Hasten Speeds Up Animations/Activation Time

[TheMultiVitamin]

More of a minor thing, but I was disappointed to learn that Hasten from the Speed power pool didn't speed up the animation and activation time of powers while active. I was hoping it would so that the attacks my speedster is doing actually looked like they were using their super speed to do it.

Even if it's just the animations speed up and not the activation time, I think it'd fit really well for it even though it's just aesthetic!

[Psyonico]

That would require every power have multiple animations, one "normal" speed and one " sped up" speed.

[Glacier Peak]

That's a no for me for a number of reasons. Aesthetics shouldn't drive balance decisions. Animation times across all powers are static and can't be influenced based on other powers or effects in the game. It would change how the entire game works if one power could alter all other powers dramatically. 

[TheMultiVitamin]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

That would require every power have multiple animations, one "normal" speed and one " sped up" speed.

Would it? To my knowledge it's a simplistic thing to implement, activation time not so much (as that basically is just "the power in affect" in the case of powers that do damage).

 

 

44 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

That's a no for me for a number of reasons. Aesthetics shouldn't drive balance decisions. Animation times across all powers are static and can't be influenced based on other powers or effects in the game. It would change how the entire game works if one power could alter all other powers dramatically. 

I can see activation time doing so, but speeding up animations absolutely wouldn't. It's done in many games and all it really provides is an aesthetic as all that happens is that the animation speeds up, the DPS, the effects, none of that get's sped up or touched at all, just the animation.

[Psyonico]

4 minutes ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

To my knowledge it's a simplistic thing to implement

 

Both the live and HC devs have said that animation time is locked in and any changes would need new animations.

 

Also, if you didn't change activation time but did change animation time, wouldn't you just be stuck doing nothing for the difference?

[TheMultiVitamin]

45 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

 

Both the live and HC devs have said that animation time is locked in and any changes would need new animations.

 

Also, if you didn't change activation time but did change animation time, wouldn't you just be stuck doing nothing for the difference?

Yea, it's why I included activation time but if it causes balance issues then yea foregoing the activation time part would be to the go to.

I wasn't aware that animation time is locked in, thanks for the info, kinda sucks cause I was hoping playing a speedster also meant having my powers/attacks animated faster to reflect that with hasten.

[Ukase]

26 minutes ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

I wasn't aware that animation time is locked in, thanks for the info, kinda sucks cause I was hoping playing a speedster also meant having my powers/attacks animated faster to reflect that with hasten.

Thematically, it makes perfect sense the way you imagined it. 
Sadly, we're told frequently that some things are just baked in, and can't be changed without causing the servers to explode and the game no longer function. 

On my smattering of programming knowledge, it's hard to accept that. But I've never worked with a "game engine", so I'm certainly no authority. So, as unsavory as it is, I accept it. 

As for "balance", that's hard to pin down. From where I sit, if the game were "balanced", it wouldn't be very much fun to play. 

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

To my knowledge it's a simplistic thing to implement,

If your knowledge of the internals of the CoH game engine is so comprehensive, you should be on the Homecoming development team.

[TheMultiVitamin]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

If your knowledge of the internals of the CoH game engine is so comprehensive, you should be on the Homecoming development team.

I was unaware, nor do I know anything of the internals, thus the suggestion and why I thanked people for informing me.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Thematically, it makes perfect sense the way you imagined it. 
Sadly, we're told frequently that some things are just baked in, and can't be changed without causing the servers to explode and the game no longer function. 

On my smattering of programming knowledge, it's hard to accept that. But I've never worked with a "game engine", so I'm certainly no authority. So, as unsavory as it is, I accept it. 

As for "balance", that's hard to pin down. From where I sit, if the game were "balanced", it wouldn't be very much fun to play. 

Yea I've worked with a few game dev teams myself, though mainly as organization and project management, and from the small amount I understood from asking them questions and the like, typically that kind of thing is a bit easier to implement but it really depends on the code base itself. In this casing evidently now that I've been informed, not possible for CoH which sucks but is understandable.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

On my smattering of programming knowledge, it's hard to accept that. But I've never worked with a "game engine", so I'm certainly no authority. So, as unsavory as it is, I accept it. 

I think the issue here is that every single power would have to have an alternate animation.  Each animation needs dozens if not hundreds of frames.  That’s a shit ton of work, thousands of hours for dozens of people.  For a suggestion?  No, I don’t think so.

[megaericzero]

3 hours ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

Would it? To my knowledge it's a simplistic thing to implement, [...]

3 hours ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

It's done in many games [...]

1 hour ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

[...] and from the small amount I understood from asking them questions and the like, typically that kind of thing is a bit easier to implement but it really depends on the code base itself.

City of Heroes is very old. It's purportedly written in C and the code is a mess of spaghetti. The amount of oddities that spring up in direct opposition to modern design sensibilities are plentiful and pop up where you least expect them. Null the Gull's very existence is to address things the Paragon devs couldn't do properly in the game's menus.

 

To speak nothing of balance concerns, Titan Weapons achieves its fast-slow dichotomy by having three versions of every attack that is useable without momentum:

- the base power (the one you click on) which redirects to either

- the slow version or

- the fast version

 

We also know from Back Alley Brawler of the Paragon dev team that the engine does not support animation blending. I'd hazard a guess it also doesn't support any other real-time modifications but that's conjecture on my part.

 

IIRC a Homecoming dev mentioned - someone please correct me - that mismatching animation times to activation times causes egregious animation bugs as well.

 

So yeah, it sucks when we crash into game code limitations. Especially when something is easy to conceptualize.

 

(As for the original suggestion of it affecting both animation and activation times, I can't see that being added to Hasten. It's already a very, very potent effect and probably the most-picked power in the game, second only to Stamina before Fitness became inherent. Adding activation time redux to Hasten would only serve to make it even more broken or require nerfs in other areas. Heck, even making it its own power would probably just put that new power right next to Hasten on the list of must-have meta picks. I know you said nix the activation time part, Vitamin; I just wanted to add my two-cents about it.)

Edited November 11 by megaericzero

[Player-1]

1 hour ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

Yea I've worked with a few game dev teams myself, though mainly as organization and project management, and from the small amount I understood from asking them questions and the like, typically that kind of thing is a bit easier to implement but it really depends on the code base itself. In this casing evidently now that I've been informed, not possible for CoH which sucks but is understandable.

 

Hello TheMultiVitamin,

 

Thank you for your enthusiasm with the game and wanting to add in a thematic improvement! Unfortunately, this is something that is not feasible to implement due to how the game was set up at its roots. While modern games have the ability to more easily speed up or slow down animations, they are truly baked into the powers system in CoH from how they were created back in the day and even simple Slow/Fast animations need a seperate power to be made just to carry that animation.

[TheMultiVitamin]

1 hour ago, megaericzero said:

City of Heroes is very old. It's purportedly written in C and the code is a mess of spaghetti. The amount of oddities that spring up in direct opposition to modern design sensibilities are plentiful and pop up where you least expect them. Null the Gull's very existence is to address things the Paragon devs couldn't do properly in the game's menus.

 

To speak nothing of balance concerns, Titan Weapons achieves its fast-slow dichotomy by having three versions of every attack that is useable without momentum:

- the base power (the one you click on) which redirects to either

- the slow version or

- the fast version

 

We also know from Back Alley Brawler of the Paragon dev team that the engine does not support animation blending. I'd hazard a guess it also doesn't support any other real-time modifications but that's conjecture on my part.

 

IIRC a Homecoming dev mentioned - someone please correct me - that mismatching animation times to activation times causes egregious animation bugs as well.

 

So yeah, it sucks when we crash into game code limitations. Especially when something is easy to conceptualize.

 

(As for the original suggestion of it affecting both animation and activation times, I can't see that being added to Hasten. It's already a very, very potent effect and probably the most-picked power in the game, second only to Stamina before Fitness became inherent. Adding activation time redux to Hasten would only serve to make it even more broken or require nerfs in other areas. Heck, even making it its own power would probably just put that new power right next to Hasten on the list of must-have meta picks. I know you said nix the activation time part, Vitamin; I just wanted to add my two-cents about it.)

