hello, i would like to preface this by saying that this is shaping up to be a great game and im looking forward to beta which is on the horizon, right now the biggest concern i have is with the stiff animations and general inflexibility of movement
i know that animations and whatnot are more difficult to implement than numerical systems(like the skill trees) but i think they really need to be addressed early, adding things like animation canceling and fluid movement would extend the games appeal beyond hardcore arpg fans and most of all it would reduce the tech debt the game will get when it hopefully gets bigger.
i think the biggest example of a game which incurred huge tech debt on their animations and combat fluidity is PoE (imo this games biggest inspiration), right now the combat (especially melee) of Poe is weighed down by the clunky animations and locked in movements, GGG has to go through an insane amount of work to get the models and animations up to par because of how much content theyâve added throughout the years, i think Last Epoch can avoid this problem if its stamped out now rather than later or the animation and combat fluidity could be incrementally improved along with the game rather than leaving it set in stone till its too late.
I to would like to see this happen. It seems that melee combat gets left behind in many games as to what was mentioned above. As I was playing my sentinel I noticed many times I was locked down not to stun or chill but to combat animations. Certain skills such as shield charge or lunge should be auto animation cancels. This goes for teleport and the acolyte teleport or leap.
I am sure there is other things the devs can think of that would be good for this kind of combat. I myself have found that I really do not play melee as much anymore due to the lock down factors.
The quality of animations will be improving with Beta-- in 0.6 we replaced all of the player character models which meant we also had to replace all of their animations. Weâve now had time to go back and polish each one, so they should look and feel better.
I believe we already have animation cancelling, though it may not be for all skills or the animations might not line up quite right. Thereâs definitely command queueing.
ah nice to hear
how far are you guys willing to go with the improvements?
just to add some clarity, i have never seen a number heavy, theory crafting game like this (Poe / Grimdawn) have the crisp gameplay and combat animations of something like diablo3 which is why striving towards something like that would make it stand out imo
anyway thank you for the quick reply, looking forward to beta
I agree. But this is something I would scrutinise much closer nearer to release than at the initial beta launch. They should definitely work on this sooner rather than later but there is still alot of foundational groundwork to cover.
As someone that dabbles in unity game development in my free time and creates my own animations, I am already impressed with Last Epochâs gameplay mechanics. A lot of the jankiness that you feel will be cleaned up with more polished animations, though the actual mechanics of ability usage are already pretty impressive imo.
The character model animations looked mostly like placeholders to me, in the Alpha game (im looking at you, running animation). If you look at some of the animations of the enemies though, many of them are very well done, which gives me a lot of confidence in their animatorâs ability.
Thereâs always room for improvement, but of course our animation team is only so large and there are plenty of enemies to make too! Itâs something we have our eye on but of course it will take time.
Feel free to write up any feedback you have after Beta launches.
Concerning âCommand Queueingâ:
My Shaman doesnât cast Storm Totem after Thorn Totem most of the time. Thorn Totem has a Long cast time because of the âPlaces all in one castâ-Node, but the âcooldownâ of it feels off. I want to cast the storm totem after my shaman can run again, but more often than not this doesnât Register right away and I have to press it again. This makes playing him really clunky at the Moment.
I just started playing in Beta after Rhykkerâs glowing review of the return of the d2 hammerdin and Iâm having a ton of fun. If I can add my opinion however I think the character models themselves look the worst of the art assets.
The world and the monsters look fantastic but the characters themselves, from the selection screen to the main game look like something from the 90âs. It is just an opinion but itâs distressing to hear that the character models were completely remade for beta and they still look like this. Hereâs hoping more work is still coming on that front.
