Animations as a Detriment to Powers

Oh really??

http://christopherlbruce.blogspot.com/

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps

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First off I'm going to work hard to be waaay less of a ***** in this thread today.

I'm not familiar with the Gunslinger quick draw. It's killed my characters plenty of times, but is it similar to Ice Sword, Fire Sword and the Stone Mallets that players can use?

I'm gonna use the Bring It has an example one more time. If I summon Stone Mallet and have it in my hands and use Bring It, the Mallet is removed from my hands and the emote doesn't play. Once the animation for Bring It starts I can resummon the mallet in the middle of the animation and the emote isn't effected.

I also believe stance is determined before animation. If you're a DP/Dark for example, Twilight Grasp will never animate if you don't have an enemy NPC targeted, but every time you have guns in your hands and you click Twilight Grasp the gun models are flushed from your hands. I assume this is because the game is getting ready to change stances, cleaning out the hands, but when the game goes to animate the power it realizes the proper conditions to use Twilight Grasp aren't being meet and you end up just standing there in a neutral state.

I'm not in this thread because I think redraw is killing anyone's DPS and I don't want aesthetics to no longer be a consideration. I just think there are a few places around the game where redraw could be removed. Having to look at the same Redraw animation over and over gets monotonous and I have to start shelving characters because I need a break from the animation.

This is my favorite of all the little memories Babs shared on that blog, Posi not being able to tell Babs and the IT guy apart also made me chuckle.

I'm not talking about something in the game, I'm talking about a conceptual way you could fit a redraw and attack animation into the same period of time. A gunslinger, for instance, would draw his gun from the hip the way a quick draw shooter would and fire it. As another example, sometimes you will see a samurai draw his katana and strike with it all in one motion. Presumably, the speed you gain in drawing the katana actually makes that a MORE powerful attack than a normal one.

That would eliminate redraw since you wouldn't have to play the draw animation before you played it. The animation would depend on whether or not the weapon was drawn before you started. As far as I understand the game, though, THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE the way the code currently works. You get one and only one animation per stance, and if you don't have an animation that matches your stance, you go into that stance before performing it. Thus, for instance, if you have no Katana out, and you activate a Katana animation, the Katana must be drawn before the animation begins so you can have the Katana in your hand.

I think we're getting away from the subject to be discussing emotes here. Emotes are not used in combat, or at least, they are not if you are serious about maintaining DPS. What we are talking about is using powers in the Secondary or another Power Set that cause you to put away the weapon, so it has to be redrawn.

Redraw should have no detrimental effect on you if you are not in combat, and if you are complaining about aesthetic issues while not in combat I have to wonder what your point is. I was assuming that you were talking about how emotes or animations can be played in a demo without "forcing" you into a given stance first, and I was pointing out that that is not possible in the game. You can force situations in a demo that can never happen in a game, such as female model using male accessories or textures, or graphics using the FX from one attack with the animation of another.

If you want to argue that you can do such things with emotes, yes, sometimes you can, but again, we're not talking about a power. Technically speaking, emotes should probably force you into a stance as well, but since they are not intended to be used in combat, they don't really have to. They're more like playing an animation in a demo.

Which is why I suggested attaching the stance with a (presumably invisible) buff. It's already possible to switch attacks (and hence attack animations) depending on whether a buff is present, see the dual pistols swap ammo examples. If the stance is not present, a shorter attack would be called instead, and activate the buff. If the stance (and hence buff) is present, the current existing attack and animation would be called. Any situation which would cancel stances would likewise cancel the buff (this might be trickier, but I presume not impossible).

Hm. Yes, I think I see. You're eliminating the stance by making all the attacks the Right Hand stance, but then the weapon is added by the power.

Sounds really complex, though, and I'm not sure I'd want to say it is possible. Yes, you can change FX depending on a buff (now, I'm not sure if that was possible before Dual Pistols) but I'm not sure you can cause a weapon to appear on an attachment node.

Plus, you would have to deal with dual wielding as well. Either there would still be redraw as you switched between Right Hand and Dual Wield stance, or dual wielding would have to take place in the Right Hand stance. Either way, it's looking more and more like a total redesign of every animation in the game. [edit] I suppose if all stances were changed to Bare Hand stance, that would only require redoing those that aren't bare handed.

Not really every animation, just every animation attached to a special stance (and a buff attached to every special stance). Still, since there are quite a few special stances it's still going to be substantial amounts of animation changes, not to mention the codes to remove the buff on stance change (which though probably not as complicated, leaves another avenue for bugs).

