Archery's snipe animation needs some work

[RikOz]

Archery's snipe, "Ranged Shot", needs some help.

 

The problem is in the animation. There's this ridiculous delay after the shot is fired. Draw the bow, hold it, aim carefully, loose ... and then just stand there for 2-3 seconds, as if your character is looking to see, "Did I get 'em? Did I get 'em?" Other blaster sets don't seem to have this issue. I can snipe and then instantly start my next attack.

 

As a result of this post-snipe delay, I may take out my first target with that one shot, but then I end up with the rest of the spawn standing on top of me before I can even start my second attack. Or, as I encountered over and over again in the Devouring Earth arc one of my archers just did, the post-snipe delay gives the lieutenants (who usually don't go down with one shot) all the time they need to summon their emanators and/or swarms and now I have to use considerably more attacks to finish them off, and of course I still end up with the minions all up in my face. I finally figured out how to stop their summoning: Hit them with Stunning Shot first, then a quick snipe. That prevents the summons, but with the reduced damage of the quick snipe, I need to shoot them a few more times, and once again that allows the minions to invade my personal space.

 

Compare that to my fire blasters: I can snipe the lieutenant, hit him with a second finishing attack if necessary, then take out the minions--all before any of them get anywhere close to me.

 

I can sort of guess the original reasoning for that post-snipe delay: the actual "shot" part of "Ranged Shot" is considerably quicker than other snipes, but they needed to make sure the actual full attack animation lasted as long as the other sets' full animation times. In that case, I would suggest removing those extra seconds where the archer is doing absolutely nothing from the end of the animation, and just make the pre-shot aiming part of the animation longer by the same amount. (I know, easier said than done.)

 

The same problem exists, though to a lesser degree, with most other Archery attacks. The whole set seems slower than other blaster sets, without any extra damage to compensate.

[Akisan]

Probably a bug (but could be WAI): If you have an attack queued when Ranged Shot activates, the queued attack will start before Ranged Shot finishes animating - so you don't lose the extra ambush time if you've already prepped to either finish off your target, or attack a different one.  As an added bonus, if you queued Snap Shot, it feels like you're pulling off the 2-arrow draw.

If you queued up anything else, though, the animation sort of "snaps" between releasing Ranged Shot, returning to combat stance, and then releasing the second attack. (It's kind of jarring, honestly, and why I think this may be a bug. Hopefully tightening/fixing the animation will fix that feeling)

 

Also, I don't think Ranged Shot was "better" than the other snipes in the past, as far as animation time is concerned.  IIRC, it had the same Interruptible time, but then held the stance for an extra second or so before releasing (and wasn't interruptible during that extended hold).  So, same wind-up before damage proc, but "shorter" animation because the interruptible stance lingered into the actual animation.  These days though, it feels like that extra aiming time was removed (probably about the time the interruptible window on snipes were heavily reduced), and a waiting time was added at the end of the animation to put it back to the full time value.

[srmalloy]

On 12/25/2022 at 1:39 PM, RikOz said:

The problem is in the animation. There's this ridiculous delay after the shot is fired. Draw the bow, hold it, aim carefully, loose ... and then just stand there for 2-3 seconds, as if your character is looking to see, "Did I get 'em? Did I get 'em?"

The problem is in more than your standing there after you loose; a more serious problem is in the' hold it' part, where you're standing there with your point of aim waving around like you're trying to hold too heavy a draw weight.

[Troo]

On 12/25/2022 at 1:39 PM, RikOz said:

The same problem exists, though to a lesser degree, with most other Archery attacks. The whole set seems slower than other blaster sets, without any extra damage to compensate.

 

Archery is supposed to be relatively quick and has higher accuracy than other sets. That is it's shtick.

If redraws are happening and there's a pause at the end of animations.. that would be annoying.

 

I'm going to double check later but you may have found a bug as Akison stated. It could be Arcanatime vs Animation Time Before Effect..?

 

