When will zos respond to the animation and 2h threads?

MincMincMinc · February 2

This first pts is crucial because it lays the groundwork for the next 5+ years of ESO combat. As they continue to work on skills and animations it is crucial we get this point across to zos. Sure you may not use 2h, but at some point zos will get around to adjusting your class or weapon skills, which is why we should be discussing this.

To sum up the threads one of the major issues is how overblown the VFX are for some of the new skills. many of the new DK and 2h skills do an insane amount of trailing and particle effects that cloud the screen. In a hack and slash solo player game this would be fine.......However in an mmo with 50-100 players on the screen we are going to have downsides. Combat wise ideally you would emphasize Ultimates and CC mechanics first with blatant hard to miss animations or VFX. However we are seeing zos do this for everything from spammables to proc sets and every inconsequential little effect.

Are you guys fine with animation soup combat?

Here's a list of all the animation/2h threads. There are several other threads where people discuss how absurd animations are becoming, but I wanted to focus on the 2h since zos has not talked about 2h once yet its the only other skill line being changed right now besides DK.

Wup_sa · February 2

I think the new animations look horrible, all of them. The dk visuals will surely cause migranes with constant flashes and it will bring issues in pvp, because all the morhs share the same animation and visual effect, so it is hard for opponent to tell which is being used. Not to mention the animations will hide every proc effect so you eat 10k dmg from time to time and won't see why.

The 2 hander animations just need to be scrapped. You can cancel each animation before the visual even begins which causes some very high bursts and instant executioners. Otherwise the 2 handed animations feel very clunky and look like from some raid shadowlegends animations.

MincMincMinc · February 2

I should add people were also complaining about the 2h sound effects......zos literally just copy and pasted the same "shwing" noise onto everything. Even only dueling with dizzy swing it was getting annoying. I can only imagine hearing that for the next 5 years. Before the deeper thud noise was easy to listen to, now its a piercing shwing sound like some anime sound effect.

My main point is that they should just be keeping the generic spammed skills lowkey and not make them bloated and annoying to use. Not to mention I didnt even bring up performance, which I am sure could benefit from keeping the most spammed skills toned down.

Estin · February 2

They mentioned it here

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8424272#Comment_8424272

Hey yall, just to clarify, we are working on toning down the intensity and transparency of Visual Effects, not animations. The difference being Visual Effects are usually like the Flames or Electricity that are part of player abilities. Animation is the set choreography players will do when they activate an ability like a swipe or punch (as examples). To clarify this investigation won't be touching animations but will looking into reducing the intensity of Visual Effects in order to help players with sensitivities to bright lights, amongst other reasons. We are looking at all possible sources of those visual effects (item sets, abilities, etc) but ultimately we will have to wait and see for what the investigation brings out so we can deliver things in the hopefully best manner. Thanks for the interest everyone and we will keep yall updated!

MincMincMinc · February 2

Estin wrote: »

They mentioned it here

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8424272#Comment_8424272

Hey yall, just to clarify, we are working on toning down the intensity and transparency of Visual Effects, not animations. The difference being Visual Effects are usually like the Flames or Electricity that are part of player abilities. Animation is the set choreography players will do when they activate an ability like a swipe or punch (as examples). To clarify this investigation won't be touching animations but will looking into reducing the intensity of Visual Effects in order to help players with sensitivities to bright lights, amongst other reasons. We are looking at all possible sources of those visual effects (item sets, abilities, etc) but ultimately we will have to wait and see for what the investigation brings out so we can deliver things in the hopefully best manner. Thanks for the interest everyone and we will keep yall updated!

Yeah I have my doubts that zos would let us pinpoint reduce specific animations like for example I would like to see meteors and could care less about ever seeing a valkyn proc ever again. Yet they share very similar VFX. Its not like zos could have a item set animation slider.....because I still really need to see Rush of Agony or whatever the current abusable set is in a given meta. Zos would have to give us a list of thousands of effects and different parts of animations to disable or reduce. Its more realistic if they could just design them from the start in a smarter thought through way.

There are other 2h complaints though like with combat how onslaught isnt unique and has been a copy of corrosive since post elsweyr.

Or how offbalance doesn't really work with dizzy anymore with the quicker animation. Its not like you are creating good play counterplay here. Offbalance at the end of the day was never designed around a single telegraph. At least with old surprise attack youd have the stun after stealth or behind so you could expect a stun when someone cloaked. With the old dizzy youd see the 1.2 to 1.5s cast time big swing.

MincMincMinc · February 2

Ok so now we have to see whether the 3 different sound types for 2h weapons are applied based on the slotted weapon or the motif chosen in the outfit station.

coop500 · February 2

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Ok so now we have to see whether the 3 different sound types for 2h weapons are applied based on the slotted weapon or the motif chosen in the outfit station.

Yeeeeah, I hope it's the motif but it's probably the slotted weapon.

