Weapon animations based on build
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Hello all, possibly a silly thing to add here but I have always liked a game that has proper animations for how characters hold weapons.. based on what they actually do with said weapon.
To give an easy example lets think of a staff, a fighter will hold it in both hands ready to attack where as a mage will possibly have it in one hand to support himself and have a free hand to cast spells, or use the staff as a focus (this also depends if staves will give casters any bonuses)
It would be great if this could be added to Fractured, and it doesn't just apply to staves...
Bows can be shot as normal for a ranger character, where a thief assassin will hold it horizontal to the ground as not to have a massive bow stick up and give away his position.
possibly have this tied to your attributes and skills, so if your strength is low and intelligence high you don't hold the staff the same way, or if you have high skill in assassination your bow animation changes to make you more stealthy looking.
What do you guys think?
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Well I do not personally mind if there would be different styles and I think those would be pretty cool, but I afraid that would cause designers a lot of more work.. And is that work valueable enough when compared to benefits, I am not sure.
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I've never really seen this but it could be pretty cool! Definitely agree that it would be a lot of extra work though.
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Well if we put aside that how much more work this could cause.. I think developers could think at first place how some of the weapons are wield even there would be just one option. Like how daggers are wield.. like swords or something like in this picture (which looks much more cooler btw).
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For how tiny the characters are, I've never been that into the attention to detail on such things in games like Fractured. Now in things like Star Citizen, where I AM the viewpoint of the character... it's a little different.
If they think it's a worthy investment and it wouldn't take too much time, I'd be all for it. Just depends I suppose
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What I have understood, that weapons with moving animations are hard to implement, like whips, morning stars, flails and such, but rest weapons are quite basic stuff.
It would be kind of cool if e.g. strength affects your character's style to carry a heavy weapon. When STR 10 guy drags the heavy weapon behind and barely can lift it up, STR 20 guy easily carries that heavy weapon on shoulder..
I know I know not gona happen, but still would be quite unique.
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I had a similar thought but attribute score of 10 is where you don't suffer penalties as far as we know, but anything below 10 gives you negative scores... so with less than 10 strength you hold weapons like an idiot
With 10 strength you hold the weapon normally and with 18 strength you look like you know what you doing with it ...such a small visual thing but definitely a cool idea in my mind and plays a bit into role-playing.
I am not a game designer but I don't think this outside the realm of possibility or extremely difficult to do, I do understand the game doesn't have a massive team making it though.
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@Tuoni I do think moving things are difficult, they did get moving cloaks and some stuff with path of exile, so also doable at some point... just a matter of priorities I guess. having the game release and be fun is no 1
this is just a thing I personally like to see in games, when people started modding skyrim animations was one of the first things I got for spellcasting animations that were more realistic or just thought of a bit better.
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@Azraelius said in Weapon animations based on build:
I had a similar thought but attribute score of 10 is where you don't suffer penalties as far as we know, but anything below 10 gives you negative scores... so with less than 10 strength you hold weapons like an idiot
With 10 strength you hold the weapon normally and with 18 strength you look like you know what you doing with it ...such a small visual thing but definitely a cool idea in my mind and plays a bit into role-playing.
I am not a game designer but I don't think this outside the realm of possibility or extremely difficult to do, I do understand the game doesn't have a massive team making it though.
more Dex and you use a assassin style attack, int and you enhance the natrual elements of the weapon (so if forged from volcanic metal it would become a fire-sword)
Light armour and you flow with the battle like wind floating out of harms way when possible
medium armour and you crouch more and sneak stealth
heavy and you smash around and become harder to knock back
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@Azraelius said in Weapon animations based on build:
@Tuoni I do think moving things are difficult, they did get moving cloaks and some stuff with path of exile, so also doable at some point... just a matter of priorities I guess. having the game release and be fun is no 1
It can be done for sure, but there is really some problematic points. I will use Albion online as an example. There is this weapon named morning star in the game and in beta it had a chain and ball, but still characters were wielding that like mace with stiff handle. Here is picture how it looked like:
People complained about this a lot, but it was too troublesome task to make it actually moving chain so they changed the weapon so it had stiff handle like in this picture:
So they took a shortcut. From animation point of view, this was most likely smart decision, but it kind of affected to this weapon's special ability called root prison. It was clearly designed that the chain is rooting other people when spin around them, but now with stiff handle the ability won't make that much sense anymore. So I hope DS devs will take in account this kind of possible design issues when implementing weapons.
