Rooting is stupid and really does ruin my roleplaying experience.
With that being said, the way Whirlwind removed the rooting effect of ALL powers WAS ridiculously awesome while it lasted.
Of course, Whirlwind is a stupid power that also ruins my roleplaying experience so I'm glad I'm no longer forced to use it or see it being used.
/signed to deleting whirlwind and creating a decent new power for the speed pool.
/signed to removing all rooting effects.
To fulfill your request animation would need to be redone to account for continuous movement.
Oh, and there are games that DO root you when swinging. Games that come to mind are The Witcher, Phantasy Star Online, Phantasy Star Universe.
Explain to me how one could remove rooting from Martial Arts and not make it look patently ridiculous?
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But I've been playing other games -- console games and "lightweight" MMOs -- lately, and attack rooting just isn't fun. I mean, nothing else thus far offers the comprehensive benefits package that is CoX, but I do feel like parts of the game could stand to be made more fun.
[/ QUOTE ]'Just isn't fun' isn't an argument. It's an opinion. Rooting lets the animations feel like they make more sense; it adds a feeling of tactics to combat; it gives developers another balance point to work with. It would either require a massive graphical overhaul, a complete rejigging of every power in the game or willingness to release a product that looks like [censored] to achieve.
I don't see 'just isn't fun' beating that. It's like stamping your foot, it doesn't actually do anything.
I'd like to see rooting removed from toggles where it was kept because of a seemingly arbitrary decision to have defensive toggles not root but offensive toggles like Hot Feet root.
But the amount of coding and animation required to remove ALL rooting just boggles the mind. Maybe they could do it in a COH2, but even then they'd have to have a breakthrough engine that handled the tweening on attack postures to an unprecedented degree, e.g. it could handle starting from any pose and pull off a punch or kick by dynamically deciding how to move the character skeleton.
I'm sure we'll eventually see this in a game engine, given that CPU/GPU/physics processing power keeps scaling up.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
The problem with removing rooting is that it just creates another problem - what to play when you activate an animation while moving. Unfortunately, there is no easy, and indeed no GOOD solution to this, and believe me, I've thought about it.
The obvious solution to "just remove rooting" and change nothing else is unacceptable. Animations made to play while stationary look STUPID when you move while activating them. We've all had lag spikes and engine skips that allowed us to slide around when activating an attack, and it's easily evident why this isn't workable.
The "easy" solution is to do what so many other games have done and animate only the upper body for attacks, leaving the lower body free to animate running, a lot like what happens to most FPS games. The net result, however, is that while this does look somewhat passable, it's downright UGLY. Plenty, PLENTY of City of Heroes animations are as cool as they are because they involve the whole body and plenty, PLENTY of WoW animations... Aren't, because they're just upper torso motions, or in many cases just arm waves. What's more, strafing left-to-right-to-left while swinging a sword around is just that - ugly.
The hard, and one might argue "correct" way to handle this is to give attacks separate animations for being used when moving and when being used while stationary. Oni did something like that, replacing all standard attacks with running tackles and jump kicks and slides and so forth. The problem is that this is a HUGE amount of work and there's practically no guarantee that it will look good. What's more, it would have to do what Oni did and lock you into whatever directional movement you were doing while the attack animates to prevent it from looking stupid, and that is potentially dangerous, game-wise. Much running off ledges and into adjacent spawns would ensue.
It's a good idea, really, but I don't believe our combat system, which is essentially click-n-kill, is robust enough for something like this.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Kind of a general reply to a few points brought up:
When I said I acknowledged that this was difficult, what did y'all think I meant other than redoing the animations? Re-describing each power is tedious, but if that were all it took to eliminate rooting from the game, it could have and quite possibly would have been done Issues ago.
There are a number of games which use pretty generic animations for attacks that can be performed while moving, and a lot of the CoX attacks are suitable for that treatment. The ones that are least suitable for it are mostly melee PBAoEs.
Edit: Clarification: Yes, this is a selfcensoredload of effort. I think the increased fluidity of the game, subtle though it may seem, would be worth it. I'd expect this from a sequel to CoX, and updating the animations and even the engine is less work than a true sequel. (Throwing everything out and starting over from scratch sounds lovely, until you've thrown everything out and you're sitting there with... nothing.)
