What I find silly is that when I use my self heal on my staff toon (staff/nrg scrapper)----I put my staff away 
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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Tough animations with claws out... or with swords.... ouch!
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Originally Posted by xhris
(Or have claws as a costume piece permanently on, so that Rularru and Viper Blades make more sense).
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For the same reason I explained in a similar thread in this very forum.
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Originally Posted by xhris
I know why we have it and what purpose is supposed to serve, but the question is why do we need it?
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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.
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Redraw its ok.
I think toogles, heals, should be auto-activation and no animation.
Its silly to see the tough animation in 2012.
Seriously, we should be able to turn toogles on in the run with no animation party stopper.
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They solved that with the mace on the spiders during build up ... and my maceless spider using that build up is drawing a mace for a few seconds |
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
What I find silly is that when I use my self heal on my staff toon (staff/nrg scrapper)----I put my staff away
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While I agree that toggles using animations don't make a lot of sense (I don't know why a superpowered being would need to strike a constipated pose to increase their def or whatever), but at least they don't impact game play the way redraw does.|
Originally Posted by Angelxman81
Redraw its ok.
I think toogles, heals, should be auto-activation and no animation. Its silly to see the tough animation in 2012. Seriously, we should be able to turn toogles on in the run with no animation party stopper. |
Weapon based sets already inflict heavily resisted damage (smashing/lethal) and combined with redraw, a weapon user is a at a big disadvantage.
This is a strong case of punishing a character for concept alone, and I believe this was supposed to be frowned upon.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
For the same reason I explained in a similar thread in this very forum.
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Well, that sounds normal to me, when redraw exists. Fire Sword doesn't check anything because there never was any redraw. Why can't all weapon attacks work the same? Obviously the code needs to be changed. I'm not asking to make all other powers work with weapons out, because I know all animations will have to be reworked for that to happen. I'm asking for weapons to automatically appear at the start of the normal attack animation, in a similar fashion to Fire Sword.
There is also another solution: make new redraw animations. Since we're apparently stuck with redraw, it seems like every new powerset has more and more flashy redraw animations. I find that stupid. Make new superfast animations to replace the old one. If the game engine absolutely expects something there, at least don't put extra long, swirly twirly animations. It doesn't make the character look cool, not when it doubles the animation time of most powers.
And what about Spines? Do they make specific versions of every animation to work with Quills active? Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
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Because then there wouldn't be any weapons? Seriously, you'd be OK with a game that says 'no, you're not really using a pistol -- you're using a power that magically creates a pistol whenever you need one'?|
Originally Posted by xhris
Fire Sword doesn't check anything because there never was any redraw. Why can't all weapon attacks work the same?
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This problem is really as much in the way players design their character builds as anything else. Best example: weapon redraw animations occur whether or not the power selected is actually able to be used. Try it sometime -- use a power that 'puts away' your weapon, then select a weapon power that hasn't recharged yet. You'll find that the 'draw' animation plays, then your toon waits until the selected power recharges before using it. If you change to a different ready power, the power will fire without re-doing the redraw animation, since the weapon is now drawn.
Of course, nobody with 'optimized' power construction will ever find themselves in this situation -- with Hasten and recharge enhancements, you should always be able to fire another power once your current power finishes firing. Which is, of course, a problem with how players optimize.
I look at redraw the same way I look at enhancement caps, only more subtle -- it's a way to discourage strict powergaming and enable a more varied stable of 'viable' character builds.
--
Pauper
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No, you would have a weapon, you just wouldn't have to play a lengthy animation to pull it out.|
Originally Posted by Pauper
Because then there wouldn't be any weapons? Seriously, you'd be OK with a game that says 'no, you're not really using a pistol -- you're using a power that magically creates a pistol whenever you need one'?
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As for the build optimisation, I would agree if it affected all powersets. So, you can choose to make a Fire manipulator. You select Fire Melee, have access to a rarely resisted damage type and can pick any power you want without hurting your performance (you don't necessarily min-max, you just wanted a healing power for example and picked Aid Self).
