Animation Lock: Why don't you like it?

[Zantetsuken]

. I think you may be confusing 'realistic" with "natural"- something that looks like it belongs and doesn't feel out of place.

I see that even three references to my definition of 'Realism' weren't enough.

When animation blending is implemented, you will most likely not notice the lack of animation lock. Animations will be blended, such that there isn't a sudden instant change in character's positions when they initiate different actions. Blending creates a smooth transition automatically, without needing special transition animations that lock your character in place.

So what happens to a player who tries to walk away just 2 hits into Chaos-thrust? Do they forgo the rest of the hits or just flail about in midair?

Blending doesn't solve that issue. Either the remainder of the WS animation is cancelled, or the player runs around stabbing at the air while magically hitting the target behind them.

In order to maintain 'Realism' (*see definition above), either multi-hit weapon skills need to go, or animation lock needs to stay in some form.

[Alhanelem]

I see that even three references to my definition of 'Realistic' weren't enough.



So what happens to a player who tries to walk away just 2 hits into Chaos-thrust? Do they forgo the rest of the hits or just flail about in midair?

Blending doesn't solve that issue. Either the remainder of the WS animation is cancelled, or the player runs around stabbing at the air while magically hitting the target behind them.

Did you see any of this in the videos we've seen? I sure didn't.

The animation lock most of us are complaining about and don't want is the animation lock where you SHOULD be able to move, realistically, but cannot, because you are arbitrarily rooted in place. Where the desired movement isn't logically possible, it still makes sense to keep the player in place. You lock the player not based on the animation itself, but based on when it makes sense to be able to move or not.

Good gameplay mechanics also avoid issues with your second possibility: If the gameplay mechanics are well made and you move in the middle of your attack, if you are not in a position where you can hit the enemy, then that hit misses. simple as that. That is, you design the WS so the hits are actually timed at various points in the attack (to correspond with where the animation is actually "striking"). Then you do checks at these times as to whether the player is facing the target or not.

Animation lock can very greatly in its level of obtrusiveness. In a bad example like XI and XIV 1.0, you can't move for a very long time after an action- a much longer time than is realistic based on the animation. In a good example, the animation itself might move the character (e.g. a leaping attack where your character moves forward towards the target actually moves you there) and the control lockout ends immediately on reaching the target point.

In short- sometimes it is realistic to lock out control- but those lockouts need to be realistic rather than simply being from start to end of a model animation.

In order to maintain 'Realism' (*see definition above), either multi-hit weapon skills need to go, or animation lock needs to stay in some form.

See above. multiple hit attacks are completely and totally doable without having animation lock.

To me, a great example of the animation lock situation is Zelda: Twilight Princess vs. Zelda skyward sword. In the former, you can swing your sword any way you want while on the run. No animation lock and it works perfectly- it wasn't unrealistic at all.. In Skyward Sword, there is animation lock when you swing your sword. This was very frustrating for many people coming off the previous game which let you swing while moving, because every attack stops you dead in your tracks.

Real life human beings aren't subject to animation lock, why should our characters in game be, if you're talking about realism?

[Zantetsuken]

The animation lock most of us are complaining about and don't want is the animation lock where you SHOULD be able to move, realistically, but cannot, because you are arbitrarily rooted in place. Where the desired movement isn't logically possible, it still makes sense to keep the player in place. You lock the player not based on the animation itself, but based on when it makes sense to be able to move or not.

I agree with the above, but too many here are asking for a complete removal of the the animation lock -- throwing the baby of 'realism' out with the bathwater of inconvenience.

Good gameplay mechanics also avoid issues with your second possibility: If the gameplay mechanics are well made and you move in the middle of your attack, if you are not in a position where you can hit the enemy, then that hit misses. simple as that. That is, you design the WS so the hits are actually timed at various points in the attack (to correspond with where the animation is actually "striking"). Then you do checks at these times as to whether the player is facing the target or not.

Even with improved server-client reaction time, I doubt latency will be low enough to allow this many checks per second in ARR.

As I said before, 1.0 latency really made animation lock seem much worse than it actually was. And the fact that battles were designed without latency and animation lock in mind was the only thing that made players aware enough to complain about it.

[Shougun]

I agree with the above, but too many here are asking for a complete removal of the the animation lock -- throwing the baby of 'realism' out with the bathwater of inconvenience.

