Whips

[THEDarkTyger]

Be shocked if this hasn't been requested. But, c'mon. We have the assets necessary thanks to the demon MM set. Give us whip melee. 😉

[SwitchFade]

It actually has been requested a bunch, not sure about the answers. Would be cool 😌

 

Stalker whips i particular, I can imagine the AS... 😁

[EmmySky]

Can we get the "watch me whip" theme music for the set?  😝

Edited February 22, 2020 by EmmySky

[Saiyajinzoningen]

i believe there aren't quite enough animations to flesh out a full set at the moment.

[Redlynne]

Also, the whips that are done in the Demons set are a spectacular hack job of animation and visual FX.

 

The other problem is that you can't have an "interactive" animation of a PC doing things to an NPC which then feedback into the PC animation.  This is the reason why there are no wrestling moves or grappling moves, because those require interaction (and inter-reaction) between the involved avatars.  You can grapple when the avatars are roughly the same size, but not when you've got a 4ft to 10ft range of avatar sizes (not to mention Giant Monsters!).  And lets be honest, most of what you'd want to be doing with a whip power is going to be somewhat interactive (think entangling a $Target in a Hold type power using a toggle that prevents other powers from activating until the Hold is toggled off) in some form or fashion.  Given the limitations of the game engine (and the rendering system for animations) the best you're going to get is 9 different animations for lashing a $Target with a whip.  You wind up with a melee (plus a little extra range for the "reach" of the whip) powerset that's a bit like War Mace (with "reach") but is mostly single target and might have Knockdowns as its secondary effect and ... not much else going for it ... which is a whole lot of work to make what would objectively speaking be a substandard smashing damage melee powerset (penalizing damage output for a little extra range to balance it all out).

 

CAN it be done?

With enough time, tools and tech manuals ... anything is possible.

 

Would the effort be worth it?

Paragon Studios considered the question and decided that no it would not be worth the effort.

Cool?  Sure.  "Viable" in the way that Players measure such things ... not so much ...

[VileTerror]

I dunno . . . I haven't seen Paragon's internal documents on the matter, but I already see evidence of some potential interplay that could be capitalized on.  For example, Hell on Earth; ever watch the animation on that one?  Including your target Henchdemon's reaction?  I think the tech's there already.  It might just need a little outside perspective to tap in to it.

 

And with 4 animations available, I think that's actually enough to make a set which includes Whips as part of it.  Like "Whip and Pistol."  Doing a few left-handed Pistol animations should be a LOT easier than trying to make 4 or 5 more Whip Animations.  

The REAL challenge, as far as I can see, is getting rid of all that flame particle crap on the Whip attacks so that we can have a normal leather whip.  Or a bio-organic "tentacle" whip.  Adding something like a chain or barbed wire whip would pose a significant animation challenge, but would be super cool!

[Zepp]

I actually put together a work-up for this last July...

 

Infernal Assault (19.07.09.14.23.01): Whips and hell unleashed.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Zepp

[Redlynne]

36 minutes ago, VileTerror said:

I already see evidence of some potential interplay that could be capitalized on.  For example, Hell on Earth; ever watch the animation on that one?  Including your target Henchdemon's reaction?  I think the tech's there already.  It might just need a little outside perspective to tap in to it.

That one works because it's an interaction with a VERY controlled $Target.  The permutations of possibility for how the interaction can go is VERY limited.  That constraint disappears when dealing with a much larger set of variables ... such as ANY NPC $Target in the game, not just your own Demons.

 

Try pulling off the same stunt on a Rularuu Overseer eyeball.

We'll just start with "how's that supposed to work?" and stop right there.

39 minutes ago, VileTerror said:

I think that's actually enough to make a set which includes Whips as part of it.  Like "Whip and Pistol."

I can easily envision blending the 3 available Whip animations with another 5 available Pistol animations plus a Build Up styled animation in order to make a powerset.  THAT would be something that could be done.  It wouldn't require "new" development of animations at least.

41 minutes ago, VileTerror said:

The REAL challenge, as far as I can see, is getting rid of all that flame particle crap on the Whip attacks so that we can have a normal leather whip.  Or a bio-organic "tentacle" whip.  Adding something like a chain or barbed wire whip would pose a significant animation challenge, but would be super cool!

I believe the flame FX were done to conceal the hackery of what was going on underneath to get the animation right.

