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Addressing animation canceling in games
ragz45
Member UncommonPosts: 810
Just for those that don't know what animation canceling is: Animation Canceling is when you use a skill in a game and then use another ability, skill, move, etc to cancel the animation. Doing so you still get the damage from the skill, but don't have to wait for the animation to finish before using a new skill. (just a few games this is used in- ESO, GW2, EQ2, Lineage 1 & 2, AIon, Archeage, SWTOR?, and many more)
Many of our games have this unintentional "feature" built into them. Making the "skill" gap between those that know about it, and abuse it, quite great compared to those that do not. I feel like it's time to address this tactic in some way. One easy way to address the use of animation canceling would be to give reduced effect to skills depending on how long the animation was allowed to go. ie. if you are using a skill that has a 1 second animation, and you only allow .5 seconds of the animation to fire, the skill will only do 50% of the damage intended, or effects will only last 50% as long etc.
Is there anything else you guys can think of that could be done to address the use of this "feature"? As a potential future dev myself, I am quite curious about this topic, among many other things.
Comments
You have to teach it to you players or otherwise make it known to your lower end players. When I play games with animation cancelling and other forms of obscure techs which all you to get a leg up on people who don't know said things they are always known primarily among the hardcore PVP players, and sometimes the PVM players although it is less common.
I think there are really 3 options, with the third obviously being the most common.
I think that it is best to not tell your players about advanced feature like this, because your casual playerbase will feel disadvantaged that they can't do said things and quit because they cant really compete. If they don't know about these gaps then they never feel disadvantaged and they keep playing in ignorance.
This also affects your design choices too, as you will have to make some kind of diffentiation in difficulty where you will have to start using said exploits for more damage or utility. It is important to make your content such that anyone who reaches the point where they need your feature exploits to progress is ready to use and accept it. (the difference between heroic and mythic in WoW for example)
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
...or decouple the effect from the animation. An example of that would be the dagger and kryss attacks in early UO. The attacks were faster than the animation, so they separated the combat code from the animation. It was visibly out of sync, but you had neither the unnatural delay nor the choppiness of breaking the animation. Not the perfect solution, but still another way to approach it.
Another way is far beyond my ability to explain, but we have a few graphics people that might be able to explain it. It has to do with the movements and creating smooth, or at least logical, transitions from whatever frame in the current state to the start frame of the next state.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Why would you want to get rid of cancelling? Adding skill based mechanics is a good thing. If players can't or won't figure it out then it's their problem.
Fighting games have been using this feature intentionally for decades and it works great.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Are you referring to bone animations vs keyframe animations? Bones gives you a great degree of flexibility to transition between movements regardless of the current position.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Again, I'm just going on my limited understanding of what far more knowledgeable people than I have told me. Hoping a few that are here can expand on that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre