Some requests about immersion and animations.
I do like much of what we've seen so far in the demos. My main concerns though are these:

All Actions look and sound like magic for some reason:
Even doing a simple sword swing attack such as the attack called "Pushing Attack", or shooting an arrow, or Dash, or jumping, has light effects and sounds that makes it sound like you are casting a magic spell. This is very immersion-breaking. Please please please make it so that the only Actions that feels and looks and sounds like magic, are actual magic spells and mystic abilities like psionics and so on.
Having all Actions look and sound like magic, makes the magic in the game feel that much more trivial in the feel of the animation. It makes everything just feel like "just another Ability like everything else", rather than magic and mystical abilities feeling like something special in comparrison to ordinary Skills and ordinary Actions.

Spellbook:
In pen and paper D&D and in Baldur's Gate 1-2, the spellbook is an actual book rather than a list or a table. A big part of roleplaying a Wizard is that they have an actual book with their spells in, that they memorize from. I noticed that you have implimented that books can be read like an actual book, where an actual book pops up on the screen. Which is awesome. It will be awesome if you would make it so that this also is the case with the spellbook please, rather than it being an unimmersive list or table, like we've so far seen it be in the demo? You can do the same as Baldur's Gate 1-2 did with regards to there being a spellbook for all arcane spells, and a scroll for all divine spells.

Casting from a scroll:
In Neverwinter Nights, there was finally a difference in animation between casting from a scroll or casting with a spellslot. Casting from a scroll made your character read from a scroll as casting animation. I noticed that in the last demo, when your character cast from a scroll, there was no difference in animation, nor in feeling. This would also really be nice to get changed.

Thank you.

+1

I also agree with all that

Gotta be the voice of NO in this thread.

NO.

Stop demanding weaksauce animations, this is a good case of : peopl edont know what they want.
This realism circlejerk will only make the game look worse. and no ammount of realism will save that.

Look at kingdom come, or hell, skyrim. Westen games have for too long clung to a false sense of realism when it coems to meele attack animations.
But when you strike something, it doesnt FEEL like it looks.

it feels impactufll. and thats why in a game the animations should adher to the FEELING of striking something yourself, rather than how it looks when recorded on a camera.

the wording of your post aggrevates me eve more. I dont want any of that wizard wank. Magic should be impactfull and cool but yeah no, muggles dont get to feel powerfull.
Absoluteley not.

So no, i disagree. Fundamentally.
the animations are fine like the are. In fact. They should probably add even more screenshake and hitstop.
Make combat feel satisfying

i agree with everything that you said minus the sword swing.

It's very debatable.

I really don't think there is a right or wrong way to do this. there is just different way that will please different people.

As for realism and immersion, first of : we're in a fantasy world with magic, differents races, planes of existences, dragons, magical beast and so on. You also have to take into account that an adventurer is not just a normal human being.
If you want to feel like your character is a normal joe, well, he should have 10 in all his stats, which is the commoner stats block.

When a character with 18 strenght is breaking a door, it should NOT look normal, IMO. It should look impressive and inhuman because that's what 18 str is.


It would be hard to make a game where every animation goes with the stats, races and class of a character.

Personaly, I was so happy to notice fall damage from one of those "epic" jump in the underdark. They already made so much in so little time, I'm just very impressed.



In a perfect world where they would have infinite time to make everything, I would agree that it would be cool if you could see a wizard using his material component when casting spells and everything like that. But, I mean, you realise how much work that is ?

It would already be amazing if all the spells in the books makes it into the games. We can't ask for too much.

I want epic sounding & looking magic spells, screen shakes and body parts flying when a crit lands
Yes i want ritual scroll and memorized casting to all look different I want spells with out somatic components to look different than ones that do.
and I want the effects to scale with level and abilities
yes someone with 18+ str should be capable of impressive feats and look cool doing anything but i do want some realism I don't want effects animation coming off my a base attacks save those for crits or for action surge.
I'm thinking of a strong man competitions everyone one of the guys is doing something physical impossible for anyone else to even attempt its amazing to witness and mind boggling how they can move, lift, pull and carry the things that they do. They don't need to add any special graphics or highlights to make a 6 foot 6 tall man pulling 3 tanker cars impressive. It just is. Why can't the same be said for cutting a man in half with a sword? it happened because the character is strong and chooses to fight with a sword, no extra effect needed just a guy in two parts and maybe some gore. (if the sword is a flame tongue it will look pretty cool maybe even have cinders still on the body).
I think audio feedback the crunch of a weapon hitting the swish of a miss is fine for the base attack unless hasted then blur away
I think we all want feedback from the game that makes our actions even auto attack (cause we know fighters don't get much else in 5e) feel like they matter. but i don't want to see spell like effects on melee attacks in the game unless you are a paladin smiting or etc...
I think instead of having effects just because a character is strong might be the wrong way to go about more of these event x trigger cosmetic y like rolling to break down a door and beating the dc by 5 equals cool physical effect there by strong or smart or wise or dexterous characters are more likely to get the cool extra animations..

