Big explosions or simple cowboys?
By
Afterimage,
Posted on: 2010-09-15 04:15 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Mostly that, with an occasional WHOP-POW.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
the more believable, more relatable action levels of more human characters
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I like my fight and action scenes to be improbable, but still physically possible.
Like the fight scenes in The Transporter series of movies. The moves and such are out there as far as how likely anyone would be to actually pull them off, but they are still based in reality. Given the right set of conditions and skill level, a real person could conceivably do all of that stuff, but in reality it probably wouldn't work out that way.
I much prefer that kind of thing to the wire-work of the Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Over the top and stretching the boundary of the physically possible, yes. But don't blatantly ignore laws of physics and such.
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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. |
I prefer my super-heroes on the disaster-movie scale, e.g. The Authority.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Big explosions, mostly! While I like the down to earth combat sometimes, nothing gets my imagination going like giant blasts and crazy moves.
A good example in the field of heroes would be the Justice League Unlimited fight between Captain Marvel and Superman. Punching each other through buildings, throwing buses and bank vaults at each other, blows that cause shockwaves that break glass...
I guess I tend to like both...usually on the same characters.
That is, I enjoy characters that use basic, logical type attacks most of the time but are capable of pulling out the stops and unleashing crazy levels of power when needed. There's usually some measure in my mind to stop characters from just using their best stuff up front, like maybe minimalizing collateral damage or the big booms cost a lot of energy or require expensive ammo or causes explosions that might kill the user too.
This is probably why, In-game, I tend not to lean on tier 9s as heavy as others do and why I don't usually play sets that are hindered when you don't.
Ordinarily, I'd try to make a case for both. But this is City of Heroes and we just don't get real disaster movie level damage. You never topple buildings, cause massive car pile-ups, shoot down a helicopter to crash land on your foe, etc.
Out of what we have, I prefer some level of (or option for) "realism". Yes, it's a comic book game but you can have a fantastical environment and still draw the viewer out with improbable things. For instance, if the Lord of the Rings movies had said the One Ring was made of radioactive plutonium, you'd probably be wondering why everyone didn't die of radiation poisoning instead of just saying "Oh, it's a fantasy world". Likewise, having a cop, cowboy, detective, 19th century aristocrat time-traveler, mercenary, or whoever flip out and do a bunch of crazy ninja garbage just to fire off a few rounds takes me out of the game. For certain characters it can work, for others it decidedly does not.
To add to my previous post, I don't mind wild wire-work type effects if there is a valid story reason for the character to be able to do that stuff.
Examples:
In the Matrix, it is established that the characters are inside a computer program, and since they are hacking into it, they gain the ability to do things that would otherwise be impossible. In that case, the story makes the abilities the characters have plausible.
In an opposite case, crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I just can't buy that being a kung fu master grants you the ability to jump 60 feet in the air and run across treetops. In THAT case, the story does not justify the characters' abilities.
There are all kinds of cases in between those two, but in general I like there to be at least some attempt at explaining how or why these characters can do these impossible things. I can handwave a certain amount of it, but when it crosses into the realm of "What? Are you serious?" the story kind of loses my interest.
As far as superhero stuff goes, I can suspend my disbelief quite a bit, but blatant ignoring of the laws of physics still annoys me. For example, I can accept that Superman can fly, but if he stops using whatever force he is exerting to do so, he damn well better fall downward.
Another example, if Cyclops runs across an object that his optic blast cannot break through or move, he should be thrown backwards when he tries it.
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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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This, pretty much, is what I had in mind when I posted the thread. And the reason I thought it deserved posting is I keep wanting more of that sort of thing, and as has been mentioned before... The game doesn't actually entirely deliver. Well, at least in regard to what we have access to, which is almost entirely old sets more than six years of age. In fact, look at some of the newer sets and you'll notice a LOT more... "Oomph," so to speak. Dual Blades has A TON of screen shake for a small weapon set, it has a lot of AoE damage and it has a lot of "wind crescent" effects that give it much more of a feeling of epic power than, say, Katana, which mostly just cuts.|
Originally Posted by Zortel
Big explosions, mostly! While I like the down to earth combat sometimes, nothing gets my imagination going like giant blasts and crazy moves.
