These changes would really save my GD-experience!

[Shinrou]

I'm probably thinking/comparing too much of TQ while writing these things, but I think that's pretty obvious... But here's something to think about.

1) I'd love to see some visual and aural feedback when I block attacks. So I want to hear CLANG and see a bit of sparks flying or something. Would actually make you feel like you are blocking them... Just god damn no, no text-indication like a text "BLOCK!" floating above your character. Same of course applies to enemies as well.

2) Visual enhancements to skills upon getting more levels for them. There was some discussion of it at least regarding the pet evolution, but I'd like to see pretty much my all skills get visually boosted as well. Like for an extremely generic example... FIREBALL. At set intervals, it could become a little bigger, glow brighter, has a bigger trail and stuff. They don't need new properties or anything, making them LOOK more fantastic drives some players to max them up for that sole reason. It deepens the sense of progression, very much.

3) Critical hits need to be FELT better. I know the numbers are cool and all, but it doesn't really make you feel the crit you just made. I'm probably thinking too much of Baldur's Gate now, but that's the game where it really felt good. It could be accompanied with longer spurt of blood behind the mob and a bit more powerful sound effect, and of course gibbing when it's the finishing blow.

4) Give at very least one skill for every mob to use. It's no fun knowing some mobs just come and well... hit you, normally. All the time.

5) More normal hit animations for weapons. It's not fun watching your character swinging the weapon with the same bashing animation or two all the time. Gets very repetitive and drains away from the immersion. When you are less likely to hit same away two times in a row, the killing looks way more fluid and the combat doesn't feel that static.


Well that should be enough for now. Thanks for listening! :p

[ASYLUM101]

1) I'd love to see some visual and aural feedback when I block attacks. So I want to hear CLANG and see a bit of sparks flying or something. Would actually make you feel like you are blocking them... Just god damn no, no text-indication like a text "BLOCK!" floating above your character. Same of course applies to enemies as well.


TQ had this, there was a distinct clank sound whenever you blocked. An animation, would be kinda neat but not needed.


2) Visual enhancements to skills upon getting more levels for them. There was some discussion of it at least regarding the pet evolution, but I'd like to see pretty much my all skills get visually boosted as well. Like for an extremely generic example... FIREBALL. At set intervals, it could become a little bigger, glow brighter, has a bigger trail and stuff. They don't need new properties or anything, making them LOOK more fantastic drives some players to max them up for that sole reason. It deepens the sense of progression, very much.

Er, again, we had this in TQ already, so I don't see why it wouldn't be included in GD. Squall increased in size as you leveled it, Volcanic Orb increased in size, Thunderball increased in size, and probably some others that I can't think of atm.


3) Critical hits need to be FELT better. I know the numbers are cool and all, but it doesn't really make you feel the crit you just made. I'm probably thinking too much of Baldur's Gate now, but that's the game where it really felt good. It could be accompanied with longer spurt of blood behind the mob and a bit more powerful sound effect, and of course gibbing when it's the finishing blow.


Screen shaking is really all you need, the extra gore is possible in GD I think. The devs mentioned a few hints of extra gore, they could easily link that to critical hits I would imagine.


4) Give at very least one skill for every mob to use. It's no fun knowing some mobs just come and well... hit you, normally. All the time.

I agree, every monster(or mob) needs a skill for the player to watch out for. Even if only one guy has it, it should be a danger and something to look out for.

[Shinrou]

TQ had this, there was a distinct clank sound whenever you blocked. An animation, would be kinda neat but not needed.

Well, probably my bad then, but since it's been quite a while already since I've played it last time, and I don't have any clear memory about really noticing it easily, it's probably just too inaudible then. Still, would appreciate visual feedback as well. Doesn't even need animation necessarily, just some particle-sparks flying from the shield.

Er, again, we had this in TQ already, so I don't see why it wouldn't be included in GD. Squall increased in size as you leveled it, Volcanic Orb increased in size, Thunderball increased in size, and probably some others that I can't think of atm.

I never remember seeing any significant increase at least, nothing that's really memorable. Probably why my memory is failing me then... I remember the biggest changes were the accompanying skill follow-ups that made the difference.