Now, I want to make a ninja and pick Duel Blades (for the sai). I get access to the more resisited damage type in the game, and have to account the concept of redraw in my game style. I have to hit a damage power before engaging a mob, so that I already have my weapons out, I can't freely pick powers from the power pools (that all characters have access to and are there to add flavour to our toons) without hurting my toon's performance. But, now my build is "viable"? Even my own secondary can hurt me, so I'll prefer something other than Regeneration, due to the "clickiness" of that set.
I can't see this as anything else other than punishing a character for concept alone.
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Fire Sword doesn't require a stance change. Weapon sets do. I guess if we somehow eliminate weapon stances, you'd be right...but when you draw Claws, a katana, a titan weapon or dual blades, the character takes up a unique stance for each weapon and is always returned to that idle stance after each attack. Fire Sword does not do this. When you draw a Fire Sword, you're just in 'ready' stance with your dukes up and a sword spouted from your hand.|
Originally Posted by xhris
Well, that sounds normal to me, when redraw exists. Fire Sword doesn't check anything because there never was any redraw. Why can't all weapon attacks work the same?
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Katana- you stand with one foot forward and both hands on your sword.
Titan Weapons and Staff- generally, with both hands on the weapon but at two points on the handle.
Claws- you take a lower wider stance.
The idea is, some weapons take unique stances when activating powers (some don't...I don't think Axe, Mace, Broadsword, Dual pistols or anything are unique but could be wrong) and so, you might as well make the weapon sets equal and have them *all* take a stance even if they don't need it...basically, use the asset since it's there.
If we didn't have unique stances, Katana, Titan Weapons and other weapons would basically just use the 'Ready' stance with a weapon sticking out of their hands all the time. Technically, they probably will anyway if you just move with the weapon drawn, you'll default to the 'ready' stance with the weapon in your hands but yeah, it doesn't *look* good. While animating your attacks, you'll return back to the unique 'weapon stance' afterward which is suppose to make the set look and feel more authentic.
I'm sure now, if the devs could redo things, they'd abolish stances in some way and just have any attacks default to whatever afterwards, therefore eliminating the need to switch stances and therefore draw animations...but those stances are ingrained in the engine too deeply to simply ignore now. At this point, the devs just think transitioning from standing in idle to a huge weapon appearing held in your hands and in the two-handed Titan Weapons stance would look ugly and bad and I'd agree. So redraw is here to stay.
That still doen't explain why redraw animations need to be that long. They could easily make them much faster than what we already have, to the point where they have a negligible impart on a toon's performance.
As for stances, I don't believe we actually have stances. It looks more like all the animations Katana uses for example (including the redraw animation) ends with your character standing with one leg forward.
I think it's similar to how Soul Storm ends with your character perfroming a variant of the villlainstance2 emote while hovering above the ground, or you're stuck with that alert animation (looking left and right) when activating the Super Reflexes' toggles.
If you look at all animations carefully (during power customization), Claws and Spines have a smooth transition between the draw weapon animation and the actual stance. The same holds true for War Maxe, Battle Axe and Broadswrd, which don't have a uniques stance.
Sets like DB/Katana/TW lack a smooth transition between each animation, but the sequence is fast enough that it's barely noticable.
I still want to know how Spines work exactly. If it comes to this, give a toggle that does nothing to every weapon user. 
All weapon sets (all of them, even if they don't use a special standing animation) use a "mode" on the back end, which is why weapon redraw exists. Powers outside of a weapon set do not function within that "mode", and so they put away the weapon. This is why using two weapon/weapon attacks doesn't require redraw but weapon/pool or weapon/heal or weapon/armor does.
Note I've said nothing about the length of time spent redrawing, and neither supported nor opposed your suggestion. Just giving background details.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Was that the original question?|
Originally Posted by xhris
That still doen't explain why redraw animations need to be that long. They could easily make them much faster than what we already have, to the point where they have a negligible impart on a toon's performance.
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*rereads*
No it wasn't.
