The amount of recycled/mediocre animations on Vindicator is unacceptable.

[Zenith.7301]

Literally the same swing animation on the first chain of greatsword autoattack and greatsword skill 2. Greatsword skill 4 particle effects don't even feel like a revenant, but more like an elementalist. The weapon trail effects are incredibly plain and muted. I'm comparing a normal greatsword to the legendary Eternity, and virtually no projectiles or particle modifications.

 

The Archemorus utility skills 1-4 are virtually all the same animation effect outside mobility skills displacing your character. The only visually distinctive stance skills are the elites.

 

What happened with this expansion? The ability icon art and the legend art looks super garish and nowhere near as painterly as the previous art assets. The orange and blue are so saturated and ugly.

 

Compare the previous legends, particularly renegade and herald and mainhand sword animations with this EoD batch. This mediocre presentation cannot go live.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Zenith.7301

[SidewayS.3789]

Because these specs, at least Vindicator/Willbender screams "rush rush to create a new spec". Tbh i dunno where should i put Vindicator. Heal? Power DPS Class? As heal is totally meh and as power DPS class it's even worse than herald. Remember, they were slapped over their heads and put to create an expansion though. 

[CratZII.5872]

They said there will be lots of placeholder and developer graphics and animations in the betas since its still work in progress. So I would not go around assuming these are the final animations we are getting.

[DonArkanio.6419]

I second every single word OP says. 

 

Spent some time playing Vindicator and sorry to say it, but the animations are cheap and skills themselves are uninspired. When in combat, the greatsword animation are unreadable.

Not that I had high hopes after the Renegade. But the new legend feels completely out of place to me, both the utility skills and the new F2.

I am seeing a shift in ArenaNet's art direction to very simple, saturated and colorful which I am personally not a fan of. And this transitions to icon skills.

[Infusion.7149]

Imagine thinking beta 130+ days before launch is the final iteration of art design. Of all feedback possible this is the most worthless.

[Kidel.2057]

I get it's an issue, but this is seriously the last of my concerns. If they have limited effort they can put on the spec, I hope they use it to fix the main F2 mechanic and the whole Alliance mechanic. Animations come last. 

That's my humble opinion on the matter. 

[Scoobaniec.9561]

Mace 2 still has bugged animation and its a STARTER WEAPON FOR REV.

[Zenith.7301]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Imagine thinking beta 130+ days before launch is the final iteration of art design. Of all feedback possible this is the most worthless.

 

Worthless is sucking up oxygen missing the point about what a beta is supposed to be, missing the point that reaper and herald have been live how they are for 5+ years with clear flaws despite beta feedback, and that because something being in beta means that it will definitely change for the better if players don't bring it up.

 

Unrelenting Assault doesn't even have a complete animation after they went and shortened its duration, and mainhand sword 2 just lost the projectiles for a worse artistic outcome.

 

I get it, you have this petty vendetta over prior threads, but do try to be more discreet in your stalking threads to be the resident forum contrarian; some of us don't mind missing out on your weirdo antics. Too bad there are no ignore/mute lists, will have to settle with turning off notifications.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Zenith.7301

[Heinel.6548]

3 hours ago, Kidel.2057 said:

I get it's an issue, but this is seriously the last of my concerns. If they have limited effort they can put on the spec, I hope they use it to fix the main F2 mechanic and the whole Alliance mechanic. Animations come last. 

That's my humble opinion on the matter. 

 

The art team is separate from the rest of the programming. This request literally has zero impact on your priorities.

[Loules.8601]

Yes, thank you very much (for topic-author) - whanted to talk about this myself. 

...And not only animations we have only 1 (!) unique skill with some mechanic - on GS skill 5. 
GS2 - super-auto-attack with 7 sec cd?... Can't tell anything more about this
GS3 - Warrior GS-3! Even on the same button!
GS4 - Ranger GS-4! (but with AA, not kick - kick will be better, lol) Again - almost the same skill on the SAME button!
GS5 - Unique skill, the first and... alone one (... 1 way or another - but with necro GS-2 animation, magic miracle...)

Every other GS-classes have minimum 2 (ranger) and maximum 4 (Reaper) unique skills - not counting Auto-Attacks. 

