New Powers or New Animations?

There are a few layers to this that we should probably examine separately:

Level 1 - New power EFFECTS: Take practically any powerset that isn't melee and look at it with cynical eyes. You'll soon realise that the actual animations for any of the powers aren't really important. What's important is the effects of those powers. You could, potentially, have all powers from all Blast sets use the exact same animation and still have a dozen different sets with a dozen different powers each if you vary the visual effects of the powers.

What this means is that new animations can be shared. Hell, old animations can be shared, too. Moreover, this means that new effects can be created for existing powers without messing with animations at all. Sniper Blast, for instance, can have the option of being a "bullet-beam" or a giant fireball or an energy beam proper or something else altogether and still work with the exact same two animations it has now.

Level 2 - New power animations: Just about anything melee comes down to animation, primarily. This is because melee attacks rely, in large part, on exciting, full-body poses and flashy, fully-body animations. For most melee powersets, the visual effects are less important than the animations, and many sets, especially the ones with weapons, don't really have very strong effects anyway.

What this means is that melee sets can really benefit from new animations, especially the Sword/Mace/Axe family as they're very similar and very basic. Super Strength, Energy Melee and the elemental melee sets can probably also benefit from new animations, despite their being more heavily based in effects.

Level 3 - Entire new power animations: Many powers can benefit from both new animations and new effects. Boradsword is a good example, actually. Yes, the set can use some better animations, but the set can also use more flashy effects. Some of Broadsword's most impressive powers are Disembowel and Head Splitter specifically because they use the "pillar of pain" effect. Look at something like Dual Blades, for instance - despite being a "light" weapon set, it is still replete with screen shake and some nasty flash effects which communicate power. Few older sets do this.

Level 4 - Overriding activation sequences: Having non-weapon sets customizable to use weapons and having weapon sets customizable to use bare hands or a different weapon category is a very common request. Though it very likely requires new tech that doesn't exist, it's still something the art team should be looking into very seriously. This is quite literally one of the VERY few frontiers left for City of Heroes to conquer in the realm of customizability.

What this means is I want to, for instance, shoot my Fire Blast out of a gun or fire my rifle attacks out of twin pistols, or perhaps enact my Fiery Melee through a set of entirely fire sword attacks. This would constitute a MAJOR breakthrough which would increase the number of potential character combinations to an obscene total amount.

---

All of this said, I disagree with Synapse. Irrespective of the workload involved, I want to see new animations, new effects and new animations+effects added to old powersets. Endlessly chasing the new shiny is not a good design goal, and there's really nothing wrong with any of the old sets, at least nothing that can't be fixed with a visual facelift as an option. All the work and resources involved in creating and balancing these sets has already been done and they've stood the test of time. It makes no sense to me to just abandon them just because old stuff is old. Granted, I'm somewhat biassed in that I'm growing increasingly frustrated with so much of the old City of Heroes being abandoned or killed off to be replaced with new stuff.

City of Heroes' chief selling point is customizability and personality. Giving a new spin on an old set enables many, many new characters who would previously not existed because they would have been too much like other characters we already had. This is never more evident than with weapon sets. Giving a weapon set a brand new, unique, different weapon can justify creating a brand new character around it because despite using the same set I have on about five other characters, it's still different because this character looks considerably different. A new weapon makes a set "feel" new. A new set of animations makes a set feel BRAND new.

The simple truth of the fact is the developers don't need to keep reinventing the wheel and tossing flashy new mechanics at our faces as though we're constantly on the verge of exhausting our collective attention span. Folks, take a look at your subscriber lists and note how many T9 veteran players are still playing. We stuck with your game through thick and thin. We were here when the stuff you poo-poo was new and exciting, we looked forward to it and we enjoyed it. None of that stuff has become worse. We still enjoy it, and we'd like to see our old favourites expanded right alongside your new babies.

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.

I honestly haven't had an issue with Super Strength since they added the 'Heroic' animations. I pick and choose between the ones I want, and the end result works for me.

...

I would LOVE to see alternate animations for the Broadsword/Battle Axe/War Mace group. I would especially love it if they gave them truely unique animations each, but having some form of alternative to at least some of the attacks would be a big draw back to those sets.

Thing is old powerset deserve some love and need unique animations/mechanics like the newest powersets have.

Also we had a round of alternate animations for blast sets, but only for MA and SS for melee.
I wish claws could use some DB alternate animations, like the Vicky's does with their razor blades.

I'd prefer both but if I was forced to choose I'd vote for new power sets.