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| As for stances, I don't believe we actually have stances. It looks more like all the animations Katana uses for example (including the redraw animation) ends with your character standing with one leg forward. |
Titan Weapons has you holding the weapon pointing to the side while gripping the handle at two points.
The others also have you standing in some variance not similar to the regular ready stance.
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| I think it's similar to how Soul Storm ends with your character perfroming a variant of the villlainstance2 emote while hovering above the ground, or you're stuck with that alert animation (looking left and right) when activating the Super Reflexes' toggles. |
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If you look at all animations carefully (during power customization), Claws and Spines have a smooth transition between the draw weapon animation and the actual stance. The same holds true for War Maxe, Battle Axe and Broadswrd, which don't have a uniques stance. Sets like DB/Katana/TW lack a smooth transition between each animation, but the sequence is fast enough that it's barely noticable. |
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I still want to know how Spines work exactly. If it comes to this, give a toggle that does nothing to every weapon user.
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How is that worse than how weapons magically disappear now when you use a power outside of the set?|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
At this point, the devs just think transitioning from standing in idle to a huge weapon appearing held in your hands and in the two-handed Titan Weapons stance would look ugly and bad and I'd agree. So redraw is here to stay.
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And I'm curious whether this is an actual quote from a red name.
Yes, I think is equally pathetic to see the weapon disappear while using another power (lets say burn) in the middle of a fight... than see the weapon appear from nothing.
I think removing toogles and defensive powers activations could help a lot in this matter. Toggles animation doesnt even make sense, I hate them.
Specially the animation for tough, I always try to activate it in the run.
This fix would be a major game changer and huge QoL improvement.
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Actually I think they removed the built-in redraw times from all weapon sets shortly after dual blades was released. I seem to remember either BaBs or Castle posting about it at some point. But I could be remembering wrong, that was a long time ago.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
I don't have personal experience with Quills (only got Thorns doms and Spines Stalkers). But AFAIK, it doesn't matter. You don't like redraw? Well, Spines/Thorns have their redraw still built into the animation time of the attacks. This comes with the drawback of all the attacks animating slower so redraw doesn't affect them because *every power redraws* even if you don't see it.
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We do, actually. |
Originally Posted by xhris
As for stances, I don't believe we actually have stances. It looks more like all the animations Katana uses for example (including the redraw animation) ends with your character standing with one leg forward.
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I exchanged a number of PMs with Back Alley Brawler several months before he left, when he was working on the redraw issue.
All power sets have stances associated with them that the animations are coded from. Kind of like how you have to have a car before you can have a snazzy paint job.
They are, IIRC:
No Weapon: Non-weapon sets use this stance, and it's the only one there is no redraw for, for obvious reasons.
Single Weapon: Axe, Mace, Broadsword, Arachnos Mace
Shield: Shield Defense paired with any non-weapon set.
Shield + Weapon: Shield Defense paired with a Single Weapon set.
Two Weapons: Claws, Spines, Dual Blades, Dual Pistols
Two Handed Weapons: Assault Rifle, Archery, Titan Weapons, Staff (I think Katana falls into this category too)
Basically, the animations for each of those power sets are coded so they can only function while in the appropriate stance. That is presumably to make it easier to code animations for future weapon sets that use on of those stances. (Example: When they made Dual Blades, they used the stance that Claws and Spines uses, instead of having to code a stance from scratch for it)
The problem there is, you can use any power you like that is within the same stance and there is no redraw, but if you use ANY power from a secondary set or power pool it will cause redraw because the secondary/pool power is not using the same combat stance. That's why Kick makes you put your Broadsword away when you use it, even though it doesn't make logical sense to put your sword away to kick someone.
Back Alley Brawler almost got rid of redraw, but the last we heard about it was that something about Shield Defense broke things in a very bad (read: unplayable) way. I assume it had something to do with the fact that the powers that pull your shield out are toggle powers, but he never clarified what exactly the issue was.
