Ok let's talk about it: NEW MELEE ANIMATIONS

[Jacoviz]

Ok after watching some a18 vids i've tought about this: why having the same animations for hits and for missing the target? It's just weird and a17 was way better on this. Don't misunderstood me, i mean new animations look really cool but i think that we need either the old animations when we miss the target. In the future you could add even more animations for the same weapon, for example a right to left animation and a left to right animation that plays randomly. Just to add more fun to the melee.

[Damocles]

It would certainly give the player more feedback to separate between full misses and full/partial hits.

Maybe even increasing the "reposition" time when missing (overswing).

[Khulkhuum]

I think the main problem here is the hit arc that was introduced in A18. Considering you "missed" with the crosshair on the zombie, but the swing goes along. When will you know if you fully missed or if you partially hit (not with crosshair)? Only when the animation is finished, because the swing had to finish right?

 

Sure you could make the calculations at the moment of swinging and choose a specific animation if you hit, part-hit or miss, but it doesn't work like that. You hit the target when the animation is at a specific moment, not when you clicked the mouse button. It is a fraction of a second later, not instantly, so you could even start swinging, but end up missing if you moved your mouse from the zombie. On the other hand, if you start swinging when not looking even at an enemy, but turn so fast that you hit it (before the attack lands) then it surely counts.

 

In conclusion, you know you hit your enemy fully/partially or missed only after the animation is finished (the full swing is done), so you can't determine the type of animation beforehand.

 

I wouldn't mind more animations for swings, even diverse ones, but this would require simply different attacks for same weapons with varied attack arcs perhaps. Something like in many action games, where you have consecutive attacks when attacking constantly or after short periods of time (Attack, pause, attack, pause - like in Darksiders for example). Even if we'll have only one attack animation or only one set, i'm sure it'll be fine either way.

[Damocles]

I think the main problem here is the hit arc that was introduced in A18. Considering you "missed" with the crosshair on the zombie, but the swing goes along. When will you know if you fully missed or if you partially hit (not with crosshair)? Only when the animation is finished, because the swing had to finish right?

 

Sure you could make the calculations at the moment of swinging and choose a specific animation if you hit, part-hit or miss, but it doesn't work like that. You hit the target when the animation is at a specific moment, not when you clicked the mouse button. It is a fraction of a second later, not instantly, so you could even start swinging, but end up missing if you moved your mouse from the zombie. On the other hand, if you start swinging when not looking even at an enemy, but turn so fast that you hit it (before the attack lands) then it surely counts.

 

In conclusion, you know you hit your enemy fully/partially or missed only after the animation is finished (the full swing is done), so you can't determine the type of animation beforehand.

 

I wouldn't mind more animations for swings, even diverse ones, but this would require simply different attacks for same weapons with varied attack arcs perhaps. Something like in many action games, where you have consecutive attacks when attacking constantly or after short periods of time (Attack, pause, attack, pause - like in Darksiders for example). Even if we'll have only one attack animation or only one set, i'm sure it'll be fine either way.

 

It depends how much control they have over the animation.

The animation could continue dynamically in two directions when there is a hit/miss, blending to the reaction (overswing or contact) at a specific time. (Technically you could change animations every frame if necessary)

 

Its mainly client side visuals for the player. Other players over the network dont really need to show two different swing animation, and are fine with a single type of swing.

[RyanX]

The sledge animation is now terrible. Who stops swinging halfway through? Even if you wanted to stop it, it would be difficult. In this case, the old animation was superior.

[Khulkhuum]

If you're aiming for something like using heavy weapons in souls games, then sure. If you completely miss you get a very long end to the animation, making you susceptible to more hits and unable to attack as fast as if you hit your target.

 

Diverging animations based off the crosshair hit sounds interesting, but what would be the purpose of that really? Apart from adding work for the devs for all of the animations there are to have simple a little diversity? Even considering that the swing arc would change and you would be able to hit multiple enemies a bit differently, it would bring a lot of frustration if players needed to adjust not only to one swing arc, but to two.

 

Also, there are sound and visual indications that you hit your target. You really need a separate animation to know if you did it correctly?

[Draz]

The sledge animation is now terrible. Who stops swinging halfway through? Even if you wanted to stop it, it would be difficult. In this case, the old animation was superior.

 

Yeah it looks like a little lovetap instead of a proper skull-crushing swing. Or does the power attack use another animation entirely? I just saw the regular attack being used on some stream, and the sledgehammer's range also seemed to be pretty bad now - hope they didn't nerf it in favor of spears.

[Khulkhuum]

Yeah it looks like a little lovetap instead of a proper skull-crushing swing. Or does the power attack use another animation entirely? I just saw the regular attack being used on some stream, and the sledgehammer's range also seemed to be pretty bad now - hope they didn't nerf it in favor of spears.