Ideally, different actions should have different animations, preferably strongly indicative of the action, preferably with quite a short preamble. I'm sure that any animations that are generally annoying will be weeded out in EA.

The outcome of the animation should perhaps also indicate the outcome of the action. For example, a critical success with a melee weapon would result in a louder, more effective looking connection with the target, through to a critical miss that would result in no connection at all.

Camera shaking on hits is more of a first-person APRG expectation, that makes less sense in third-person, unless you are really affecting the whole environment, not just the attack target. There is no reason it couldn't be an option for each player to turn on if they want a more JRPG REALLY-BIG-SWORDS experience, as it has a no effect on the rendering, just jitters the camera position.

Real medieval combat was probably a lot more like a mass brawl than any game depiction. From what I've read, if you were armoured, the main priority was to stay on your feet ( or even better, your horse ), and if you were unarmoured, your main priority was to stay away from those who were armoured ( and still on their feet / horse ).

But that wouldn't make a particularly satisfying game experience for anyone.

I don't think this should be a broad debate about fantasy, magic and medieval cultures.

In practice, Dash is an Action we might do very often and it is just your character running/sprinting instead of doing other Actions. I prefer the animation for that move be more streamlined (faster) and not look like the character is emanating a burst of light. It is not one of the various movement spells nor spell-like abilities. And I find it would be more immersive for Dash to be a sprinting body-language type of animation that goes faster than the current animation.

nb : you do not need to respond. The dev will judge what is best for what they want.

If you want to see realism in western games that makes melee more impressive than the magic in the same game, look at Dragon Age Origins. Sure a Mage could cast Firestorm or whatever it was called, but besides that the magic effects were overall not as impressivelooking as the animations of the Melee abilities. And the melee execution animations were absolutely epic and cinematic. Like crawling up an Ogre to impale it while it tumbles over. Just because something looks realistic, doesn't mean that it isn't every bit as epic to watch as a magic effect can be. It's just a different sort of epic feel. You could also look at the melee animations of Shogun Total War 2, eventhough that's not an RPG of course.

And the non-Wizards can also have magic abilities and magic effects. In 5E there is a magic-oriented subclass of each class. You can have a Fighter or a Barbarian that uses magic if you want. And if you choose a purly physical damage oriented class, there will still be magic weapons like a flaming or talking sword, and magic items and artefacts, aswell as other magical/mystical/psionic abilities like certain racial abilities, certain divine or magical gifts, and certain class abilities.
That's not what I'm suggesting against.
What I'm saying is a normal ability like a normal weapon attack with a normal Longsword for example, or the very ordinary thing of dashing/sprinting foward, shouldn't look like magic, because that will make the feel of that magic weapon that you found, feel that much less special. Like there will be a nearly unnoticeable difference in feel if both feel magical. If everything looks and feels like a similar thing, then the feel of the differences and the atmosphere of it, will be trivialised.
And you can still feel equally as epic with an ordinary Longsword with zero magical particle effects happening while you swing your sword in different combos, and have different "fatality"-like moments, as a Wizard can have by casting a Fireball. It's just a very different feel to the epicness, which creates a diverse amounts of ways to feel being awesome.

Anyways, you seem to prefer when games become Manga-like or Anime-like, whereas I prefer when things become western-like. I imagine you probably prefer the animations of Dragon Age Inquisition over Dragon Age Origins. And that's fine, we're fundamentally different in what we find awesome then.




