Suggestion - Remove animation clipping

[Valoran]

UPDATE:


This thread is now obsolete as both the animation clipping and queuing system were removed last patch.


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Currently you can start an action such as a block or a new swing before the swinging animation has finished completely.

This has led to people further criticising the queue system in place that allows you to queue up attacks or blocks while still swinging.

I am of the opinion that the queue by itself is not problematic, but the ability to cancel the animation early to start a new action is where the real problem lies.


Fixing that, the only argument left against the action queuing is that it lowers the skill ceiling by a very small margin, in favor of combat fluidity. I don't believe the trade off is worth it in that situation.


I think the potential for annoyance resulting from attempting to parry or start a swing but having it not work because there was still 0.1s left on your attack animation is much worse than the skill ceiling lost by keeping the fluidity.

I would also argue that the skill required to attack quickly without having your inputs ignored by an ongoing animation is not a very valuable skill, at least not one that should be held at a higher value than the fluidity of combat.



In short, fix the animation clipping and then the action queuing can be assessed honestly.

 

[PatWins]

What if queing was a default setting that could be removed? Disabling this setting would reward manual timing with SLIGHTLY faster swings/parries at the risk of missing the input.

I feel that removing the fluidity of combat for new players will only hurt the game. This system will benefit both new and veteran players.

 

[Teknique]

Currently you can start an action such as a block or a new swing before the swinging animation has finished completely.

This has led to people further criticising the queue system in place that allows you to queue up attacks or blocks while still swinging.

I am of the opinion that the queue by itself is not problematic, but the ability to cancel the animation early to start a new action is where the real problem lies.


Fixing that, the only argument left against the action queuing is that it lowers the skill ceiling by a very small margin, in favor of combat fluidity. I don't believe the trade off is worth it in that situation.


I think the potential for annoyance resulting from attempting to parry or start a swing but having it not work because there was still 0.1s left on your attack animation is much worse than the skill ceiling lost by keeping the fluidity.

I would also argue that the skill required to attack quickly without having your inputs ignored by an ongoing animation is not a very valuable skill, at least not one that should be held at a higher value than the fluidity of combat.



In short, fix the animation clipping and then the action queuing can be assessed honestly.

Is not being able to put inputs in during an action so counter intuitive for people, seems like a pretty basic thing across many video games. I actually can't make any sense of the game WITH queuing. Why would I right click immediately after swinging? Much more reasonable actually is that I would have to wait. I could never support something like this, pressing right click at any time and blocking or starting your swing at the optimal time, despite the fact that you didn't time it optimally? No

What if queing was a default setting that could be removed? Disabling this setting would reward manual timing with SLIGHTLY faster swings/parries at the risk of missing the input.

I feel that removing the fluidity of combat for new players will only hurt the game. This system will benefit both new and veteran players.

I really think the production quality of MO 2 is such that we need not be so concerned about new players finding any little thing to nit pick. Again it isn't that strange that you need to wait before putting multiple inputs in. The obvious concern being that queuing remains too strong and people achieve fluid combat without the commensurate skill to attain it.

 

[Valoran]

Part of why I don't see timing attacks immediately after the animation has finished as a meaningful skill is that the attack animations usually "finish" with the weapon off screen, meaning the timing that has to be learned is just that, timing. There is no reliable visual indicator that you can now start a new swing unless you wait until the weapon is actually visible again and has obviously stopped.

I'm never a fan of un-intuitive base systems that require cognitive learning instead of just being obvious from the beginning. You shouldn't have to be taught how to do basic functions, they should be intuitive and come naturally.


It is a skill no doubt, but it is actually meaningful in any way that benefits the game so much that we should sacrifice combat fluidity? I don't think so.

Many changes could be made to the game to increase the skill ceiling while actually making the game much worse as a whole, simply increasing the skill ceiling on it's own is not enough of a justification for making changes or keeping something the way it is. Something has to actually add to the game in a meaningful way to justify itself.


After the animation clipping is fixed, the only leg this argument has to stand on is "but completely new players can now attack at the same speed as everyone else"

to which I say:

So?

