Pipedream: Being able to use a ranged based set with Blackstaff equipped

[Ejlertson]

It's likely impossible or abhorently difficult, but imagine being able to going Fire/Ice/Electric etc. Powers with  one of the ingame wands as the animation.

[Turric]

I like it!

[Player2]

Perhaps even with an alternate skin on the wand with different color gems being selected as weapon choice, and using a different energy effect other than the darkness that the Blackwand shoots.

[Twisted Toon]

4 hours ago, Player2 said:

Perhaps even with an alternate skin on the wand with different color gems being selected as weapon choice, and using a different energy effect other than the darkness that the Blackwand shoots.

If they could alter the point of origin for the powers, then the wand could be just another alternate animation for the powers.

I might also make the wand a costume option, like the different weapon styles.

 

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

If they could alter the point of origin for the powers, then the wand could be just another alternate animation for the powers.

I might also make the wand a costume option, like the different weapon styles.

 

The second is comparatively easily done.  The first would be problematic.

 

The difficulty comes from there being only one animation for Blackwand.  That's why nothing was ever done to add it, or the Nemesis Staff, or the Ghost Slaying Axe, or Rune of Power (whatever the temp power in Croatoa is called, the one which works on ghosts), or any of the other temporary powers as custom weapons or power skins.  They have one animation, sets have 9 powers, and those powers use 4-9 different animations.  Moving the projectile emanation point would work, but the power animations weren't designed with an object in hand in most cases, so the character would be waving the wand around in really odd ways, like holding it straight up while pushing forward with both hands (an animation used in several defender primaries and blast sets).  It would be even stranger with a sets like TA and Archery, even if you changed the projectile to something more sensible than an arrow flinging out of a wand, because those sets use both hands to animate in a way completely different from traditional animations.

 

Animations would have to be reworked, in some cases significantly, or the temp power skin limited to specific powers, powers with one-handed animations.  New animations could be created and stuffed into the costume editor as additional options similar to the Noir theme for Dark Blast, too.  However it was approached, though, it would be a lot of work.

 

Personally, I don't disagree with the cool factor, it's a good idea that could really appeal to a lot of players, but Cryptic and Paragon always felt that putting in the resources necessary to create sufficient animations for an entire set wouldn't be justified unless there were a set to go with it, something which might increase their revenue.  The HC team might see it differently since they're not interested in revenue streams, but with even more limited resources, they still might not have the time to do it.  Maybe send a PM to @Piecemeal to ask about the feasibility?

[Piecemeal]

It begins! I have been SUMMONED!

 

I hate to say I haven't dabbled in this yet. I think I have enough know-how in each of the systems involved, but there's underlying things everywhere that get me yelled at on the reg for not knowing about.

 

I'll add to my wishlist of rainy day projects though!

[Twisted Toon]

5 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

The second is comparatively easily done.  The first would be problematic.

 

The difficulty comes from there being only one animation for Blackwand.  That's why nothing was ever done to add it, or the Nemesis Staff, or the Ghost Slaying Axe, or Rune of Power (whatever the temp power in Croatoa is called, the one which works on ghosts), or any of the other temporary powers as custom weapons or power skins.  They have one animation, sets have 9 powers, and those powers use 4-9 different animations.  Moving the projectile emanation point would work, but the power animations weren't designed with an object in hand in most cases, so the character would be waving the wand around in really odd ways, like holding it straight up while pushing forward with both hands (an animation used in several defender primaries and blast sets).  It would be even stranger with a sets like TA and Archery, even if you changed the projectile to something more sensible than an arrow flinging out of a wand, because those sets use both hands to animate in a way completely different from traditional animations.

 

Animations would have to be reworked, in some cases significantly, or the temp power skin limited to specific powers, powers with one-handed animations.  New animations could be created and stuffed into the costume editor as additional options similar to the Noir theme for Dark Blast, too.  However it was approached, though, it would be a lot of work.

 

Personally, I don't disagree with the cool factor, it's a good idea that could really appeal to a lot of players, but Cryptic and Paragon always felt that putting in the resources necessary to create sufficient animations for an entire set wouldn't be justified unless there were a set to go with it, something which might increase their revenue.  The HC team might see it differently since they're not interested in revenue streams, but with even more limited resources, they still might not have the time to do it.  Maybe send a PM to @Piecemeal to ask about the feasibility?