18 is the genius level of Human capacity. 19 and above is the levels beyond human natural capability, which is why Elves can start with Dexterity 19. Or that's atleast how it was in AD&D. So a fighter with 18 Strength would still be at the human level of strength. He would be at the level of strength of someone like Arnold Swartzenegger in his prime. Sure he can break down a door in a super impressive way, but there wouldn't be magical particle effects and beams of Light happening around him while he did it. And that's also how it is in Dungeons and Dragons Pen and Paper. Just because you are extremely strong at 18 Strength, doesn't mean that when you lift something heavy that some heavenly Halluja sound effect with Light beams happen. Not unless there is a supernatural reason for such effect to happen, like such as a divinely bestowed favor, gift or blessing, or a racial Ability or an actual magical ability, or something from a magic item.
But it's still very impressive-looking of someone to break down a door with relative ease, particle effects or not!

And I completely agree that it would be amazing to see material components animated in while casting spells. And I really do hope that they do this with those spells that they have said will have material component requirements.
I don't think it's too much to be asking for a simple scroll-reading animation to be added to the game when it's already been done in Neverwinter Nights. But it's not a gamebreaker of course. But I'm still suggesting it because now is the time to give suggestions in order to help the devs make the game as good as it can get.

Dash is the only thign where you people actually have a point since dash is literaly not doign anyhting other than running fast.

>Muh anime
Opinion discarded.
Youre just another salty caster only player that wants martials to have floaty animations for reasons that are beyond me.

Right now, the melee animations feel a bit like Dragons Dogma. which is exactly what they SHOULD feel like.

its funny that everyone prasies Dragons Dogma and Dark Souls for its melee animations but at the same time screeches that this looks like "Magic".
no. its not magic. its an artisitc renditin of the feeling of impact.

That argument you made against Dash just now fits just as much with abilities like Pushing Attack. It's not doing anything other than swinging a weapon.
If you think I am being salty or angry here, then you haven't read my posts right. If I wrote it in an angry way, then my posts would look more like yours.
I actually like how Dragon's Dogma looks in animations. I would prefer less screenshake and hitstop. But besides that, I think the melee animations in Dragon's Dogma was great. And unlike some modern RPGs, twohanded weapons actually had weight to them during swings in Dragon's Dogma (I really don't like seeing a twohanded weapon be swung around as if it weighed the same as a feather, which I why I couldn't enjoy playing a twohanded melee character in Dragon Age 2). I don't see any magical Light effects during the normal weapon abilities in Dragon's Dogma, unlike what we've seen so far from Baldur's Gate 3.
The empact feeling wasn't my main point about that however. It was the magical light and colour effects happening around the character while charging up the ability. It's fair that you like that, but to me that makes me want to play melee characters less.

My problem with dash is that the character plays an animation before dashing. that implies that the character casts a spell. You dont wave your arms around when you prepare to sprint.
if they changed the animation to crouching down and preparing to sprint, thatd be much beter.

However, with the pushing attack, the animation plays during the attack, thus it accentuates the attack.
If the dash action had some swirly lins when running to represent you running fast doesnt bother me.

>Magic light effects
no, there arent any magical light effects in dragoms dogma, there are however effects playng.
Its swing effects, play the game again and look at any of the Warrior special abilities. The swings blurr, theres an impact animation.
Theres also the charging animation for arc of deliverence.

BG3 basically does the same only slightly turned up. Meanwhile compared to games like Guild Wars 2, BG3 is pretty tame.

You can easily create an impactful hit with sound, animation and blood (and maybe at times a very minor effect), without making it look like a magical spell. Source: I'm a game designer.

Floaty melee animations can really take away from the overall feel of combat. I good example of how not to do it is Dragon Age: Origins, which while a fantastic game, had surprisingly unsatisfying melee impacts. Personally, I want hits to be a bit forceful, but adding generic over the top particle effects to every melee skill does little in terms of achieving that. Instead, it tends to blur everything together, satiate the player's overall effect-tolerance, and hurt the wonder of actual magic in the game.

I urge Larian not to underestimate the impact this can have on the longtime enjoyment of combat for a lot of us. Let magic be magic.

All of this is a very good point. It's a terrible idea to make everything flashy and exciting, because in the end it results in NOTHING being flashy and exciting.

That's especially important if you roll a 1 for damage. Oh boy that super-awesome flashy hit did a whole 3 damage! If you want to make actions and attacks more exciting, save if for when it actually IS special. If you land a critical hit, or you get a very high damage roll, like say, 70%+ of the maximum possible damage, then do the flashy thing. If it's a critical hit which does more than 70%+ of the normal base damage, make it even flashier, because that's rarer.