Edit2: Oh, hey, and a plus side. It would only be fractionally (a big fraction, but a fraction nonetheless) harder to just redo the animation system at that stage to the point where power customization could go in.
Some specific replies:
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I'm sure we'll eventually see this in a game engine
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"a" game engine? Most of the popular engines don't root most attacks.
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'Just isn't fun' isn't an argument. It's an opinion.
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Yup. "Games should be fun" and "Rooting feels more tactical" are also opinions. Opinions are a form of premise, out of which arguments can be constructed or implied.
From reading the thread on why no power customizations, rooting seems rooted in the closed animation system in the game. Something in the anniversary chat made me think they are working on redesigning how they manage animations and such. If they change from a fire and forget model to a more scripted kinematics one, then unrooted attacks would likely open up as a real possibility. Maybe in their I18 radar sights.
As nifty as this would be, the work involved seems like WAY too much of an undertaking to look towards seeing it anytime soon.
Still, it's a nice thought.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
This is a bad idea.
Having Seen the 'other game' in action I've come to the conclusion that rooting is almost required for gravity, especially for the melee sets.
Take a look at Air Superiority. Double Fisted overhead downward strike. The character braces their feet and then WHAM! If they're flying they shift their body-weight and move their legs dramatically to maintain equillibrium and positioning.
Remove that and make it a 'move while in use power'.
Now you've got an attack that looks like it has no real weight. no POWER to it. Same thing with Haymaker.
One of my favorite things about City is the feeling that superstrong characters are, in fact, -strong-. When a guy is running sideways mid-punch the power of the punch (which comes from the torque of his body) is lost because his -feet- aren't planted. He can't bring his body around fast enough.
And of course the Martial Arts set would look -patently- ridiculous without rooting.
How about the Claws set? Double slash while running past someone. First slash hits, second slash goes off 4 feet behind the guy.
This suggestion would be an amazing amount of work for, ultimately, the dilution of the powers.
-Rachel-
I'm with Jack, in that I feel there's too much animation rooting in the game at present. The combination of rooting and power queueing can often leave me where I didnt intend to be when delivering a cone or PBAoE.
A lot of the negatives brought up already exist. On my Kinetics speedsters I'd routinely race past an enemy and then stop and root and deliver Sands of Mu from 20 or 30 feet away with the punches obviosuly failing to connect visually.
Martial Arts animations can already be performed while jumping in a way that doesnt look physically realistic.
I'd prefer an improvement in the fluidity of combat at the expense of animation realism and aesthetics.
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First slash hits, second slash goes off 4 feet behind the guy.
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That already happens; when you attack someone that's moving (or while you yourself are moving, if you're going quickly enough or jumping/falling), you root, causing your attacks to animate while you're some distance away.
For attacks that are truly "heavy" -- things like Air Superiority that don't make sense to use while moving -- I already mentioned retaining the root element. Most attacks are not of that nature. Attacks which would mechanically disadvantage their sets if rooting was retained would have to be more extensively re-animated.
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Having Seen the 'other game' in action
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Oh, you play Fusion Fall and Fable too?
Hehehehe!
But by removing rooting for Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, Corruptors, and Masterminds while instead keeping it in place for MANY melee attacks that require 'gravity' you're creating a schism in thought.
And how would it balance in PvP? A Blaster keeps running while firing off ranged attacks, the brute must keep rooting between attacks (losing ground on the ranged character) while trying desperately to play catch-up.
Glitches in the way the system currently works is not an excuse to throw out the whole system.
-Rachel-
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But by removing rooting for Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, Corruptors, and Masterminds while instead keeping it in place for MANY melee attacks that require 'gravity' you're creating a schism in thought.
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Ehh? I said pretty much just the opposite -- melee power animations should be reworked if the current visual conception is disadvantageous to the sets mechanically. Mobility for melee PBAoEs isn't very relevant to PvP... and I did also specify that summons would still root, so things like Rain of Fire aren't going to be cast on the go.
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But by removing rooting for Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, Corruptors, and Masterminds while instead keeping it in place for MANY melee attacks that require 'gravity' you're creating a schism in thought.
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Ehh? I said pretty much just the opposite -- melee power animations should be reworked if the current visual conception is disadvantageous to the sets mechanically. Mobility for melee PBAoEs isn't very relevant to PvP... and I did also specify that summons would still root, so things like Rain of Fire aren't going to be cast on the go.
