Animation Feedback

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Nphyx wrote:

My first impressions (after having played for a week and clearing the first difficulty with multiple characters) are that the humanoid animations tend to be a little stiff and mechanical, but not unforgivable for an indie game that (presumably) doesn't have access to high-end mocap equipment.

The one thing that has really been bugging me are the default stances for several of the character classes. The witch appears to have cerebral palsy, the marauder is quite obviously stoned, and the templar (perhaps understandably, given his age) has a prominent beer gut and bad posture. I haven't played the other classes long enough to form opinions, but first impressions of the ranger are good.

I get that you're trying to give them personality that goes beyond the classical heroic stereotypes and four color comic poses of other games, but these three seem almost, I don't know, pathetic. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here; this is just the impression that comes to me when playing them.

Of the three the witch needs the most improvement. She's been harassed, abused, beat down, denigrated, and finally exiled because of her nature and beliefs; but that doesn't make her gollum or the hunchback of Notre Dame. I imagine instead that she habitually keeps her head down, slouches a bit, allows her limbs to hang limply, avoids eye contact, maybe even has minor nervous ticks like looking over her shoulder frequently or chewing her nails. Maybe her offensive animations should seem halfhearted or timid, and her defensive animations over-exaggerated (throwing her hands over her head to block or a clumsy sideways lurch for a dodge). In other words, she in particular should express symptoms of post-traumatic stress, whereas presently she just looks diseased, physically disabled, or possibly stereotypically "insane".

I'm not sure what you're going for with the marauder. Is he carefree, overconfident, detached, or just dumb? He seems to stare off into space, unaware of his environment and clearly not ready for action. In any case his idle animations don't strike me as those of a trained warrior so much as, perhaps, an unskilled laborer. I'm not a big fan of the hypermasculine tough guy ex-marine thing that your typical warrior or soldier is modeled after, but it seems to me that he should demonstrate *some* kind of discipline or instinct.

The templar might not be wrong at all, but he strikes me as very carefree and jovial, the way a guy might stand and behave at a barbeque after a few too many beers. More than anything he immediately made me think of Don Quixote. I'm not sure this jives with his backstory of being this sort of self-righteous holy warrior who has transcended faith and dogma. Should not a person like this express extreme self-confidence, purpose, and certainty in his posture and motions? Or is a stern and humorless priest too much of a stereotype? Maybe I just have the wrong idea about who he's supposed to be.

These idle animations and default poses are the things we see the most in the game, and they tell us the most about who the character is as a person. As such they require great care and attention. If I'm getting the impressions you're intending to give me, then great; you've done well, but I'm not sure I like these people! If not, give them a little more love, and maybe a bit more variety if you can justify the added expense.

As to the rest of the game's animations, I thought many of the monsters were well-done and believable - the snake-, squid-, and ape-like critters in particular felt natural and fluid. Combat feels responsive and gives good visual feedback (if occasionally a little stiff as mentioned before). NPCs and idle monsters strike me as a little lifeless; I'd like them to move around a bit more. But that's normal in video games, I suppose, so can't be called a specific criticism of this one.

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Khastro wrote:

i think i'm not the first one with that... :
my main critic on the animations is, that there is only ONE animation (as far as i have seen, correct me if i am wrong) for each attack/spell.

especially when you think about single-attacks like Dualstrike, where you have nothing else to look at but the animation (no Area of Effects no blingbling of spells) it looks like a robot. always the same movement again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again........

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Ari wrote:

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Nphyx wrote:

My first impressions (after having played for a week and clearing the first difficulty with multiple characters) are that the humanoid animations tend to be a little stiff and mechanical, but not unforgivable for an indie game that (presumably) doesn't have access to high-end mocap equipment.

The one thing that has really been bugging me are the default stances for several of the character classes. The witch appears to have cerebral palsy, the marauder is quite obviously stoned, and the templar (perhaps understandably, given his age) has a prominent beer gut and bad posture. I haven't played the other classes long enough to form opinions, but first impressions of the ranger are good.

I get that you're trying to give them personality that goes beyond the classical heroic stereotypes and four color comic poses of other games, but these three seem almost, I don't know, pathetic. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here; this is just the impression that comes to me when playing them.

Of the three the witch needs the most improvement. She's been harassed, abused, beat down, denigrated, and finally exiled because of her nature and beliefs; but that doesn't make her gollum or the hunchback of Notre Dame. I imagine instead that she habitually keeps her head down, slouches a bit, allows her limbs to hang limply, avoids eye contact, maybe even has minor nervous ticks like looking over her shoulder frequently or chewing her nails. Maybe her offensive animations should seem halfhearted or timid, and her defensive animations over-exaggerated (throwing her hands over her head to block or a clumsy sideways lurch for a dodge). In other words, she in particular should express symptoms of post-traumatic stress, whereas presently she just looks diseased, physically disabled, or possibly stereotypically "insane".

I'm not sure what you're going for with the marauder. Is he carefree, overconfident, detached, or just dumb? He seems to stare off into space, unaware of his environment and clearly not ready for action. In any case his idle animations don't strike me as those of a trained warrior so much as, perhaps, an unskilled laborer. I'm not a big fan of the hypermasculine tough guy ex-marine thing that your typical warrior or soldier is modeled after, but it seems to me that he should demonstrate *some* kind of discipline or instinct.

The templar might not be wrong at all, but he strikes me as very carefree and jovial, the way a guy might stand and behave at a barbeque after a few too many beers. More than anything he immediately made me think of Don Quixote. I'm not sure this jives with his backstory of being this sort of self-righteous holy warrior who has transcended faith and dogma. Should not a person like this express extreme self-confidence, purpose, and certainty in his posture and motions? Or is a stern and humorless priest too much of a stereotype? Maybe I just have the wrong idea about who he's supposed to be.

These idle animations and default poses are the things we see the most in the game, and they tell us the most about who the character is as a person. As such they require great care and attention. If I'm getting the impressions you're intending to give me, then great; you've done well, but I'm not sure I like these people! If not, give them a little more love, and maybe a bit more variety if you can justify the added expense.

As to the rest of the game's animations, I thought many of the monsters were well-done and believable - the snake-, squid-, and ape-like critters in particular felt natural and fluid. Combat feels responsive and gives good visual feedback (if occasionally a little stiff as mentioned before). NPCs and idle monsters strike me as a little lifeless; I'd like them to move around a bit more. But that's normal in video games, I suppose, so can't be called a specific criticism of this one.

all the characters are getting animation overhauls at the moment, just finished the witches new one handed animations so will be interesting to see what you guys think when it patches