Expand the No Redraw theme

[Catmint]

Copying from Discord:

As part of the i25 update, every primary or secondary powerset that uses a weapon got a "No Redraw" theme added to it - my highest character is 34 so I can't speak to whether the Mace Mastery patron pool got a similar tweak - with five very notable exceptions.  Widow Claws for Arachnos Widows, Arachnos Assault Rifles for Arachnos Soldiers (I also can't speak to Arachnos Maces for Bane Spiders), Beam Rifle (though not the Pulse Rifle attacks in the Robotics primary), Titan Weapons, and Staff Fighting.

Widow Claws and Arachnos Assault Rifles noticeably have zero options for power customization whatsoever, not even recoloring of the effects when they hit, though the rifles at least have a few weapon customization options.  the others, though, have Bright and Dark themes available, but no No Redraw.

Those last three powersets are noticeably also the three weapon sets that came after the game went free-to-play and added a cash shop, and were themselves in the cash shop, requiring even subscribed players to pay extra to use them.  I believe the i24 release doesn't have them, because it has no cash shop unlocks.  I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the lack of a No Redraw theme.  But it is, obviously, a big problem for the sets, just as it is for any other weapon set without No Redraw.  And it's a huge problem for Widow Claws too, because Widows have a couple of click powers in their own set that cause redraw to happen.

So my question is whether a No Redraw theme can be added?  Might be slightly more complicated to stick it on Titan Weapons, because the actual power that gets invoked by the ability you use and does the animation call is stored somewhere else in the power database, but it'd be a big boon to those of us using the powersets paired something click-heavy.

 

For reference on Titan Weapons, except for Follow Through, Whirling Smash, Build Momentum, and Confront/Taunt, the powers in the actual Scrapper_Melee.Titan Weapons and Brute_Melee.Titan Weapons and Tanker_Melee.Titan Weapons pools don't actually do anything but check for Momentum and pull one of two powers from either Pets.Titan_Weapons or Pets.Titan_Weapons_Tanker, and those are the ones with animations attached.  So, the redraw call might actually be in those.  The rest should be straightforward.  Whatever was done to Broadsword, Archery, etc ... it'd just be wonderful if that can be done to these other sets.

[Devolus]

Bump for visibility and not to recreate requests

[Williwaw]

I've read that Staff Fighting also stores the redraw animations in a weird way, so it couldn't be done the same as the other sets (but it probably could still be done), but I'm not sure why the Soldier Rifle, Widow Claws, and Arachnos Mace sets (for both Bane Spiders and Mace Mastery PPPs) don't have No Redraw options.  Those are fairly old and should be just as easy to add No Redraw versions as they did to Assault Rifle, Claws, and War Mace.

 

(I say "should be", of course, without yet seeing any of the underlying code, so who knows if it's actually coded the same as the other three sets.  CoH's code is full of things that "should be" done one way but are instead done in a horrible-spaghetti-code-y way)

 

Also, I could have sworn that Beam Rifle has a No Redraw option.  Logging into game... checking... yup, it does have a No Redraw option already.  You can scratch that off your list :)

[Warlawk]

Bump for visibility and not to recreate requests

 

Seconded, bumping for great justice!

[metacore]

Bump for agreeing this is a great suggestion

[Some Random User]

Do we bump this or award the post? Which one makes the post get more visibility?

[Couthless]

Also bumping for visibility. This is important stuff.

[Weylin]

I still don't entirely understand what No Redraw functionally does

[Moka]

Also bumping.

[Shazbotacus]

It removes the animation and time normally taken to draw a weapon if activating a given power uses it.

 

If I put "No Redraw" on all my Beam Rifle attacks, my weapon just appears in my hands as I fire instead of taking the half or full second or so to go through the character animation of unholstering it.

 

It's really nice to have. Staff Fighting and Titan Weapons both don't have it for some reason, and some others probably don't as well.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Sniktch]

Titan doesn't have it due to the way it works - if you're out of Momentum, it calls one animation, if you're in, it calls another, both of which function more like pseudopets than actual attacks.  Staff, I'm not sure of - it may be a similar reason, or it may just be a lack of a proper 'intermediate' animation to key off of.

[Erei]

I'll bump that because I wanted to ask the question about staff fighting. I wanted to play a character with it, but the lack of no redraw really kills it (I feel like I'm spending half the fight unholstering my weapon).

[Tubalcain]

Yeah I was just about to make a rad/staff tank and then I saw it has no no redraw option. Which I guess would be fine if I went with a primary that has few to no activation powers. But Rad armor is not one of those. 😞

Edited October 6, 2019 by Tubalcain

[molten_dragon]

Definitely agree.