I'd love to see some new animations get spread around. SJ's Rib Cracker would be perfect as another alternate for MA's Cobra Strike, for example.

But the option of having Staffs and other stuff for origination points for powers could be interesting, only issue is that blast sets that don't have weapons are balanced around not having redraw, which opens a whole new can of worms.

"New animations" covers power pool customization. I would pay for Super Speed with the Ninja Run animation or Teleport via Rikti portal, smoke cloud, or the particle effects Prof. Echo uses much, much sooner than I would pay for yet another powerset I'm not going to use because I have too many unplayed alts already.

This isn't to say that when we get power pool customization ALL of it should be paid for - things like custom-colored epic pools, flyposes as power animations instead of emotes you have to trigger every time you take off, and no-FX-in-PVE Hasten ought to be at the very least part of the package deal for being VIP.

New animations for certain. Hell, though, if they ported ALL those new blast animations they did to every other blast set? That'd be a ton of options right there. I simply don't understand them limiting each blast set to the original and ONE variant of the new animations. That seems...well...daft?

Quote:

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I like many of the new mechanics. I like many of the new powersets. But.. I love the older, simpler sets and as for newer animations that could breathe new life into a set.. Heck yea.

we already have enough power choices (wouldnt mind radiation melee though) i think the devs. should take some time away from trying to make new ones and come out with new animations

We still don't have stretching, shrinking, or growing. Theses are some basics of comicdom.

I'm for new suites of animations. But here is what I would suggest: rather than making new suites of animations to distinguish say fire from all other powers, consider Premium Power Customization Themes(tm) that could be used across powersets and are purchased not per powerset but per suite similar to purchasing a themed costume. It's about attitude, posture and origin:

Some themes that leap to mind:

• Stoic Android (characterized by rigid, robot motions, lack of emotion)
• Cosmic Strength (characterized by big broad, everything looks overpowered and exaggerated gestures)
• Dancing Dervish (think twin pistols style animations, but taken to 11)
• Big Things in Little Packages (under-exaggerated powers, the opposite of Cosmic Strength. Think the spoon bender in Matrix. How one might articulate frighteningly massive power within a child character. Imagine your tier 9 nova power happening with the nod of the head or a snap of the fingers! (yes we don't have articulated fingers, I know!))
• Meditative Magic (longstanding request threads exist asking for more rune or magic based powers. So what about a generic animation suite that uses a wand, magical gesture, cantrips, etc. for blast and support powers? Heck, the set could even be used to summon pistols or an assault rifle to act on behalf of the caster!)
• High Tech (similar to a Magic set, a set that uses something like the tricorder animation or nanites or surveillance--but cooler--for support powers in particular and maybe for blasts?)

sillveragefan that is a great idea

the problem is you still have to have an effect. a fireball could be triggered by nodding the head, but you would still need some animation for the explosion.

this especially applies to buffs on characters, zones, etc

so you would need to distinguish between the character animation - nodding their head, and the effect animation- a fiery shield on the target

I'd like to see more alternate animations. I tend to use the "alternate" animations on the powersets that offer them.

As others have mentioned; maybe take a "time out" from making "new" power sets and focus on customization.


* Power customization (new animations for the older sets)
* MM Pet customization (for those that want to make their henchmen look different as well as for those that don't want dogs for their pets, etc...)
* Ancillary power set customization (again, I think if you just added a Null the Gull "suppress Hasten and Super Speed effects" option that would "solve" 90% of the issues we have at the moment)


Edit:

Yes I too would pay for the customization. How much would I pay? Depends on what is being offered. But I would say don't go over 800 points.

Have a "power customization" pack that would have new animations for at least 2 power sets (Claws, Broadword, or what have ya) and sell it for 400 points...done and done (maybe even 800 if the animations are awesome enough )!

Another vote for Animations - and I would pay for them

I've yet to play any of the shiny new powersets because I still like my older characters so much. My main, an SS Brute, probably wouldn't be played nearly as much if she still had all the old SS animations. Ditto for my MA Scrapper. I figure many would feel the same about older sets be updated.

I do wish there was a *random* animations feature for sets like these though - I'd like my SS brute to sometimes use the old animations, and sometimes the new, completely at random

It dawns on me that they missed a chance to put different stances in the game with Staff melee. How much cooler would the set have been if each Form caused you to fight from a different stance?

I realize that it may be an bit of an illusion that you are fighting from a different stance with powers like ninja run. I say this because you still attack, and return to the base stance. It is the ready stance that is different.