Screen shaking is really all you need, the extra gore is possible in GD I think. The devs mentioned a few hints of extra gore, they could easily link that to critical hits I would imagine.

Yeah the screen shake itself is a good progression to make feel it better, but if there's these other changes that could accompany them as well IF they won't bring too much effort to put in, why not? :)

[medierra]

TQ had this, there was a distinct clank sound whenever you blocked. An animation, would be kinda neat but not needed.


Figured I'd respond to the response so I can comment on that and the original questions at once...

This is true, although I'd like to do something more for GD since one of our major goals is to make combat feel better / more rewarding. I think trying to work in an animation would be tough. If we just override whatever you're doing to make your character play a block animation, I think it would be extremely annoying and potentially make block disadvantageous if it was interrupting your attacks to play a block animation (I remember a few old-school games where this actually happened and if your block was too high you'd just be blocking constantly and could never get an attack off). If we try to make it a blended animation I think it will become so subtle that you don't even notice it. It would also be potentially limiting trying to make it work with all attacks. A spark effect would provide good feedback, look cool, and be easy to implement. However, there is always a danger of getting to the point where there are so many effects going off at once in combat that you can't tell what's going on. So, we'll just have to try it out and see what happens.


Er, again, we had this in TQ already, so I don't see why it wouldn't be included in GD. Squall increased in size as you leveled it, Volcanic Orb increased in size, Thunderball increased in size, and probably some others that I can't think of atm.

I actually am not sure how much we want to do this for GD. I think some skills scaled too much in TQ and without any really beneficial result. Often times I think lowest level of a skill ended up being scaled down to the point where it became lame in order to provide room to scale up and not have the highest level effects become so large as to overly obscure combat and sap performance. Since some players seem to not even have noticed the progression, I really wonder how worthwhile this was. I think it might be one of those ideas that sounds really great in concept but doesn't work out that well in practice.

Another result was that some players had an unfavorable impression of the early skills / combat when they first started playing and sometimes if a player didn't max out a skill, they never got to see the coolest looking effects.

I think it is better to have skills grow or change mainly as a result of getting the modifiers for that skill. I think for those skills where it makes the most sense we may put in 1-2 levels of scaling but done in such a way that we don't have to scale back the lowest level effect to a point where it looks lame.

All in all, we put a lot work into making this happen on TQ and it seemed to go largely unnoticed. I'm not convinced that the work is worth the result.

Screen shaking is really all you need, the extra gore is possible in GD I think. The devs mentioned a few hints of extra gore, they could easily link that to critical hits I would imagine.

We just put in a system to attach effects and camera shake to critical hits. I think it is a lot more satisfying now. I'm also planning to incorporate ranged weapons into the OA / DA combat equation so that they can critical hit as well.

I agree, every monster(or mob) needs a skill for the player to watch out for. Even if only one guy has it, it should be a danger and something to look out for.

Some enemies are designed as fodder and are only meant to become a threat in numbers. If fodder monsters all had the potential to use a powerful skill, it would make encounters very difficult to balance since we currently have no way to prevent them from all randomly doing it at once. I think it would be better to design more interesting champion monsters that occur with different groups of enemies and have heroes that spawn more frequently. I agree though that there are some championless groups of enemies in TQ like the boars that are... a little too "boaring"... haha... oh thats terrible...

[SoulSeekkor]

Out of those the gore interests me the most I think, one of the patches for good 'ol Neverwinter Nights added a new gore option (forget what it was called, they could have named it overboard lol)...that option made it so when you got critical hits on an enemy the enemy would explode in a puff of blood, never forget that patch let me tell you. :) Of course the gore thing was a bigger deal back at that time, but if something similar were in this it would be cool..even if it was just more than the average blood or gore for that particular guy's death.

Soul

[ASYLUM101]

This is true, although I'd like to do something more for GD since one of our major goals is to make combat feel better / more rewarding. I think trying to work in an animation would be tough. If we just override whatever you're doing to make your character play a block animation, I think it would be extremely annoying and potentially make block disadvantageous if it was interrupting your attacks to play a block animation (I remember a few old-school games where this actually happened and if your block was too high you'd just be blocking constantly and could never get an attack off). If we try to make it a blended animation I think it will become so subtle that you don't even notice it. It would also be potentially limiting trying to make it work with all attacks.