A good example in the field of heroes would be the Justice League Unlimited fight between Captain Marvel and Superman. Punching each other through buildings, throwing buses and bank vaults at each other, blows that cause shockwaves that break glass... |
The one biggest offender, in fact, is Sniper Blast, in my opinion. It's been described as a "bullet beam" to me, a concept I'm careful not to qualify for fear of offending the person who originally said it a few years ago. Suffice it to say that a power which deals this much damage really should look a LOT more amazing than what it currently does. Even Nova, a power which is already fairly impressive, isn't all that. Try using it with no enemies around you, and you'll notice it's an almost imperceptible effect. Where's my blue expanding fireball? Where's my pillar of light? Where's massive scorch mark? It's basically "Boom! You're dead!" I keep wishing either for a retooling of all the old powersets, or the addition of alternate animations which have greater punch.
I also want to expand a bit on Leo's view on "believability." To a certain extent, I can agree with that, as fights do indeed need to make at least an internal kind of sense. At the same time, however, I can't seem to resist the truly absurd types of fights, such as the bizarre sequences of events that pass for fights in Naruto and the large explosions festival of Dragonball Z and Dragonball Kai. There's something about a character diving from above the clouds, plummeting into his opponent and slamming down an amazingly powerful attack with full force. Yeah, any person would just splatter on such an attack, but I can look the other way if a world has no falling damage just because that makes for really cool fights.
Granted, as Dragonball Z showed us, too much super too frequently tends to make it lose its effect, so it's always a good idea to hold your characters' actual world-destroying powers back for the most part, both to avoid jading the audience and to avoid trivialising the plot. I like to build my characters like this, actually, but sadly, City of Heroes doesn't really lend itself too well to this, as it has very, very few actually "ultimate" powers. I can count about four or five nukes and about as many redundant "god mode" powers. Still, I like the notion of "layers of power" where a character is limited or self-limited to a certain level of power that he can't grow past unless the situation absolutely calls for it. One-shot powers, self-hurting powers, draining powers... The concepts are many, but as long as something spectacular comes of it, I'll always be happy
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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 find Mayhem Missions to be very fun when AoE's are being used. Enemies getting taken down, and collateral damage being caused. The sheer idea of being in a car park, SWAT officers beating down on you, and suddenly a PUNCH to the GROUND causes a huge explosion of metal and pain around you, sending police officers into the air?
Sweeet.
I also like it when you use AoE's in alleyways. If they happen to touch a garbage can or dumpster, it sends up a spew of trash.
Also, when writing CoH fiction I tend to play up what powers can do and go beyond the game engine. A kind of example would be when Storm Sapphire learned to go Dwarf form. After a giant minotaur like mutant threw a school bus at him. Caught it, carefully put it down, teleported after Bullrush and started an epic beatdown that ended in a Dwarf Form piledriver.
I think it was SexyJay that said it in one of the GR ViDocs, but in this game you don't just make a lumberjack, you make a Super Lumberjack. I am pretty sure that's the philosophy that went into the four new sets, especially Dual Pistols.
Personally, I like both the more down-to-earth and the more extravagant action scenes, but never in the same movies. I have a soft-spot for Hong Kong martial arts movies from the eighties and while I never watched many Spaghetti Westerns, the few that I did managed to create amazingly tense moments with something as simple as a quick-draw simply because you know that it's just one bullet that will decide between life and death.
However, a lot of the involvement in those fight scenes comes from combat choreography, scene composition, camera angles, etc go into making those fights tense. This being an MMO, though, we lose all of that. There's no combat choreography that makes the interplay between combatants interesting to watch, and there's no skillful use of the camera to make even the smallest strikes seem significant, so all we're left with is the attacks themselves to keep things interesting to watch.