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Okay... So let's compare two of the iconic sets.
Super-Strength for Tankers
Fire Blast for Blasters
Fire Blast rooting powers would be... Rain of Fire, Maybe Inferno, and the Snipe Blazing Bolt. Would Breath of Fire root you?
Meanwhile you'd wind up rooted by Knockout Blow, Hand Clap, Foot Stomp, Hurl, and Haymaker.
So Five rooting powers in Superstrength, 3, MAYBE 4 in Fire Blaster. Pretty close...
I guess what it would really do is create Root-heavy powersets (which would be mostly on melee classes with PBAoEs and PBCones) and a few control sets (Earth Springs to mind with it's 4 'pet' powers, Stalagmites, and stone cages)
I still don't like the idea of removing rooting in most cases. But if the animations could be altered to retain the 'power' behind them, I'd probably be fine with it. But if you lose the force, the gravity, then don't do it.
-Rachel-
I suspect KO-Blow and Haymaker could be animated in such a way as to avoid rooting (I further suspect that watching sufficient quantities of Luchadore wrestling would probably provide a solid clue to this way). (Melee powers would still have the minor disadvantage of possibly spinning you around to auto-face your target as they were executing, but I think we can live with that.)
I suppose I should clarify: When I say Melee PBAoEs, I mean actual circular-type area of effects. More specifically, I mean powers that don't require a target to be selected in order to execute. Some PB-Cones would probably fall into the "thematically heavy and mechanically appropriate" category, but I think of those as the exceptions, not the rule.
Removing rooting would make Blasters nigh-invincible, more often than not.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Removing rooting would make Blasters nigh-invincible, more often than not.
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I'm not really sure I see how that's so. What makes you think that?
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There are a number of games which use pretty generic animations for attacks that can be performed while moving, and a lot of the CoX attacks are suitable for that treatment.
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This is both false and misleading. Not "a lot" of City of Heroes animations are suitable for this approach, lest you butcher what actually makes most animations cool, which is the overall stance. Possibly a select few ranged blasts could be applicable, but even that would be pushing it. It's also misleading, because you keep neglecting to mention how BAD this looks even when it's done well. I've seen other games avoid rooting. WITHOUT AN EXCEPTION, all of them have looked stiff, staggered and plain ugly. The best you can hope for is being allowed to use an attack while moving, but being locked into moving in the same direction for the duration of the attack, which is just a different form of rooting.
I have not seen, not ever, an example where being able to attack while moving has looked anything better than maybe just about passable, and that's actually including a good deal of shooters. It just doesn't look good, however it may "feel."
Ironically enough, the MegaMan X series, one of THE most fast-action games I've played, actually roots Zero on every attack that doesn't lock him into a set trajectory, and while X manages to get away with running and gunning, Axl still ends up locked in place while hover-shooting. And even then, certain attacks STILL lock both of them.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Sure: realistically speaking, melee attacks should pretty much always root for at least part of their execution. But that's unbalanced. And doing it really well would require context-sensitive animations (similar to how Punch, -> Punch, <- Punch, and -> -> Punch are usually different moves in fighting games), but that's exponentially more effort than even what I proposed.
Nearly all of the single-target ranged blasts are suitable, and basic melee attacks (many of the single slashes of various weapons outside of Katana, forward punches, etc) are suitable. That, to me, is "a lot," possibly even "most," of the attacks in CoH.
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Removing rooting would make Blasters nigh-invincible, more often than not.
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I'm not really sure I see how that's so. What makes you think that?
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Most enemies do the bulk of their damage in melee. The only thing that really allows enemies to actually close in on a player character is if they're forced to stop for some amount of time.
In other words, aggro enemy, back-peddle, never stop firing.
In fact, I'd also be concerned with enemies getting stuck in chase mode as a result, too; you wouldn't be taking less damage, you'd be taking no damage.
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
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Nearly all of the single-target ranged blasts are suitable, and basic melee attacks (many of the single slashes of various weapons outside of Katana, forward punches, etc) are suitable. That, to me, is "a lot," possibly even "most," of the attacks in CoH.
