Shield Defense for Sentinels!

[Wavicle]

  On 6/5/2023 at 2:47 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Everyone who's saying this won't happen because of animations is spot on.

The Shield animation sequencers are one of the hackiest in the entire game, a game which is already notoriously clunky...

Adding new animations to it is extremely unlikely given how difficult it is for us to make new animations currently, on-top of we would be adding them to arguably one of the most volatile animation control systems in the game.

The majority of complex animation-related enhancements or features fall under "technically possible, but is too difficult/time consuming with the tools available to our team for us to be able to realistically commit to."

Plugins and scripts need to be written to add full compatibility to modern 3D/animation tools that allow them to output to City of Heroes' unique data formats if any major ground-breaking animation work is to occur.

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I for one want Holstered Shields more than I want Shield Sentinels.

[Cobalt Arachne]

  On 6/5/2023 at 2:49 PM, Wavicle said:

I for one want Holstered Shields more than I want Shield Sentinels.

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My current plan is to go back and see how feasible this is once I have finished all the weapons, but given how cthulian the shield sequencers are, I can't commit to it being possible until I've familiarized myself further with it's setup and nuances.

[Bionic_Flea]

  On 6/5/2023 at 2:47 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Adding new animations to it is extremely unlikely given how difficult it is for us to make new animations currently, on-top of we would be adding them to arguably one of the most volatile animation control systems in the game.

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[Cobalt Arachne]

  On 6/5/2023 at 3:10 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

 

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Naomi told me it took them about roughly ~24 hours of work to create each single(1) second of new animation across all three models for the inner tube emotes using the one extremely old animation application we have that is compatible with City of Heroes.

Until we have modern 3D tool compatibility that allows our limited time investments to pay-off in a realistic way, this is a 0% chance.
Time is our most restrictive and valuable resource as volunteer developers, anything with an extremely poor/disproportionate amount of work-to-results ratio is basically not going to happen.

[FupDup]

  On 6/5/2023 at 3:23 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Naomi told me it took them about roughly ~24 hours of work to create each single(1) second of new animation across all three models for the inner tube emotes using the one extremely old animation application we have that is compatible with City of Heroes.

Until we have modern 3D tool compatibility that allows our limited time investments to pay-off in a realistic way, this is a 0% chance.
Time is our most restrictive and valuable resource as volunteer developers, anything with an extremely poor/disproportionate amount of work-to-results ratio is basically not going to happen.

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Cobalt, from a coding standpoint is it possible for the shield to be attached to the side of the character's left glove as if it was just a giant costume piece rather than a separate weapon in your hand? That might be able to bypass some of the animation jank because the shield would just move with the left glove. 

 

Admittedly that could cause a lot of clipping with the big shields but I'm willing to live with that. Or maybe restrict Sents to just the smaller shields with less clipping if it's really bad. 

[biostem]

  On 6/5/2023 at 3:23 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Naomi told me it took them about roughly ~24 hours of work to create each single(1) second of new animation across all three models for the inner tube emotes using the one extremely old animation application we have that is compatible with City of Heroes.

Until we have modern 3D tool compatibility that allows our limited time investments to pay-off in a realistic way, this is a 0% chance.
Time is our most restrictive and valuable resource as volunteer developers, anything with an extremely poor/disproportionate amount of work-to-results ratio is basically not going to happen.

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I don't doubt that it would require work, but you already have animations, with a shield, for:

 

ice blast

energy torrent

laser beam eyes, (same as X-Ray beam)

fire blast

fire ball

(dark) torrent

dark blast

nightfall

and the list goes on, (if you take into account all APP and PPP blast powers that melee ATs, who can use a shield, have access to).  I'm also fairly certain that many of the non-blast APP/PPP powers share animations with other blast powers not mentioned.  Did all those powers have to be created and/or modified in special ways to work with shield defense?

[Cobalt Arachne]

  On 6/5/2023 at 11:12 PM, biostem said:

I don't doubt that it would require work, but you already have animations, with a shield, for:

 

ice blast

energy torrent

laser beam eyes, (same as X-Ray beam)

fire blast

fire ball

(dark) torrent

dark blast

nightfall

and the list goes on, (if you take into account all APP and PPP blast powers that melee ATs, who can use a shield, have access to).  I'm also fairly certain that many of the non-blast APP/PPP powers share animations with other blast powers not mentioned.  Did all those powers have to be created and/or modified in special ways to work with shield defense?

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I'm not a powers dev, so any sets that don't use weapons aren't going to involve me. My comments were only in regards to weapons FX, which I am the main dev for.

Specifically Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Archery, Dual Pistols, and the Ninja Mastery epic pool; All of which would be entirely incompatible with Shield Defense.

[biostem]

  On 6/5/2023 at 11:22 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Specifically Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Archery, Dual Pistols, and the Ninja Mastery epic pool; All of which would be entirely incompatible with Shield Defense.

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Gotcha, and like how shield already excludes some melee sets, just carry that restriction over for Sentinels.

[Wavicle]

Ideally someday even those restrictions could be resolved.

There's certainly no balance reason that I'm aware of for them.

[Player2]

  On 6/5/2023 at 2:49 PM, Wavicle said:

I for one want Holstered Shields more than I want Shield Sentinels.

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Same.  Disappearing shields when not in use are so immersion-breaking.

[Wavicle]

  On 6/7/2023 at 1:13 PM, Player2 said:

Same.  Disappearing shields when not in use are so immersion-breaking.

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Actually I would accept disappearing shields as a close second. Right now I’m ALWAYS holding it as long as my toggles were on. If it only appeared during combat, like weapons, I would be happier. But sheathing on your back would be the best.

[Herotu]

  On 6/5/2023 at 3:23 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Until we have modern 3D tool compatibility that allows our limited time investments to pay-off in a realistic way, this is a 0% chance.

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What do we need to do to build a converter?

[Crasical]

I am also curious. I admit I'm speaking from a place of ignorance but a compatibility plugin does seem like it would be at least possible to either create or pay someone else to create.

[Herotu]

  On 6/29/2023 at 4:14 PM, Crasical said:

I am also curious. I admit I'm speaking from a place of ignorance but a compatibility plugin does seem like it would be at least possible to either create or pay someone else to create.

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We have the people and the willpower. It's got to be possible!

[Sakura Tenshi]

Also, if you want to see shield and blast sets, try it in AE. It theoretically happens but several times the attack itself won’t animate properly besides the effect or the shield vanishes to accommodate and it’s not consistent which one happens. Now there are times when it works just fine, presumably because, as mentioned, they’re animations that are already added in through Epic PPs.

 

then there was the la creaturea I spawned amine time when I gave an AE boss dual pistols and shields. Dios mio… his guns kept getting locked halfway into the spinning draw animations while bullets emitted from his chest.

[Rudra]

  On 6/30/2023 at 9:45 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

Also, if you want to see shield and blast sets, try it in AE. It theoretically happens but several times the attack itself won’t animate properly besides the effect or the shield vanishes to accommodate and it’s not consistent which one happens. Now there are times when it works just fine, presumably because, as mentioned, they’re animations that are already added in through Epic PPs.

 

then there was the la creaturea I spawned amine time when I gave an AE boss dual pistols and shields. Dios mio… his guns kept getting locked halfway into the spinning draw animations while bullets emitted from his chest.

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Must have been hilarious to see! At least the first few times.