The bells and whistles are the whole point of fantasy.
And all this time I thought using my imagination was the whole point of fantasy. I guess I'm doing it wrong.
AI computation is a major culprit for the slowness of battle, but excessive animations definitely contribute to a perception of slowness (whether or not they actually take up more time), especially if I have to parse an animation to pick out important details (e.g. did that warhammer glance off my shield or miss me entirely?). The animation that happens whenever I try to dash or cast a spell does slow things down and is quite annoying. As I said earlier, I recognize that some animation is going to exist in a game like this, but my preference is to keep it streamlined - communicate what is absolutely necessary and then get out of my way.