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Your definition of "suitable" differs from mine, because while I can see how most single-target blasts COULD BE MADE into running attacks, they are unsuitable in that the result would be butt ugly. One of the key selling points in City of Heroes, at least in my eyes, is the beautiful, beautiful animations. Mess with that, and you slash the game's value by a third, if not more.
Simply put, I do NOT want a game that looks and plays like Rune.
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And doing it really well would require context-sensitive animations (similar to how Punch, -> Punch, <- Punch, and -> -> Punch are usually different moves in fighting games), but that's exponentially more effort than even what I proposed.
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It's also the only way to do it that wouldn't look horribly bad. Like I said before, I've seen PLENTY of games that allow you to attack while moving. Very, VERY few of them have looked good, and those who could even claim do were done in just that way. You cannot, plain and simply CANNOT, get away with "running and swinging" and have the game look in any way, shape or form good in the slightest. I cannot emphasise that enough.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'm against it on the basis that it would be a colossal effort to achieve something that the response to has been lukewarm at best.
How long does it take to animate one powerset to the satisfaction of the developers? We hear about a new set, a couple months later we see the animations, and finally, a month or so after that we see the finished product.
That's for ONE powerset. Now imagine how much work it would be to come up with static, running, and flying animations for every single power in the game. And also the amount of work to make those animations not look like absolute trash in a gameplay environment.
In order to pull off this one seemingly simple idea you would push back ANY new development for at least a year, if not more. And the end result: the vast majority of the playerbase won't care about the ability to move while attacking and just be annoyed that they halted new content to do it.
I'd be all for reducing root times, but removing rooting altogether will bring a whole mess of new problems with it.
PvP consideration has already been brought up. It is already difficult enough for a brute to engage a blaster in melee, if you were to add the ability to blast while moving the majority of the melee classes would be useless in PvP. Blasters are already borderline overpowered in PvP as it is, this idea would break them completely.
It is a worthy suggestion, and one that I at least haven't seen a bazillion times already, but it seems doomed due to unfeasibility and extreme balance issues. That said, I can't support this one.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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In order to pull off this one seemingly simple idea you would push back ANY new development for at least a year, if not more.
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Any new power set and enemy group development. Not any new development at all. Powersets could still be proliferated, zones and TFs created, bases updated -- and taking a little longer to do this, say, four Issues worth of time instead of three -- you could even have a staggered schedule of Basic Content / Content With Animation Work / Basic Content / Complete Animation System Overhaul. And you don't even need to bill that fourth thing as "We've removed rooting!" -- as I and others pointed out, the work done there is also much of the same work necessary to do Power Customization. So if you want a positive player response, there's the shiny label.
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Your definition of "suitable" differs from mine, because while I can see how most single-target blasts COULD BE MADE into running attacks, they are unsuitable in that the result would be butt ugly.
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I think your definition of "butt ugly" differs from mine. Do you think Team Fortress 2 looks "butt ugly"? Because I don't see a massive difference in animation quality between the simple ranged attacks there and the simple ranged attacks here.
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In other words, aggro enemy, back-peddle, never stop firing.
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Oh. We call that "kiting" in other games -- and yeah, it's a consideration, but it's been balanced out before.
This isn't an advocation of removing movement suppression. The enemies would on average still be faster than their attackers. I would also not mind seeing more enemies throwing short-term Immobilizes or extremely brief duration mezzes (a .5 second mag 2 Stun, for instance).
This isn't a suggestion I make lightly, as I have some sense of the amount of work involved, and an appreciation for its effect to control combat.
But I've been playing other games -- console games and "lightweight" MMOs -- lately, and attack rooting just isn't fun. I mean, nothing else thus far offers the comprehensive benefits package that is CoX, but I do feel like parts of the game could stand to be made more fun.
Now, sometimes I think rooting might be appropriate. For certain attacks, including sniper blasts, most melee PBAoE clicks, summons, and possibly a few other "heavy" moves, it's mechanically and thematically appropriate. But for just run of the mill slashes and fire blasts, it feels clunky and detracts from the fun of full 3d movement.
This also isn't, by the way, an advocacy of removing movement suppression. I might recommend that also, but that's a much longer and very separate thing.
I'm hardly the first person to suggest this, and I'm not sure I can evolve the discussion past the rudimentary "I want" vs "too much work" stage it's languished in. But here's trying, anyway.