Question: What powers do you want Alternate animations for?

Castle, Im begging you BEGGING YOU. Please please give us a different animation for the Nightwidow power "Slash".

My nightwidow is my favorite toon but every time I use Slash im completly disgusted that my elegant smooth widow has such a clumbsy stupid looking 1 2 punch animation.

In fact, please take another look at the widow animations period. They should be almost dance like in there grace but instead most are clumbsy awkward and downright stupid looking.

I LOVE my widow, please give me some attacks that are as sleek and sexay looking as my widow is.


ALSO: any chance we can get a hand mounted version of Fire Breath for blasters?? I just think its odd that all my attacks come from my hands except for one miraculous attack I fire from my food hole.

Hmm, I would like to see a projection location option for all the "elementally" based blast abilities so that you could have the issue point from the eyes or chest or hands etc. By that token, also items such as a wand or scepter that can be drawn and used to fire off these effects as well.

I would also dearly love to see a "motorbike" option for superspeed, we already have thugs that drive in on harley's but how about a street bike for players, something tintable. I don't care if it magically appears, or that I can ride it inside a building (not like that doesn't happen in movies and comics), with the lingering debris tech surely you can have it stick around if you toggle the power off for a few seconds before vanishing.

Now the Specifics on sets (In no particular order)
Archery/Trick Arrow - How about Crossbow animations
Assault Rifle - A more military style with the gun braced to the shoulder and the body in a bit of a crouch
"Insert type" Blast/Manipulation/control - Different arm waving animations cause all Chest thrust power up - So many buffs, toggles, enhancements etc use the one power up animation, a reach for the sky version could be handy and in sure there could be other possibilities.
"Insert Type" Melee - All the elemental style melee powers basically use the same animations, couldn't be have some new attacks say a flurry of pressure point strikes or some more body combat maneuvers, knee and elbow strikes to liven things up?
Martial Arts - Despite them all being kicks how about punches
Claws - I would really love to see a Claw animation and by this I mean raking talons/fingers rather than long metal things from the back of the hand, I know that fingers aren't individually modeled but couldn't something be worked out? Just don't go to far and give 10" fingernails o' doom.
War Mace/Broadsword/Battle Axe - Three sets with the same animations, there needs to be some more variety here, maybe a more fencing style for broadsword? lots of deep lunges etc.

- Raith

Pain Dominiation - Enforced Morale

I want a "whip crack" for this power, like what Demon Summoning has. The whip will probably need to come from hammer space, but that would be ok. As long as I can crack the whip at folks who are slacking off, I'll be happy.

All of the powers that use the Fire/Ice Sword animation (Pulverize (Mace) and Gash from Axe).
Shadow Maul - And other attacks in the Dark Melee set, make them look more evil and less punchy style
Blazing Bolt - Looks like taking a...yeah you know
Katana Style weapon for both Fire and Ice Melee
Removing all Swords from both Fire and Ice Melee attacks
Barrage (Energy Melee)
Total Focus and Thunderstrike
Stun (Energy Melee)
All Build/Aim/Power Boost powers
Eviscerate
Punch options for all of Martial Arts
Lunge/Followup (Spines/Claws)

anything that uses a weapon: claws, dual blades, broadsword, ninja blade, katana

Some comments on things since my last post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex Electric Control, Electric Blast. Option to have some powers to originate from the sky instead of from your arms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by McNum Electric Blasts - The ability to use the Mu arcing lightning across the entire set

Awesome electrical suggestions. I approve.

