"Fake" combat mode that interferes with animations
By
Indiramourning,
Posted on: 2011-02-12 07:25 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Quote:
I have seen this happen to many of my chars during battles and it drives me crazy. I suppose if your character had sunglasses and wore a suit (ala Men-In-Black), it might look normal for them to look calm and relaxed in the middle of a heated battle, but all my chars just look like clueless dolts between attack animations.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This looks jerky, it looks weird and it always puts you in a relaxed, casual stance in the middle of a heated battle.
|
Quote:
It's a really annoying bug that's been driving me out of my skin for a long time. It's especially egregious on Stalkers, because this bug overrides the interruptible portion of Assassin's Strike, making the whole power look incredibly silly. It has a similar effect on Blaster snipes.|
Originally Posted by Indiramourning
I have seen this happen to many of my chars during battles and it drives me crazy. I suppose if your character had sunglasses and wore a suit (ala Men-In-Black), it might look normal for them to look calm and relaxed in the middle of a heated battle, but all my chars just look like clueless dolts between attack animations.
|
I think I've pinned it down to a particular cause, actually. It's the transition from the idle stance into Build Up or powers which share the same animation (Reconstruction, Dull Pain, inspiration use, etc.) that does this, because this animation does not appear to put the character in the correct stance when it's done, or rather seems to put the character in THE SAME stance as he was in prior to the animation, but put said character in combat mode at the same time. The result is that you are in combat mode, but in the idle stance, causing animation problems and, in fact, rooting problems.
Speaking of Rooting, this is something I've been reporting for years and it doesn't seem to get fixed. I'm pretty sure it's caused by this bug: If you start Hovering forward and hit an inspiration or build up, then you have a very good chance of being able to override all power animations and rooting and keep shooting on the move. I still have an Electric Blaster who can do that consistently, and it HAS to be due to this bug. He ends up in the wrong stance from which attacks can't find their animations, so they play no animation with no rooting and you just see the sprite effects.
Does this need to become a legitimate exploit before it's at least acknowledged?
Quote:
|
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.
|
There has been a persistent problem with the animations system for years now, which goes something like this:
If you activate certain powers that end up in something other than combat mode - namely Build Up and its clones, Dull Pain clones and really anything with that animation - the game will put you in a "fake" combat mode. I say fake, because this will return you to your default idle animations, such as looking around -> hands on hips -> arms crossed -> etc., but the game will treat you as though you're in combat mode and transition you into that as soon as an attack's animation is over.
This is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, it looks really, really bad. Normally, attacks are designed to transition from the standard "left foot forward" stance into their animation, and then back into the "left foot forward" stance. When you're stuck in this fake combat mode, however, they will transition from idle to combat to animation back to combat and back to idle. This looks jerky, it looks weird and it always puts you in a relaxed, casual stance in the middle of a heated battle.
Furthermore, certain attack animations are slightly longer than their mandatory rooting times. This means that they can be "interrupted," but that if you don't key an attack after them, the animation will play in its entirety. However, this fake combat mode will interrupt attacks as soon as their root is over and return you to base stance, meaning that things like Jump Kick, Stun and the alternate Eagle's Claw animations are always cut off. Moreover, interrupt animations will not play in this fake combat mode, because the fake combat mode's stance will override the interruptible portion of the attack's animation. The result is that, for instance, Assassin's Strike will see you standing around like a dolt, looking side to side until you suddenly snap right to the actual attack portion of the animation.
This fake combat mode is as persistent as the real thing, and will stay active pretty much for as long as you fight. In fact, since there is no transition between that and non-combat mode, it may actually stay on indefinitely. This is only true for non-weapon powers, of course, as weapon powers have their own unique activation sequences that don't suffer from this problem. This fake combat mode can be cancelled like real combat mode by pressing Escape several times, though unlike real combat mode, there is no visual indication that you cancelled it since nothing changes.
If I had to make a guess, I'd guess this happens because certain powers transition into a stance that overlaps the regular stance, and somehow combat mode gets associated with non-combat-mode animations and stances. I've been reporting this for years and nothing has been done, so I hope posting about it here might at least catch somebody's attention.