Animation Based Sets You'd Like to See Redone
There has been a shift in animation design since about when Dual Blades came out. Fluidity, both in animation and in transition from one animation to the next, is taking a much higher precedent. As a quick example: just the other night I was fiddling in the character creator on Beta, and marveling at the difference in animation between Staff Fighting's "Sky Splitter" and Katana's "Golden Dragonfly." Both are two handed attacks where the character jumps and brings the weapon down in front of them, but Golden Dragonfly jumps about half the height of Sky Splitter, almost as if it was designed to be executed by a samurai in heavy armor, as opposed to a light-weight and fast ninja.
I attribute this to pop culture over the past 10 years or so, and how combat has changed in that time. The Matrix ushered in a new era of wire-fighting, detailed, single-sequence combat that was not overly present before that. You look at a movie like 300, and you see continuous fight sequences for just under a minute without a single film cut.
Perhaps the best example is the difference between lightsaber battles between the first Star Ward trilogy (IV, V, & VI) and the second (I, II, & III). The older ones resemble our current broad sword animations, while the newer runs remind me more of Dual Blades in their quickness and flow.
In terms of new animations, I think Katana/Ninja Blade and Claws could do with some new stuff. Sets like Broad Sword, War Mace, Battle Axe, and most of the punch-n'-stuff sets (ice melee, fire melee, dark melee) are fine because the look is pretty on-par with what you might expect.
As for new effects, that's a much larger pool of powers. Ice Armor is on the top of my list of "Sets I hope they look at sooner rather than later" but I am not getting my hopes up.
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All the ranged blast sets. Again.
The last revamp was so poor it might as well not have happened.
It'd also be nice to pick the new animations with the original powerset colors too.
all the elemental sets need some kicks or more trained looking strikes, currently they are all just brawling punches and simple weapon strikes.
Broadsword could have some more finesse oriented moves, some of the early strikes look a little simple.
and as always, i want more martial arts animations that represent martial arts and not generic punches or brawling.
Yes, new animation for broadsword for sure!
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They don't even necessarily have to make new animations, just port some of the alternate animations they already have around. Animations from Super Strength (Jab, Punch, Footstomp, and Knockout Blow, as well as the "heroic" alternates for Jab, Footstomp, and Knockout Blow) and Martial Arts (all the kicks) could be used to replace the same old punches that the other sets mostly have.
I'd say use Street Justice animations, too, but that may be asking too much, considering you have to pay for Street Justice. Maybe purchasing the set would also unlock Street Justice alternate animations for other sets.
I wish Energy Melee was slightly revamped. Like, say, change the animation of Energy Transfer into the one Power Thrust uses. Energy Punch's cast time could stand to be slightly quicker as well, without changing the animation.
CLaws would be great and Granite form could use a change i understand a 2 ton boulder being slow but damage and rehcarge still dont understand that im a 2 ton boulder shouldnt i hit harder lol
Claws could definitely use some fixin' to my mind. It just feels soooooo slow and clunky for a set that's supposed to be about speed. Follow Up, in particular, is the worst, with its "lunge, stand in place, slowly step back" animation not really looking very conducive to its function.
Also on the weapons front, War Mace and Battle Axe, I dislike how Pulverize/Gash and Jawbreaker/Swoop have almost the exact same animation.
Beyond that, it's mostly a desire to see certain very specific powers redone, or with alternate animations, though the generally underwhelming way that was done with several of the blast sets last time around makes me enter a "be careful what I wish for" mentality.
The first spines attack. I had hoped when claws had it's "scrapperlock flail attack" removed, spines would follow suit, but it never happened and I never rolled one as a result.
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I always hear about people wanting FX-based powersets that are showing their age redone, like Ice Armor, fire based sets, old dark effects to match the new ones, etc. I'm just curious if there is anyone else that thinks some animation centric sets (probably mostly melee, honestly) could use some fresh new alternate animations.
For me, I really think Claws looks terrible. I keep wanting to make a Claws character, but the animations just really turn me away from the set. Does anyone else think they look...I dunno, halfhearted and lazy? Like the character really isn't putting too much effort into their swipes. I always thought a set like Claws would be great for a 'berserker' type concept, someone who just goes into a fury and is spinning and swiping at anything that moves. But what we have now, it feels more like "OK, stay still, going to give you a light scratch in a few seconds here." There's no OOMPH in any of the attacks. I would love some different animations for this set. Anyways, any other sets you think could benefit from alternate animations? |
To be expected. And sadly, I understand why they don't go about revamping them. It's just not as cost effective, and even if they did make new animations and charging for them, there's chance of negative feedback or only getting half as much from the endeavor.
Figure if people get charged 800 for new animations, it'll have people upset. Some could easily just say, "I have the set for free, I can live with these animations at that price"
Next, if they went the cheaper route of 400, it can still easily have people saying "I get the set free."
Plus with power custimixation, lots of players would likely expect to just have the animations for free. Under the new model, this just isn't as likey.
Then of course there's the "I just want actual new stuff instead of revamped old powersets" players.
Me, I'd pay for new animations for AR, BR, Archery, where I didn't just stand there and shoot! Give me a duck down and fire. A roll and fire. Some movement in there! And I would buy BR, play a AR past lvl 35 and get an Archer to 50!
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I'm not sure about entire sets. There are some that look prettier or more fancy than others, but I don't find any of the existing sets low quality enough as a *whole* that the whole set needs redoing. Then again, I often don't *like* a lot of the animations in the new 'better' sets, so perhaps my tastes are just different.