Silverfall had an animation for blocking, I just remembered. Blocking would cancel out ALL damage, but the animation would play every time you blocked, making it really annoying to actually HARM guys if you were a really good defender. Good thing was, they had a skill just for that, Riposte was the name IIRC, which made you lash out immediately after the block and do a ton of damage. Cool stuff. :cool:


I actually am not sure how much we want to do this for GD. I think some skills scaled too much in TQ and without any really beneficial result. Often times I think lowest level of a skill ended up being scaled down to the point where it became lame in order to provide room to scale up and not have the highest level effects become so large as to overly obscure combat and sap performance.

Aw. :( Well, in my own modding of TQ, I offered no progression in the graphic changes of custom skills and I didn't notice any really bothersome issues, so I'm not too bothered really.

Another result was that some players had an unfavorable impression of the early skills / combat when they first started playing and sometimes if a player didn't max out a skill, they never got to see the coolest looking effects.

I thought VO was really pathetic early on, but at later levels it was a truly impressive spell. Squall too, that puny dirt cloud it made at level 1 was laughable, but the thunderstorm at max level was frightening, but yeah, most skills that don't scale well or look stupid early on seem to get ignored.


I think it is better to have skills grow or change mainly as a result of getting the modifiers for that skill. I think for those skills where it makes the most sense we may put in 1-2 levels of scaling but done in such a way that we don't have to scale back the lowest level effect to a point where it looks lame.

2 thumbs up for this idea, works good, easy to implement, and you satisfy(most ) people.


We just put in a system to attach effects and camera shake to critical hits. I think it is a lot more satisfying now. I'm also planning to incorporate ranged weapons into the OA / DA combat equation so that they can critical hit as well.


YEAH! Bow crits! Wait, if you incorporate ranged weapons into the equations, does this mean they will miss too? Bows and staves alike?


Some enemies are designed as fodder and are only meant to become a threat in numbers. If fodder monsters all had the potential to use a powerful skill, it would make encounters very difficult to balance since we currently have no way to prevent them from all randomly doing it at once.

Well, yeah. Of course, but you know what I meant. Like, act 3 and 4 of TQ was PERFECT in this aspect. Anourans, you had to worry about the bullfrogs getting too close or the shamans vomiting on you, Machae had those ridiculous marksmen and their lethal venom crap, as well as the few wardens using take down and ripping you to shreds.


I think it would be better to design more interesting champion monsters that occur with different groups of enemies and have heroes that spawn more frequently. I agree though that there are some championless groups of enemies in TQ like the boars that are... a little too "boaring"... haha... oh thats terrible...



This also sounds very good. :) BTW, there were champion boars, Calydonian Boar?

[medierra]

Out of those the gore interests me the most I think, one of the patches for good 'ol Neverwinter Nights added a new gore option (forget what it was called, they could have named it overboard lol)...that option made it so when you got critical hits on an enemy the enemy would explode in a puff of blood, never forget that patch let me tell you. :) Of course the gore thing was a bigger deal back at that time, but if something similar were in this it would be cool..even if it was just more than the average blood or gore for that particular guy's death.

Soul

The only potential issue with this is that there is already a pretty good amount of blood, gore, and gibbing on death. It is currently affected by ragdoll force, which means that if you do a lot more damage as a result of a critical hit and it results in death, the ragdoll will be higher. So we do already have this a little bit. However, to make it really stand out would be tough since we'd need to either tone down the normal hits, which I think would be less fun overall, or we'd need to make the critical death absurdly massive, which I personally would enjoy but many players might not appreciate as much.

[medierra]

YEAH! Bow crits! Wait, if you incorporate ranged weapons into the equations, does this mean they will miss too? Bows and staves alike?

Not necessarily. I haven't decided how I want to implement this yet but the possibilities could involve missing, doing reduced damage, or neither of those and just the increased damage from critical hits. In the latter case, I'd probably need to design ranged weapons to have slightly lower normal damage that is supplemented by critical hitting. I think ranged characters had it a little easy in TQ since they didn't have as much need to diversify their attribute points as melee characters did. I want to even that out a bit.


Well, yeah. Of course, but you know what I meant. Like, act 3 and 4 of TQ was PERFECT in this aspect. Anourans, you had to worry about the bullfrogs getting too close or the shamans vomiting on you, Machae had those ridiculous marksmen and their lethal venom crap, as well as the few wardens using take down and ripping you to shreds.

I think you'll be seeing plenty of that. ;)


This also sounds very good. :) BTW, there were champion boars, Calydonian Boar?

Ah yeah, but they didn't really have any skills that I remember and they spawned fairly infrequently.

[ASYLUM101]

Dude, lol they didn't need skills! I actually only ever ran into them on xmax or uber mods, where finding them meant almost certain death.

[medierra]

Dude, lol they didn't need skills! I actually only ever ran into them on xmax or uber mods, where finding them meant almost certain death.

Ah excellent, so they were perfectly balanced!

[ASYLUM101]

Exactly! :D

[SoulSeekkor]

The only potential issue with this is that there is already a pretty good amount of blood, gore, and gibbing on death. It is currently affected by ragdoll force, which means that if you do a lot more damage as a result of a critical hit and it results in death, the ragdoll will be higher. So we do already have this a little bit. However, to make it really stand out would be tough since we'd need to either tone down the normal hits, which I think would be less fun overall, or we'd need to make the critical death absurdly massive, which I personally would enjoy but many players might not appreciate as much.

Hmm, I can see that point...if there's already quite a bit of gore (perhaps a slider in the settings menu for just how much gore, maybe even as little as 4 or 5 settings on this slider [none--->Low---->Normal---->High]). Or if all else fails a checkbox, "Yes, unbelievable gore and blood trails when ragdolls fly!". ;) Wishful thinking, heheh.

Soul

[Shinrou]

Thanks for all the replies. As for the shield spark-effects, wouldn't it be pretty much doable to game to calculate how many enemies are in vicinity and just based on that, decrease the spark-intensity so it balances out the encounters with just a few mobs? But I'm glad I got official response anyway, thanks.

As for the skill effects, yeah... There's that flipside too that makes your skills leave bad taste at lower levels. A good point and after a bit more thinking, I agree to leave the visual enhancements to follow-ups only. I think in GD you'll show your lethality in terms of extreme gore anyway. ;)

And yeah, can't know how the things are currently goin' in developing GD, but I'm sure we'll be getting a good feedback this time from our critting. Sometimes abruptly gory deaths are ok too... :rolleyes: But seriously yeah, there's a limit to everything. :D And crits for ranged weapons... Mmmm... I'm really on the same boat saying ranged-class had it easy on TQ. Way too easy.

But even cannon-fodders can shine sometimes...? Give them skill that they only use very seldom. It could bring out that one little crow out of the flock of 20 and make it feel like that one was actually trying... :D

Also bringing up my question again that didn't seem to get any attention.

5) More normal hit animations for weapons. It's not fun watching your character swinging the weapon with the same bashing animation or two all the time. Gets very repetitive and drains away from the immersion. When you are less likely to hit same away two times in a row, the killing looks way more fluid and the combat doesn't feel that static.

[yerkyerk]

But do you really use normal attacks?

[Shinrou]

But do you really use normal attacks?

Well, there's always some skills at cooldown and you need to fight using normal hits for a while so yes. And especially at the starting levels, you don't have that much choice anyway... Thus it would be even more important to give new players better impression. The combat looks more varied and not so repetitive with this little change. Well, I can't see how it would hurt to add couple of normal attack patterns to the mix...

[MadWasp]

The only potential issue with this is that there is already a pretty good amount of blood, gore, and gibbing on death. It is currently affected by ragdoll force, which means that if you do a lot more damage as a result of a critical hit and it results in death, the ragdoll will be higher. So we do already have this a little bit. However, to make it really stand out would be tough since we'd need to either tone down the normal hits, which I think would be less fun overall, or we'd need to make the critical death absurdly massive, which I personally would enjoy but many players might not appreciate as much.

I like absurdly massive things too... Implement it. this is so cool! :)
I bought it 'cause of massive gore-. :D

[ASYLUM101]

Hmm, I can see that point...if there's already quite a bit of gore (perhaps a slider in the settings menu for just how much gore, maybe even as little as 4 or 5 settings on this slider [none--->Low---->Normal---->High]). Or if all else fails a checkbox, "Yes, unbelievable gore and blood trails when ragdolls fly!". ;) Wishful thinking, heheh.

