Weekly Discussion 49: Alternate FX/Animations.

[Peacemoon]

6 minutes ago, Shocktacular said:

Also, somewhere, somehow, I should be able to check what alignment someone is... or is this already possible and I missed it somewhere?
(I realize that this is off-topic here.  Anyone know where I should post about this?)

Alignment is something people can toggle on to reveal, but the default is off. You still have to ID them to find out though. Arguably it’s more important than their origin! 
 

Edit, I have some vague memory of alignment not being something that should be brandished unless the player wanted it revealed.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Peacemoon

[TraumaTrain]

Propel (Gravity) but without the junk summoning. The animation itself is fine, but have it draw up a ball of light or maybe a small version of the Singularity that dissipates when it hits.

 

It's a good power, but I didn't take it on my gravity dude Knockdown simply because of the junk.

[Shocktacular]

4 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Alignment is something people can toggle on to reveal, but the default is off. You still have to ID them to find out though. Arguably it’s more important than their origin! 

Exactly!  Origin is largely for flavor anymore, whereas alignment affects several logistical aspects of the game (who can team with whom, who can get missions where, who can go to which zones, etc.). Mainly, the reason I want to be able to see someone's origin is so that when I get a response to "xx lvl team lfm" I can tell if that person can actually come and team with me or not [Yes, I tend to run villainside content, but even when I specify that it's a villain team, I still get do-gooders trying to come help 😠 ]

[Peacemoon]

42 minutes ago, TraumaTrain said:

Propel (Gravity) but without the junk summoning. The animation itself is fine, but have it draw up a ball of light or maybe a small version of the Singularity that dissipates when it hits.

 

It's a good power, but I didn't take it on my gravity dude Knockdown simply because of the junk.

I love the junk, but the best thing would be if the summoned item was the same for all players. I doubt this can be changed but it’s a shame we all see different things, like when my husband is excited because he just whacked them with a forklift and I’m like “no that was clearly a desk!”

Its fun but can be slightly immersive breaking when we know we are seeing different items!

Edited May 5, 2020 by Peacemoon

[Dropwing]

Was just thinking how cool it would be to have Beam Rifle animations without the rifle, maybe reusing attack animations so it comes from your character’s hands. 
 

I know I know, the set is called beam rifle but a no weapon option would open up the set to other origins besides technology and other character concepts. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Dropwing

[Sovera]

15 hours ago, Shocktacular said:

Also, some of my rad armor characters are more in the "I was irradiated 'til I glowed" category, so having glowballs buzzing around them doesn't make sense.  Can we get alternate animations for those powers, or even just Minimal FX options?

After much tinkering I was unable to color the swirly glowballs. 'Bright Radiation' makes the saturation super light so coloring them blue is impossible as they stay white. I can make them purple ish, green-ish, but not blue. 'Dark Radiation' is just saturation turned way up and 90% of the colors are simply black. This is a repeat over many of the sets that have a 'Dark' option.

 

Not quite on the subject but players are also mostly cut off from black FX. Most of the time choosing the darkest color will not make a darkest color but an invisible effect. This is good for the minimal effect crowd and I welcome it, but it blocks having a dark aura.

 

Also many of the auras act like smoke which is weird since nothing in the name or the FX seems to imply it is smoke, but things like the Pantheon aura will fill a camera with kludge as we fly and force constant little shifts to have a clue where the heck we are aiming our flight.

[nihilii]

15 hours ago, ArchVileTerror said:

And to that end, I'd also like to encourage any animations with the same activation time should be shared with any Powers that use said activation time.

This is a really neat suggestion. The costume editor clutter would be unreal, but so would our options for making truly unique looking characters.

[ArchVileTerror]

Aye.  An overhaul to the Costume Creator UI is kind of one of those pipedream wishes, as I understand it.  Although, it would be nice if it could be cleaned up too.  If perhaps an alias list could be opted in to the backend, so we would be able to sort alphabetically, that would be super keen.  

