I know it is early still in development, however as I watched the latest stream and even asked the question in the first stream before a lich thing ate the group I kind of feel I should ask again.
Every race fights the same as far as I can tell, which just seems wrong since they are also so vastly different in culture. Not only culture, but styles and just builds. A male Dwarf and a female Elf shouldn't have the same combat stance I think.
Now, I am not saying that we need every single race to have different animations for all of their skills, however too see every race and both genders able to at least hold their weapons and auto attack differently may seem like a little thing, and yet it feels quite big to me at least not only from a lore stance, but as a detail stance.
Let me know what you guys think, again it may seem small but I find it to be a rather large thing. I don't want my funky giant Orges too somehow wield and attack the same way as my stoic (and master race Dwarf's)
It would solely be a visual thing, at no point will it effect the time of spells or skills to hit the target or anything. So, if my Myr takes 1.0 second to swing his/her dagger at an enemy wielding it like.. low. A human wielding it forward will also take 1.0 seconds and do the same damage. It is solely visual, and truthfully something that is very much lore friendly if not completely logical.
I'd like to see different animations based on races form a purely cosmetic standpoint. I think it will all come down to time and money, they still have a lot of animations to do still it seams from the streams we've seen. I can't wait to see what the game / combat will look like when they polish it and get more animations in.
I support the idea of cultural weapon stances/animations when and where it makes sense. For example, elves might wield their blades in more of a fencing style, and that's cool.
However, for martial classes such as monk, rogue and warrior, I would want to see stances/animations tied to particular styles that could be learned and adopted, with bonuses and penalties based on the style/stance you were in. So for example a rogue could reverse their grips on their daggers and adopt a cat stance. This might give them a bonus to attack speed and dodging, but a penalty to damage. And monks, since they know kung fu, should be all about having different forms and stances in my mind :)
I consider differing animations for different races a very low priority. A good thing to be sure if it is easy and imposes no load on the servers - otherwise not so good.
When I saw the thread title I thought of different stances that do different things. A monk having an offensive stance or a defensive stance to choose from. That type of stances I would consider much more desirable than simply animations with no impact on gameplay.
As a visual thing i am all for this. Why would a dwarf/halfling attack the same way as an ogre? A bash from an ogre would be with little movement since they have bulk to push behind it, where a halfling might look like they are doing something big with large movements maybe even a sidehop in there for effect.
Different combat animations for the various races would be great, but it's to cost ineffective, to creating quality animations for the multiple races is way to much work for not that great of a benefit, because most of the animations would end up being mediocre and will feel floaty of "off" with no weight or polish to them, if you know what I'm talking about.
It's way better to create a set of solid triple A quality animations and use them for all the races and NPC, than to have a multitude of mediocre animations that reduce the overall quality and visual polish of the game.
I think it would be pretty cool if you could actually select your animation set.
At launch it might be best to keep it to one set of animations only so that the game looks as polished as possible with the minimum amount of man hours. Depending on your animation software you are actually animating a wire skeleton, that skeleton is then mapped to a model with the same number of nodes. Any model with the corresponding number of nodes and locations can be mapped to the wire mesh animation if you have attached a scaling factor to the distances between the nodes on the wire skeleton based on the distances between the nodes on the model.
As such any model with the same number of joints can use the same base animation though you do need to check for model collision between the appendages. Over time I could definitely see a selectable list of animation styles for each action. Race specific animations would be a good starting point to go off of. Each of the races from Halfling to Ogre would each naturally swing a 2 hand sword in a way best fitting their physic. However there is no reason that one could not map the brutish Ogre/Conan the Barbarian style to the Halfling body rather than a more natural low to high striking with finesse style that a Halfling would more naturally have.
Being able to adopt a different races fighting style might actually be a way to show you have raised your faction high enough. A dwarf doing a more dainty dance like elven 1 hand sword style would be pretty hilarious.
Yes, this has always been my big concern with the idea, the cost of it is daunting to be sure. Adding extra animations for the sole purpose of looking different doesn't sound like a big deal, but I have to say I think it is more than some will admit. Even from someone whom does not care about any sort of Role-play, I find it hard to imagine a Dark Myr fighting like an Ogre.. or as said earlier, an Ogre like a Halfling. Not to sound like some kind of trashy gamer hipster, but it does sort of break immersion. I'm all for them progressively adding them as they go, as long as it is something they have an interest in. Even if it is something as simplistic as the way the races stand idly for combat or auto attack, less so the actual skills. But, just as a for instance..? It is the same idea behind not wanting to see my Dwarf run across a Tundra the same way a Human would, they have different gaits and such.
