Dark Knight 5.0 animations

In my opinion developers didn't use the most fitting animations for Dark Knight in 5.0 rework. It's not the biggest issue of the job (if we can call it issue), but considering how easy fix is (just applying other animations currently available) i think it's worth discussing it. Let me specify what i have in mind.

1. Delirium should use Dark Arts animation.

2. Bloodspiller should use HW Delirium animation. It looks very weird when we spam it, Delirium should make it look smoother.

3. In my opinion old aggro combo looks better than current 123 combo, but this is very subjective. At this point they could just implement some sort of skill glamour system to choose what we want (which was suggested a few times already in other forum categories), but it's not something that can be done just like that.

4. Rampart should use Shadowskin animation, but i'm not sure how easy it is to implement, considering it's shared action.

Of course it shouldn't be their top priority, but animations and sounds are very important part of how job feels like, so i think they could improve it. It seems like they didn't really think these changes through.

Animations are pretty lackluster imho.

Flood animation for instance is super boring, character barely does anything. Edge is just a single swing, you would say that you should expect something more from a skill that is dealing 500 potency, meh.
Delirium animation does not fit functionality at all, they should give us old Dark Arts animation for that just like you said so, just look what your character do when you activate it. It "eats" something, like MP in case of old delirium... but we dont "get anything" from using it right? Its just a rage-up action that allows us to do something more, the animation does not make any sense at all.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Animations are pretty lackluster imho.

Flood animation for instance is super boring, character barely does anything. Edge is just a single swing, you would say that you should expect something more from a skill that is dealing 500 potency, meh.
Delirium animation does not fit functionality at all, they should give us old Dark Arts animation for that just like you said so, just look what your character do when you activate it. It "eats" something, like MP in case of old delirium... but we dont "get anything" from using it right? Its just a rage-up action that allows us to do something more, the animation does not make any sense at all.

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I personally have no problems with Flood animations. I like stylish and toned down animations, otherwise it ends like MCH. At 64 it's a damn acrobat. I don't want things like that on other jobs.
It looks like devs just took some old abilities without changing animations, and it looks weird.

I don't agree. It's fine as it is.
If they consider it, I want them to add as optional animation on a new system, otherwise no.

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

In my opinion developers didn't use the most fitting animations for Dark Knight in 5.0 rework. It's not the biggest issue of the job (if we can call it issue), but considering how easy fix is (just applying other animations currently available) i think it's worth discussing it. Let me specify what i have in mind.

1. Delirium should use Dark Arts animation.

2. Bloodspiller should use HW Delirium animation. It looks very weird when we spam it, Delirium should make it look smoother.

3. In my opinion old aggro combo looks better than current 123 combo, but this is very subjective. At this point they could just implement some sort of skill glamour system to choose what we want (which was suggested a few times already in other forum categories), but it's not something that can be done just like that.

4. Rampart should use Shadowskin animation, but i'm not sure how easy it is to implement, considering it's shared action.

Of course it shouldn't be their top priority, but animations and sounds are very important part of how job feels like, so i think they could improve it. It seems like they didn't really think these changes through.

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I agree with 1, 3(the skill glamour idea) and 4. I been wanting 4 since stormblood. It just feels so wrong to see rampart's animation on DRK, GNB, and WAR. Why can't they make them have different animations? Or maybe just never made it a role action skill to the jobs can each have their own unique looking cooldown? I bet you anything the 40% CD will also be turned into a role action and we'll have a boring looking animation that doesn't fit any of the jobs.

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Originally Posted by jetfire117

I agree with 1, 3(the skill glamour idea) and 4. I been wanting 4 since stormblood. It just feels so wrong to see rampart's animation on DRK, GNB, and WAR. Why can't they make them have different animations? Or maybe just never made it a role action skill to the jobs can each have their own unique looking cooldown? I bet you anything the 40% CD will also be turned into a role action and we'll have a boring looking animation that doesn't fit any of the jobs.

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Indeed skill glamour system is the idea i want to push in the end, but it's not something that can be done in one day. What i suggest is very easy solution to make smooth animation flow, which currently DRK lacks.
If you want skill glamour system you can send them in game suggestion through support desk menu. It's good to show them that there is demand for that. But include information that it should be server side. Such system would really solve all animations problems in whole game. No one would ever complain, because player will be able to choose how their character behaves.

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

Indeed skill glamour system is the idea i want to push in the end, but it's not something that can be done in one day. What i suggest is very easy solution to make smooth animation flow, which currently DRK lacks.
If you want skill glamour system you can send them in game suggestion through support desk menu. It's good to show them that there is demand for that. But include information that it should be server side. Such system would really solve all animations problems in whole game. No one would ever complain, because player will be able to choose how their character behaves.