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It's virtually impossible to devise or implement a system where anything about your character will automatically change solely based on role (i.e. tank vs. berserker vs. mage vs. rogue vs. etc). This is because it's not feasible to mathematically compute role from a free-form build system.
Also, your system would completely screw hybrid characters (like every other MMO system already does...) As a spellthief, how do we decide if we want to "look like" a thief or a mage? Will we randomly switch back and forth between the two every time our stat balance changes to favor one or the other?
It would be much easier to simply have multiple animation sets that the player character chooses between as a vanity option, and each weapon is tagged with which animation type it uses (e.g. sword vs. mace vs. flail.)
As an aside: under no circumstances will any archer ever try to fire a longbow horizontally - at least, not while also hitting anything. You might fire a shortbow horizontally, but then that's a shortbow, and Mr. Thief will not need to hold it any particular way to reduce its visibility. Bows simply do not function properly if held at any more than a slight angle from sheerly vertical.
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@FibS
if the attributes are great enough then it could be animated differently but i wouldn't mind different animations being sold.
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@FibS Obviously there is a lot of thought that needs to go into this if it was something they thought of doing, my ideas where just that .... flights of fancy.
I think if some made for instance a battle mage, it is safe to say they would have a high strength score and high intelligence score... here my idea of a staff being held differently would clash. Strength high equals hold like a combatant or intelligence high hold like a mage. But how about we add the two together and have a mix of something magic and combat, my brain immediately pictures Gandalf fighting with his staff and swinging it around like a boss
thus hybrid classes are not screwed but enhanced to have a third and unique look because they have chosen melee and magic.Next lets look at you idea for spell-thief, obviously a mage does not normally use a bow, so there is no clash with a magic stance and archer stance here.... but what stats has the spell-thief chosen? obviously this is free-form class system so any school of magic will do, but if hes thief and magic he would need high dex/perception and high intelligence. So if using bows he will shoot like a thief and same for weapons, since mage doesn't normally use weapons to fight the animation is chosen by the highest relevant attribute or skill, or again there can be a unique animation that somehow makes his dagger skills look magical e.g. his dagger skills have a short range and they fly out... or whatever.
so first example means that 2 juxtaposed attributes actually combine to make a unique animation.
second example means that if there is no clash the highest attribute is chosen for animation... or another unique one.Since you can't change your attributes after character creation (only race change will alter it or talents buff it a bit) these animations won't be random.
and your last note I realize that archery in the real world works under certain conditions based on physics, but this is fantasy bro
I just think it's cool to take this into consideration, and having it based off your skills and attributes means it is accurate and not just a cosmetic thing you choose or can buy in a cash shop.... it's a part of your characters choices... unique to the way you built him and obvious to other players "check that guy out, clearly a spell-sword type, sure he has mad enchantments for weapons"
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@FibS said in Weapon animations based on build:
It would be much easier to simply have multiple animation sets that the player character chooses between as a vanity option, and each weapon is tagged with which animation type it uses (e.g. sword vs. mace vs. flail.)
This could actually work pretty well. Unlocking special combat stances could be set inside knowledge system and on top of that take attributes somehow count as well. Would be interesting add and goes well with theme of horizontal progression.
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I like the idea of vanity poses and actions. This could be rewarded.
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I would love alternate animations spread throughout.