So, yes, there really ARE combat stances that the weapon animations are coded from, and you can't just simply remove them without breaking things. I don't anticipate that changing, because it would probably require redoing every animation for every power in the entire game so that there is no longer any conflict between stances.
Did you know that, animation-wise, Brawl is the most complicated power in the game? It's because there are at least 36 versions of that one power so it can be used in any combat stance without conflict.
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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. |
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They did, and then they didn't again. It was all very wibbly-wobbly and quantum for a bit. In the end it turned out to be one of those things that seemed fixed but then ended up being more broken once further testing was done (if I remember BaBs posts on it correctly).|
Originally Posted by Zaloopa
Actually I think they removed the built-in redraw times from all weapon sets shortly after dual blades was released. I seem to remember either BaBs or Castle posting about it at some point. But I could be remembering wrong, that was a long time ago.
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I'd certainly be on for Animations being speeded up if possible, but I kinda suspect that's also been looked at in the past.
I don't see how removing toggle animation would help much to be honest. Don't you just slap them on once before any fighting and then leave them on forever?
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Especially since toggles don't shut off when you log out anymore. The only time a toggle will ever be shut off now is if you die or run out of endurance. |
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
I don't see how removing toggle animation would help much to be honest. Don't you just slap them on once before any fighting and then leave them on forever?
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Some toggle powers don't cause redraw anyway. I cite as an example casting Rad toggles while using Dual Pistols or Assault Rifle. With Dual Pistols at least you just extend your hand with the gun in it. I suspect that was coded that way deliberately in the case of that powerset, though.
To remove redraw from, say, Regen click powers you would need to make 216 new animations. Regen has 6 powers that can be used in combat, so that's 6 new animations for each combat stance (6), times 3 for the 3 different body types, and times 2 for standing and flying animations. So, 6x6x3x2 = 216.
That's just to remove redraw from ONE power set. Now imagine multiplying that by the number of power sets that can be paired with weapon sets.
Let's look at Kick now. 6 combat stances, 3 body types, standing/flying. 36 animations to remove redraw from ONE power. And that doesn't count possible variations depending on the specific weapon being used. (not sure if it would need them, but it should be mentioned.
In order to remove redraw you're looking at, in all seriousness, thousands of new animations. A new power set requires 54 animations if all the powers in it have an animation associated with them. 54 animations for a brand new power set, compared to 216 animations to remove redraw from an old one. A new power set takes several months
to finish, so how long would it take to remove redraw from every set in the game?
My numbers here are probably not exact, in fact I'm sure they are not. But I am absolutely certain the number of new animations involved in removing redraw is in the thousands.
Back Alley Brawler's solution for removing redraw involved your weapon appearing in your hand out of nowhere, as in you start the animation and your weapon appears at the beginning of the animation. That would look incredibly stupid, so they probably will not do it that way. It would look FAR better to just be able to use other powers with your weapon still drawn, which is where my theory of thousands of new animations comes into play.
You're asking for a MONUMENTAL amount of work to fix something that doesn't really bother the majority of players that much.
I'm quite sure most players would balk at the idea of removing redraw once you informed them that they would get zero new power sets for at least a couple years because the animators are all busy on the redraw thing. Which is probably why it hasn't been done yet.
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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. |
As an aside...
Aren't weapons set given an Acc or tohit bonus specifically to "make up" for having to have redraw?
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Powers in some have a 5% Acc bonus, but I'm not sure if it's across the board. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
As an aside...
Aren't weapons set given an Acc or tohit bonus specifically to "make up" for having to have redraw? |
In fact it seems to be slightly all over the place. Archery has a 15% bonus, Dual Pistols 10% and Assault and Beam rifle have 5%. Melee weapons are the same way, Swords, Axes and Mace have the 5%, Dual Blades and Claws don't. Staff has it, Titan Weapons doesn't.
So yes. Kinda.
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Claws gets an endurance discount instead of an accuracy bonus. |
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Powers in some have a 5% Acc bonus, but I'm not sure if it's across the board.