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I would like a skill glamour system very much, if only so i can use the old shot animations on MCH instead of the flippy skills. Also Broil 1 for sch

I believe my biggest complaint with dark knights animations right now is its basic three step combo. Those swings honestly look like your character is struggling to swing their sword. This, if you ask me, is not at all heroic. It makes you look like you're some buffoon that picked up a sword way too big for them and began to swing it in a haphazard manner.

Bring back Scourge. At least by its animation if not technically. Replace SE animation with Power Slash and as you said, bring also back the HW Delirium Animation.

The Power Slash , HW Delirium & Scourge Animation were the coolest looking ones that DRK had and they removed all of them and left us with the most boring one which is Soul Eater. SE is a skill that you can accept if you have enough alternatives and its just there as one of many other choices. but if its your only skill you dont really want it.

So i hope they finally listen. i dont know why one of the most important topics (skill animations) get so hard ignored by the dev team. the combat system lives from its skill animations. so if they bring new content like raids or dungeons i have to play them with the skills i have and my eyes has to see their animation. so it is very important the skills looks good. and they already made beautiful skills so why remove them? at least if you dont give it back to us, give those old skills the lvl 80 dark knight when you summon him. so he has those skills as exclusive. so at least you get to see them if you summon him. i cant believe anyone would be against that. so what is the dev team waiting for? xD

If the current 3 step combo just had the animations of Hard Slash -> Scourge -> Power Slash, it would make the job look and feel so much better. Those animations and sounds have so much impact and are way to cool to just throw in the trash.

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

I personally have no problems with Flood animations. I like stylish and toned down animations, otherwise it ends like MCH. At 64 it's a damn acrobat. I don't want things like that on other jobs.
It looks like devs just took some old abilities without changing animations, and it looks weird.

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I generally agree with this; I don't mind Flood. But, I did think Dark Passenger was just fine, drawing perfectly the line between entertaining and ridiculous, and wouldn't mind having it back.

To me, Souleater looks neither natural nor interesting, however. Even Power Slash's flat-smash looked better, imo.

I prefer the animation of the Souleater-Combo over the Powerslash-Combo. Souleater looks a bit like Climhazard, a Limit Break from Cloud Strife. And I guess, it is intended, since DRK got Cloud's battlestance- and victory-animations, too.
But I would like to see more animations with wide swings with the greatsword for AoEs, because greatswords were used to hold a position by keeping opponents away with wide swings. Sadly, the AoE-Combo of the DRK is a combo of spells not weapon skills.

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Originally Posted by Suratan

because greatswords were used to hold a position by keeping opponents away with wide swings.

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Greatsword is a term introduced in modern times. They did not exist in ye olden days. Furthermore, your typical two-handed weapon was not used for wide swings at all; most were used for thrusting that took advantage of their greater reach. In any case, these "greatswords" - the zweihander, for example - were pretty easy to handle if well made, as the point of balance is what decides a great many things about the wieldability of a weapon. Contrary to how they're often depicted in movies and in games, you could swing them with quite some finesse. The DRK animations seem to treat them like baseball bats, however - really, really heavy baseball bats. I will concede however that historically accurate weapons would not be anywhere near as massive as the ones DRKs wield.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

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You are mostly correct, but not entirely.

Greatsword is indeed a more modern term that was sort of just used a general descriptor for any very large sword, with most European variants usually ranging about 150cm to a bit over 170cm, basically being about as long as the user was tall. For the most part, until the latter parts of the Middle Ages, formal sword classification was virtually nonexistent and most swords were often just called "sword" in whatever originating language or dialect, or some made up descriptor.
Greatswords, as a classification, encompass an enormous variety of swords which include everything from large edgeless swords meant solely for thrusting, to swords like the Falx or most any two-handed sword from Japan or the Middle East which were primarily cutting/slashing weapons.

If we were to hone in on solely European double-edge straight-bladed swords, which is what most people think of when they think of "greatsword", they were actually a very versatile weapon with some fairly complex fighting forms developed for their use. This included everything from sweeping cuts and slashes, defensive stances with the sword extended out to poke at the opponent to keep them at distance, "half-swording"(gripping up on the lower part of the blade to bring the blade in for better control in closer quarters), there was even a technique where you would grip the sword backwards by the blade and bludgeon your opponent with the pommel (better be wearing gloves for this one). "Greatswords" were not really used predominantly in one single way, they were used in a lot of different ways that all depended on the situation that the user was in.

As for ease of use, even well made ones were cumbersome to use due to length and weight. While proper weight balancing would could make them easier to use, they still required proper training to use effectively. It was much easier to pick up a basic one-handed arming sword and use that with little to no training.