When someone wants cowboy-themed pistol attacks, they want to capture the spirit of those cowboy movies. A quick draw, however, is only interesting as long as you have someone to do a quick draw with. This being an MMO, it's all about you and your powers, and I at least feel that the DP set that we have reflects this nicely. Grand, recognisable attacks. You cannot rely on your enemies to make your attacks look cool, so the attacks themselves look cool.
Conversely, I feel that too many animes and the like look too much like MMOs in that it's all NOW I USE MY NEXT FLASHY ATTACK, an exchange of signature attacks that will just turn formulaic. I think DBZ was especially bad at this when it literally just showed the characters as a trio of lines running across the screen and colliding a lot to imply fighting instead of actually showing any fighting, only to turn static when all their big powers recharged and their player clicked them again. Fluid combat choreography is replaced with character-centric signature attacks and that just makes combat scenes boring to watch.
So yeah, my two cents.
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But I'm already "super" in that I can fall off skyscrapers without being turned into a red stain, I can be shot in the face by shotgun-wielding Hellions, battle extradimensional demons, stand next to suicide bombing zombies and survive, run at 16mph without trying, jump eight feet into the air without effort, etc.|
Originally Posted by Noxilicious
I think it was SexyJay that said it in one of the GR ViDocs, but in this game you don't just make a lumberjack, you make a Super Lumberjack.
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I can play a "super" lumberjack and cleave straight through a steel constructed, machine gun firing and giant blade swinging Nazi robot with a logging axe so why does it have to extend to me first hopping around, spinning the axe over my head, pirouetting and then hitting the robot with the axe (to compare to DP animations)? Was I previously not "super" enough and goofy animations made me more so? My super lumberjack isn't super unless he's a super ballerina-lumberjack? Because that really detracts from "Super Lumberjack" fun in my book.
You can also have someone be "super" and not be a gun-ninja. Maybe my character is an Empath who has healing super powers but carries a gun because it's hard to heal someone to death when attacked? Or maybe my character's "superness" comes from their ability to protect themselves via powers or technology as they stand there and lay down the bullets. Saying "Well, you're super" is a pretty limiting excuse for what should be a very creative game.
Flash and bang effects in action scenes bore the heck out of me. I blame my job in the army- explosions are just... meh, been there, done that... or ohsogawdawfulfakeandhorriblyrepresented that I have to go numb or I'd weep for humanity.
Though... I do like the pistols powerset animations. I'm OK with they ridiculously-choreographed fight scenes when they're used for storytelling, and the myth of the near-superhuman-feats-of skill that these FX often bring about has a long and robust legacy. When used right-- to advance the plot or draw off that mythology-- it can strengthen the story. When used wrong- to pump adrenaline and hide the fact that the story is... well... isn't there... eh, I'll get more excitement taking a nap.
I think what I hate most about the big bang effects, though, is what it does for sequel syndrome. Too many comics, novel series, and movies have a big bad enemy drive a weak plot, only to have to resort to a bigger, badder enemy for the next time... and then the next... and then the next. It just gets... ridiculous...
For me it depends on the genre of the movie.
I loved Die Hard (the first one). In that movie an ordinary guy spends most of his time running from the bad guys because they outnumber him. Sure there's some stuff blowing up, but the fight scenes and firefights are pretty realistic for Hollywood.
Now if it's a super hero movie then I expect flying and cars flipping and exploding. A super hero movie without those is boring, what's the point of even making that type of movie without those things.
I really dislike movies where otherwise normal people are able to do crazy unrealistic stuff. Like fall from great heights, shoot down helicopters with a pistol, and cause cars to explode with a cigarette.
As long as the logic of the story or movie is internally consistent I'm usually ok with it.
