Am I the ONLY one...

If I may say, I'm also glad we don't have any of those sarcastic, superior twit types who think they're so much better than everyone else.

Yeah - like a whip power set would have a lot of xXx1nd14n4-j0nzxXx types running around

Actually, I was just coming back to nominate you as best poster, Sam.

After countless posts by you about how broadswords aren't big enough, and you just never had hands giant enough to fit your "petite character with giants gauntlets" motif until the Valkyrie set, and so on and so forth, to see you here arguing against someone with the exact same problem of visuals interfering with a character concept, only in a set you like at the moment, well, that's pure comedy gold.

Five stars, sir. Would read again.

Well, it's not like I disagreed with the OP's thoughts. It was kinda like going "What do you say?" as I hold the icecream cone for my nephew as he's reaching and grabbing and going "mine mine mine!" He'll stop and say "May I please have my ice cream?" or "Thank you for the ice cream." and then I hand it to him and say "You're welcome."

... I sort of agree, but when I imagine 8 toons jumping around on the spot, I just think of Power Rangers.

Like we need more catwomen... hmm.... catwomen. Okay scratch that

....
Infantry! Load!
Aim!
Fire!

Execution performed. Dispose of the body.
I hope your fingers bled as you typed that, GG

I'm not ashamed, because it took me about three goes to understand it XD

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Ah, see, some people agree. I do, it would be nice to have alternate, different animations for the set.

That said, I will understand why there might not be/aren't. I also realise that there might be alternates, now the tech is in place

I think most people just object to the whiny, 'wants his cake now' attitude of the OP

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Right. I argued for extra options. One of those was an extra custom weapon, the other an extra custom glove option. Read carefully, please, and tell me where I voted against extra options. Please, I'm interested to know. Because to the best of my memory, what I voted against was the notion that what we had was bad and needed to be changed. I don't agree it's bad. I believe it's good. I feel like this is what I'll be getting eventually, and I don't appreciate the prospect of having it yanked from under me.

But thank you for insulting me, anyway. It's the thought that counts, after all.

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.

Discussions and open ended arguments are always welcome here. However if you do read the OP then it isnt really a question or a topic very wide open to a discussion, its more of a statement that the player doesnt like the animation and now has no reason to buy GR.

To make a thread/OP a valid discussion topic about any subject then that person must show both sides to the coin and not have a totally biased view. To further dis-credit the OP, he/she goes on to say that all that will be in GR is graphics update/demons which it 100% is not, which goes to show that it is a knee jerk reaction and not a well thought out one. I myself have been known to have very bad knee jerk reactions on these boards and let my feelings known, but i think that the majority of the time i have said sorry for the initial reaction instead of doing constructive feedback.

If you do read the entire thread properly though [especially the latter pages], then you can clearly see we are all discussing just exactly the reasons WHY we like/dislike the animations as they are currently. All it comes down too though is personal taste obviously, but i havent seen one poster really saying "im right, your 100% wrong", its all been stated that its what THAT poster wants regarding the animation.

So even though the OP could have been worded a lot better to be more open to a good discussion, the thread has turned into a good topic to talk about since we are all basically comparing our notes/playstyles that we like to use.

Just a quick 2 second glance at some of the feedback to the OP to show that people both agree and disagree with him/her.

I'm bulletproof

...which is very comic-bookish.

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.

Actually, what is the reason for our ranged sets to be so generally boring in terms of animations?

If Flares had an animation that made the toon stand up straight, sweep his hand down in front of him, leaving 4 balls of flame floating in the air which then would seek out their target like magic missiles, I'd probably use only that power for a good while!

A lot of our sets could use some prettying up! Heck...that's why I love Lightning Rod!

Are you for real? Of course people are going to disagree - a lot of posters here like gun fu and have been asking for a gun fu set since forever ago.

This thread is nothing like frothing fanbois stampeding over a hapless poster with a minority opinion.

By an odd coincidence, the original Flares animation did involve the character standing up straight, though instead of sweeping a hand down he would then raise both of them to about shoulder height in a sort of boxing-MC let's-get-ready-to-rumble pose. It made one look an absolute prat, which is why they got rid of it for PCs (although you can still see some NPCs, such as Hellion bosses and CoT Behemoth Lords, do it).

It wasn't shoulder height - you raised your arms above your head, sort of as if you were doing jumping jacks.

But yes, it totally made you look like a prat.

