Elemental Melee Alternate Animations - Swords!
By
Angelxman81,
Posted on: 2011-04-21 04:58 in Suggestions and Ideas
Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing this at some point.
I don't necessarily think it's important enough to be done RIGHT NOW. But it'd be cool to get eventually.
Sword options for Energy Melee, Fire Melee, Electric Melee, and Dark Melee would be nifty.
The only catch I see with it is the fact that all of those powers that don't already have a sword involved are part elemental and part smashing damage, and the devs are reluctant to give animations to powers that don't match their damage types. There was a request for kali sticks for Dual Blades that was shot down by a dev for that exact reason.
Other than that catch I don't really see a problem with 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. |
Another possible problem is whether or not alternate animations can actually add weapons to non-weapon sets. As i recall, BAB seemed to think he could but that the weapon wouldn't be customizable. He may have meant that he could do the animations and some one else would need to make changes to the code/UI, or that the customization was simply impossible, but that was unclear.
edit: also adding redraw to those sets might pose balance issues.
All that aside, I'd love to see it happen, especially if we could also get mace options for electric.
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As for re-draw, yeah I didn't think of that. However it is energy, not an actual weapon, so the weapon "forming" could be rather fast.|
Originally Posted by Shadow State
Another possible problem is whether or not alternate animations can actually add weapons to non-weapon sets. As i recall, BAB seemed to think he could but that the weapon wouldn't be customizable. He may have meant that he could do the animations and some one else would need to make changes to the code/UI, or that the customization was simply impossible, but that was unclear.
edit: also adding redraw to those sets might pose balance issues. All that aside, I'd love to see it happen, especially if we could also get mace options for electric. |
Going to the weapon/customization problem. Heavy weapons is an example of multiple different weapons in a power set. What they could do is set it so that the animations only use the weapon for specific ones but leave the weapon to be customized as all other normal weapons. The only trick I think would be to set the special effects, if any, to match the colors of the weapon used, but that last hurdle probably doesn't even need to be messed with really.
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I'm unclear on what you mean here. Do you want to make the weapon a power effect, like the sword in fire melee, or a costume piece, like Broad Sword? The former would avoid the problems I mentioned above but would be rather limiting conceptually and the Devs probably wont see it as "the right way" to do it. The later means you can't skip over the redraw, BABs tried that, and, at the very least, coding will need to be done to allow options on the Power Customization tab to effect options on the Costume Customization tab.
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Originally Posted by Mad_Cow_Milk
As for re-draw, yeah I didn't think of that. However it is energy, not an actual weapon, so the weapon "forming" could be rather fast.
Going to the weapon/customization problem. Heavy weapons is an example of multiple different weapons in a power set. What they could do is set it so that the animations only use the weapon for specific ones but leave the weapon to be customized as all other normal weapons. The only trick I think would be to set the special effects, if any, to match the colors of the weapon used, but that last hurdle probably doesn't even need to be messed with really. |
From what I can see in game, there's one way to do this. They could make the weapon a part of the animation, which would eliminate redraw issues. Moves like Ice Sword, Stone Mallet and Fire Sword form the weapon as the attack is being executed. As far as I can tell, there's no pause to form the weapon between clicking the power and the power animation. However, that would mean the weapon would re-form with each attack, which again probably wouldn't add any time to the animation, but would suck in terms of continuity.
I also don't know how power customization would work within that, considering it seems like it was relatively easy to add the feature where you can switch between the Ice Sword and Greater Ice Sword for both animations, but I don't know how that would work when redoing every animation in a power set to work with a weapon.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
If you have seen it before, and asked for it before, why didn't you read through those threads to see what had been suggested before and the responses to them so you could see if you could have added anything new to the discussion? Of course by starting a new thread like you did.
You haven't added anything new to the suggestion. You only seem to state what everyone else who has suggested this before has stated: "This is easy.", yet you don't take into consideration development time, testing time to make sure it works with every body type and animation, reworking of any code if needed, retesting... It is not something that can be done just by flipping a switch.
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He said he had seen requests for energy blade sets, which isn't what he's asking for, not that he had seen requests to add weapons to non-weapon sets, which is what he is asking for. Also He didn't say it was easy, he said that Alternate animations would be simpler then a whole new power set, which is probably true if you do them as power effects rather then costume pieces. If you're going to add nothing to a conversation other then gripes about others not adding things to the conversation you could at least get what he said right.
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Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint 01
If you have seen it before, and asked for it before, why didn't you read through those threads to see what had been suggested before and the responses to them so you could see if you could have added anything new to the discussion?Of course by starting a new thread like you did.
You haven't added anything new to the suggestion. You only seem to state what everyone else who has suggested this before has stated: "This is easy.", yet you don't take into consideration development time, testing time to make sure it works with every body type and animation, reworking of any code if needed, retesting... It is not something that can be done just by flipping a switch. |
I'd love to see some new Fire/ice swords or no sword at all for some fire/ice attacks. If they have to be part lethal, would a fire/ice claw still be viable for the fire/ice melee?