[VileTerror]

Except the Rularuu Overseer is also effected by Shin Breaker, so that's kind of a bad example to try and put in to play here, no?
But sure; there might be something under the hood which would complicate the animations for the interplay of action and reaction.  I'd be curious to see a more in-depth analysis of the underlying code for it.

 

But, yeah, on that last point.  I would like to see the whip animations in slow motion, with the flame decals shut off.  Let's see just how much of a monstrosity we're dealing with there.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

maybe we can co-opt some plant animations for the whips interaction effects?

[aethereal]

There aren't enough whip animations for a whip melee, but there are enough for a hellfire assault or manipulation set.

[Outrider_01]

2 hours ago, VileTerror said:

"Whip and Pistol."

Oh a new powerset! Pistol Whipping!  Unloaded pistol thats like War Mace but much faster recharge.  Maybe like 2 or 3 short ranged attacks, would be awesome!

[Alchemystic]

Since there are only 4 powers with a whip animation, you would need 3 more powers to make a full melee powerset if you include the standard Builf Up and Taunt powers.

 

So since there's only that many, an Assault or Manipulation powerset may be more viable.

 

I suggested a working concept for a Manipulation set over on this thread;

 

 

[Sif]

2 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

Oh a new powerset! Pistol Whipping!  Unloaded pistol thats like War Mace but much faster recharge.  Maybe like 2 or 3 short ranged attacks, would be awesome!

The t9 would be "Throw Gun": After missing your shots and running out of ammo, you can throw the gun at the enemy! But, beware, that you only have one gun. So... you'll have to remember to walk over and pick it up, where ever it landed.

 

When the gun's on the ground, you can still activate the other powers, but, the gun is missing and no damage is done.

[MetaVileTerror]

You point your finger at the target and go "Pew Pew" which Stuns them for a moment as they laugh at your sheer audacity.

[EmmySky]

Audacity...now there's a powerset I could get behind lol

[biostem]

4 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

Since there are only 4 powers with a whip animation, you would need 3 more powers to make a full melee powerset if you include the standard Builf Up and Taunt powers.

I only see corruption, lash, and crack whip.  What else uses that animation?  Regardless, you could chain together 2 of the animations in rapid succession for an attack.  Dark melee, for instance, could be said to only have 3 attacks, with touch of fear and midnight grasp using the "reach out open hand" animation, and having a different effect applied.  It then has the taunt and 2 generic PBAoE animations for dark consumption and soul drain...

[VileTerror]

As stated:  Hell on Earth's animation.

[Doc_Scorpion]

12 hours ago, EmmySky said:

Can we get the "watch me whip" theme music for the set?  😝

No, there's only one possible theme music...
 

 

[THEDarkTyger]

7 hours ago, Sif said:

The t9 would be "Throw Gun": After missing your shots and running out of ammo, you can throw the gun at the enemy! But, beware, that you only have one gun. So... you'll have to remember to walk over and pick it up, where ever it landed.

 

When the gun's on the ground, you can still activate the other powers, but, the gun is missing and no damage is done.

Well, I mean, throwing the gun is the most powerful thing you can do with it. Remember, the bullets bounce off Superman, but even he dodges the thrown gun.

[Zepp]

3 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

No, there's only one possible theme music...
 

 

I disagree, because where there's a whip there's a way...

 

 

[kelika2]

If I remember right, Back Alley Brawler said this was a bitch and a half to animate for those 3 attacks/1 buff

 

So good luck getting a buncha volunteers to add 6 other attack animations to this.

[VileTerror]

I see your original Zepp, and raise you an emo-rock version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljEzSRQn4eM

[Pzn]

Whip melee is definitely doable.  One of the other servers already has it added as a powerset (thunderspy I believe).  But I have no idea how well it functions in game.  Hopefully the servers can work together in the future and share content and updates with each other.

 

[DR_Mechano]

18 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

Whip melee is definitely doable.  One of the other servers already has it added as a powerset (thunderspy I believe).  But I have no idea how well it functions in game.  Hopefully the servers can work together in the future and share content and updates with each other.

 

Thunderspy didn't add Whip melee, they added telekinetic assault which just used the whip animation to summon floating swords (which, to me, looked kinda jank but that's just me). They also reused all three existing whip animations for all the attacks and didn't add any more animations in.