The old Flares animation was only a smidgen more flashy, but it was much more silly than the one we have now (which is essentially a fire version of Power Bolt). The final pose was just silly, and looked like you were about to shoot flares straight up. Shooting them forward from that pose made Blasters look like someone trying to be scary, going "Ooga boog booga!" and shooting flares out of that pose. It was kind of flashy, just... Not in the right way. There's flashy cool and flashy embarrassing

But the quote you quoted which the stubborn forums didn't nest has a point. To me, a lot of the old Blast sets are boring. Point arm, shoot projectile, profit. Point both arms, hoot projectile, profit. They all use, like, 5 animations between them (OK, more than that, like a dozen by last counting, but the point remains) and all of our snipes bar Blazing Bolt use the same inappropriate animation. Proton Volley is just absurd with that animation. I can't really argue with the artistic direction after the fact, but I'd like to see more interesting animation alternatives added for them at some point. The one talked about in the quote I couldn't quote would be a very good idea.

One thing I want to say - look at all the old Blast powers and note one thing: they're all poses. Almost any flashy blast we have is a short, curt animation and a lot of posing. Flares was like this, snipes are like this, most of the Energy Blast powers are like this. We don't really have very many flashy ANIMATIONS, we just strike flashy poses. It's not problematic, in the sense that we're just so used to these powers that we don't notice it, but I will tell you one thing - when you DO see an animation that has been detailed and touched up, you can tell. The simple fact that I LOVE the single-shot handgun animation because of how much better the recoil is drawn out is example enough. Seriously, the old revolver powers are just silly, with a cartoony recoil with the gun going up into the sky. Guns recoil back more than they recoil up, and they recoil FAST. The Mastermind attacks have that. Old Hellion animations do not.

Why bring this up all of a sudden? Well, here's something of a revalation - look around movies and cartoons where you have elemental users and try to spot the techniques they use for controlling those elements. Pretty much nil. Fire users will will point and shoot, air users will wave a hand, earth users might do a lifting and thrusting motion. That's it. It isn't as apparent when you have nothing to compare against, but there is SOMETHING you can use for comparison: Avatar: The Last Airbender. In there, element benders use actual martial arts to form the basis of their bending fighting styles, which makes elementalist fights a LOT more impressive than I've seen them practically anywhere else. Even ranged fights with fire against earth, for instance, are transformed into martial arts duels, and if you're looking for "flashy," it just doesn't get more flashy than that.

Avatar is a very good example in what fluid, elaborate moves can look like in conjunction with elemental forces. It combines punches, kicks, spins and complicated motions with an element of the appropriate style, and the result is a very vivid, very engaging fighting scene time and time again. Coupled with quite a bit of imagination into what element using can actually achieve, I'd say it's a very good source of inspiration.

NONE of the old sets are flashy in the least. Katana is borderline, being both rather more tame and not exactly old, but practically NOTHING before Dual Blades has been flashy, fluid or indeed even fast at all. I'm not a big fan of Dual Blades (for reasons OTHER than animations), but I truly appreciate what it represents for the game - a fighting style that is more than just hack, slash, slice, whirl. That has its place, but it's not all we should constrain ourselves to.

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.

All I said was I can't see how standing there and shooting someone with two pistols can fill a full attack powerset without looking flashy. Eventually, you just run out of ways to shoot two pistols at a target and need to get creative. Or, in this case, copy a silly action movie.

If I were designing the animation for Flares, I'd have to say take the old stance (you standing straight up like you're going to do jumping jacks) and as you do that, a flare originating at your feet blazes up and swirls quickly around you as it moves up toward your hands. Then you thrust your hands forward (or just bring then down) and a wave of flames reaches toward the enemy. Extra points if the target gets the same 'flare from feet' effect as it receives the DoT.

But yeah, I'd like more flash in the blast sets too. I actually think Radiation Blast is quite awesome looking (it even looks like water when you color it blue!) with the variations (ball from your hand, eye beam, self radiation wave, forward radiation wave, radiation beach ball, pew pew pew, etc). Need more sets with that kinda variety...

...but don't change Archery! Those don't need flash. One looks quite slick firing off those arrows and leaving the enemy full of wood (yes I realize how that sound ).

And can I PLEASE get a anime 'Beam' blast? Like Dragon Ball Z? Stick it in Energy Blast or something...

The one thing I would like for Archery...... can we PLEASE get the harpoons that are our arrows sized down a bit?

That sounds like it would take... a while. And I can't agree with anything that involves taking the old "Boo! Are you scared?" stance, on basic principle.

That animation is used in a lot of powers in CoH still.

Heck, I think I've seen it in CO.

Well it might be as long as the old Flares if you didn't decide to speed it up so the flares upward occur *as* you raise your hands.

And I find a "Boo! Are you scared?" stance would be fitting if you have a huge body-engulfing flame rising to the tip of your fingers. It'd certainly scare me