Power animations

[AxerJ]

Hello Heroic Games!

Thanks for putting so much hard work and talent into creating SoH - it looks to be the real contender for a City of Heroes successor. So I ask this with love - are the foundations of your powers' animations basically set? I know things like this can change, but so far you've shown a certain direction with power animations - large arcana-ish circles expanding under the characters' feet, graphics around the whole body of the character before they throw a projectile. I'm wondering if that design choice can change. This is a separate game of course, but something I valued in CoH were the relatively subtle power animations - shooting a bolt of lightning, fireball, or radiation beam, for example, just included the beam coming out of the character's hand. It was realistic in the sense that we'd imagine a superhero using a power like that. The powers you've shown so far in your videos have more going on around the character.

For example, under the "crafting" section on the kickstarter page, we see the Dr. shooting a heal beam. The circle under her could be cool because she's using magic, but the walls rising up around the circumference of the circle, making her stand in a sort of cylinder, seem to be too much. That may sound comically nitpicky, but that small detail can change a lot of the impression. Maybe remove the lightwalls rising up around the ground circle? Are these sorts of changes things we can expect? Also, as we saw Sword Blossom attacking, there seemed to be a lot going on around her character.


This is not a gripe, but really a question. I'm wondering how much more work and tweaking are you planning on doing to the basic power animations? I'm sure the answer will be, "Duh, we're prepreprealpha, we're going to tweak them." But by how much? Would you consider a whole re-design of the power graphics concept you seem to have begun with?

Anyone else feel similarly?

And really, thanks for the incredible work you're putting into this game. You seem to be incredibly smart and capable - so I have a lot of trust you'll make a truly fun game. I make this post because so far the ONLY issue I've had with what I've seen are the power animations.

And of course, maybe they're all placeholder animations and this is a moot issue.

[Flagwaver]

I have a similar feeling, but believe it is mostly pre and not set. For a Magic-based character, the rings and such would be appropriate. However, a Tech-based character would look a little out of place having arcane symbols surrounding him before he fires off a healing blast.

[JestersGhost]

And, if I'm reading Consultant's reply to my question correctly, animations will be customisable to a degree. So I imagine you'll be able to pick from flashy and not-flashy versions for most powers.

[E_Orrbon]

<QR> Cutting back on some of the power animations could help the overall performance of the game and make it more accessible to players that don't have uber gaming rigs.

[Griffin]

The way to make it good for all is to have the client have rendering level options including "others' powers" and such.
That way those with crazy rigs can max it out and enjoy, and those with "normal" setups are playing and happy.

FPS FOR EVERYONE!

-Griff

[Codex]

Hopefully there is a non-flashy version. I don't know about you but some of the early Hami raids when players had their aura on caused a lot of lag for me. My internet speed and gaming computer are better now so I hope there won't be an issue but just in case...

[Griffin]

At a minimum, I'd want to see an ON/OFF toggle for MY effects, and the same for OTHERS.
Ideally, it would be a slider or several controls over which things display or not + intensity...

I'd like it as playable across the board as possible.

-Griff