It's cntl-c + cntrl-v game-design. Seriously? All your long hard work = this kind of work? I hope that not and this is just a placeholders, when you tried to test alliance-mechanic primarily, and not weapon skills-set and animation-set. If not - it'll be very funny... about your final work-results.

What need to be done to not make all this in the total joke in the finals:

Unique animations and unique skills - not cntrl-c type of skills. I think that you know about this too, Arena-net. 

Unique (and not so bland) animations - not just visual effects around skills. Main problems in my humble opinion:
GS-1. Unique auto-attack animation - Revenant weapons have the same "uniqueness" with style and battle-style as Mesmer-weapons. "Non-standard" and strong unique identity. Current design - like your parents who taught you before revenant-school - local Charr-warriors warband. And it's not good if we talk about all of us in revenant profession. 
For GS-2, 3 and 4 - new skill mechanic and animations (for 2 and 3 at least). Also we need some kind of CC - maybe on block-skill? Block > something like strike with +0.25 sec stun for 1 blocked attack (max 5 stack). And it's not so much problem with PvP - because CC on situational block (also - little "balanced" with Def or/with CC). 

Most important thing - we need strong unique identity on Vindicator GS, like on other Revenant weapons. Because current GS - not like other Revenant weapons, but like imported placeholder type of weapon.  I'll be waiting for one way or another, hope to see "semi-finals" on November "all-professions" Beta, my dear Arena-net. 
I trust you, A-net (regardless of other opinions), so sincerely hope to continue trust you after release of EoD 😄

[Duke Blackrose.4981]

Revenant GS is basically Ranger GS with a different skill 5.

 

Not that I'm complaining. Ranger GS is the most fun one.

[Kidel.2057]

1 hour ago, Heinel.6548 said:

 

The art team is separate from the rest of the programming. This request literally has zero impact on your priorities.

They share the same budget source. 

[Loules.8601]

5 minutes ago, Kidel.2057 said:

They share the same budget source. 

It’s not completely like that 😄 

If you have people - you have them; artists not gonna work on PvP balance… I hope 🤣

[Hooglese.4860]

I kinda want the dodges to be separate too. Its weird to have the heal dodge share animation with the big blast one and makes it hard to judge in combat. At least a colour shift for each of the three options.

[Zenith.7301]

26 minutes ago, Kidel.2057 said:

They share the same budget source. 

 

No, they do not. You're going to need character artists and animators to begin with to animate enemies, including raid, fractal, dungeon, and open world enemies. These are the same people who work on player character animations.

 

And if it means having a few less enemies animated in favor of your main interface with the game, your character and class, to be well done, I'm all for it.

[Kidel.2057]

41 minutes ago, Loules.8601 said:

It’s not completely like that 😄 

If you have people - you have them; artists not gonna work on PvP balance… I hope 🤣

ANet has X amount of money to invest. They can't have more than the money they have. That's a tautology. 
They can only invest fraction of X in each department. If the art department has time to improve things, sure, go for it. If they don't I'd rather they invest money and resources into polishing the mechanics. The animation ARE a problem, but less important (to me). 

[Kidel.2057]

23 minutes ago, Zenith.7301 said:

 

No, they do not. You're going to need character artists and animators to begin with to animate enemies, including raid, fractal, dungeon, and open world enemies. These are the same people who work on player character animations.

 

And if it means having a few less enemies animated in favor of your main interface with the game, your character and class, to be well done, I'm all for it.

What if they recycled class actions because the animators are barely enough / have barely enough time to make new cutscenes or kits? Should they put their budget into hiring more animators? If they have some money to spare, sure. Again, I think it's more important to polish the class mechanics. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Zenith.7301]

1 minute ago, Kidel.2057 said:

ANet has X amount of money to invest. They can't have more than the money they have. That's a tautology. 
They can only invest fraction of X in each department. If the art department has time to improve things, sure, go for it. If they don't I'd rather they invest money and resources into polishing the mechanics. The animation ARE a problem, but less important (to me). 

 

 

They just had the budget to design another spec with samurai duel wind up animations, a brand new gunblade concept, animations for the teleports, brand new animations for Harbinger shroud and Virtuoso, Avatar-inspired catalyst animations, but somehow Vindicator has to be on the chopping block for the budget?