For clarity, the buff doesn't cause the stance. The calling of an attack checks if the buff is present in addition to stance. if the stance (and buff) is present, there is no change from current. If there is no stance (and no buff) present, an alt attack with caster animation and cast time is called, along with activating the buff. Anything which causes the user to change away from this stance removes the buff. In effect, the buff is only used to determine which attack is called, the stance is used to determine whether to redraw the weapon, and works on two separate levels, save for when deciding when to remove the buff.

Long time ago... back when it was still true.

Dual Blades, I believe, introduced the first weapon using powerset that did NOT have the redraw times included in every power animation as was then the case with all other weapon sets. Since then many have been reworked to remove the so-called "baked in" redraw time you're talking about. So the individual attacks execute quicker while the weapon is out but if you do redraw, that is now extra time spent doing no damage.

Actually, when BaB started to test it out, he found that it was inconsistent. Some sets had the redraw time included in cast time, some didn't. I suspect that War Mace didn't, because it's animation times weren't changed, it just got damage added to Clobber.

It was actually players that, in many cases, went back over the cast times and realized they were inconsistent with what was called the "rooted time". This was all fixed around the time the redraw times were eliminated from cast time, and some non-attack animations were made to not root. Some of the original times looked like they were just thrown out at random and adjusted if they didn't work. ("shotgun debugging", as it's sometimes called )

The irony of all this is, of course, that the players ASKED for redraw time not to be included in the cast time. This so-called "penalty" of losing DPS because you draw your weapon is what the players wanted, because overall it increased DPS from what it was when the redraw time was included whether you drew the weapon or not. Which just goes to show, as I believe Positron said, that a bonus given under one condition can be seen as a nerf when you don't have that condition.

This is not irony, because the complaint is not about the change that was made. No one is asking to reverse it. It's a complaint about what remains still imbalanced *after* the change. Though less so than before, it is still there. Weapon sets deal with it. Non-weapon sets don't. And the miniscule added accuracy is not now nor was it really ever compensation for that.

That seems a fancy way to say "If we only partially solve a problem, people will one-day complain about the part we left." Which seems more obvious to me than profound.

War Mace most certainly did have its animation times shortened. Many Mace users were quite happy about that, and we were finally able to put our enormous "Fix War Mace" thread to sleep when Castle made the adjustments to Clobber, etc. later on (like an issue or two... it was a good 6-12 months after the animation changes).

No, it's an irony, because before, there was no redraw penalty: now there is. But players asked for it, and rightly so... it was overall a buff to weapon powersets. It's ironic because players can now "rightly" complain about redraw, when they couldn't before the changes. I put "rightly" in quotes, because redraw is really not that much of an imbalance at this point, as you put it. It really doesn't affect weapon users that much, especially if you think a little about what powers you are using and when, and the overall effect to what you are able to do is negligible.

Do I wish the redraw penalty was gone? Sure. I'd like to be able to use build up and then not have to wait for redraw before I use Hail of Bullets in the middle of a mob. But it's not hurting me that much (even when the RNG is not nice to my Blaster). I try not to make too much out of something that really is not that big a deal if I think about it. And I do like the accuracy increase in weapon sets, even if that's not that big a deal either.

As for Posi's statement (whether he really said it or not), it's about perspective. When people forget why something happened, they often fail to appreciate that event. A common foible of humanity, perhaps, but one that is worth learning. It's certainly showing its truth in this thread.

Semantics. The real problem is animation times and the way they were never figured into balancing. The *reason* weapon sets had generally longer animation times (and thus lower DPA) was due to redraw time being included in activation time. Effectively, you paid the redraw penalty on every attack whether you actually needed to draw the weapon or not. So yes, there WAS a redraw penalty. You're just choosing not to call it that.

Remember, the OP is playing a Kinetic. Redraw is less a concern for a melee AT with a passive secondary or a Blaster who is ripping through a ranged attack chain or who might only redraw at the start with Build Up or something. Kinetics, and to a lesser extent Regens, are a lot more active.

So, what, it's, "It a buff, but it's not ENOUGH of a buff for me! I want MORE!"

The truth is, the main reason most people requested the removal of the redraw times is that it irritated them to pause between swings for an animation that was not taking place. Balance didn't enter into it. The weapon sets tended to underperform relative to the other sets, but that's because they were never balanced relative to ANYTHING. Animation time was not considered in the initial balancing, and so redraw time was considered inconsequencial.

When redraw times were removed from cast times, ALL of the applicable sets got rebalanced to be comparable to the other sets. Which means that if the redraw time was removed, it would be MORE powerful, not less or equal. You are asking to be imbalanced, you are currently balanced, and want to be more powerful than the sets that don't have to factor in redraw time.

