of weapon types, fighting styles and body sizes making up unique attack/block/doge animations for each variation is a huge amount of work."

 

As mentioned before, is about simple tweaking to make combat look more fluid and realistic.  Not (dice roll) *attack* *pause* (dice roll) *attack* *pause* (dice roll) etc...

Edited March 10, 2015 by Baladas

[CaptainMace]

Well animations are improvable, definitely. I wouldn't say that they're outdated as you stated in your first post though. They're fine as they are nevertheless.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

the animations have REALLY leveled up since this post originally was created. I'm hoping they're still working on them every day but they have improved overall.

[Grotesque]

 

Does anybody know if that these suggestions will be implemented in the game at release?

 

What I really like to see are the combat idle animations to be tweaked so the characters will hold their weapons and shields up!

 

 

 

 

now that's the proper way to hold a shield! 

 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Grotesque

[Striped_Wolf]

This is something you notice when you look at footage of other ppl playing.
When playing yourself, youll most likely be fully occupied with pausing, giving orders and watching action counters to notice the animations repeat themselves. And even if you did look closely at the action, all the different abilities you are going to active all the time will make combat look varied enough.
Sound effects are much more important for this type of game imo. Sound effects is what brings the "oomph" to the table.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Striped_Wolf

[Sensuki]

It's not about combat looking varied, it's about being able to easily recognize when units are and are not idle in combat, which currently you cannot as there is no difference between recovering and idle.

[Zwiebelchen]

Yeah I agree with Sensuki here; a better Idle/recovering animation is the main issue.

Watching the newest videos I just had to shake my head about those... The characters were often just standing there with weapons and shields down, waiting patiently for the next attack. Seriously, did nobody notice that during the production?

 

I can't imagine it being hard to add some "combat-esque" standing animations that override the normal standing animation when in battle. Let the units take cover, shields and weapons up; let dual-wielders duck with their swords in duelling position, etc. ...

[Baladas]

Agree.

 

Simple, more combat twitch / bounce and shields and weapons up and ready, not down and prone, when combat idle.

 

Common sense.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Baladas

[LuccA]

It would be great if a 'shields up' animation could still be incorporated into the game for release, or at least in the first patch. It's sort of an obvious thing, otherwise shields would be just... useless. It may look like a minor thing, but this kind of animation feedback can make a good difference in imersion. It varies from player to player if imersion is important in combat as it is in the rest of the game though. I personally don't like turn-based combat because of this, it's like the game paused and you entered in a mini-game... but this is personal I know, and it is not the discussion... I'm just saying that, if the combat is RTwP, it should value imersion just as well as strategy and micro-managing.

 

What about the animation feedback for disengagement attack? is it implemented yet in the beta?

Edited March 11, 2015 by LuccA

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I'm sure at some point they'll update their engine to 5.0 which will make it easier to mod the game. I already have an idea to greatly enhance the animations across the board, but I don't know how to swap out their rigs or if I can somehow include motion capture files. As long as they keep their stuff on their end fairly open so we can access it, there's a lot of possibilities.