But don't make every attack and every action special and flashy.

you say that but somehow im having my doubts.
hence why games like Dark Souls, For Honor and Dragons Dogma, aka those games known for their impactfull melee combat, seem to do it the way i suggest rather than the way you say works just as well

When you write a story and your main character behaves exactly like the guy next door, the story grows stale quickly. Stories about heroes need characters who do more than you or I could do. The point of realism in the game is: to much can take the soul out of the fighting. A special move of a matial character doesn't need to look like the average anime superhero, but it doesn't hurt either if this special move looks way cooler like a common slash with a sword.

A martial attack should not look like magic or psionics, I agree, but too much realism hurts the combat feeling of a game as well. A little bling-bling might help. I liked, what I saw so far.

But: it is all a matter of taste anyway. Perhaps there should be a poll for this after some time of early access, so we learn which way is enjoyed most.

+1 I concur with the OP

I can deal with a slight lessening on some things, but I very much disagree that they should look as mundane as simply running or making standard weapon attacks. Visual feedback is super important. Dash is something, especially, that I see some people suggesting that they completely remove all effects for, but I think its really important that players are able to tell that another creature dashed without inferring it from general 5e knowledge or reading logs.

Things like weapon trails, impact effects, and air distortions can successfully convey a physicality to the move compared to magic, while still allowing the special actions to be easily discernible from standard attacks or movement.

which is a rather obvious lession game developers learned for a while now

Absolutely, but they should be kept minor and be used to separate melee skills, not be generically added for "cool effect". Using too much of an effect is the easy way out for uninspired or time-constrained developers. Proper sound effects paired with well-tuned animation, target reaction and on-hit effects like blood goes a long way.

yeah, no.
sometimes you do what works and not what OUGHT to work.

Realism is overrated. Versimilitude is more important.

It works wonderfully, FYI.

right.
Thats what they said about Mordhau too. and its a floaty mess

Realism as gameplay mecanics and realism in anything visual is not the same......

Mordhau is boring to play but it is not that bad to watch.

i beg to differ.
mordhau feels floaty and weak for exactly that reason.

meanwhile For Honor might not be the most complex fighting game, but i dont think anyone would dispute that it looks and feels phenomenal

I agree that mundane actions should have minimal effects and no flashing lights.

The excessive flashing lights are covering for bad impact physics (eg you there is huge delay between throwing a target and it actually being thrown away) and blood.

The blood (color and animation) looks as terrible as in DOS 2.

Also there is so many visual cues for ingame mechanics that just takes away the immersion.

I agree with the OP.
It is kind of an immersion breaker if non magical abilities, especially those on low levels have already magical animations (lights, particles, auras).
Its feels like to bring more bling bling to the game to parts which don’t need it. In addition, the real magical attacks are not so impressive anymore.

Yeah.
this kind of opinion keeps getting regurgitated by people who do not think about it.

Because it sounds logical on paper, when you dont actually put any thought into it.
Realism is better, the reductionist cries!

Instead of actually analyzing which games are said to have a good combat presentation and which wont.

By this stupid standard, Skyrim has better Combat Simulation than Dark Souls.

And this kind of opinion, calling other people’s personal preference stupid seems to be all too common here.

Whether non magic actions have fancy effects and to what extent is mainly a stylistic choice. There is no right or wrong about it.

Dark Souls’ and Skyrim’s combat systems are massively different. They are incomparable next to the small details we’re talking about here. Are you sure you really put any thought into your own “analysis”?

Im free to debate your personal preferences if you want a change that directly goes against mine.

If you dont know how you can compare the two then youre proving my point that your argument is based on a knee jerk reaction rather than actual thought.

Dark Souls and Skyrim both represent Medieval Melee combat.

We dont talk about combat SYSTEM here. Were talking about combat PRESENTATION.

are you gonna argue that Skyrims combat represents osmething different than lets say Dark Souls or Dragons Dogmas combat?
Cause i think thats gonna be a hard case for you to argue

Though I agree with the OP in general (tone down some of the more standard actions so magical and critical actions seem more impactful) I do so while also really liking what I see so far. The more I watch the more impressed I am with the mechanics in the game, how well they are adapting the D&D ruleset, the fidelity, and what appears to be a work of love.