I never thought that the first one would be easy. And, I'm not holding my breath for it either.

I figure, that, if they could manage to move the origin point of the powers, then they'd be able to set up a set of wand animations for blast sets, that would only be available if the wand weapon were picked as a costume piece.

 

Actually, it is possible for them to move, or set up a new point of origin for powers, because the Fire Blast set has alternate animations for many of its attacks.

 

Since I haven't written any code in the last 15 years, I am hesitant to say that it would be "super easy, barely an inconvenience."

[Luminara]

12 hours ago, Piecemeal said:

I think I have enough know-how in each of the systems involved, but there's underlying things everywhere that get me yelled at on the reg for not knowing about.

 

Good.  If you're breaking things, you're learning how to fix things.  Keep doing that, take the lumps and don't stop.

 

And, while you're at it, I need an army of ducks.  With laser-targeted defense systems.

 

And a duck pond.

 

Get quacking.

[Luminara]

11 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

Actually, it is possible for them to move, or set up a new point of origin for powers, because the Fire Blast set has alternate animations for many of its attacks.

 

Several of the blast sets have alternate animations.  They're just recycled animations with different effects attached.  Can't do that with the Blackwand and similar powers because there's only that one animation for each of them.  Only one thing to recycle.  It would be like using Archery's Snap Shot animation for every attack in Fire Blast.  That can be done, and it wouldn't be any more difficult than it was to recycle other animations for Fire Blast, but it would look really odd and not many people would be satisfied with it.

[Bionic_Flea]

Now I'm imagining holding the staff in front of the character's face while doing any of the breath attacks.   And I want to see that in game.

 

Damn you, Ejlertson and Luminara! 

[Twisted Toon]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Several of the blast sets have alternate animations.  They're just recycled animations with different effects attached.  Can't do that with the Blackwand and similar powers because there's only that one animation for each of them.  Only one thing to recycle.  It would be like using Archery's Snap Shot animation for every attack in Fire Blast.  That can be done, and it wouldn't be any more difficult than it was to recycle other animations for Fire Blast, but it would look really odd and not many people would be satisfied with it.

I recall that a lot of the power-sets got alternate animations back on live. both Melee and Ranged.

Making a wand alt animation for blast sets, would require new animations to be made.

Which is why I think it would be a veeeeery long time in coming, if at all.

 

I'm sure someone would like to have wand alt animations for some control sets as well.

Wingardium Leviosa, anyone?

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Now I'm imagining holding the staff in front of the character's face while doing any of the breath attacks.   And I want to see that in game.

 

Don't the Carnies do that?

I'm sure the Carnies do that.

 

That's two animations which could be ganked for the Blackwand, then.  The fire-breathing Carnie animation and the default Blackwand animation.  Two or three more and it would be usable as an alternative for entire sets.

[Bionic_Flea]

What if we used an assortment of the other weapon animations from Axe, Broadsword, Mace, Staff, and Titan Weapons and then just add a particle blast at the end?

[Luminara]

12 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

What if we used an assortment of the other weapon animations from Axe, Broadsword, Mace, Staff, and Titan Weapons and then just add a particle blast at the end?

 

Eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh.  It would be really easy for the one-handed weapon animations, that's just changing a skin, but there'd have to be additional tweaking done to move the emanation point, and it would still look odd to swing a wand like a sword or mace.  It could also be done for the two-handed weapon animations, with work to move the skin into both hands instead of one hand, but would look even weirder.  The two-hand animations just weren't designed with one-hand use in mind, or for ranged particle effects in most cases.  For the ones which do display ranged particle effects, like Serpent's Reach, it would really look odd using them with a wand, even a two-handed wand.

 

Another thought occurred to me, though.  The Blackwand has a draw animation.  That could be used as a third animation for transposition in sets.

 

It would actually be a lot easier to just insert the model into the character's hands for non-attack powers.  Buffs, debuffs, turning on toggles, powers of that sort.  No projectile in most cases, so no particle emanation point to move and less concern about how goofy some of them might look because they're the less frequently used powers.  Some of those powers would also be candidates for altering to attack animations, like the Force Field buff animation (leaning forward slightly, one arm extended, casting the buff), and might be the better options to pursue for making the last one or two animations.