Aimed Shot	1	Ranged, Light DMG(Lethal)	Cast Time 1.67 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.848 sec Root Time 1.67 sec Animation Time 1.667 sec Animation Time Before Effect 0.8 sec
Snap Shot	1	Ranged, Light DMG(Lethal)	Cast Time 1.0 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.188 sec Root Time 1.0 sec Animation Time 1.0 sec Animation Time Before Effect 0.733 se
Fistful of Arrows	2	Ranged (Cone), Light DMG(Lethal)	Cast Time 1.17 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.32 sec Root Time 1.17 sec Animation Time 1.167 sec Animation Time Before Effect 0.9 sec
Blazing Arrow	6	Ranged, Superior DMG(Lethal), Minor DoT(Fire)	Cast Time 1.83 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.98 sec Root Time 1.83 sec Animation Time 1.833 sec Animation Time Before Effect 1.6 sec
Aim	8	Self +To Hit, +DMG
Explosive Arrow	12	Ranged (Targeted AoE), Light DMG(Lethal/Fire), Knockback Max Targets Hit 16	Cast Time 1.0 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.188 sec Root Time 1.0 sec Animation Time 1.0 sec Animation Time Before Effect 0.8 sec
Ranged Shot	18	Sniper, High DMG(Lethal), Self +Range	Cast Time 1.67 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.848 sec Root Time 1.67 sec Animation Time 1.667 sec Animation Time Before Effect 0.8 sec
Stunning Shot	22	Ranged Disorient, Minor DMG(Smashing)	Cast Time 1.0 sec Cast Arcanatime 1.188 sec Root Time 1.0 sec Animation Time 1.0 sec Animation Time Before Effect 0.767 sec
Rain of Arrows	26	Ranged (Location AoE), Extreme DoT(Lethal) Max Targets Hit = ALOT	Cast Time 2.0 sec Cast Arcanatime 2.244 sec Root Time 2.0 sec Animation Time 2.0 sec Animation Time Before Effect 1.8 sec

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Troo

[Saiyajinzoningen]

yeah what i dont get is 90% of archery powers have the same animation BUT different cast time? like whats going on am i digging for that 1 special arrow or something? 

[Troo]

7 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

yeah what i dont get is 90% of archery powers have the same animation BUT different cast time? like whats going on am i digging for that 1 special arrow or something? 

 

yep

 

aiming a little extra

shooting a little further

lighting the arrow on fire

 

snap shot, stun, or explosive are the same time.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

*shrug* i just want the cast times to match the animation OR gimme alternative animations.....curving arrows perhaps, light trails. heck at this point id settle for different sound effects for each arrow shot......

[biostem]

12 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

yeah what i dont get is 90% of archery powers have the same animation BUT different cast time? like whats going on am i digging for that 1 special arrow or something?

Are you asking for an in-game explanation or a meta-one?  In the latter, it's a balance issue - power animation is factored into that power's damage/recharge/stats, etc...  Think about dual pistols, beam rifle, or AR for a moment - all your character is doing is aiming then pulling the trigger - why should there be such varying animation times?

[Saiyajinzoningen]

yup all those you mentioned have different animations tho whether its waving a gun back and forth or shooting up in the air at least the different animation justifies the different cast time. With arrows there is no variation every power is literally the exact same animation

[RikOz]

I mentioned the balance thing in my OP - the animation needs to be the same length as other snipes.

 

The practical difference is that, when I snipe with Fire or Energy for example, the actual blast itself takes longer, and my target is affected for the duration of the attack. In other words, a DE lieutenant isn't summoning emanators or swarms while he's bouncing across the room from my Energy snipe. If I'm Fire sniping him, he's going "AAAAAAAAAAAAH! IT BURNS!" for the duration of the fire hitting him, not summoning things. And I can then hit him with a second attack (if necessary) the instant my snipe finishes, before he can get off his summons. With Archery, it's a quick poke that is over as soon as it starts, and then I just stand there while he starts summoning things.

[Rudra]

Actually, no. It depends on how the game chooses to treat the attack. I've hit DE Herders, Guardians, and Sentinels with my energy snipe, knocked them flat on the ground or sent them flying, and still watched as an emanator spawned where the lieutenant was. (Edit: Not to mention how often I fail to do any KB to them and they summon right away as well.)

Edited January 4, 2023 by Rudra

[srmalloy]

39 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I've hit DE Herders, Guardians, and Sentinels with my energy snipe, knocked them flat on the ground or sent them flying, and still watched as an emanator spawned where the lieutenant was.

It depends on the mob's reaction to your attack. As people have seen, mobs that get attacked have an 'instant' response controlled by the server that will go off unless you one-shot your target (and sometimes even that's not enough -- I've forgotten the number of times where I've sniped a mob and taken them down, only to have them shoot me with their pistol or whatever after they hit the ground; this may be due to a perception quirk, where the mob notices me before the snipe goes off, and starts to shoot back, then gets defeated by the snipe, but their attack completes). With the example of the DE above, if the mob's first response is to drop an emanator, the drop happens at the location of the mob when they get hit, before any knockback is applied. Summoning The Swarm, on the other hand, is a pet summons, and the pet doesn't appear until the end of the animation, so if their first response is to summon The Swarm, if they get knocked back, the summon will happen where they land.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, RikOz said:

I mentioned the balance thing in my OP - the animation needs to be the same length as other snipes.