So far I'm really looking forward to playing it. Though there are things I really would like to see "modified", It's looking at it from the perspective that it is already really good, but to be "perfect". And perfect is subjective and different for so many people I don't know if it really matters that much.

I

For honor is awfull...
Sometimes it looks like a chinese free to play game with ridiculous red slash effects each time you reach an ennemy... Sometimes it looks they took some kind of Battlefield UI with MMORPG effects to put them in their game...

I hope Baldur's Gate 3 won't look so cheap.

Of course you should tell us what you prefer. Give us your reasons, provide examples, etc. That’s what we’re all here for. Maybe you’ll even convince other people.

I only object to people just dismissing other opinions for spurious reasons- someone’s not thought about it, they aren’t proper RPG fans, they aren’t proper BG fans, they’re just filthy casuals, etc. I fail to see any way to gauge a realistic vs more stylistic approach except by personal preference.

Yes, presentation is different from the system. Although whether a particular presentation works well for different people could depend much on the system. For instance the pace of combat in BG3 potentially allows more extravagant animations and effects that could be confusing in a twitch action game. BG3 will be very different to Dark Souls, which is very different to Skyrim. What works for one might not work for the others. They all have medieval melee combat and they all handle it completely differently.

Also you did say “simulation” above, not presentation. Simulation sounds to me like the whole package of combat mechanics, animations, effects, sound, etc.

BTW, I’m on the fence at the moment. I might try the early access and see how it actually feels to play.

>thinking for honor looks awfull
Well congratulations on proving my point.
theres a lot of criticisms of that game but its presentation certainly isnt one.
Which reminds me of the "Baldurs Gate is a cashcrab" posts. you have to be willfully ignorant to hold that opinion. For Honor, presentation wise, is probably the best (not the most realistic) depction of quasi medieval combat there is. Theres amazing mocap, great animations, good clarity and a great sense of weight that other games in the genre can only dream of.



Ive already given my reasons why i hold that opinion and ive done so before.
Games will never be realistic, not just from a technical standpoitn but from a standpoint of perspective.

Anyone that has ever helped with construction or soemthign like that can probably understand what im getting at here: smash something with a Sledgehammer and compare how it feels.
Does it feel like Kingdom come deliverence? which by all means is a pretty realistic game. Or does it feel different?

Watching someone break something isnt the same as breaking something yourself. You canot express the tactile expirience of force beeing acted upon an object by showing how it realisitcally looks like from the outside.

Especialy now if you dont have Exanima / Sui Generis levels of Hit detection and physics.

Im not dismissing stuff outhand, im pointing out that mybe before you parrot "Looks like in reality = GOOD" you might THINK about how that actually works out in gameplay.

The easiest way to do this is to point at video games that do it.
When you ask someone what video games have combat that feels right, theyll probably point towards the souls series, towards fighting games and towards dragons dogma.
They dont point towards Skyrim, and for a more top down appraoch: they dont point towards games like Eisenwald or Age of Empires.

Diablo like games have for a long time figured out that making things explode, having your screen shake and your animations be exagrated just produce a response that feels more like force is beeing applied.
Look at recent XCOM games if you want a turn based example.
Take XCOM and compare it to Age of Wonders Planetfall and tell me what feels more believeable.

I'd appreciate following rather viewing habits from cinema productions, than realism. Heck i know fights and all its asthetics from cinema ot from reality.

Some effects and lights are fine, but not to much,should cover up everything else. As it is turn-based i really would like slow-motion (I really love slow-mo and hope community update 3 trailer wasnt just showing slow-mo implemented by the editor but have this ingame too), different camera angles, and stuff that creates asthetic scenes. I personally think XCOM did a pretty good job, including the following camera (which had a toggle off option, though I kept enjoying it and mostly let in on).

Dash you be done well with slow-motion too. After Slowed down first the following acceleration looks much faster in comparision.

I could like this black white preview animation you saw in the demo (the one you saw in the attack enemy selection). Here you really could work with.

Finishing moves and so one would be awesome. (XCOM also did a rather satisfying job here)

Still a dream of mine was a toribash style animator implemted in the yet to release ingame editor. (that won't come anyway)

You're really funny.
Thinking you always have the thruth is just a good combo in your head.