Get Carter vs Die Hard
Get Carter wins every time (that Stallone isn't in it)
Thelonious Monk
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That's probably the easiest flaw to point out in most fighting animes, and in a field that gets as goofy as this, that's saying a lot.|
Originally Posted by Noxilicious
Conversely, I feel that too many animes and the like look too much like MMOs in that it's all NOW I USE MY NEXT FLASHY ATTACK, an exchange of signature attacks that will just turn formulaic. I think DBZ was especially bad at this when it literally just showed the characters as a trio of lines running across the screen and colliding a lot to imply fighting instead of actually showing any fighting, only to turn static when all their big powers recharged and their player clicked them again. Fluid combat choreography is replaced with character-centric signature attacks and that just makes combat scenes boring to watch.
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I think what a lot of anime fights look like is card games, because that's where some of the oldest ones actually come from. Pokemon, YuGiOh, Digimon, Bakugan and a few others are shows ostensibly drawn from card games and, to a large extent, made to sell said card games. That's fine when you're rendering a card game which is, by its very nature, a turn-based game of signature moves. That's what card games are. For a show like YuGiOh or Bakugan, that's understandable. They involve literal card play. For shows like Pokemon and Digimon... Rather less so, as they involve real time combat which still nevertheless consists of monsters standing around for the majority of the time. However, when it comes to something like Shaman King or Naruto or, yes, Dragonball Z, this becomes inexcusable because it's supposed to reflect actual combat.
In large part, it's just easiest to film this way, as most of your "animation" is static shots with the mouths moving and the actual costly animation is reduced down to a few seconds. This, however, produces instances of characters standing around doing nothing, looking surprised or grinning to themselves, and while DBZ makes no attempt to hide this (thus its charm), others are not as self-aware and produce pure parody of "standing around" combat that's reminiscent of Final Fantasy 7 more than anything else. To be fair, the Dragonball Kai anniversary release trims off most of the garbage and produces pretty amazing action, but that's neither here nor there.
All of that said, I would still take static combat if it meant seriously amazing scope and scale of powers. Final Fantasy 7, again, is a good example of this. Though battles there consist of people standing around for the most part, the kind of explosions, monsters and magic that gets brought to bear on the battlefield is staggering. I mentioned the Bahamut before, but that's the first of three, the others being Bahamut Zero who parts the sky and Neo Bahamut who shoots a death ray FROM SPACE. I'm sure amazing explosions can and probably have been mixed together with more dynamic combat. In fact, I dare say that Praetorians in general do a pretty damn fine job of this, especially the heavier Clockwork and the ACUs and BCUs. The effects they are given are just AMAZING.
A lot of the powers we have for our characters are OOOLD, and as a result, pretty boring (to me). The newer powers designed specifically for NPCs, on the other hand, demonstrate what can be done with a little bit of imagination and a rather a large bit of work. Hell, even going as far back as Kheldians, powers have been thoroughly amazing. For my part, I wish we had more of that for more powersets.
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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 couldn't disagree more.
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Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Get Carter vs Die Hard
Get Carter wins every time (that Stallone isn't in it) |
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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 think this is what blaster nukes were in part meant to represent.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
All of that said, I would still take static combat if it meant seriously amazing scope and scale of powers. Final Fantasy 7, again, is a good example of this. Though battles there consist of people standing around for the most part, the kind of explosions, monsters and magic that gets brought to bear on the battlefield is staggering. I mentioned the Bahamut before, but that's the first of three, the others being Bahamut Zero who parts the sky and Neo Bahamut who shoots a death ray FROM SPACE. I'm sure amazing explosions can and probably have been mixed together with more dynamic combat. In fact, I dare say that Praetorians in general do a pretty damn fine job of this, especially the heavier Clockwork and the ACUs and BCUs. The effects they are given are just AMAZING. |
I don't have an issue with seeing stuff like what you mentioned in fighting every once in a while.
Not. Every. Friggin. Fight.
What you don't mention is that the animations for those summons in the FF series are INCREDIBLY frustratingly long. In many of those games I felt that i was standing around doing nothing while a movie played. if I wanted to watch a movie I'd go watch one.
it's one of my issues with Dual Pistols. You spend a major part of the time (especially with the later powers) dancing around doing flashy stuff.
I'd rather just kill and move on. it's one of the sets I hope gets alternate animatins.