MincMincMinc · February 2

coop500 wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Ok so now we have to see whether the 3 different sound types for 2h weapons are applied based on the slotted weapon or the motif chosen in the outfit station.

Yeeeeah, I hope it's the motif but it's probably the slotted weapon.

Ill check later tonight, I can only imagine every skill still has the same thud or shwing noise depending on the weapon.

Onslaught will atleast be better now slightly? Having the larger window will atleast let you run someone down. Instead of us getting stuck in this stall meta. I still think we would be better off with the ult return version with a stacking pen/crit buff. So each execute with onslaught gets you 5k pen and 20% crit.

Faltasë · February 2

I've seen the updated sound for the 2h and they do sound much better, but they still don't sound good.

I also think they look like garbage still.

MincMincMinc · February 3

I tested all the skills on all three weapons. The sound effect is tied to the motif. It was very hard to tell because the volume of the axe and maul is so quiet some of the skills I cant even hear a noise playing.

Especially on reverse slice, the sound effect does not even seem to line up at all. Before you hit the target you hear a woosh noise........then your sword passes the target and swings behind you and then you hear a thud noise. The timing NEEDS to be revisited. The maul sound effect for reverse slice does not seem to even be working. I am not joking when I say I can make more noise by swinging a sheet of paper at my desk. Reverse slice sounds like you are whipping a broom around not hitting anything. This is an execute skill where you are going to be having crazy moments closing out kills. This should not sound like a weak swipe with a kitchen knife or simply have no sound effect at all.
- To complain further the character animation just looks like a generic light or heavy attack swing. I would rather go back to the previous spin around over the head animation that looks like you are actually going for a killing blow rather than a generic swipe that's indistinguishable.

Uppercut fails to have a deep thud noise at the point of impact, so again it just seems like your character is randomly swinging around with some woosh noise happening. This may be because the woosh noise is so loud compared to the thud noise of the weapons. It doesn't help that the woosh happens before the perceived hit. Again the maul sound effect doesn't even seem to be working for this or its too quiet. Strangely i was finding that the skill seems fine when light attack weaving. If you don't light attack weave it seems really off.

Whoever worked on critical charge did a fantastic job though. This is a great example of how a 2h skill should feel. (now only if the damage was worth using it.....)

Carve feels meaty enough I would call it fine.

Rally, the sound effect is too delayed. Maybe it needs to be quicker by 0.1s otherwise its fine, the character animation looks cool with the sword twirl

Onslaught still seems pretty weak for what is supposed to be an ultimate. Honestly crit charge feels way more like an insane ultimate quality animation.

Dreadwar · February 4

You cannot animation cancel Executioner like you can on live. The animation has to play out and makes it feel clunky.

MincMincMinc · February 4

Dreadwar wrote: »

You cannot animation cancel Executioner like you can on live. The animation has to play out and makes it feel clunky.

No it does play the same, its just that the character swing animation lasts longer. It still abides by the same GCD weaving timing.

Again you raise a good point that I have said almost a hundred times this pts. Executioner is supposed to be an execute, not a generic swing. For something that is supposed to be the final blow on an opponent, you would think it should look more like a quick strike. Which is why the previous spin around and slam dunk quick character animation felt so good.

FlipFlopFrog · February 22

So I watched a video showcasing the new animations. Please ZoS, don't do this, the animations are really bad! My biggest gripe is that they are too specific for swords, the twirls you do with the weapon will look very strange if you are wielding an axe or a hammer. Also, I really dislike the flashy-ness of them, this is Elder Scrolls not genshin impact after all.

Sluggy · February 23

I really disliked the new stuff for DK but at least I sorta understood what they were going for. But for the 2-hand stuff... it's just bad. Like an objectively worse version across the board with the exception of Crit Rush - that one actually did look like an improvement. Even worse than the animations, particles, and completely off sense of timing, was the sound. I HATE the new sounds for 2-Hand. Cleave doesn't even sound like you are swinging a sword, it sounds like you are swinging a chain. Overall, the whole thing is a total put off to me. I'll likely stop playing once the conversion is far enough along as I really just don't care for where it's going.

MincMincMinc · February 24

Sluggy wrote: »

I really disliked the new stuff for DK but at least I sorta understood what they were going for. But for the 2-hand stuff... it's just bad. Like an objectively worse version across the board with the exception of Crit Rush - that one actually did look like an improvement. Even worse than the animations, particles, and completely off sense of timing, was the sound. I HATE the new sounds for 2-Hand. Cleave doesn't even sound like you are swinging a sword, it sounds like you are swinging a chain. Overall, the whole thing is a total put off to me. I'll likely stop playing once the conversion is far enough along as I really just don't care for where it's going.

Whats worse is that half the new sounds dont line up or even work to begin with. I pointed it out in several threads, but the axe and mace sounds dont seem to be working on half the skills. Or they are just so subtle that we cant hear them.