Of course, in the long run, redraw doesn't actually have a significant impact on overall DPS. You only percieve it as being a problem because, like the people who were irritated by the pause, you are irritated by seeing the redraw animation happen over and over again. Because it becomes repititious to you, you assume it is hurting your DPS. Dual Pistols underperforms because it is a new set, which has not had time to be rebalanced a few times, and it trades Aim for the Swap Ammo mechanism. Redraw simply isn't the problem, and eliminating it won't bring it any closer.

It's ironic because when redraw doesn't effect overall DPS, players complain about it, and when redraw does effect overall DPS, players complain about it. Even if it has no significant effect on DPS. The devs could solve the redraw problem once and for all, allow you to have scabbards on your back to hold the weapons before you draw them, and allow you to use your free hand for other attacks, with no loss of DPS anywhere, and players would STILL find a reason to complain about it.

The devs cannot change this game without complaints from the players who like things the way the are. And the devs cannot leave the game as it is without complaints from the players who want things to change.

I believe what Posi was saying is that it is usually more acceptable to make a given action consistent, instead of varying. The redraw time being included in the animation time, THAT was consistent, it was always present, whether you actually played an animation, or paused. Whether or not the weapon sets WERE balanced around that redraw time, the fact was they COULD have been, the DPA for each attack could have been designed with the redraw time in mind. That would be consistent, and would have resulted in consistent DPS. The only reason the weapon sets were not balanced is that NONE of the sets were balanced, they ALL had random and inconsistent DPA. Random chance meant that a weapon set was as likely to be better than a set (like Ice) than it was to be worse than a set. (Like Energy)

The players ASKED for a behavior that was not consistent. They were willing to sacrifice DPS some of the time to have increased DPS other times. Which, as Posi said, could be seen as a buff if you compare it to always having the redraw, but a nerf if you compare it to never having the redraw. This also applies to the new Defender Vigilance damage buff, Fury, the old Domination, a lot of buffs in this game are situational because that enables them to be situationally stronger. A consistent buff must always be much lower.

I do not like weapon redraw. I wish the devs would just remove it. I really have no problem playing weapons sets as they currently are and I end up redrawing fairly often (Arch/Fire, Rifle/Fire, DP/Fire/Ice with medicine, Kin/DP, Traps/Arch, Kat/Regen/Blaze). The fact that I can play them, does not preclude me from wishing the redraw was non-existent. There is really no reason why a Kat/Regen/Blaze scrapper should have more animation time thanks to redraw than a Fire/Regen/Blaze scrapper.

Saying they should not bother changing it just because people will complain anyway is silly. They should not NOT bother changing it because people will complain anyway.

You mean they should go ahead and change it. And I don't disagree with that. I'm just saying that it's ironic that players are complaining about redraw time when it used to not be a problem, and the players insisted on changing it.

In other words, you are insisting on changing it back in some form. Which is quite different from "people are going to complain anyway." It USED to be like this, and it will take work to go BACK to it. Something that was ALREADY known to be unpopular.

1) Do you want to reintroduce the redraw penalty to every single attack again? Increasing damage of all attacks accordingly to maintain the DPA?

2) Do you want to rewrite all of the game engine code to eliminate redraw? Do you wish the devs to spend the time on doing that?

3) Do you want to work within the existing system to minimize the redraw time and actions that cause redraw, possibly matching animations to available time so you get a faster animation if you draw first?

4) Do you believe it is possible to eliminate redraw altogether and just have the weapon appear in your hand? What about BaB saying he tried to do that and was unable to work around the code? Do you believe he was talking about something else?

You have to be behind one of the four. Any other suggestion is simply ignoring that this is a game implementation problem. Yes, it would be nice if it were possible, but you're ignoring the likelihood that it isn't.

It ALWAYS affected overall DPS. You are hung up on the fact that DPS did not *vary* whether the redraw animation actually played or not. And while that was true, it's because the redraw TIME was already built in whether the animation needed to play or not. In effect, it was like you were redrawing your weapon on EVERY attack.

When they removed the baked-in redraw times, DPS improved. No one here is saying it didn't or wants to go back to the old way, so again, don't see the irony. The OP is not saying he doesn't like the CHANGE that was made. He's saying that redraw still does affect DPS and this is true. To a lesser extent than before? Sure. But it's true none the less and particularly true when paired with active powersets like Kinetics or Regen.

That said, I don't think there is an easy solution. This might be as good as it gets, in which case the advice for the OP is like what you get when you tell a doctor, "It hurts when I do this."