I don't understand. Assuming all powers have specific animations set to them when you build your powers, and assuming all powers have a given range that is set in the power itself (and can be modified from there by Refinements, etc), then it would seem to me that your one melee attack will, by necessity, have a strictly different animation than your one ranged attack in most cases. You might have different animations for all of your powers, in fact. Or you might decide to use basically the same two or three for your melee attacks and a different set of 3-4 for your ranged attacks with some repetition among powers, but then only by dev design (any two given ranged powers might allow the same animation, or they might not, as the devs design the powers) and player choice.

Also, I would expect a lot of animation options to be left/right mirrors of each other. Assuming it's fairly easy to do that, you effectively double your options by doing that, although with weapons and guns and such, you might have to pick a side and stick with it to avoid having awkward jump-cut animations going from "gun in left hand" to "gun in right hand" .

What you're saying existed in CoH, just as different powers. Ice Manipulation had Ice Sword powers, Dark Manipulation had Dark Melee Powers, etc... But they were mixed with other things such as buffs, defensive toggles, offensive powers, etc.

For some characters, swapping between them might work. But for others, it'd be completely out of character. Cryo, my Ice/Ice Blaster (until I rerolled him as a Corrupter when heroes finally got the option), NEVER touched the Ice Sword because it didn't fit within the concept, but took Frozen Fists (a SINGLE power) because he was a boxer. Whereas Action Jack was an Assault Rifle/Traps Blaster with NOOOOOOOOOOOOO melee attack outside of Brawl because Action Hero.

blacke4dawn wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Gangrel wrote:
The way in which I read it is that if it is a ranged ability, there will be a "short range" animation and a "long range" animation.
Whilst melee abilities would be the ones getting the shaft (in that there is no ranged version of them, otherwise they would be called ranged attacks), admittedly some of the *Ranged* attacks when used up close could look strange.
So I could see the reasoning for it.
This is just for the *aesthetic* of the power, and not going into the *mechanics* of it.... that is whole different kettle of fish; one that *could* possibly be looked at further down the line possibly...

I guess the idea of the melee powers "getting the shaft" as you put it was part of my hang up with this. You're right when you say ranged powers could have separate "short range" animations and "long range" animations and in some cases that might make some sense. I'm just wondering how many cases would seriously benefit from this amount of ranged-based "fine tuning".
As a hypothetical I could see if you're using a rifle with a bayonet that you might want to shoot the rifle at long range and then stab a target with the bayonet at short/melee range. But beyond a few multi-purpose weapons like that I'm not really sure too many other powers (especially weaponless powers) would really benefit from user-selectable range based animations. Could just be me but this seems fairly "remote" as Han Solo might say.

So you don't see the benefit of being able to pull out a fire sword or ice mallet or something instead of shooting a fireball or iceball at them when an enemy gets within melee range? Or how about a lightning bolt at range and an arc between your hands at melee?
That is that the basic premise is that at range you shoot at them with a manifested projectile while at melee you "swing" at them with a manifested weapon.
If you allow usage of the animations from melee powers then I could see every animation not based on using a physical object benefiting from this, and many that do base them self on physical objects in some form.
Quote:
Another quick thing to consider is if the game provided "rifle with bayonet" type powers it could probably automatically switch between the shooting animation and the bayoneting animation based on target range by itself. Not entirely sure we'd need "user-definable" animations for specific ranged-based weapon powers like this anyway.

Personally I would always like to have the option for this, even when using such weapons.

I actually conceded the exact point that certain "ranged" powers could have options for "short/melee" animations versus "long range" animations. I just don't think the Devs will bother to allow it.

My point is that not only would "melee only" powers be screwed out of that benefit by default because they have no variable range element but I'm still less than convinced that "lots of people" would want their (for example) ranged fireball turn into a fire sword when at close range. Not everyone is going to be playing a version of the Green Lantern here. At best you're blurring the lines between the hard definitions of what a melee power is versus what a ranged power is. Put another way, why would anyone choose to use any melee only power if your ranged powers could be made to look like melee powers if you're close enough to your target?

Let me make an important point again because I think it got lost somewhere a few posts ago: CoT is going to have strict definitions of what will be "melee" powers versus what will be "ranged" powers. It will do this (like CoH did) to help define the powersets and create a sense of balance between the various powers. Melee powers will likely once again tend to do more DPS to make up for their range limitations. The whole concept of letting ranged powers LOOK like melee powers more or less defeats the purpose of these powers being strictly defined as melee or ranged in the first place.