Quote:

Originally Posted by McNum Oh, thought of another one: Rest - /em lotus (hovering) - /em kneel

Ooooooooo.... a "hovering lotus" rest (or even a "sit on ground lotus" rest) just might would make me squee.

d

I know a lot of other people have said these, but can't hurt to re-iterate:

-less flashy Dual Pistol animations
-minimal fx for Hasten
-something besides the tricorder for the medicine pool
-something less chunky for the Ice Armors
-something aside from the Tarzan chest pounding for Integration (since you said it )
-something less crazy looking for One Thousand Cuts
-would be nice to have different arrow options for Archery
-animations for Dark Blast that don't include the skulls

Lets see where to start:

Blaster Primary

Dual Pistols - Every thing in this set with the possible exceptions of Pistols, Dual Weild and Executioners Shot. (Non-Gun Fu, preferably Wild West, Malta)
Ice Blast - Bitter Freeze Ray (have the character's focus be on the target rather than looking at each hand)
Sonic Attack - Sirens Song. Less finger waving - also a more melodic sound effect if possible (actually more melodic sound effects for all of Sonic, shrieking like a hawk, eagle, banshee, or Siren from the Roman myths would be much better than the current sound set)

Blaster Secondary

Electric Manipulation - Thunderstrike/Total Focus (perhaps a fists together, down on top of the head blow with out the leap)
Energy Manipulation - Stun (no ideas here but the current animation certainly doesn't have the right feel for what the power does)
Ice manipulation - Frozen Fists. Something not fists - perhaps another sword attack or a single punch without the elemental coating on the hands (perhaps just a customizable aura) with an elemental flash/burst that leaves elemental traces behind like snow flakes and shattering ice crystals. Same for the stone fist power in Stone Melee. I dislike the animaton on these powers so much that I have never taken the power in Ice Melee and my Stone Tanker stopped using it as soon as I had stone mallet available.

Scrapper Primary

Broad Sword - Parry. This animation doesn't look like a parry. No ideas on alternates.
Dark Melee - Shadow Maul. The problem here isn't that the animation isn't a good one. It's how the power functions. I always find it frustrating that it only makes one hit check and then each potential DoT tick misses while I stand there whiffing back and forth obviously too stupid to realize that I have missed and try something different instead (hits are a different matter it's the feeling of wasting too much time on a miss that's the problem). A single massive attack with the DoT applied in ticks after (animation change) or a separate hit check on each tick (power change) would be better.
Electric Melee - Jacobs ladder (no ideas)


Pool Powers

Flight - Hover. Allow the use of the flight poses again and/or allow it to use the standard flight animation all be it at a slower speed.
Medicine - Arcane version please. I know it would be more work but 5 total sets of animations (one for each Origin) would be ideal for this pool.

These are the ones off the top of my head that I have the most trouble with/avoid at all costs.

I tried to find what I assumed would be an easily found lattice shield to show what I/we are looking for to give to forcefields but instead I found google image search crashing my firefox

Dual pistols - less cartoony animations would be good - more like Thugs or Malta

And as so many have said - alternate animations for the aid other/ aid self for non-tech characters

The dodging and weaving of acrobatics annoys me - I'd prefer something that indicated gymnast, not street fighter for some of my characters

A non-pulsing blazing aura though as I play with suppressclosefx on it doesn't annoy me when it's my character, but then I get the same problem as Minotaur with my fire sword

One-handed Katana attacks, so we can use more of the awesome friggin' swords that keep getting added for Broadsword and Dual Blades.

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And while I'm at it, I'll add the suggestion again to give the Broadsword weapon models to the Battle Axe users and vice versa. The attack animations are virtually the same anyway, and it's kind of silly that Tankers and Brutes still don't have any sword options to go with their Shields.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

It's like listing the animations we dislike the most and would like to see alternates of them... for me, those would be:

Melee animations:
- Energy Melee/Barrage...
- Claws/one of the claws attacks that look like Barrage...
- Ice Melee/Frozen Fists...
... in other words, give me an alternative to that ugly one-two punch
- Fire Melee/tier 1 attack
- Fire Melee/Incinerate

Ranged animations:
- Radiation Blast/Cosmic Burst (that's the animation I despise the most for a blasting attack)
- Fire Blast/Snipe
- All Dual Pistol animations, as others have said, give a less gun-fu feeling to it
- Blasting from eyes, chest, or feet (with kicking animations to go with them)
- Blasting from props (staffs, weapons, etc, with themed animations to go with them)

Buff animations
- Regen/Integration... ugh.
- Shields: the "Weave" animation is odd.