Completely understandable, thanks for the information nonetheless!

 

 

1 hour ago, Player-1 said:

 

Hello TheMultiVitamin,

 

Thank you for your enthusiasm with the game and wanting to add in a thematic improvement! Unfortunately, this is something that is not feasible to implement due to how the game was set up at its roots. While modern games have the ability to more easily speed up or slow down animations, they are truly baked into the powers system in CoH from how they were created back in the day and even simple Slow/Fast animations need a seperate power to be made just to carry that animation.

Also understandable, I all too often forget how old CoH is just due to how fun it is, thanks for the information!

Edited November 11 by TheMultiVitamin

[Snarky]

9 hours ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

More of a minor thing, but I was disappointed to learn that Hasten from the Speed power pool didn't speed up the animation and activation time of powers while active. I was hoping it would so that the attacks my speedster is doing actually looked like they were using their super speed to do it.

Even if it's just the animations speed up and not the activation time, I think it'd fit really well for it even though it's just aesthetic!

look at this: ArcanaTime - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

 

this was discovered by a very very clever player.  it is the "real" game balance.  what you are asking for would cook the entire game into an over clock situation.

[UltraAlt]

On 11/11/2024 at 8:34 AM, TheMultiVitamin said:

More of a minor thing, but I was disappointed to learn that Hasten from the Speed power pool didn't speed up the animation

 

The power is "hasten" and does allow you to use other powers faster due to shortening the recharge speed. 

As far as the animation speed goes, the other powers in the pool have super speed FX. If you want to seem to be doing "attacks" at "super speed" use flurry and whirlwind.

 

I would also suggest mixing in powers and power sets choices that have super speed-like attacks; examples: Sands of Mu and Shadow Maul.

 

I am against making changes how Hasten currently operates and a change to the animation speed of other powers when Hasten is in affect.

I feel that what you are suggesting would affect other powers such as Speed Boost, Siphon Speed, etc. as well.

 

Hasten is one of the power pool powers that has been in the game since the game was created.

I see no reason to change it now.

 

[TheMultiVitamin]

14 hours ago, Snarky said:

look at this: ArcanaTime - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

 

this was discovered by a very very clever player.  it is the "real" game balance.  what you are asking for would cook the entire game into an over clock situation.

Woah that's wild, I was unaware that even existed, thanks for the info!

 

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

The power is "hasten" and does allow you to use other powers faster due to shortening the recharge speed. 

As far as the animation speed goes, the other powers in the pool have super speed FX. If you want to seem to be doing "attacks" at "super speed" use flurry and whirlwind.

 

I would also suggest mixing in powers and power sets choices that have super speed-like attacks; examples: Sands of Mu and Shadow Maul.

 

I am against making changes how Hasten currently operates and a change to the animation speed of other powers when Hasten is in affect.

I feel that what you are suggesting would affect other powers such as Speed Boost, Siphon Speed, etc. as well.

 

Hasten is one of the power pool powers that has been in the game since the game was created.

I see no reason to change it now.

 

I hadn't even thought of other powers needing to do the same like speed boost and siphon speed, that's another good point. And yea I use the super speed powers like flurry but they still seemed relatively slow overall animation wise, but I'll just have to get used to it!

[UltraAlt]

49 minutes ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

And yea I use the super speed powers like flurry but they still seemed relatively slow overall animation wise

 

Compare it to the animation speed of a punch or kick animation. It is much faster.

No to much of a blur of motion ... I'll grant you that.

 

I was a long time fan of the Flash, so I know where you are coming from on this. 

 

 

 

I had no idea that it as going to be so hard finding comic book images of the Flash punching people at superspeed back in the day that I could post in the forums without downloading and reuploading!

Edited November 12 by UltraAlt

[Snarky]

so fast enough to run into Thanos' shower, speedbag his nuts, and run out without ever getting wet?