Soul

Dude, if we had a slider for every time I read that GD needs a slider for this or that, we'd have several pages worth of sliders lmao.

But do you really use normal attacks?

Sadly, skills must cool down, like he said, but it shouldn't really be that long of a wait, and other passive attacks require normal attacks... in that case however, it's not important to have many attack animations, since you'll see all the passives trigger anyway.


But even cannon-fodders can shine sometimes...? Give them skill that they only use very seldom. It could bring out that one little crow out of the flock of 20 and make it feel like that one was actually trying...


Meh, maybe a berserk skill when they're almost dead, but like medierra said, if every unit procc'd that skill at the same time, it'd be a bit ridiculous.

[Renevent]

I think it would be a huge improvement if there were 2-3 basic animations for attacks that would play out in normal attacking.

[Shinrou]

Meh, maybe a berserk skill when they're almost dead, but like medierra said, if every unit procc'd that skill at the same time, it'd be a bit ridiculous.

Actually, that would be pretty damn fun, since the possibility for that to happen would be virtually non-existent. It's like winning in a lottery, just in a wrong way. ;)

[ASYLUM101]

lol, there were already 2 different attack animations in TQ! How is going from 2 animations to 2 animations an improvement?! Spears and One Handed Weapons both had two animations for attacking, each with 50% chance to trigger, in addition to the passive attacks. The dual wield animations only consisted of 1 animation for the right hand and 1 for the left handed attack, but still, you had the passives too!

Actually, that would be pretty damn fun, since the possibility for that to happen would be virtually non-existent. It's like winning in a lottery, just in a wrong way. ;)


Maybe, but some people are pansies and would cry if that happened. Imagine procc'ing a mob of 10 guys, each one has some ridiculous AoE stun-damage attack? Insta-death probably! Or how about a mob with berserkers, the bare minimum, you'd get shredded in seconds unless you could stun them. It could be cool, but would take balance work and would drive away all the nubz.

[Renevent]

I meant to say "2-3 more"...just my personally opinion anyways no need to get so excited lol.

The normal attack animations in TQ felt a bit stale IMO.

[Shinrou]

The normal attack animations in TQ felt a bit stale IMO.

Agreed.

And again, making couple more animations probably aren't THAT big deal when you think about how much it brings variety for how the fighting looks and feels like, especially for classes that doesn't have luxuries of passive hit-abilities, and also that first impression when you basically do nothing else but one skill, and while waiting for cooldown, what do you do? Shitloads of normal attacks.

It's these little things that actually improve the game "a lot", with just a little effort to actually implement them. I mean... It might feel like a little and meaningless thing, but you are still subconsciously able to get more drawn into the game, a lot because of all these little things that bring the immersion up a notch.

[medierra]

I think it would be a huge improvement if there were 2-3 basic animations for attacks that would play out in normal attacking.

As someone stated, TQ has 2-3 default attacks that each weapon randomizes between except the bow since it didn't really make sense. We're doing the same thing for melee attacks in GD but, like the bow, it doesn't really make sense for the gun.

[Shinrou]

I meant to say "2-3 more"

Note the correction. :p


Also, yeah... It doesn't make any sense with gun. Just with melee weapons.

[Renevent]

As someone stated, TQ has 2-3 default attacks that each weapon randomizes between except the bow since it didn't really make sense. We're doing the same thing for melee attacks in GD but, like the bow, it doesn't really make sense for the gun.

Maybe it's the way it played out I guess...too slow or something. Maybe the way animations switched based on the randomization lead to too many same animations in a row? Or perhaps the animations themselves were too similar :rolleyes:

I have to admit it's been a while since I have played TQ...and even longer since I played a new toon. I just know this is always an impression I had of the game and other people I spoke with. Maybe I'll boot it up later and re-asses it :p

[ASYLUM101]

For the spear, they're quite different animations. For one, you have a thrust, and the second is a lower stab, but they're pretty noticable differences, especially since the speeds are different too.