Like realism, hate animation lock. Imho for a FF game (wild physical feats possible) no animation lock is more realistic then animation lock. Still a weighted system would be cooler (no turning your thrust and hitting still, or actually being able to stop mid way by like 'esc' key or other canceling feature (moving)).

Even with improved server-client reaction time, I doubt latency will be low enough to allow this many checks per second in ARR.

As I said before, 1.0 latency really made animation lock seem much worse than it actually was. And the fact that battles were designed without latency and animation lock in mind was the only thing that made players aware enough to complain about it.

No idea about their server tech, but I know the intense action games actually predict combat in order to make it look like it is happening in the now. I have very little experience with servers but I imagine adding that feature would take a lot of work. SE is against an interesting wall of "needs to be better before release, take your time" and "other games, fresh games, are being released that may have more features then you, hurry up". . .

Still, anybody with that kind of action programming speak up, I have no idea how probable it would be (the real time visual combat) - besides just guessing like most people (and SE resource police'rs drive me crazy lol).

[Alhanelem]

As I said before, 1.0 latency really made animation lock seem much worse than it actually was. And the fact that battles were designed without latency and animation lock in mind was the only thing that made players aware enough to complain about it.

Animation lock is animation lock. Latency made it worse but it would have been a problem without it.

As sort of suggested by the above poster, another option is if you move before all the hits land, you interrupt the attack and don't get the full damage. There are plenty of ways to handle the problem situation you described, and many games have used them. WoW has many spells and abilities that require you to be still, and moving will cancel them, giving you less than the full effect. This creates vaulable tactical oppertunities while also keeping actions while "locked" realistic.

Movement locking that is not directly caused by the animation and is instead set by the designers can be okay, as long as you are only locked when movement is an impossibility in a realistic sense.

The worst animation lock situation is when the animation isn't *your* animation. In FFXI, cures and buffs can lock the target in place *if* they aren't already playing another animation. That is not realistic and should not exist, because if it was realistic that the glowy auraness of the cure spell required the recipient to stand still once it takes effect, it wouldn't ignore that stipulation just because the target happened to already be moving. In some tense situations, this lock can get you killed depending on whether or not you get locked by the cure. Animation lock created a lot of other stupid situations in XI as well- like when you get up from a raise and you're playing that "rise to your feet" animation, if someone cures or buffs you, the animation starts over, and you remain locked in place even longer than if nothing was cast on you. Not only was that likely to get you killed again in many situations, but it also looked terrible visually. If you died again right after accepting a raise, you wouldn't play the death animation until your character finished playing the raise animation. In real life, life and death wait for nothing, so how is that realistic?

[Zehira]

Still discussing about animation lock?

[Zantetsuken]

Animation lock is animation lock. Latency made it worse but it would have been a problem without it.

It was the timing critical and position critical Boss battles that made it a problem though. Did anyone complain about animation lock while xp grinding?

To draw a parallel:

Nobody ever complained that Link in 'The Legend of Zelda' (NES) couldn't jump because the game never required him to.

Conversely:

People were extremely frustrated over the unforgiving jumping mechanic in 'Castlevania I' (NES) because the level designs in that game required absolute precision jumping.

As sort of suggested by the above poster, another option is if you move before all the hits land, you interrupt the attack and don't get the full damage. There are plenty of ways to handle the problem situation you described, and many games have used them. WoW has many spells and abilities that require you to be still, and moving will cancel them, giving you less than the full effect. This creates vaulable tactical oppertunities while also keeping actions while "locked" realistic.

Movement locking that is not directly caused by the animation and is instead set by the designers can be okay, as long as you are only locked when movement is an impossibility in a realistic sense.

Ideally, I'd prefer that Chaos Thrust (it really is the best example) change from a total animation lock length of ~4 sec to 2.5 sec

Allow a total cancellation of the move up to the point where the first hit connects (using jump button), and allow movement immediately upon the 3rd and final hit.

Any time between those two points, you are committed to that move and that spot on the ground.

