Eye Beams

[FrozenSolid]

Would it be possible to change the visuals of some attacks alongside their animations to create more options for eye beams?

Currently there's only really X-Ray Beam from Radiation Blast, but would it be too much to ask if it's laser beams and animation to be ported over as an option to some of the other single target attacks in the set and other blast sets where it could make sense...

 

Fire and Energy being mildly obvious potential candidates...

[Rigged]

There is actually a really cool eyebeam animation that Praetorian Olympians can use, but it's a cone. It uses the Beam Weapons beam. I would love this to be an option for certain cone attacks.

[mistagoat]

It would be nice but I wouldn't hold your breath, this has been asked for since way back on live. My guess has always been that the live devs didn't want to have to genericise an army of Cyclops clones and now on HC it would need mostly new animations which seems to be an area that the HC Devs are unable or unwilling to expand upon.

[FrozenSolid]

47 minutes ago, mistagoat said:

It would be nice but I wouldn't hold your breath, this has been asked for since way back on live. My guess has always been that the live devs didn't want to have to genericise an army of Cyclops clones and now on HC it would need mostly new animations which seems to be an area that the HC Devs are unable or unwilling to expand upon.

Animations for it already exist, X-Ray Beam uses one, and another would be the Psychic Blast (where the character puts their hands on the sides of their head).

 

Fire Breath and Frost Breath have an alternative option that changes the attack to come from the hand rather than the head, which means Customization can change where the attack originates from the character.

 

The big question though is can Customization change the particle effect into a laser.

[Championess]

I'm holding out hopes for something like this.  Why throw sharks at people when you can let them laser beam people on their own.

[Captain Fabulous]

The biggest problem with porting animations to different powers is that they rarely line up in terms of animation times. If a power has a 2 sec animation time you can't simply port over an animation from a power with a 1 sec animation time because they won't line up. And while it's possible to adjust the length of animations it's a LOT of very time-consuming work using old, outdated, and clunky software.

[Ultimo]

4 hours ago, mistagoat said:

It would be nice but I wouldn't hold your breath, this has been asked for since way back on live. My guess has always been that the live devs didn't want to have to genericise an army of Cyclops clones and now on HC it would need mostly new animations which seems to be an area that the HC Devs are unable or unwilling to expand upon.

I've seen this argument many times, but it doesn't hold water, if you ask me.  They have a whole powerset with three claws from each hand, just like Wolverine, indeed, specific TO Wolverine.  Eye beams are used by MANY characters in comics besides Cyclops.

[TeeTee]

I too would like to see more options for "eye-beams". It's a fairly under utilised power style in CoX, and yes - while there will be plenty clones of the famous "X-Person" - those will eventually peter off as people make their own unique heroes. I see the odd "branded" hero/villain running around, and whilst some are well done many are not, and most of my favourite costumes/hero concepts are indeed unique to the person playing them - which is one of the things I have always loved most about CoX.

 

More eye beams plz!

[TheMoneyMaker]

Eye beams for everyone

 

Ice blast? Give me freeze vision.

Dark blast? Future's so bright an' I don't even need shades.

Seismic? Excuse me, I had something in my eye.

 

Would also love to see an option for Claws so players can literally stare daggers at their foes.  😁

[TygerDarkstorm]

23 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

The biggest problem with porting animations to different powers is that they rarely line up in terms of animation times. If a power has a 2 sec animation time you can't simply port over an animation from a power with a 1 sec animation time because they won't line up. And while it's possible to adjust the length of animations it's a LOT of very time-consuming work using old, outdated, and clunky software.

I just want to point out that the devs are capable of modifying these things if they so choose. Direct Strike from Storm Blast is actually a modified power animation that @Player-1 created and as I recall from when it was in closed beta, we messed about with the timing of it. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard or a pain given this game's code, but I do think it could be possible if the dev team decided they wanted to give multiple blast sets the option for eye blasts.

 

I'm not sure the likelihood of actually getting eye beams for other blast sets because of the work involved to change the animation times (as like you said, it's not a simple port and things will need to be tweaked), but I do think it would be cool to have them as an option if the team were to find a way to make it happen.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I just want to point out that the devs are capable of modifying these things if they so choose. Direct Strike from Storm Blast is actually a modified power animation that @Player-1 created and as I recall from when it was in closed beta, we messed about with the timing of it. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard or a pain given this game's code, but I do think it could be possible if the dev team decided they wanted to give multiple blast sets the option for eye blasts.

 

I'm not sure the likelihood of actually getting eye beams for other blast sets because of the work involved to change the animation times (as like you said, it's not a simple port and things will need to be tweaked), but I do think it would be cool to have them as an option if the team were to find a way to make it happen.

 

Right, I didn't say it couldn't be done, I said it was a very time-consuming and arduous process. and something unlikely to happen because it's not a quick or easy process.

[Skyhawke]

19 hours ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Eye beams for everyone

 

Ice blast? Give me freeze vision.

 

Bizarro says "Good Bye". 

 

 

[TygerDarkstorm]

19 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

 

Right, I didn't say it couldn't be done, I said it was a very time-consuming and arduous process. and something unlikely to happen because it's not a quick or easy process.

Apologies for misunderstanding your initial comment. I don't recall how hard they said it was to modify the animation for direct strike, so I agree that we're not likely to see this happen, at least not without someone who'd want to be dedicated to modifying animations so they can be proliferated as options for sets.

[FrozenSolid]

On 4/22/2025 at 8:43 PM, TheMoneyMaker said:

Seismic? Excuse me, I had something in my eye.

I suppose some powers from Seismic/Earth could also work... After all, there is a basis in a somewhat known mythical being that did have the power to turn people into stone with eye contact.

[TheMoneyMaker]

1 minute ago, FrozenSolid said:

I suppose some powers from Seismic/Earth could also work... After all, there is a basis in a somewhat known mythical being that did have the power to turn people into stone with eye contact.

anything works with a little imagination

[Starhammer]

I would be thrilled if we could just start with giving (almost) every attack in Radiation Blast an eye beam option 🙂

[MTeague]

More eye beams are fine and dandy with me, but keep the reverse in mind, too.

Ex:  Peacebringer, Glinting Eye.  Has no alternate animation. Rad Blast has an alternate, can't think of why Luminous Blast doesn't get that choice.

[TeeTee]

Can someone maybe just stick the beam rifle to your head and make it invisible? BOOM - Laser Eyes power set.

[Starhammer]

On 4/29/2025 at 5:19 PM, TeeTee said:

Can someone maybe just stick the beam rifle to your head and make it invisible? BOOM - Laser Eyes power set.

that would be frikkin amazing.

[AlwaysAPrice]

On 4/21/2025 at 6:39 AM, Rigged said:

There is actually a really cool eyebeam animation that Praetorian Olympians can use, but it's a cone. It uses the Beam Weapons beam. I would love this to be an option for certain cone attacks.

 

This is an option already actually, for epic pool Energy Torrent at least, I'd guess for Energy Blast as well but haven't looked. Would certainly like to see it available on more cones though.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 4/30/2025 at 9:19 AM, TeeTee said:

Can someone maybe just stick the beam rifle to your head and make it invisible? BOOM - Laser Eyes power set.

 

I'd been advocating for an optic blast alternate animation for Beam Rifle for a while here and there, but something I recently considered is what to do with the set's built-in requirement for a weapon in hands?

Coding that problem away (even if it's just invisible, there are now forced draw animations for that set) might be the showstopper when it comes to effort in/reward out.

[Starhammer]

On 5/3/2025 at 3:31 PM, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

I'd been advocating for an optic blast alternate animation for Beam Rifle for a while here and there, but something I recently considered is what to do with the set's built-in requirement for a weapon in hands?

Coding that problem away (even if it's just invisible, there are now forced draw animations for that set) might be the showstopper when it comes to effort in/reward out.

I'd say just make it a whole new set. Then you can incorporate the other animations for eyeblasts (or sonic attacks in some cases). You can either go the cut/paste route and just make it a performance twin of Beam Rifle for simplicity, or mix it up a little and tinker with numbers and damage types if you want something a little different from what else is there. A lot more work, but more justified to those who don't believe the cosmetic difference is "enough"