In fact it seems to be slightly all over the place. Archery has a 15% bonus, Dual Pistols 10% and Assault and Beam rifle have 5%. Melee weapons are the same way, Swords, Axes and Mace have the 5%, Dual Blades and Claws don't. Staff has it, Titan Weapons doesn't. So yes. Kinda. |
Dual Blades I want to say didn't get it because of the combo system, but that doesn't explain why Staff DID get it. Titan Weapons probably because of Momentum speeding up attack animations.
It looks as though it's mostly sets that have no other real gimmick that get an accuracy bonus. Beam Rifle and Staff being notable exceptions there.
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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. |
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They rebalanced the weapon sets by shortening their animation times, which was the portion that compensated for redraw, yes. However, Spines is the odd man out. While the other sets got cuts in their animations which removed the pause that'd be you redrawing your weapon (if it wasn't drawn) for all your attacks, Spines still has that pause. I believe it's because, the way Spines works, it's not technically a 'weapon' set. That is, you don't pick what spines you want from the costume creator, you pick them from the power customizer. Yeah, Spines is a power effect due to the various ranged powers needing to be customized as well. And it's because of this and the ability to have different looking/colored spines that the redraw was kept in as not to penalize if you chose to customize your spines powers a certain way.|
Originally Posted by Zaloopa
Actually I think they removed the built-in redraw times from all weapon sets shortly after dual blades was released. I seem to remember either BaBs or Castle posting about it at some point. But I could be remembering wrong, that was a long time ago.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
They are, IIRC: No Weapon: Non-weapon sets use this stance, and it's the only one there is no redraw for, for obvious reasons. Single Weapon: Axe, Mace, Broadsword, Arachnos Mace Shield: Shield Defense paired with any non-weapon set. Shield + Weapon: Shield Defense paired with a Single Weapon set. Two Weapons: Claws, Spines, Dual Blades, Dual Pistols Two Handed Weapons: Assault Rifle, Archery, Titan Weapons, Staff (I think Katana falls into this category too) |
I dunno, I'm rather confused on the specifics...
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I was taking it directly from what Back Alley Brawler said (from memory), and he called them Combat Stances. |
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Or maybe I'm thinking of the stance animation and you're talking about the 'mode' which determines which nodes on the character model the weapon set uses?
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I can only make an educated guess as to what he meant by that, but I think it means the power sets that share a stance share the same version of powers that work in that stance.
Example: Katana, Titan Weapons, and Staff all use the same (or very similar) pommel bash animation for Brawl when their weapon is drawn.
Broadsword, Axe, and Mace all use the same kick animation for Brawl. As do Assault Rifle and Archery.
That implies to me that there are certain basic properties of those stances that are shared across the power sets that share them, even if the animations are not strictly identical.
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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. |
Ok, I realised from the first moment that properly removing redraw (making new animations for Gloom for example so that you can use it while holding a weapon) is practically impossible. That was not the point of the OP. The point was to remove the redraw animations, not the redraw.
My question is this: Would you be against a fix like the one suggested in the OP? I don't see anything supporting that you have to play a certain animation to switch between stances (and this is further supported by the fact that when you're holding your weapon, you can actually immediately switch to a different stance, have your weapons disappear and use another power). So, we can either:
-Remove the animation completely and have the toon change from one stance to the next without any animation and simply activate the power. This might look somewhat ugly, but we already do that to a certain extent, since there is no animation for putting the weapon away.
-Replace the existing animation with much faster ones, whose impact on a toon's performance is not that noticeable.
I know why we have it and what purpose is supposed to serve, but the question is why do we need it? Why can't we skip the whole "drawing my weapon" animation and have the weapon magically appear in your hand at the start of the normal attack animation, similar to Ice/Fire Sword? (Or have claws as a costume piece permanently on, so that Rularru and Viper Blades make more sense).
How is that more immersion breaking than pulling your weapon out of thin air from behing your back?
I just find it unfair how weapon-based sets are automatically at a disadvantage just for cosmetic reasons. Especially when no problems are fixed and a huge problem is created.