(I think we actually agree on the basic idea here. We might just have different ideas of where to set the margins)

The worst animation lock situation is when the animation isn't *your* animation. In FFXI, cures and buffs can lock the target in place *if* they aren't already playing another animation. That is not realistic and should not exist, because if it was realistic that the glowy auraness of the cure spell required the recipient to stand still once it takes effect, it wouldn't ignore that stipulation just because the target happened to already be moving. In some tense situations, this lock can get you killed depending on whether or not you get locked by the cure. Animation lock created a lot of other stupid situations in XI as well- like when you get up from a raise and you're playing that "rise to your feet" animation, if someone cures or buffs you, the animation starts over, and you remain locked in place even longer than if nothing was cast on you. Not only was that likely to get you killed again in many situations, but it also looked terrible visually. If you died again right after accepting a raise, you wouldn't play the death animation until your character finished playing the raise animation. In real life, life and death wait for nothing, so how is that realistic?

I can't argue with what were obviously animation bug/limitation issues in FFXI. Raises caused all sorts of havoc with animation priority in that game and some of the weird stuff that happened was almost comical.

[SkyeWindbinder]

Still discussing about animation lock?

LOL ^^This! So. Much. This.

[Shougun]

It was the timing critical and position critical Boss battles that made it a problem though. Did anyone complain about animation lock while xp grinding?

To draw a parallel:

Nobody ever complained that Link in 'The Legend of Zelda' (NES) couldn't jump because the game never required him to.

Conversely:

People were extremely frustrated over the unforgiving jumping mechanic in 'Castlevania I' (NES) because the level designs in that game required absolute precision jumping.




Ideally, I'd prefer that Chaos Thrust (it really is the best example) change from a total animation lock length of ~4 sec to 2.5 sec

Allow a total cancellation of the move up to the point where the first hit connects (using jump button), and allow movement immediately upon the 3rd and final hit.

Any time between those two points, you are committed to that move and that spot on the ground.

(I think we actually agree on the basic idea here. We might just have different ideas of where to set the margins)



I can't argue with what were obviously animation bug/limitation issues in FFXI. Raises caused all sorts of havoc with animation priority in that game and some of the weird stuff that happened was almost comical

.

Imo, of a perfect world, Chaos Thrust should let you move around (*) but keep you facing the enemy, so say you are running towards the monster and you go around to the back (while using Chaos Thrust) your character keeps angled at the monster as if you cut along its side, it would look cool- I think.

*Could also make moving in staggered amounts (like the animation), where during the large swings you get the most movement (if holding a movement key) and during the pauses you get no (to little) movement. (momentum of the weapon skill)

If you want to cancel they either make jump a cancel key (meaning no one is going to play froggy during combat because it will cancel your combo -which I think would make some people happy) or make a cancel key like esc.

To go along with that I would also recommend (and like to see) many fold attacks to provide damage at each hit and not at the end, its a minor annoyance to see many fold attacks damage at the end (Alhanelem suggested this too). Also it would mean canceling a multifold attack like using chaos thrust would be logical, like hitting a few times then veering away from the monster canceling the last effect. (I'm not saying Tera combat, since that is hit box detection, I'm saying if you aren't facing the target it cancels it, if you cancel it your self it cancels it (but what effects done so far are still done - and the cost of the spell :P).


Would give a new meaning to fast/evasive monsters... They could jump away from you and if the game detects out of distance or behind you the rest of the WS would miss and an attentive player could cancel and react quickly - or inversely they could dodge some of a bosses multifolded attack just by moving too far away or behind (allowing SE more types of damage "burst" / "multithreaded burst").

(Again this is just relying on "within range" + "facing / cone" which FFXIV -already- had these features, like dodging the Dodo cone breath - or getting out of the way of bad breath / dragon roar - its not hit box detection stuff, which could take a while to make since its not already made).

[Alhanelem]

Allow a total cancellation of the move up to the point where the first hit connects (using jump button), and allow movement immediately upon the 3rd and final hit.

Any time between those two points, you are committed to that move and that spot on the ground.

(I think we actually agree on the basic idea here. We might just have different ideas of where to set the margins)

Something like that, yes. What I'm trying to convey (mostly) is that whenever movement would be realistically possible, it should be allowed. In cases where being able to move a certain way wouldn't make any sense, then and only then should you be prevented from doing it. In this case, the movement lock is set in such a way that it makes sense, unlike a plain and simple animation lock that prevents movment from 0.00 seconds of the animation beginning until the animation is completely over whether you would be able to move in a realistic sense before the end or after the beginning or not.

What the above poster proposes would also work for the example WS. Being able to strafe while executing the WS seems reasonable. If you're required to face the target while landing the hits, you don't need the precision checks that you would need if the player didn't have to face the enemy.