It would be a very big plus for me, to see an Ogre holding his cleaver differently than a Dwarf. It does make sense.
When talking about genders..that's a different matter to me. If men and women go to the same martial academy, they will learn the same stances/positions. So when they venture out after academy, they will use the same knowledge. aka I don't see why there should be difference between men and women.
Same would go for running and gaits. Although to just walk and not run, might cause a female human to walk more gracefully than her masculent counterpart. A female ogre might not show a different stride from a male for example. But I doubt they'll spend much time in that. Again it would be a big plus if they did.
Barin999 said:It would be a very big plus for me, to see an Ogre holding his cleaver differently than a Dwarf. It does make sense.
I dont want to seem like I'm nitpicking. But im genuinely curious. How many different ways are there to hold and or swing a cleaver. It's a 1 handed axe with limited surface area and a one sided blade.
I think were asking for alot. Spell castings, meditation, even out of combat positions I could see varying based on race. But not every weapon needs to have different animations for all races.
I'll agree with porygon on this one, technically martial arts imply some very specific stance and ways to swing and recover, because it's the most efficient, and whatever your size is doesn't change much how you shouldn't expose your limbs or strike with an attack angle too easy to avoid or retaliate.
A few variation maybe, but aren't they nitpicking for some work nobody might notice in the end ?
I have always thought choosing different stances during character creation was a great idea. There don't have to be a ton of different styles, but having 3 or 4 to choose from might add a little flavor to your character. Make them look clumsy, intense, scary, or like this is all easy-peasy to them. I, too, get sick of seeing the same animations over and over. A little diversity would be great.
In regards to some of the comments on "how many ways can you really use a weapon" it obviously depends on the weapon, but there is.. a plethora of styles of wielding and holding a weapon. Even something as simple as a one hand axe, one race may choke up closer towards the axe head, one may use it towards the hilt, one may use it more towards their side rather than facing forwards. Again, these are always just things for look alone. I do hate going to other games for this, but.. just look at For Honor or.. Nioh. Both have the same weapons being used in different fashions. Given those stances are different attacks styles, this is.. more of a cosmetic, immersion type of thing. I do agree that if such a thing cuts into development of the actual game, then no.. but I think it is more important than some really want to admit.
Porygon said:Barin999 said:It would be a very big plus for me, to see an Ogre holding his cleaver differently than a Dwarf. It does make sense.
I dont want to seem like I'm nitpicking. But im genuinely curious. How many different ways are there to hold and or swing a cleaver. It's a 1 handed axe with limited surface area and a one sided blade.
I think were asking for alot. Spell castings, meditation, even out of combat positions I could see varying based on race. But not every weapon needs to have different animations for all races.
A cleaver is indeed a rather small weapon/tool. So yeah you'll have me there on using not the best of examples. But perhaps a battleaxe is something more appropriate. Like I said earlier, when it's about how they swing or use their weapon in combat, for me it would much be the same way that "they learned in their lore based academies". If such a thing would excist. Even a staff can be held in many different ways. But during combat...I doubt many of us would look at the manner of how the player next to him swings his sword compared to himself. So it would be merely appearancewise when out of combat, which I'm aiming at.
So when it comes to resting or standing, things could be different. An ogre could hold the battleaxe by the blade itself or just at the back of the blade. While a dwarf might place it with the blade on the ground and "rest" from there or place it between his legs and place his hands on the knob. Others might be sitting down with their weapon on their crossed legs or resting the axe by placing the toe of the bit on the ground and holding it by the throat of the handle, for example.
While traveling on foot, here again could be the slightest of differences. A large character might keep the weapon/shield in his hands, but a smaller one might prefer to place it on its back during traveling.
On mounts this might get too complicated for the artists.
This is one of the more finer details of design but I'm just following the mindset of the person who posted this thread. I understand if in the end every class/race holds the weapons/books/shields in the same manner. It is an interesting idea to see it slightly different and it would make the game and character differentiation more fun and unique. I agree with that.
I kinda wish people cared less about the /dance in MMO's and put more value in combat animations. Combat animations is the majority of animations we as players see, and I would rather have more and higher quality combat animations than /dance and other emotes.
Races having different stances /ready positions/guards (rather than different way of holding the weapon) is a good idea for both the diversity of races and maybe even classes imo. I do feel like spellcasting usually get the better end of the stick when it comes to having racial differences, but there's more than one way to swing a stick so lets hope for some cool stuff.