Fire Blast's Blazing Bolt:

• Cast Time: 1.67 sec
• Cast Arcanatime: 1.848 sec
• Root Time: 1.67 sec
• Animation Time: 1.667 sec
• Animation Time Before Effect: 0.733 sec

Beam Rifle's Penetrating Ray:

• Cast Time: 1.67 sec
• Cast Arcanatime: 1.848 sec
• Root Time: 1.67 sec
• Animation Time: 1.667 sec
• Animation Time Before Effect: 0.967 sec

 

Archery's Ranged Shot:

• Cast Time: 1.67 sec
• Cast Arcanatime: 1.848 sec
• Root Time: 1.67 sec
• Animation Time: 1.667 sec
• Animation Time Before Effect: 0.8 sec

 

All data pulled from City of Data.

 

Looks like archery's snipe animation is in line with the other snipes. Same cast time. Same arcana time. Same root time. Same animation time. Average time before effect. (Edit: There are faster snipes. However, archery is not out of norm when compared to other snipes. From your description, that pause at the end, it sounds like a bug like @Akisan said.)

Edited January 5, 2023 by Rudra

[WumpusRat]

On 12/26/2022 at 9:51 PM, srmalloy said:

The problem is in more than your standing there after you loose; a more serious problem is in the' hold it' part, where you're standing there with your point of aim waving around like you're trying to hold too heavy a draw weight.

Well, you ARE drawing back a bow that's capable of firing arrows that can pierce through tank armor. I'd imagine it's got a pretty sizable draw weight.

 

That said, there are several powers that have animation bugs at the end of them to make them delay your next action. The most egregious one I've seen so far is the Mercenary MM set, which roots your character into a 4-second animation for what's supposed to be a 2-second cast for all the summons and one of the buffing powers.

Edited January 6, 2023 by WumpusRat

[srmalloy]

10 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

I'd imagine it's got a pretty sizable draw weight.

The issue is that, if your arrow is wobbling that much when you're holding full draw, your nock hand is moving around, which means you have an inconsistent draw, either because you're drawing a bow with too much draw weight for you to hold, or your muscles aren't conditioned to the effort of the draw. And since this is presumably your primary activity, the latter should not be the case. The arrow should not be bouncing around as you aim. If that means the animation is mostly you standing there 'doing nothing', well, so is the AR animation for Snipe.

[WumpusRat]

5 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

either because you're drawing a bow with too much draw weight for you to hold, or your muscles aren't conditioned to the effort of the draw. And since this is presumably your primary activity, the latter should not be the case.

Devil's advocate: You're constantly upping your damage as you level. And fighting heavier and heavier-armored targets. Freak tankers, Crey power armor, Nemesis hulks, etc. Your arrows are capable of punching through even that armor and dealing damage. So you could certainly argue that you're constantly having to up the draw weight on the bow to compensate for the armored people you're fighting (not to mention the ones who are just naturally insanely durable with bullet-bouncing skin). So you may well be continually pushing the limits on the weight you can draw, which can give you a never-ending wobble in your hold position.

 

Sarcasm aside, I wouldn't be against tightening up a lot of the animations. Hell, I'd absolutely love if the cartoonishly-huge arrows were replaced with something more normal-sized for archery. I like the set, but the silly looking arrows do dull some of my joy with it.

 

<edit> And now thinking about it, the idea of creating a very thin character with few muscles who has the largest possible bow and strains to draw it constantly would be a fun concept.

Edited January 6, 2023 by WumpusRat

[srmalloy]

9 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

So you may well be continually pushing the limits on the weight you can draw, which can give you a never-ending wobble in your hold position.

The problem is that, when this happens, you're killing your accuracy, because you can't hold a consistent aim point. And since the snipe needs to be more accurate because of its longer range, having it jumping around works against the concept. I can see how you'd be pushing yourself in practice to be drawing more weight, but when actually out fighting villains, you don't want to be handicapping yourself.

[Glacier Peak]

Just saw the title of the thread and thought does anyone use the instant snipe IO or is that just PvP only?

[RikOz]

19 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Just saw the title of the thread and thought does anyone use the instant snipe IO or is that just PvP only?

Had it for a while on my fire blaster. Got rid of it because it completely removes the ability to do a proper, full-power snipe.

[Glacier Peak]

3 hours ago, RikOz said:

Had it for a while on my fire blaster. Got rid of it because it completely removes the ability to do a proper, full-power snipe.

Oh I didn't realize it changes the damage. I had it in my snipe powers for the longest time on my PvP Blasters because it's another attack in the chain that can get those pesky runners if their close to the red on their health bar.