In regards to slashing versus piercing, that was a general evolution that you saw in virtually all European swords during the Middle Ages due to the continuous advance of metallurgy and armour. As more advanced armour, such as plate, became more prevalent, slashing with a sword became less effective since the armour would tend to deflect the blow. Swords then began to be designed with more of a tapered triangular profile, coming to more defined point to be used for thrusting between the gaps in the armour.
You didn't really see slashing swords in prominent use in Europe again until much later where the adoption of guns on the battlefield made armour obsolete, at which point sabres and similar cavalry swords saw frequent use up until swords pretty much disappeared from the battlefield entirely.

You are correct in that most historic versions of a European two-handed sword would be much smaller, lighter and way faster than what is often depicted in games, shows or movies where they seem to be swung more like giant axes, but historical accuracy tends to play second fiddle to simply "looking cool". After all it's a game in which we fly around on giant chicken-ostriches, magic is a normality and we travel by teleportation via floating crystals; it's best not to worry to much about how it measures up to real world accuracy. The swords the Dark Knight wields in the game is even described in the beginning job quests for it as being ridiculously large to the point of seeming like it couldn't be wielded, so it wouldn't be illogical to expect it to not be used in the same way a historical two-handed sword would be used.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

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What's funny about it to me is that we've seen two really large areas of use from greatswords (ranging from, say, the German zweihander to the Iberian montante): bodyguards (where your charge literally clings, crouched, to your leg while you swing the sword about above them -- nearer the montante/spadone) and peacekeepers or bout-judges, and pike-breakers (not literally breaking where slats were present, but being able to disrupt pike formations just the same -- nearer the zweihander). And while it always feels like a very versatile breed of space-making, it never feels anything like that whole power-fantasy vibe we get from the greatsword in eastern fiction.

It was, of course, used in some duels, since it wasn't as commonly known and thus had a benefit of not only range but also intimidation, but none too commonly, iirc. To me, the strangest thing in fighting a montante was that while you always expected the reach when it was facing you directly, you'd underestimate its reach whenever going for an attack from behind despite how easily the bearer can turn it almost instantly in your direction. Though one is always told that even just resetting to a guard could be a strike in its own right, the montante makes you painfully aware of that when fighting it.

Montante Niño has some good demonstrations of the drills from the old manuals if anyone's interested in how oddly graceful a large weapon could nonetheless be.

Ah, I see. I did not need to call the weapon "greatsword". I could have called the weapon Montante/Spadone/Zweihänder/Bidenhänder from the beginning.

Then, I do not need to explain my point: If people like to wish for animations, then I want animations in HEMA-style for the Zweihänder for the Dark Knight. Give me Figueiredo's regras. Give me Half-Swording. Give me Mordhau (the improvised technique against opponents in full armor, not the game). Give me "End him rightly"! Yeah, I know. I'm exaggerating. And given the design of some weapons for the DRK (those Buster Swords), there is no possibility, something like the Mordhau would be implemented. Sadly, but it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Suratan

Ah, I see. I did not need to call the weapon "greatsword". I could have called the weapon Montante/Spadone/Zweihänder/Bidenhänder from the beginning.

Then, I do not need to explain my point: If people like to wish for animations, then I want animations in HEMA-style for the Zweihänder for the Dark Knight. Give me Figueiredo's regras. Give me Half-Swording. Give me Mordhau (the improvised technique against opponents in full armor, not the game). Give me "End him rightly"! Yeah, I know. I'm exaggerating. And given the design of some weapons for the DRK (those Buster Swords), there is no possibility, something like the Mordhau would be implemented. Sadly, but it is what it is.

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When we first got DRK, I'd kind of wanted a base class and second job for it (experience split, as I had hoped eventually to see from SMN/SCH at the time) named Templar or Warden or the like (perhaps branching also to Rune Knight), which would be almost exactly as you describe. Sort of a Witcher without the more ridiculous forms -- part of a singular order, a bit like the more radical Paladins of other RPG franchises, but distinctly pragmatic.

I'd gladly take it as its own job as well. I just wonder what setting it'd best fit into.

I wholeheartedly believe dark knight would've been a lot more interesting if it had realistically proportioned weapons and combat animations. Granted, the combat animations would still need to be given that dark flair to fit the theme of the class, but the actual movements themselves needn't be so exaggerated or wasteful.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I wholeheartedly believe dark knight would've been a lot more interesting if it had realistically proportioned weapons and combat animations. Granted, the combat animations would still need to be given that dark flair to fit the theme of the class, but the actual movements themselves needn't be so exaggerated or wasteful.

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Those are my thoughts exactly. How about empowering yourself with the power of darkness in order to be stronger? In order to be able to swing around those Buster Swords or Dragonslayers. And for the realistically proportioned weapons: I was hoping to see more weapons like the Adamantite Zweihander. But sadly, at the moment (Patch 5.05) there are no new weapons for the Dark Knight like that.