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It depends. I think the reason I loved the Expendables so much was because, while it had an insane ammount of demolition derby explosions in it, and some bone crunching fight scenes, they were still all feasible. Really hard, once in a life-time stuff, but it was still just within the perview of plausibility, which for me makes it all the more awesome.
Flying a plane down towards a peir chock full of soldiers, unloading hell with twin nose-mounted machine guns, then dousing them in a tail-spray of petrol and finishing up by torching the whole lot? Insane...and yet awesome.
Oh, and that shotgun. God damn, I love me that shotgun...
So, a grounding in reality, even if its slightl, helps makes things all the more epic for me.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Haven't been watching anime long have you? |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I think what a lot of anime fights look like is card games, because that's where some of the oldest ones actually come from.
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Some of the older ones are still better than a lot of the crap being put out nowadays.
Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Trinity Blood, Gungrave, and Samurai Champloo are a few of the ones I like. And the majority of them are 8-10 years old. Ninja Scroll is still one of my favorites in the genre and it was made in 1994 or so. Akira and Fist of the North Star are older still.
And purely as a matter of opinion, I detest Dragonball Z and Naruto. Just the fact that one fight can be drug out over 4 episodes annoys me. And the long, nearly unintelligible screaming of whatever the attack is called just before using it drives me nuts. Can't stand Inuyasha either. I prefer my anime in stories contained within 26 episodes, so you can actually follow the storyline without spending hundreds of dollars on DvDs.
In animated formats I'm a lot more lenient on what gets the "Are you kidding?!" response from me. It's animated so I don't hold them so much to laws of physics and such.
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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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Yeah, I kind of get the impression that they were... But at the same time, they really, really aren't. Atomic Blast has a nice mushroom cloud, OK, but Nova, Inferno and even Black Star have almost no effect on their own and barely any on the enemies. You basically go boom, hear a moderately loud bang, the screen shakes and enemies die, as if from being startled too hard. And Thunderous Blast doesn't even look any different from Lightning Blast, to the point where I kept wondering how my friend was self-draining his Electric Blaster.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I think this is what blaster nukes were in part meant to represent.
I don't have an issue with seeing stuff like what you mentioned in fighting every once in a while. |
Most of these powers have upwards of three seconds of animation anyway. There's no reason why those, at least, couldn't be amazingly awesome. Inferno could either be a literal inferno of fire blasting from the ground or otherwise be a very large, very dense explosion. The very least Nova can do, as well, is have a shockwave, if not a visible pressure wave.
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| What you don't mention is that the animations for those summons in the FF series are INCREDIBLY frustratingly long. In many of those games I felt that i was standing around doing nothing while a movie played. if I wanted to watch a movie I'd go watch one. |
Just a random example: Peacebringer Foot Stomp (rather, "Solar Flare") is significantly more impressive than vanilla Super Strength foot stomp, and for no reason other than because it adds that spiderwork of glowing cracks on the ground and that fountain of alien energy at the foot. I'm pretty sure it's the same duration, but it looks way cooler.
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it's one of my issues with Dual Pistols. You spend a major part of the time (especially with the later powers) dancing around doing flashy stuff. I'd rather just kill and move on. it's one of the sets I hope gets alternate animatins. |
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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 prefere eye candy!
Truth is, I find Archery and Assault Rifle completely boring.
Say what you will about Dual Pistols' animations (and I love them), I don't feel like I'm standing in place. I feel like I'm adding dodging movements in there.
I feel like, OMG, I'm in a comic book. That's why I play the game.
As for movies and animations, it really depends on the special effects.
Seeing the the running tree top to tree top in Naruto, imo, looks better than seeing it in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
And Matrix! OMG! I wish I had the special effect of Neo's, when he takes off into flight!
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this "simple cowboy" wonders what you're talking about.
Well, for that matter so does this one, but he's not quiet about it... and keeps calling you Willis, for some reason.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I couldn't disagree more.
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Then why ask the question?