 

Shouldn't be a thing.

[Kidel.2057]

2 minutes ago, Zenith.7301 said:

 

 

They just had the budget to design another spec with samurai duel wind up animations, a brand new gunblade concept, animations for the teleports, brand new animations for Harbinger shroud and Virtuoso, Avatar-inspired catalyst animations, but somehow Vindicator has to be on the chopping block for the budget?

 

Shouldn't be a thing.

I agree. But now Vin has like 10 problems. Animations are 1 of them and, again , there are 9 othere problems that should be addressed first. Are you going to tell me again that it can be solved in parallel? We've already discussed that. 

 

I mean, you say animations are the problem. Have you seen the icons? Have you seen the Legend "icon" and art when attuning? Have you seen the lack of a trait line artwork? 
The art part of it seems clearly a WIP. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Obtena.7952]

58 minutes ago, Kidel.2057 said:

I agree. But now Vin has like 10 problems. Animations are 1 of them and, again , there are 9 othere problems that should be addressed first. Are you going to tell me again that it can be solved in parallel? We've already discussed that.

They probably can, since the 'animation' people aren't necessarily the people that address the other 9 problems. To even call animations a 'problem' is a stretch to being with ... even with the animations that were there, the spec wasn't unplayable or visually horrible, so I would say this animations thing is not as critical as the thread makes it sound. 

[Loules.8601]

25 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

They probably can, since the 'animation' people aren't necessarily the people that address the other 9 problems. To even call animations a 'problem' is a stretch to being with ... even with the animations that were there, the spec wasn't unplayable or visually horrible, so I would say this animations thing is not as critical as the thread makes it sound. 

For you? Maybe. For many others? I, personally, rather have problems with Legend than animations and bland GS design. For you are important one part of specialisation, for me - another. I can play with bad utility, but not with bad or boring weapon. 
 

And design or identity-wise - this weapon, in my humble opinion, is the most problematic weapon since release. Because it’s not even an unique weapon - just copied placeholder with GS-5. If it’s like this - let Arena tell us and we will understand anything. 
… but if it’s current serious GS design - it’s the absolute main problem with Vindicator for me personally.

We are not in WoW to create arithmetical specs without good and proper visual representation. For me, without unique visual and animations, it’s not gonna working regardless of everything else. And I’m hardcore player, not open world and story type.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Loules.8601

[Kidel.2057]

You think the animation are a problem? Meh, I mean, look at this compared to Shiro and the other legends: 

https://imgur.com/ZpjLTY6
https://imgur.com/9Hpkjiu

https://imgur.com/9soZQSt

I hope it's a placeholder, but I doubt it. 

All 3 screenshots are taken at the same distance and scale. There is a style difference, a quality difference, a size difference. Not to mention the skill icons. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Loules.8601 said:

For you? Maybe. For many others? I, personally, rather have problems with Legend than animations and bland GS design. For you are important one part of specialisation, for me - another. I can play with bad utility, but not with bad or boring weapon. 
 

And design or identity-wise - this weapon, in my humble opinion, is the most problematic weapon since release. Because it’s not even an unique weapon - just copied placeholder with GS-5. If it’s like this - let Arena tell us and we will understand anything. 
… but if it’s current serious GS design - it’s the absolute main problem with Vindicator for me personally.

We are not in WoW to create arithmetical specs without good and proper visual representation. For me, without unique visual and animations, it’s not gonna working regardless of everything else. And I’m hardcore player, not open world and story type.

 

 

I don't get your response to me ... my post isn't based on my opinion of what's important to me and I'm not going to debate what is more important to you. My post is based on how animations affect the game and their relative importance to other factors affected by Vindicator GS development.

Hey I like nice, fancy animations too ... but flash will always take a back seat to function. Honestly, it's luxury level stuff compared to other things. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Oslaf NA.2793]

I agree with you OP. all the animation re-use is outright disheartening and approaching the realm of utter cheapskate incompetence.  this cannot go live.

[Gambit.9501]

...Wait, so NOW people wanna complain about recycled animations?

Seriously?

This game has been recycling animations for YEARS.  Get the hell over it.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Gambit.9501