It's not that I don't think your idea has merit at least for the desire to have as much customizability as possible. I just don't think it's going to be doable for the reasons already covered here.

Foradain wrote:

Lothic wrote:
My point is that not only would "melee only" powers be screwed out of that benefit by default because they have no variable range element but I'm still less than convinced that "lots of people" would want their (for example) ranged fireball turn into a fire sword when at close range. Not everyone is going to be playing a version of the Green Lantern here. At best you're blurring the lines between the hard definitions of what a melee power is versus what a ranged power is. Put another way, why would anyone choose to use any melee only power if your ranged powers could be made to look like melee powers if you're close enough to your target?

Well, I can think of one reason right off the bat, it's in your next paragraph (emphasis added is mine):
Lothic wrote:
Let me make an important point again because I think it got lost somewhere a few posts ago: CoT is going to have strict definitions of what will be "melee" powers versus what will be "ranged" powers. It will do this (like CoH did) to help define the powersets and create a sense of balance between the various powers. Melee powers will likely once again tend to do more DPS to make up for their range limitations. The whole concept of letting ranged powers LOOK like melee powers more or less defeats the purpose of these powers being strictly defined as melee or ranged in the first place.

So if, during the time between when I first play Goldenrod as a Support/Ranged and when I can retcon her to Support/Assault, and her ranged damage powers likely do more damage than a tertiary melee power would (or at least, would let me add in Support effects), I can show her, with the same power, shooting magic blasts through her staff at range or whacking someone in close combat with the magically augmented staff, for the same damage. Whereas after they release the Support/Assault Class/Spec combo, she can do that, or she can use one of her melee powers to do more damage in melee instead.
So while I can see your point that this would be completely useless for characters with only melee powers, or for characters whose concept requires them to use the same animations when using their ranged powers at range or up close, I do not see how this makes the concept undoable. At the very least, I hope the devs have time to do the coding to permit this, for the sake of characters that could use it.

Again (to basically requote one of my eariler posts) I would agree that this might be a "remotely legitimate" use for this kind of thing. Certainly it would be nice/useful for some people.

The question, as is for most things, is whether or not the Devs would think enough people would use this to make it part of the main animation choice system. I personally think it's questioanble enough that if anything this might be yet another one of those "post-launch" things if it happens at all. I certainly don't see it as a Day One priority at any rate.

Radiac wrote:

It might not be a bad thing to give some of the ranged attacks a minimum range, actually. Specifically the very long ranged (and presumably high damage, interruptible) snipe shots.
Nothing looked weirder in CoX than the melee-range sniper shot.

I would admit that it could look "weird" to snipe at point blank range. But honestly most of the time if you tried to do that you were usually tinked by some kind of trivial AoE damage that would be enough to interrupt it regardless. I don't think we need a hardwired minimum range for these kinds of things when the system already made them very tactically impractical to try in the first place.

Also this would raise the questions of whether you needed to be a minimum distance at the start of the snipe, the end of the snipe and/or if you'd have to maintain that distance throughout the entire snipe wind-up. It may just be more trouble than it'd be worth to keep track of all that not to mention the possiblity of constantly having your snipes ruined simply because someone manages stay close to you all the time. If that could ruin a snipe why wouldn't it logically ruin any attempt at any "ranged" attack against an eneny that stands right next to you? See how this whole thing snowballs into a problematic mess?

Besides on the like 1 in a 100 chance you did actually manage to complete a PB snipe it was super-cool to be able to melt a target's face with that much PB damage like that. ;)

It's a cute idea, basically the power animations parallel to fluff text, but it'll need a lot more fleshing out post-launch to see if it can even be made to work with the game's mechanics.

And you have to ask a bunch of other questions, too, like if there's a sword, is there a parry animation for when your (equivalent to defense or damage resist) blocks an attack? What if the target enters or leaves melee range during animation? And so forth.

And personally, I find it quite cathartic to stuff a fireball into my target at melee range as well as longer ranges. And I don't feel it looks weird to snipe at point blank range. If Legolas gets to shove an arrow into something at point blank, why can't I?