 

Bottom line is it is feasible, and as I keep saying, comparatively easier than making entirely new animations, and there are some ways which would be easy easy and some that would be easy but not as easy, but there's also the question of time and resource availability.  Any of these ideas can work, but the people doing these things are still learning how to manipulate the necessary tools, and doing it in their spare time, and trying to fix problems and deliver new content as well.  It's going to be a back burner project, if it's a project at all.

[Ejlertson]

Yes Carnies have a Tourch to mouth firebreath.

 

There is also a temp power in Croatia I believe. A ghost wand or something like that. I think it's Divining Rod.

 

And Loa Bone on V-Side

Edited October 15, 2020 by Ejlertson

[Bionic_Flea]

On 10/14/2020 at 3:19 PM, Luminara said:

it would still look odd to swing a wand like a sword or mace

I was looking around in the character creator and I could envision up-down animations like hack, cleave, or clobber for a single target blast, one of the whirls for PBAoE, and any of the swinging right to left as cones.  Some of them already have particle effects at the supposed point of contact.  I grant you that original animations for a wand/staff blast set would be better but I think there is enough to work with.

[Twisted Toon]

You would need a swish and flick for any power that did knock up.

[Clave Dark 5]

On 10/15/2020 at 12:00 AM, Ejlertson said:

Yes Carnies have a Tourch to mouth firebreath.

 

There is also a temp power in Croatia I believe. A ghost wand or something like that. I think it's Divining Rod.

 

And Loa Bone on V-Side

Indeed:  https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Divining_Rod

 

Looks a lot like the black wand in fact.  I've never had it that I know of though, so I dunno what animation is associated with it.

[Clave Dark 5]

On 10/13/2020 at 4:34 AM, Player2 said:

Perhaps even with an alternate skin on the wand with different color gems being selected as weapon choice, and using a different energy effect other than the darkness that the Blackwand shoots.

This reminded me that there's already also a secondary wand design in the game, the one that you get as a temp power from a villain contact:  https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Loa_Bone

[Player2]

2 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

This reminded me that there's already also a secondary wand design in the game, the one that you get as a temp power from a villain contact:  https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Loa_Bone

There's also the divining rod.

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Divining_Rod

[Zeraphia]

On 10/13/2020 at 8:25 PM, Piecemeal said:

It begins! I have been SUMMONED!

 

I hate to say I haven't dabbled in this yet. I think I have enough know-how in each of the systems involved, but there's underlying things everywhere that get me yelled at on the reg for not knowing about.

 

I'll add to my wishlist of rainy day projects though!

I'm absolutely stoked about the fact you're taking this suggestion seriously! I've been wanting to make a few wizard/sorceress characters that have a more "magical" battle theme 🙂!!! woohoo! Thank you ❤️

 

I know, no guarantees but still, just the fact that ideas like this are given some credit makes me overjoyed!

[oedipus_tex]

With sets like Assault Rifle, does the origin point of the particles align to the weapon or is it fixed on the player? That would be worth noting.

 

A cheat-y way to do this might be to just keep the current animations, put the wand in hand, and obscure the origin point with a particle effect burst at cast time that hides the spawn location.

[oedipus_tex]

While this is by no means definitive, a bit of good news is it seems at least some powers do line up with the an origin point on the weapon rather than a fixed origin on the player. Of course there are other factors that might make this difficult or inconsistent across powers, but its good to know.

 

 

[Ejlertson]

Just realised this.
Vanguar Wizards has a Staff/Wand that fires different powers from it.

[RogerWilco]

On 10/13/2020 at 5:07 PM, Twisted Toon said:

If they could alter the point of origin for the powers, then the wand could be just another alternate animation for the powers.

I might also make the wand a costume option, like the different weapon styles.

 

I could see a Magic Wand powerset for sentinels, with some staff Fighting defence animations.

 

Adding it as an alternative animation to existing sets would be tricky, especially if you want to be able to customize the wand in the costume designer.

Something like what some of the melee powers do could work, but with very little or no customization. Think the hammers of stone or the fire sword of fire.