How smart are animations going to be? And by this, I mean how dynamic will the animations be? Here is my example which will hopefully make clear what I am envisioning for a "smart" animation vs a "dumb" animation.
Two characters face off one is the offensive character and one is defensive.
Dumb: The offensive character launches a fireball. It travels and strikes the defensive character but the defensive character causes a "miss" and takes no damage. This is much like COH, there might be a "evaded" or "deflected" popup.
Smart: The offensive character launches a fireball. It travels to the defensive character, who is using a "gravity" defensive set. The fireball curves away or around the defensive character and splashes harmlessly against the ground or flies off into space, and the defensive player takes no damage. Embers and flames might be lifted into the air by the field around the defensive player.
In both cases the end result is the same, the defensive character takes no damage, but there is an interaction at a physics level between the two animations. Perhaps a more accurate explanation would be to say that the power's FX are simulated rather than animated. The fireball is a sphere with some mass and velocity set on a course to the target and the sphere can be deflected by the "anti-gravity" field of the target/the defensive character. The back end still operates the same, the simulation only affects the appearance of the result, not whether or not the fireball hits the target. The simulation of the result takes place client side the hit miss damage math takes place on the server side.
Hopefully, that all made sense.
Come to think of is this might be something like the Fire and Ice Combo question. Which was a no. All the same I'd be interested to hear the answer.
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I would presume Dumb as the amount of work that would entail producing alternate Miss, Block, Dodge animations for potentially every attack for every powerset would in and of itself be a non-starter for the Smart option. But, as with anything, I most certainly could be wrong.
This is an interesting idea. What does happen to attacks that don't hit their target?
If an attack would normally have an impact effect at the end, I could see how you could just not proc the impact effect if the target evaded or was missed somehow. But then, would it just stop there, or would it or should it continue on in space? If it continues on, how much further along should it continue? And how do you explain targets that are so big, there is no way to explain how the attack effect passed through the 3D model without hitting it.
These details are the dwelling place of the devil, as they say. I've never really given it any thought until you posted this thread.
And that's all for single-target effects. As soon as we start discussing area effects and barrier effects, then we have to consider other details.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
The attack hit but did no damage.
I'm fine with dumb animations, there's too many variables with aesthetic decoupling to really deal with making them smart.
Just give me an animation for dodge where your character leans out of the way for attacks that are dodged.
Though the first post gave me a neat idea for a power. A gravity power that draws all/most ranged attacks to it. So you'd set down this power then for (some probably small number of seconds) all enemy ranged attacks target it instead of allies, till either it's time runs out or it takes enough damage.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I think that could definitely be doable with the existing off-the-self game mechanics.
Consider that the moment an attack is activated the to-hit roll is made. Flight time is then just an animation issue. So if the game includes a defensive ability that draws all attacks to itself, then that is incorporated into the to-hit roll and the attack animates towards the new target. Seems pretty simple. But simple or not, I can't deny that the concept is pretty awesome, Project_Hero.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
This power would be awesome! I can see it now. As you approach a mob of baddies, you summon an orb that follows you like the electric orb in COH. As long range attacks approach whether they be fire, electricity, magic, they get sucked into this orb and only partially affect you. I love it.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]