Movement:
- Hasten, for some odd reason
- Combat Jumping/Super Jump: new jumping animations
- Hover/Fly: permanent, custom animations for them, without the need to input emotes
- Teleport. I'd like an effect similar to shield charge, without the current "portal" effect. Without any effect to be precise, maybe a trail of something just to show the notion of a super fast "snap" move from one point to another. What kills this idea? The fact that the end of the power currently leaves the user hovering for a couple of seconds. Maybe an option to turn the Hover effect off, but keep the rooting in place (I suppose it's there for balance reasons?).

Great thread and idea, Castle (though should BAB be asking about this? Heh)! I appreciate your wanting feedback on this.

Most important for me is to give some options for the most commonly re-used animations. The new Super Strength animations were a great start on this. Haymaker's animation is used on a LOT of powersets, and new looks across the board (even offering them the same option) would be nice. I usually avoid Air Superiority on any character that already has a Haymaker animation, as it feels far too repetitive to me.

Same thing for Footstomp style powers. Even if Kheldians, Earth, etc., powersets get the fistpound animation, it would be nice to have the option.

Another group of egregious animation reusers are three weapon sets (I think because they grew out of a weapon mastery set): Battle Axe, War Mace, and Broadsword. We really need some new options to differentiate those sets (like Katana received), or at least get a couple options for the reused animations across those sets. I played War Mace and don't feel like touching Axe or Broadsword as they "feel" the same from the animations. Vary those up and I will play those sets and be a happy camper.

I think some blasting animations could use a little flavor, too. A big hurling animation could be nice for powers like Fireball and Explosive Blast, for instance. It would be visceral and feel like you're throwing something wicked strong at your opponents.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'll toss out more if I remember ones that I have wished for, heh.

I'd like it if you could select from the flypose animations that would be the default when actively flying forward... in the power animation selection screen.

You guys could atleast make me feel better by signing off on my nightwidow animation hatred lol. I cant be the only one who thinks the jabby awkward clumbsy animations arent right for such a graceful sleek type of character.

Also as much as I love Dual Pistols (big equilibrium fan) I have to agree that it would be nice to have a more "normal" set of animations.

Eviserate and Elude (and other powers that share the animation) could use something less flashy. For Eviserate, maybe a series of quick strikes for the Brute and Scrapper versions and a slow, gutting blow for Stalkers. Can't think of anything for Elude at the moment.

And any Assassin's Strike powers that share animations with each other could use unique animations IMO.

Energy Melee

For the love of god, Energy Melee. Please, give Bonesmasher, Energy Transfer and Total Focus alternates so that they aren't all double-fist animations. Once is okay, even twice before the changes to it was alright.. but once all three became double-fist animations, I never played the set again.

Dark Melee would be nice to have alternate animations for Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp.

I would love you forever if you gave Super Strength more alternate animations for its attacks, namely in line with Vander's avatar (I think that's the name, anyway). Nice stuff there.

Crippling Axe Kick should just be redone, period..

Alternate animations for weapon sets would be nice.

Rifle Fu.

All that needs to be said.

Actually, one more thing needs to be said - DUAL rifle fu. {keep the powers as they are, though, just add another gun}

An open letter to NCsoft

I'd put my vote in for Energy Blast. Too many of the attacks use the exact same animation. Perhaps adding in other one-handed blast animations to the mix.

I also personally dislike Torrent's blast effect. A triangle of energy crawling along the floor feels out of place with the balls of energy. Maybe something along the lines of Night Fall from Dark Blast, or maybe just making the triangle of energy fly instead crawl.