 

I think limiting weapon range is bad, especially as similar weapons/tools could have the same range (comparing all of these items IRL and their sizes). If they wanted for spears to have the highest range, they should have made them with exceptionally big range (as all polearms and spears do) and do less damage than similar weapons (instead of limiting range for other weapons).

 

I'm all for diversity instead of copying similar patterns all around. Let's have spears with high range, high speed (jabs don't need a lot of speed to invoke), but very low damage output. Sledges will have high damage at medium range, but very slow attacks. Knives would have medium damage at low range, but medium speed. Clubs should have medium damage at medium range, but slow attacks. And so on...

[Cyanide2029]

I always liked the old animations, but i could see why they could use a rework, but as mentioned implementing a hit and miss animation could prove to be rather difficult, also it would be hard to balance it out to make it look fluid in pretty common circumstances, for instance, even kiting mobs would register a miss to begin with and at the last second be a hit, it would be hard to mix them both perfectly to make it look right.

 

What i think we need is some more variation in animations and sounds for weapons in general, hearing the same sounds and seeing the same animations constantly does get a little stale.

 

While we are on the melee side of things, a suggestion that i think makes alot of sense is nerfing the damage of melee weapons when your really close to the target, and buffing the damage when you hit the target near the end of your weapon, its like hitting a ball with a bat, if you hit it close to the handle, it doesn't go as far, when you hit it in the sweet spot near the end you get far more distance, LETS SEND SOME HEADS FLYING!

[Khulkhuum]

I always liked the old animations, but i could see why they could use a rework, but as mentioned implementing a hit and miss animation could prove to be rather difficult, also it would be hard to balance it out to make it look fluid in pretty common circumstances, for instance, even kiting mobs would register a miss to begin with and at the last second be a hit, it would be hard to mix them both perfectly to make it look right.

 

What i think we need is some more variation in animations and sounds for weapons in general, hearing the same sounds and seeing the same animations constantly does get a little stale.

 

While we are on the melee side of things, a suggestion that i think makes alot of sense is nerfing the damage of melee weapons when your really close to the target, and buffing the damage when you hit the target near the end of your weapon, its like hitting a ball with a bat, if you hit it close to the handle, it doesn't go as far, when you hit it in the sweet spot near the end you get far more distance, LETS SEND SOME HEADS FLYING!

 

I would go further with your idea as designing the sweet spot for every weapon. If you hit the sweet spot you get 100% damage output, but little before and after only 80%, with the least effective being down to 50% damage for example. This wouldn't be a strict 100% or less (with the crosshair hit). I would say this ties in with a moment where you begin stopping your swing, so perhaps you don't "slam your weapon into the ground" with each attack and have the full shot at the end.

[Freshmint]

I much prefer the new animations. I can clearly see The Pimps new animator working his magic and its exactly the path they needed to take outside their original coding methods. But there was a good merit to some of the older ones that worked well and have seemed to be removed.

 

Variable speed animations were introduced to A17 largely relating to mods considering it was a major addition at the time. As a side extra, melee weapons had a slow down effect added when they hit a target which would simulate a hit even though the animation itself would still complete its full cycle(I believe it was a band-aid effect considering the resources they had to use). The new animations themselves are much better other than how they end their arc.

 

Most of the animations now have pre determined ending points and no occlusion in hitting a target(the sledge and the baseball bat is a good example if this). If there was a semi-full arc swing through that would overshoot yet stop when they hit a target would seem more realistic and satisfying. Power swings could be more full batting style that would slowdown through multiple targets and would be more relevant rather than just a damage increase. The more targets you hit the more stamina it reduces and even could be perked to swing through multiple zombies at once.

 

A18's stone axe hitting random spots on each attack is a nice touch and all the new reload animations, bandage animations, and countless others are right on point. I cant stress enough how these are finally starting to look more complete with the current dev crew after seeing on multiple occasions through many alphas how its been changed, and changed again.

[Cyanide2029]

I would go further with your idea as designing the sweet spot for every weapon. If you hit the sweet spot you get 100% damage output, but little before and after only 80%, with the least effective being down to 50% damage for example. This wouldn't be a strict 100% or less (with the crosshair hit). I would say this ties in with a moment where you begin stopping your swing, so perhaps you don't "slam your weapon into the ground" with each attack and have the full shot at the end.

 

Yes definitely! The numbers look good too, I feel like it would be a good change, leaning away from the mindless swinging and leveling and more towards timing and skill, learning to nail your shots, keeping it fresh!

[Scyris]

The sledge animation is just stupid period, there was no reason to change it, honestly I don't think any of the old melee weapons needed new animations they were fine imo.