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C'mon Sharker, you know as well as I do that posting in an old thread will just get it locked for thread necromancy. |
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint 01
If you have seen it before, and asked for it before, why didn't you read through those threads to see what had been suggested before and the responses to them so you could see if you could have added anything new to the discussion? Of course by starting a new thread like you did.
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Honestly, it's been a while since I've seen this brought up, so even if there isn't a whole lot added to the idea there's nothing wrong with bringing it to people's attention again.
I don't really expect it to happen any time soon, if ever, but I actually don't have a problem with this idea.
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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 keep hoping the Elemental Sets will get Martial Arts animations for with their elemental FX added on, for animations with matching times.
If an Electrical Melee Punch has the same animation time as Crane Kick for example, I don't see why not make it an option!
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This would rock. As an alternate animation, would give us flexibility for concepts, and would make the old powersets more cool and unique.
Electric, energy, void swords like ice or fire would be so damn cool!
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You're right Claws. And after re-reading it I do see that I read the post half awake still. I retract my post from earlier and will add that I would like to see something like this as long as it doesn't take up a lot of dev time.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
C'mon Sharker, you know as well as I do that posting in an old thread will just get it locked for thread necromancy.
Honestly, it's been a while since I've seen this brought up, so even if there isn't a whole lot added to the idea there's nothing wrong with bringing it to people's attention again. I don't really expect it to happen any time soon, if ever, but I actually don't have a problem with this idea. |
The beautiful part is that they could just use the same animations from the weapon sets, but with the current elemental swords they have for most of these sets.
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I could be wrong, but I think it is a little more complicated than that. In a weapon power set, the character model performs a certain action, which causes NPCs to react in a certain way (depending on the attack). So the weapon that you plug into the player's hand has little-to-no impact on the execution of the move. At the basic design level, the model is programmed to swing it's arm(s) in a certain way, with the hand closed in a fist around the cylindrical handle of *insert weapon here*. This is why weapons are so customizable: the weapon is, in fact, a costume piece. It does not matter if the character model is holding a mace, war hammer, or club, any certain move is still going to be executed the same way, and have the same effect on an enemy.|
Originally Posted by Mad_Cow_Milk
The beautiful part is that they could just use the same animations from the weapon sets, but with the current elemental swords they have for most of these sets.
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Thus, you run into a problem when trying to incorporate elemental weapons into every move of an elemental set: The existing elemental weapons in that set are part of the power animation, as opposed to a separate costume piece incorporated into the power animation (which is why there is no re-draw pause when you, for example, click Ice Sword immediately following Frozen Fists). In order to give an elemental power set customizable weapons, the devs would have to make the sets weapon sets, with a unified group of animations, where you could just plug in whatever type of ice sword / fire sword / stone hammer / etc. that you wanted.
The only other option (as far as I can tell) would be to do what I mentioned in my earlier post: make the weapon part of every animation, thus removing redraw, at least according to our current definition. The problem with that suggestion (I think) is that the weapon would in fact redraw with every click of a power, it would just be part of the animation, which would break continuity and fluidity in the attacks.
Now, if you are talking about simply giving elemental weapons as options in sets like Broad Sword, Dual Blades, War Mace, Battle Axe, etc., that seems entirely plausible. The only reason I can think of as to why the devs haven't done that yet is that it would be hard to justify an Ice Sword (which you would expect to do Cold damage) in a set like Broad Sword that is exclusively Lethal damage.
As a disclaimer, I do not know much about programming or how the system works. I am using deductive reasoning based on simple in-game observations.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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That's not really the problem. I have a Fire brute who only uses the sword powers. Technically, there *is no* redraw. Once you click the power, the animation begins while, at the same time, the weapon appears in the hand. If you decided to pick the same sword/color, you won't even tell it's ever put away/redrawn.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
The problem with that suggestion (I think) is that the weapon would in fact redraw with every click of a power, it would just be part of the animation, which would break continuity and fluidity in the attacks.
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What *is* the problem with making the weapon part of the animation is...you'd need to make separate animations for *every* weapon. There wouldn't be any 'Ice Slash's animation but with a mace', you'd have to choose from the predetermined options which may only be 2 different weapons with light/dark options.
So, not only would they have to take whatever weapon animations and redo them to incorporate *an* elemental weapon, but also for every weapon option they'd have to make *another* animation *AND* a light/dark/colorable animation to go with them.
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I knew the formation of the weapon was part of the animation, but I didn't know if it would transition seamlessly between powers. I wondered if this was the case, but I've never actually tested it, so that's good to know, thanks for pointing it out. |
Originally Posted by Leo_G
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The other points in your post reiterate what I was saying: In order to have different elemental weapons, it would have to be another wave of animations due to the way the elemental weapon powers are set up, even if the character model motions were the same throughout.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
Hello everyone.
I have asked for, and have seen asked, in the past for a new melee set for an energy sword. However here is a simpler solution. Since we now are getting the vanguard weapon option open from the start why don't we simply have alternate animations for the various energy type melee sets. I think this would be something in VERY high demand.
Thanks,
MCM