Thelonious Monk
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Yeah, I can see copied animations as being tacky. But I'd think the choice would be with the player. If they wanted to be tacky and cheese-d**k an enemy with the same move, that's them. If you want to make it tough and limit yourself to simple moves then pull out the good stuff later...|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I think this is what blaster nukes were in part meant to represent.
I don't have an issue with seeing stuff like what you mentioned in fighting every once in a while. Not. Every. Friggin. Fight. What you don't mention is that the animations for those summons in the FF series are INCREDIBLY frustratingly long. In many of those games I felt that i was standing around doing nothing while a movie played. if I wanted to watch a movie I'd go watch one. it's one of my issues with Dual Pistols. You spend a major part of the time (especially with the later powers) dancing around doing flashy stuff. I'd rather just kill and move on. it's one of the sets I hope gets alternate animatins. |
It's probably why I love games like Bayonetta (nice vid there, BTW). Everything she does is awesome. Then she's got the witch-time, alternate weapons ontop of the OMGWTMFingH climax moves....yeah, I just really love the stuff in that game...that reminds me, I still need to beat it...only got a bit over half-way through.
The title may be stupid, but it has some context behind it. When you watch an action movie or play an action game, what do you prefer: fights that include awesome, destructive powers, buildings toppling, hurling fireballs and producing massive explosions, or do you much prefer a more down-to-earth, more realistic shootout or back alley scuffle where people wield weapons you'd expect them to have in ways you'd expect them to, and tend to die if they drop from a high window or if they get stabbed just once.
The context to this is the following: I just got through watching the third Naruto Shippuuden movie, which ends in a MASSIVE fight between the non-canon bad guy and an army of Naruto clones, ending with a light above the clouds, Bahamut-style, which turns out to be Naruto's signature Rasen Shuriken, ending up in a massive flash of white light and a gigantic crater. Then I spend most of today watching Dragonball Kai episodes 71 and 72, and we all know how that show goes. That's definitely my preferred visual style to a fight, something that can blow my mind, devolve me into a twelve-year-old going "That was so awesome!"
Then the there is the other side of the equation. When the Equilibrium/Wanted inspired Dual Pistols first hit the game, a lot of people tried to make old-style wild West gunslingers. A lot of people quickly discovered that the set simply wasn't built for that, so they suggested alternate, simpler, "more boring" animations as defined by the people who suggested them. Hence, the look of "simple cowboys" who don't do somersaults while firing their guns. This is not just limited to cowboys, however. This is pretty much how most older movies handled shootouts - pretty much as you'd see them in real life: simple, nasty and very deadly. No wire-fu flipping gunplay, no cars vaulting over ramps while people shoot pistols upside down on the hood. Just guys shooting at each other from cover, often with pistols, or stabbing each other. Even the classic Indiana Jones, for all the fisticuffs he delivered, didn't really do anything more amazing than "punch guy in face" and "punch guy in gut" and at most "kick guy really hard."
City of Heroes clearly spans the gamut of artistic approaches. We have things like Broadsword, Battle Axe, Shield Defence and Assault Rifle which, despite their fancy effects, still come down to basically cutting or shooting people, or possibly setting them on fire. Nothing unusual, nothing fancy, and in my humble opinion, nothing terribly interesting. Then we have sets like Dual Blades, Dual Pistols, Kinetic Melee and even Demon Summoning, which are decidedly on the other side of "fancy." Mercenaries, for instance, are basically soldiers in fatigues. Demons, on the other hand, are WAY out there. Or we can compare things like Fire Blast, which has powers like Rain of Fire, Fire Breath, Inferno and so forth, with Archery, which basically comes down to "shoot arrow." I can't really say that either approach is "wrong," even if I have my own preference for the spectacular and the absurd.
But here's the thing: What do YOU prefer? I know it's not fair to ask such a binary question, but if you had to lean towards either choice, which would you pick? The extravagant, excessive fanciness and big explosions of off-the-wall character power levels, or the more believable, more relatable action levels of more human characters?
*edit*
Found a better video of the scene in question.