The Animations

Morgha_Kul

So, I was playing a while back and they introduced new animations for several things. I noticed the walking, and I noticed the staff animations, and also the animation for the 2H sword ability "Uppercut." The walking animations were nice, but the staff animations were awkward and unnatural looking (and conspicuously ONE HANDED, for a two handed weapon), and the Uppercut animation was wierdly accelerated halfway through, making it look unrealistic and silly.

The forums blazed with dismay, as people told the devs in no uncertain terms that the new animations, at least these ones, were awful, and should be changed back or adjusted. Real life took me away from the game for a time, and after a couple of months (or whatever it is), I've returned to find nothing has been done.

Thus, I am again bringing this up.

The animations for staff attacks look terrible. They look awkward and uncomfortable. More, the mere STANCE of the character when not actually attacking, but with the weapon drawn, is also ugly and uncomfortable looking. For example, it's GREAT that we can stand with our staff in hand, leaning on it like a walking stick. However, we stand with feet apart, slightly off-balance, with our arm sticking out and wrist awkwardly bent. Why not let us stand like the Prophet does? Why can we not WALK with the staff the way the Prophet does? These animations are clearly in the game, so why can't WE use them? It's also very annoying that only restoration staff users get to stand like this at all. Destruction staff wielders stand awkwardly with the staff held more or less horizontal. When at rest, staves should be held upright (again, the way the Prophet holds his).

The attack animations should be changed to be more natural and fluid, and should use TWO HANDS. Indeed, the original animations were MUCH better. Just return us to those. The idle animations with weapons drawn should also be changed back. We should NOT wear a staff on our backs at any time. When a staff is stowed, we should hold it in our hands as the Prophet does, and if we walk while it's stowed, we should walk USING the staff, again as the Prophet does.

The original animation for Uppercut was ALSO much, much better. It was slower on the upswing, giving the attack a feeling of actual WEIGHT. It looked like I was hitting my foe with a heavy sword. The current animation starts slow, but the sword seems to turn into balsa wood for the upswing, which is comically fast. Once again, just return us to the original animation. If the point was to make the attack faster, then do one of two things: either speed up the whole (original) animation, so that it doesn't wierdly change midway through, or increase the damage of the attack to compensate for it being slower.

I'm sure there are other animations that people can bring up. These are just the ones I've come in contact with. I encourage other players to add their requests to this thread, and I hope the developers will look in and take the request seriously. Even better if we could get some dialog started between the devs and the community, so I encourage the devs to join in and comment.

Thanks!

Morgha_Kul

Really, did no one else have any thoughts about this? When it was first brought up it was a hot topic...

felinith66

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Really, did no one else have any thoughts about this? When it was first brought up it was a hot topic...

Because it's pointless. They're not going to change the animations this close to console release. Also, everything PC related is being put on hold at the moment. But I do agree with you. The old animations were better. The current ones are more 'arcadey.' But I believe this was what they were aiming for with these changes.

Moonshadow66

I agree, the old animations were better.
The new staff animations look like playing tennis when doing a fully charged heavy attack. I almost got used to it, but.. I still see it. It doesn't look naturally; why should a staff have a sidewards-animation? Really, like tennis.

On the idle animations.. I kinda like those, it's now easier to distinguish which staff is equipped without checking on the bar first (in case you're using both resto and destro staves). But I do agree that it looks weird how the character stands there, the knees look weak, the feet are too far from/to each other, and it also looks like he/she has some kind of spinal issue.

When I first saw the resto staff idle position, I thought, "like the Prophet", but unfortunately it's not exactly the same. As you said, this animation would already be in the game.

I'm also using Uppercut, but I don't know how it was before since I started using a Greatsword only recently. I'm still confused while using it anyways (trying all these new skills), so I don't have a real opinion on the change that was made to their animations

But yeah, for the staves I'd like to see the old attack animations again, and the idle animations could use an improvement, imho.

rowanwatkins3

I personally think the old animations should be brought back for the destruction staff mainly, they were lovely and made your mage look mysterious and crafty. The new ones make me look kinda dumb sometimes and also make my character look like he is "throwing" spells which I don't think should be done with a staff.

Lynx7386

ZOS really needs to hire a motion capture team. Most of the animations in this game look like they were made a decade ago.

booker21

Lynx7386 wrote: »

ZOS really needs to hire a motion capture team. Most of the animations in this game look like they were made a decade ago.

This ^

Animations are so bad on this game, it painless to see most of them. I actually swtiched from shield and sword to 2H weapon because i couldn´t see that awful running animation.

Does anyone has a video with the old animations? i want to see them now.

Sylas_Orin

Bumpkins. An overhaul of the character animations, or even adding new character animations to the Crown Store (the latter being more likely to happen, if it ever were to happen at all) is very much needed.

Morgha_Kul

I've been thinking about this for a long time. It always irks me that NO GAME I've ever seen lets us use a staff as it's actually used: as a walking stick. My wizards have been long separated from their walking sticks, and I think it time to reunite them.

ALL STAVES should have two basic states, Non-combat and Combat. ALL STAVES in non-combat should be animated the same way.

Non combat states exist when the weapon is stowed.

1. Weapon stowed (sheathed), standing idle: In this state, the character should be simply standing with one hand on his staff. The staff should have one end on the ground while the character leans COMFORTABLY on the staff, much as the Prophet does (and decidedly NOT as we do with the Restoration staff in drawn mode).
2. Weapon stowed, walking: In this state, we should walk with the staff, just as the Prophet does. It's a WALKING STICK.
3. Weapon stowed, running: This animation should be exactly what we have now when running with the staff drawn, held in one hand, out to the side slightly as we run.

Combat states exist when the staff is actually drawn.

1. Drawn and standing idle: In this state, we would stand in a more aggressive posture, just as we do now. You could even have a different posture for different types of staff. Staff in one hand, held ready for action.
2. Drawn and walking: Again, just as we have it now.
3. Drawn and running: Once more, just as we have it now. Note that this is the same exact animation as when the staff is stowed while running (see above).
4. Attacking: Staves are TWO HANDED WEAPONS. Thus, enough with the bizarre tennis gestures, give us back the original attack animations using TWO HANDS.

And that's it for staves. It constantly amazes me that in all these years, not one game has given us staves we use like staves. Moreover, ALL these animations already exist in the game, so I can't imagine it would take a lot of work to let US use them as the Prophet already does.

Morgha_Kul

I should also say, a comment by someone at ESO would be nice too. There have been many discussion on this and similar topics and I've never seen any response from the people making the game.

Ra'Shtar

It always bothered me the way you cast the heavy attack with the staff, the way you stand idle with the staff and the dual fireballs with the fire staff heavy attack (why not just one big fireball?) but never complained because there is so MUCH wrong and broken things in the game that this seemed trivial.

Amphithoe

A rework of all the animations of ESO has been on top of my wishlist for a long time.

ZOS_Volpe

Greetings,

We have gone ahead and closed this thread down since it is rather old. Please keep in mind that sometimes it is better to create a new topic, instead of replying in one that was posted a while ago.

Thanks for your understanding.