Me, I'd pay for new animations for AR, BR, Archery, where I didn't just stand there and shoot! Give me a duck down and fire. A roll and fire. Some movement in there! And I would buy BR, play a AR past lvl 35 and get an Archer to 50!
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Apart from that, I just want a few key powers redone. Barbed swipe, ripper/eviscerate, and impale are biggies. Piercing rounds too, if the powerset as a whole can't be redone, since it's easily the biggest offender. I'd also love to be able to use the current energy transfer animation for the various powers that use total focus' 'hangtime' animation (though of course you probably wouldn't be able to do that for total focus itself since then EM would have two attacks with identical animations). The 'beachball' animation for neutron bomb/repulsion bomb also look pretty goofy in my opinion. I really would also like some alternate animations for concentrated strike and arc of destruction.
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I'd like to see every attack alternate hands where applicable.
Example: Dark Melee Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp are both left handed only attacks. Both should have right handed animations added so that either hand would be used during an attack chain.
Same goes for almost all attacks that are single handed in this game. I believe shadow punch, brawl and claws swipe are some of the few exceptions.
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I'd like to see every attack alternate hands where applicable.
Example: Dark Melee Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp are both left handed only attacks. Both should have right handed animations added so that either hand would be used during an attack chain. Same goes for almost all attacks that are single handed in this game. I believe shadow punch, brawl and claws swipe are some of the few exceptions. |
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Fiery Melee. I would love to see some Martial Arts attacks thrown in there, and see the Fire Sword attacks replaced with something that isn't weapon based.
Also, Dual Pistols. I understand people love to play characters that flip around and flail in their attacks, but every concept I've wanted to make with those pistols just doesn't mesh well with the animations. Would be nice if we got some more "Stand there and shoot" animations.
I just want beastial finger slashing animations for the Claws powerset. We have all these great animal options fromt he beast pack and so on. We just can't use our actual hands to slash like an animal, have to use those..popular mutant weapons.
I really wish the "Sword Circle" powers would get alternate animations. In the case of the "elemental" sets, having the character perform the "arms raised" motion or something else and then having the element (fire, energy, etc) burst out of the ground in a huge column would be very fitting. They have over 2 seconds of animation time to play with here so they could make it very interesting.
Other than that, the three original weapon sets: Battle Axe, Broadsword, and War Mace. They all seem to use very similar animations even though that doesn't really make a lot of sense.
There are a couple of other animations out there I just greatly dislike. Tough's "ape beating its chest" animation is really out of place for example.
All of that said, I'd still put all of these on the back burner if we could just get animation work done to finally rid the game of Hasten hands.
All the ranged blast sets. Again.
The last revamp was so poor it might as well not have happened. It'd also be nice to pick the new animations with the original powerset colors too. |
while there are only so many practical ways you can go with "throw x from hands", I'd like to see all the ranged sets at the very least get some unique animations within each set. In a perfect world, I'd like to see them all get unique, stylized animation sets. Right now, the newer sets like Dual Pistols stand out because they each have an individual feel, whereas the old sets all feel very generic because they sort of had to be generic back during CoH's initial development cycle.
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I really wish the "Sword Circle" powers would get alternate animations. In the case of the "elemental" sets, having the character perform the "arms raised" motion or something else and then having the element (fire, energy, etc) burst out of the ground in a huge column would be very fitting. They have over 2 seconds of animation time to play with here so they could make it very interesting.
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Back then instead of lengthening the activation to match(exceed) the animation they could have quickened up or changed the animation to match the activation time. I would still like to see this happen today (to reduce the animation time on the "twirl" aoes back down to 1.67 seconds, with whatever animation that fits that time)
Even though I know this will be unpopular, I'd like to see ALTERNATE animations for sets. NOT re-dos. Not every set needs to be re-made to be flashy. Broadsword for instance I think is fine as is.
Alternate animations instead please.
And while you're at it non-ballerina stuff for Dual Pistols.
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Even though I know this will be unpopular, I'd like to see ALTERNATE animations for sets. NOT re-dos. Not every set needs to be re-made to be flashy. Broadsword for instance I think is fine as is.
Alternate animations instead please. ![]() And while you're at it non-ballerina stuff for Dual Pistols. ![]() |
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yeah, I was under the impression we were talking alternates. replacing animations entirely would be a very bad move. blaze even specifies at the end of their post by asking what other sets would benefit from alternate animations, so we all all saying alternates, not replacements.
Not sure if it's been said, but a few alternatives for Katana/Ninja Blade would be awesome, especially in comparison to the almost "freeform" look of Staff fighting in comparison.
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I always hear about people wanting FX-based powersets that are showing their age redone, like Ice Armor, fire based sets, old dark effects to match the new ones, etc. I'm just curious if there is anyone else that thinks some animation centric sets (probably mostly melee, honestly) could use some fresh new alternate animations.
For me, I really think Claws looks terrible. I keep wanting to make a Claws character, but the animations just really turn me away from the set. Does anyone else think they look...I dunno, halfhearted and lazy? Like the character really isn't putting too much effort into their swipes. I always thought a set like Claws would be great for a 'berserker' type concept, someone who just goes into a fury and is spinning and swiping at anything that moves. But what we have now, it feels more like "OK, stay still, going to give you a light scratch in a few seconds here." There's no OOMPH in any of the attacks. I would love some different animations for this set.
Anyways, any other sets you think could benefit from alternate animations?
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