For the one handed, the alpha anim is a straight up clobber over the head type thing, the second(titled gamma) is another overhead, but the character looks like he puts more strength into it, it's a bit slower. There are two other, unused, animations though, a sidechop and an underhanded hit. For the female however, the two animations are very different. There's an overhead, and an underhanded chop, as well as another unused side chop, which is really fast compared to the male version side chop...

[SoulSeekkor]

@ASYLUM101

Really? That many requests for sliders? I haven't noticed any personally other than what I suggested, but I don't read every single page on every thread, and there's nothing wrong with having a slider if used correctly. Radio buttons would do the trick as well if you don't want too many sliders on a preferences screen, lol.

Soul

[Renevent]

Well that sounds like 2 animations, not 3, per weapon though...right? And for the male (club) they sound pretty similar too.

The female seems different...but then again I have never played a female character so perhaps that's why I didn't know about that one.

I think adding in a side chop and maybe a diagonal top to bottom slash would go a great way to mixing it up and improving the visual flair.

[medierra]

Dude, if we had a slider for every time I read that GD needs a slider for this or that, we'd have several pages worth of sliders lmao.


I totally agree - I mean we have to make a call one way or another sometimes or things would just get totally out of control. Not necessarily with sliders but with options in general be they check boxes, sliders, or whatever. The additional challenge then is making sure all of the various options configurations don't create any conflicts with one another.

[ASYLUM101]

No, it's 2 animations for all one handed weapons minus spears, plus shield passives and other weapon skills which use different animations.(warwind, lethalstrike, shield charge, etc) And like I said, there ARE other animations in the DB, not sure why they aren't used. If they were, there'd be about 3-4 animations per weapon class.(one handed, spear, staff) I'll probably whip up a mod to include those animations too, and see if I can use that new animation tool to blend the females attacks with the males to make him look better.

I totally agree - I mean we have to make a call one way or another sometimes or things would just get totally out of control. Not necessarily with sliders but with options in general be they check boxes, sliders, or whatever. The additional challenge then is making sure all of the various options configurations don't create any conflicts with one another.

lololol, yeah. IMO, most of the sliders people recommend are silly. The gore one is fine I guess, because some people like seeing corpse bombs, others like seeing extra blood. I personally, like the corpse bombs. :)

[medierra]

Well that sounds like 2 animations, not 3, per weapon though...right? And for the male (club) they sound pretty similar too.


The male and female characters in TQ both have 3 one-handed melee animations a 2 spear animations (similar to the ranged weapons, if you're modeling your combat after the ancient word, there isn't that much you can do with an over-handed spear). They can sometimes end up playing the same one several times in a row, so maybe we'd need to come up with some sort of system to prevent this. I think if they just cycled through it would look too mechanical.

While I think improvement here would be nice, we have limited time and this seems like a minor aesthetic issue compared to some of the larger gameplay and technical challenges we're tackling. I'll add it to the wishlist but I can think of so many other things that would bring a lot more fun and improvement to the game. I think this is something that most people wouldn't even notice during the heat of combat.

[Renevent]

I dunno...there's a general feeling of staleness in the early game with the attack animations and I know I am not the only one who feels this way. In fact, of all the general complaints I hear about TQ that's one of the main ones...slow and boring combat early on.

I think what you said regarding the main animation playing too often is probably the key. I just watched some youtube videos of level 1's fighting and the overhand one plays by far the most and looks very mechanical.

So maybe it's not a question of more, but instead of making it look organic and exciting.

[Shinrou]

While I think improvement here would be nice, we have limited time and this seems like a minor aesthetic issue compared to some of the larger gameplay and technical challenges we're tackling. I'll add it to the wishlist but I can think of so many other things that would bring a lot more fun and improvement to the game. I think this is something that most people wouldn't even notice during the heat of combat.

Well it's good to hear it's at least on the wishlist. If I were to guess, it's relatively little thing to do, to add couple more hit animations. Then again I could be totally wrong. :p

But I still maintain my opinion about it bringing some fun on subconscious level. More variation at little things that you do like all the time in game, can make huge differences in my opinion. And this game is like 100% whacking... Ok, not whacking... Shooting and whacking. Well, anyway, it's not urgent of course. It's just good to know it's on the wishlist. Thanks for listening. :)