BUT . . . that's a different weekly discussion.

[Gulbasaur]

16 hours ago, GM Miss said:

>What powersets could use some alternate animations - and what would they be?

 

* Bangs saucepans together and starts jumping up and down *

 

Literally any kind of customisation on widows!

[SuperPlyx]

Minimal FX for Patron/Epic pool powers really does seem like something that should have been done long ago.

 

And I may be in the minority but I hate Katana's Divine Avalanche animation.

[Peacemoon]

The Defender ATO procs could be toned down. 
The absorb shields has a tiny FF graphic That fires under my character’s feet everytime it procs, and each time it makes the FF shield sound. Since it is 5PPM, it is constantly happening. 

The heal proc has the default Empath heal target effect on all characters healed. The green is annoying since my Rad/ made his heal orange. I’d rather it did nothing visually then give everyone a green glow!

The FF sound on every other blast is the worst though.

[Caulderone]

16 hours ago, RobotLove said:

"No weapon" for fire/ice/stone melee.

Absolutely.  An all weapon option would be nice, too.

2 hours ago, Dropwing said:

Was just thinking how cool it would be to have Beam Rifle animations without the rifle, maybe reusing attack animations so it comes from your character’s hands.

I like that idea a lot.  I could totally see a "Beam" character without the gun.

[Parabola]

41 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

The Defender ATO procs could be toned down. 
The absorb shields has a tiny FF graphic That fires under my character’s feet everytime it procs, and each time it makes the FF shield sound. Since it is 5PPM, it is constantly happening. 

The heal proc has the default Empath heal target effect on all characters healed. The green is annoying since my Rad/ made his heal orange. I’d rather it did nothing visually then give everyone a green glow!

So many things to second but yes very much this. All procs with visual fx would benefit from customisation options.

 

I'll also add my voice to the chorus calling for the ability to neuter our own view of other people's customisations. I think two options would be useful, one that sets everything you see to default settings and another that sets everything you see to as minimal as it will go. I would use the first in busy teams as necessary and the second all the time in leagues.

 

And more customisation options for everything please :). Particular bugbears of mine are the lack of any customisation on trick arrow/tactical arrow and the visual loudness of earth control fx. The latter really don't need to be as physically big as they are. Most immobilise powers have fx that reach up to the knees of enemies at most and tend to be transparent anyway. Stone cages utterly obliterates the enemies in ugly and opaque fx. I love earth control but hate some of the power fx.

 

Oh and one more. Auras currently don't apply anything to wings (and probably other back items). This looks really odd. The one option we have is for a smouldering effect on wings but that doesn't even match the smouldering body aura properly. Options to extend auras to body+back would be great.

[Nemeroff]

9 hours ago, Cix said:

Pretty pretty please offer an alternative to the squat thrust Assassin's Strike animations, used by Dark Melee, Energy Melee, Fiery Melee, etc...

This.

[Nemeroff]

More variety of objects for Gravity Control's Propel.

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, parabola said:

I'll also add my voice to the chorus calling for the ability to neuter our own view of other people's customisations.

I would love this.  I would be horrfied to have to be the one to code it. But it would be nice, IF possible, to have a file on each players client that says "play animation A if someone (not necessarily you) uses power B"

• there was a whole thread about people unhappy with the Jolting effect on friendlies for Electrical Affinity.  If players could control how it renders on thier own screen, that issue is moot.
• earth control.  I like the giant big blocks of rock, and I would not willingly use a minimal effects option for them.  It makes Medusa Girl feel like she's really encasing them in stone.  But I do hear many voices asking for a minimal fx option.  If other people can make thier screen show a minimal view while I get current look, everyone's happy. 
• for hierarchy, I think we're looking at
  • if an animation / look is chosen on the PC where it to be rendered, then play that animation.  
  • else, play the animation chosen by the user of the power with thier own color customization (as it does now)
  • else, play default animation (if the user of the power is an NPC, or other source that has no customization)
• I'm not sure how horrifying that would be in terms of what information needs to be sent to each player's PC when tons of powers are being spammed all at once (ex: a Hami raid), but I'm kind of assuming the majority of that must already be sent to each players PC, so it can render the appropriate colors, etc?

