Combat, Animations, and Impact

[Arundel]

I’m sure part of this has to do with the game still being in early access, but I thought I’d offer my 2 cents on combat and animation impact. To preface this, I’ve been immensely enjoying my time in LE, and coming back periodically since I bought the game ages ago has been a treat.

Animations in Combat:
Animations in this game have gotten tons of updates, the rogue being the most recent. I think the design is headed in a very good direction, but I still think there is something missing when it comes to combat really feeling impactful. Because I can’t quite put my finger on it I imagine it has to do with a few frames when you trigger a spell/attack, and before and after they land. All I can really say is that the feel of launching and then hitting a monster doesn’t have a really satisfying feel. I don’t know if frame freezing is the answer, but something about triggering and landing feels very papery and weightless if that makes sense. Small sound design tweaks might work well. It may also be a lack of deceleration and acceleration at precise moments like windups and connections. I think also death animations and physics have a lot to do with it.

One skill that actually does this better than some others is the melee cinder strike that rogues have, the first hit specifically. It winds up ever so slightly and the slam-effect is really nice. It accelerates nicely as well. Makes it feel impactful and fun to use.

Big boss fights and monsters:
When encountering monsters and especially bosses, other than stun (which actually feels pretty good but isn’t universal) there aren’t many indicators that your attacks and spells are really hitting and damaging them. They blink to indicate something is happening but there aren’t many good animations put in place to represent impact. Some of the bosses through the acts are major culprits of this, feeling kind of like “bullet sponges” where they continually launch an attack sequence, and you kind of whittle away at them until they die. Introducing small breaks in the fight (not phases) will help. For instance, once you hit a % of their health maybe they stagger backward, getting enraged, or doing some sort of unique animation. The way the current system makes combat feel again kind of paper-like and I’m sure you want it to feel heavy and impactful, as I know I do.

[JCourtney]

The sound effects as well as the animations have to be there for it to feel good. You can’t count out not having the proper sound and timing.

[Jerle]

Yup agree. Like you, I’m not sure if I’m technically well versed enough to describe what’s feeling “off” to me. But visually, the hits doesn’t feel impactful.

[Macknum]

There is no real connection between the impact at the end of the animation and the minion behaviour after beeing hit by force.
Look at the mage skill Static orb for an example. You can push arround mobs with this spell but it looks goofy. Sometimes the enemys just moonwalk back into the direction they should be pulled.
You know you hit the mob but it looks totaly unimpacted while sufering the hit from your attack and that’s a bit odd. After playing old hack and slays from time to time none did ir realy well but there is just a little something missing in LE I can’t put my finger on. Even Titan Quest that I played in the last couple of days looked more impactfull and not just because sending maps flying because you delt so much dmg.

[Arundel]

yeah I feel the same way. It’s something I can’t identify that’s missing, which means it’s probably some industry-specific tactic for animation that LE doesn’t take advantage of. It’s good to take note of how these things feel, because ultimately that can absolutely make the difference between someone choosing which ARPG to play. If 1 “feels” better, they’ll likely choose that one.

[PinkMachine69]

Spot on, I feel the same. Boss does not react to my doings, they just carry on with their attack pattern.