 

[Eldrath]

You can always try to do the reverse. Allow for actions to be stacked (combined with fixing the animations so there is more time between an attack and a parry) but give a bonus for proper timing.

I think Bannerlord does something like this with their animations, but sorta the opposite way. Then again their animations are very fluid and there is little to no glitchy spazzing from one state into another. I don´t believe this has anything to do with the MMO structure of MO but rather with SV not having very many guys doing animation.

As for timings:
Have them depends on A. weapon type (which skill does it use) and B. weight - that way people can specialize in a meaningful way.

 

[Teknique]

Part of why I don't see timing attacks immediately after the animation has finished as a meaningful skill is that the attack animations usually "finish" with the weapon off screen, meaning the timing that has to be learned is just that, timing. There is no reliable visual indicator that you can now start a new swing unless you wait until the weapon is actually visible again and has obviously stopped.

I'm never a fan of un-intuitive base systems that require cognitive learning instead of just being obvious from the beginning. You shouldn't have to be taught how to do basic functions, they should be intuitive and come naturally.


It is a skill no doubt, but it is actually meaningful in any way that benefits the game so much that we should sacrifice combat fluidity? I don't think so.

Many changes could be made to the game to increase the skill ceiling while actually making the game much worse as a whole, simply increasing the skill ceiling on it's own is not enough of a justification for making changes or keeping something the way it is. Something has to actually add to the game in a meaningful way to justify itself.


After the animation clipping is fixed, the only leg this argument has to stand on is "but completely new players can now attack at the same speed as everyone else"

to which I say:

So?

I really am not sure what you mean finishing off the screen, is it a field of view issue?

Do you really think someone who is completely new should be competitive? I think that is pretty clear that it isn't a skill based game if you just pick it up and you're good by spamming left click.

I really think we're running the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the baby being Mortal Online. Why? Because it is often cited look at how bad MO 1 population was, we should change such and such. Butterfly effect, a beating of a wing of a butterfly can have vastly different outcomes. We're starting with a different engine, different era, different game. We really can't say that it was the original design of the game that is at fault, it could have just been a minor thing at the start that set us on a completely different path than we would have otherwise been, like for example the extremely buggy engine.

 

[Bernfred]

what will happen is you have to smash your buttons as fast as you can if you want to be as fast as possible combined with the mouse drag system

 

[Teknique]

what will happen is you have to smash your buttons as fast as you can if you want to be as fast as possible combined with the mouse drag system

I sense the sarcasm, but what are you really trying to say?

 

[Bernfred]

I sense the sarcasm, but what are you really trying to say?

it leads to a bad habit where you tap the left mouse button multiple times as soon as the swing ends.

 

[Valoran]

I really am not sure what you mean finishing off the screen, is it a field of view issue?

Do you really think someone who is completely new should be competitive. I think that is pretty clear that it isn't a skill based game if you just pick it up and you're good by spamming left click.

I really think we're running the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the baby being Mortal Online. Why? Because it is often cited look at how bad MO 1 population was, we should change such and such. Butterfly effect, a beating of a wing of a butterfly can have vastly different outcomes. We're starting with a different engine, different era, different game. We really can't say that it was the original design of the game that is at fault, it could have just been a minor thing at the start that set us on a completely different path than we would have otherwise been.

I mean the animation "finishes" in the sense that you are now able to start a new action such as attacking or blocking, while the weapon is not fully on screen, as you're still swinging.

This of course may change in the future if they do fix the ability to start a new action before the animation is fully complete.

 

[ElPerro]

I mean the animation "finishes" in the sense that you are now able to start a new action such as attacking or blocking, while the weapon is not fully on screen, as you're still swinging.

This of course may change in the future if they do fix the ability to start a new action before the animation is fully complete.

I can see your point now, theres a bit too much pause before you can swing/block after the animation finishes, you gotta wait until the weapon is coming back from the swing even. Definetly feels a bit clunky and unintuitive, however the queue system had to go, it lowered the already very low skill ceiling too much.

IMO you should be able to start your second swing/parry a tad sooner. How it was with click drag before the patch felt almost perfect, it clipped the animation just a tiny bit to feel syncd with the swing release while with the queue it clipped alot sooner.