[GM Miss]

Maximum FX for everything, I hear you guys loud and clear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....😜

But seriously though - Shadow fall only affecting teams please.

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, Sovera said:

After much tinkering I was unable to color the swirly glowballs. 'Bright Radiation' makes the saturation super light so coloring them blue is impossible as they stay white. I can make them purple ish, green-ish, but not blue. 'Dark Radiation' is just saturation turned way up and 90% of the colors are simply black. This is a repeat over many of the sets that have a 'Dark' option.

Many sets have that problem...  Your ability to customize is limited by the "baked in" aspects of the power.  *Looks sternly at Fire.*

[Seigmoraig]

Turning off the FX for OTHER players in my interface would be nice. Sometimes in big teams it get real busy with all the spell fx and costume fx (path auras specifically) it gets a bit confusing as to what is happening

[Galaxy Brain]

Proliferation of all animations within X activation times for all powers pls

[MrSnottyPants]

I'd like to see options for powers that use effects that don't make sense for all origins.  Like Medicine and the new Experimentation.  Wands instead of guns?

 

Is it possible for procs to inherit power colors?  My electric dom's ATO procs a fire ball - be less jarring if it was at least in electricity colors.

[Brutal Justice]

I love the boomy smashyness of stone melee and earth control.  I really enjoy the minimal fx for ice armor, I can work with auras but powers that cover my costume are rough.  I have seen some excellent use of the full fx for bio armor and they always make me feel inferior creativity wise.  

 

The crouching double fist assassin strike really needs attention.  I feel like half the AS animations are this animation. (Hyperbole)  I didn’t like it once I still don’t like it five times later.  I was extremely disappointed with it on fire melee.

 

I don’t like the “smell my hands” energy transfer animation on melee attacks.  It works for me on a ranged attack but just doesn’t seem right for melee.  

 

Obviously new animations would be amazing.  After you have played the game for so long and played so many different powersets, you recognize every reskinned animation.  I just used X animation for Y power.  Broadsword, warmace, and battle axe have all the same animations.  I feel like most of rad melee is just a recolor.   The animation for radiation siphon doesn’t even make sense.   Nice animation, but as a life steal?   

 

I also don’t like the left handed/two handed weapon run.  It feels too...constipated.  Especially on a huge guy.  I don’t know if my arms rubbing on my lats will start a fire first or my thighs rubbing together.  I use ninja run on toons that shouldn’t even ninja just to avoid that run animation.  

[Lost Deep]

After playing some with a Necromancy MM, I think the way that noises stack in this game needs to be looked at. Every time I enter a new area, all the upgrade noises play: wwhhhhOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHhh. It's quite deafening. This is likely the same thing with other powers with loud noises that can play at the same time, and it might be a relatively simple fix inside the game's audio mixing?

[Parabola]

Another thing that would be great would be to extend the colour palette available for different customisations. The one available for ice powers is particularly limited. I'm not sure I understand the need for a seperate palatte for earth/plant powers either.

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, MrSnottyPants said:

Is it possible for procs to inherit power colors?  My electric dom's ATO procs a fire ball - be less jarring if it was at least in electricity colors.

The proc would still be doing Fire damage I assume, so it would probably need to be a fire animation. 

That said, I could see wanting a blue/white flame to go with electrical blast. 

 

Certainly for my Ninja/Cold MM, I've wanted a Blue Oni with blue-colored powers.  (blue fire sword, etc).  It's firmly on my Daydream List, not on a list of things I think I'm likely to see.  But colorizing MM pets might be a babystep on the way to full customization.... someday?  🙂