Animation Feedback

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SinisterDexter wrote:

Same goes for the big rock dudes, by the way.

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__Z__ wrote:

the only thing I really miss is the Block Shield or weapon block animation.
if there's one i've never managed to see it.

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dust7 wrote:

I like the design of the new snake monsters in act 2, but their animations seem really clunky to me.

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Killas900 wrote:

Melee attack animations need to be tuned to be more in line with how Heavy Blow currently is - a big, rapid swing with the character's weight behind it then a short follow-through animation.

This gives the illusion of speed and force. For example, in DotA2, Spectre used to have an attack animation much like how it is in PoE - she swung her energy disk at a constant speed, there was no acceleration for impact and transfer/loss of force in the backswing. Her attack felt weak. It scaled well late game, but for much of game it just looked like she was just flexing her arm back and forth, not slaughtering enemies. Then Valve simply tuned her animation to have that sense of impact, and now she feels much more powerful.

I hate to use Dragon Age 2 as an example, but they took that idea to the extreme, having a swift, forceful attack animation and a pause made combat very visceral and interesting, as opposed to Dragon Age: Origins which had a much slower pace with it's slow animations.

I believe that adjusting the animations to be focused around that point of impact would increase the pace of PoE and make it feel much more visceral and violent.

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Neonexe wrote:

Ari I believe in you!

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Nphyx wrote:

My first impressions (after having played for a week and clearing the first difficulty with multiple characters) are that the humanoid animations tend to be a little stiff and mechanical, but not unforgivable for an indie game that (presumably) doesn't have access to high-end mocap equipment.

The one thing that has really been bugging me are the default stances for several of the character classes. The witch appears to have cerebral palsy, the marauder is quite obviously stoned, and the templar (perhaps understandably, given his age) has a prominent beer gut and bad posture. I haven't played the other classes long enough to form opinions, but first impressions of the ranger are good.

I get that you're trying to give them personality that goes beyond the classical heroic stereotypes and four color comic poses of other games, but these three seem almost, I don't know, pathetic. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here; this is just the impression that comes to me when playing them.

Of the three the witch needs the most improvement. She's been harassed, abused, beat down, denigrated, and finally exiled because of her nature and beliefs; but that doesn't make her gollum or the hunchback of Notre Dame. I imagine instead that she habitually keeps her head down, slouches a bit, allows her limbs to hang limply, avoids eye contact, maybe even has minor nervous ticks like looking over her shoulder frequently or chewing her nails. Maybe her offensive animations should seem halfhearted or timid, and her defensive animations over-exaggerated (throwing her hands over her head to block or a clumsy sideways lurch for a dodge). In other words, she in particular should express symptoms of post-traumatic stress, whereas presently she just looks diseased, physically disabled, or possibly stereotypically "insane".

I'm not sure what you're going for with the marauder. Is he carefree, overconfident, detached, or just dumb? He seems to stare off into space, unaware of his environment and clearly not ready for action. In any case his idle animations don't strike me as those of a trained warrior so much as, perhaps, an unskilled laborer. I'm not a big fan of the hypermasculine tough guy ex-marine thing that your typical warrior or soldier is modeled after, but it seems to me that he should demonstrate *some* kind of discipline or instinct.

The templar might not be wrong at all, but he strikes me as very carefree and jovial, the way a guy might stand and behave at a barbeque after a few too many beers. More than anything he immediately made me think of Don Quixote. I'm not sure this jives with his backstory of being this sort of self-righteous holy warrior who has transcended faith and dogma. Should not a person like this express extreme self-confidence, purpose, and certainty in his posture and motions? Or is a stern and humorless priest too much of a stereotype? Maybe I just have the wrong idea about who he's supposed to be.

These idle animations and default poses are the things we see the most in the game, and they tell us the most about who the character is as a person. As such they require great care and attention. If I'm getting the impressions you're intending to give me, then great; you've done well, but I'm not sure I like these people! If not, give them a little more love, and maybe a bit more variety if you can justify the added expense.

As to the rest of the game's animations, I thought many of the monsters were well-done and believable - the snake-, squid-, and ape-like critters in particular felt natural and fluid. Combat feels responsive and gives good visual feedback (if occasionally a little stiff as mentioned before). NPCs and idle monsters strike me as a little lifeless; I'd like them to move around a bit more. But that's normal in video games, I suppose, so can't be called a specific criticism of this one.

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Moist wrote:

something about the maces seems odd. Iunno just seems to swing funny. Or maybe he swings too soft for the blow.

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Widukind wrote:

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Ari wrote:

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Moist wrote:

something about the maces seems odd. Iunno just seems to swing funny. Or maybe he swings too soft for the blow.

Which character is this for?

I'm only two weeks in the beta so I can't tell what it's like for most of the classes, but I do know that the mace attack with the templar looks a bit weak. I think the swing is too slow and clumsy. I guess it looks better with more ias, but I think there's room for improvement here.

I think the melee attacks and skills are generally the weakest animation wise. Sweep is another example, it looks a bit strange when using a staff with the templar (don't know whether it looks different with other classes / weapons). I guess it would look better if the character didn't stand still during the animation, but would make more of a spinning motion himself.

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MagicJohnson wrote:

Overall I like animations but I dislike the duelist's stance, and a lot.
I mean isn't the duelist supposed to be someone proud of himself and his skills in battle? Isn't he supposed to be confident about himself? Because to me it looks as if he was so beat down that he can't even handle the weight of his own head. I mean look at him! He's always at this ridiculous half crouched stance. If he plans on standing like that for the rest of his life he's going to have some severe back problems in the future. My main is a duelist (at least until the final wipe), and I love my dmg output, my skills and the overall way I've built my character, but I seriously can't stand him as a character, not due to his personality, but because (to me) he seems to want to represent something, to be looked as a mighty warrior/ranger/whatever, but his goofy stance prevents him from doing so.

Thanks in advance!

PS: I love this freaking game.

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DarthNorris wrote:

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Ari wrote:

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MagicJohnson wrote:

Overall I like animations but I dislike the duelist's stance, and a lot.
I mean isn't the duelist supposed to be someone proud of himself and his skills in battle? Isn't he supposed to be confident about himself? Because to me it looks as if he was so beat down that he can't even handle the weight of his own head. I mean look at him! He's always at this ridiculous half crouched stance. If he plans on standing like that for the rest of his life he's going to have some severe back problems in the future. My main is a duelist (at least until the final wipe), and I love my dmg output, my skills and the overall way I've built my character, but I seriously can't stand him as a character, not due to his personality, but because (to me) he seems to want to represent something, to be looked as a mighty warrior/ranger/whatever, but his goofy stance prevents him from doing so.

Thanks in advance!

PS: I love this freaking game.

duelist has a new animation set with better stance and more impactful attacks but it won't be added for a little bit because there are some technical things for the character that need to be taken care of and everyone has quite alot on their plate at the moment

Awesome!! I can't wait to see what his new animations looks like when this releases.

Does possibly elude to having more than one character's animations reworked in the future? I've noticed some complaints being made about the "stiff" animations of some of the characters during combat. I personally think the combat is great! But there are others that have some qualms with the overall smoothness of how characters attack and move.