Visual effects in For Honor are according to me completely (visual) immersion breaking but guess what ?
Maybe that's not what it's players are looking for ?
Maybe that's why no one talked about it ?
Is that a proove that this game should suits everyone about that ?

About BG3 it looks many players are looking for something with less sensational visual effects, sounds and animations...

Are you wrong if you would like more ?
Of course not... You're always right

So your argument is that one thing looks better in one genre but worse in another?
I can only say what is true for myself and what i can see from how games are judged.

you cannot speak for all the "ohter" fans that arent me.
you can only speak for yourself. And you could make comparisons in the same way that i do.

I invite you to do that.
I for one havent compared an mocaped fighting game to a mobile game. Sureley youre the reasonable one here

Of course things can be good in one genre and totally or partially bad in another for many reasons... That's obvious...

I'm not talking for the others. I'm just reading topics.

Eh? I don’t expect a game to give me the real life feeling of smashing something. Unless it’s so frustrating I put my keyboard through the monitor, I guess. What’s your point here?





Parrot? Haha! Now you’re using language most commonly found in debates on issues like political propaganda, religious teachings or pseudo science.



Alright, but your examples don’t seem to work in relation to the topic. Let’s THINK this through, shall we?

Dark Souls combat generally doesn’t have a bunch of flashy effects, which is what you seem to be arguing for. Swinging swords, blocking, dodging, parrying, etc all look normal and are relatively slow and deliberate. Everything feels weighty and impactful. Having to pay careful attention to your enemy, time your moves well, etc is probably the core of why so many rate it. Many would call it all quite “realistic”. It doesn’t have the effects that people are arguing should be toned down, so how is it even an example to support that they should stay?

Skyrim is not noted for “realistic” combat. It’s not very flashy for a melee character either. It’s just not particularly good for combat. Now you’re trying to use a game that’s generally not noted for realism to bolster your argument that aiming for realism is bad.

Are you really saying Dark Souls combat is good because it’s not “realistic” compared to Skyrim which is bad because it is? Really? If you’d brought up something the Devil May Cry series, I’d at least understand what you meant. Combat in those games is supposed to be very good and it’s highly stylized.



Never played Diablo, but XCom doesn’t seem like a great example either. Shooting things or launching explosives seems to do pretty much what you’d expect them to. Other actions are not highly stylized. Activate run ‘n gun for instance and the soldier will say something like “going in for the kill” and that’s it. Overwatch is just marked by an icon next to your health bar. Compare that to the spectator light show of Reactive Shot in DOS2-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxo7R5DWHMA

We’re not only talking about actions that should feel weighty and impactful. Seems what most people are saying could be turned down a bit are things like the jump with super hero landing. Does my stealthy rouge really need to look like Iron Man every time I jump a small gap? Besides, if things are too overdone, I often think they can get old fast.

>i dont expect to get a real life feeling
then why do you expect the real life visuals?
Why does this thread even exist? The answer lies in the question.

>now youre using language
language bad!
Get real. Guilt by association is a bad argument.

>Alright, but your examples don’t seem to work in relation to the topic

>Dark Souls combat doesnt have flashy effects
If BG3 has flashy effects then so does Dark Souls. Its basically the same kind of weapon trails, blur effects for strikes etc, only Dark Souls also has sparks and immense screenshake when you use Ultra Greatswords.
>People call dark souls realistic
Not exactly something ive heard a lot. Especialy since in Dark Souls 1 your character tends to wield any weapon he finds like a big club, which is where half the fun comes from aferall.

>Skyrim is not noted for beeing realistic
Exactly. But it also has no effects whatsoever. No impact effects, no weapon trails, no sparks, no blur effects.
Skyrim and Dark Souls are about as "Realistic" when it comes to two handed weapons, Dark Souls obviously got better animation when it comes to stuff like Falchions.
Regardless they are both not overly realistic games, but one of them features combat that is accentuated with effects, screenshake and other tricks that make it look more impactfull.

But fine. Im gonna take another example.
Kingdom Come Deliverence.
What would you prefer combat to look like? Kingdom Come deliverance or Dark souls?
The former is probably the most realistic looking combat simulator outside of games like Mordhau. Which is gonna be my next example while were at it. (even tho mordhau is not realistic at all since it features no footwork in relations to attacks at all and is thus about as realisitic as Mount and Blade warband)

>But what if devil may cry
Different visual genre, hence why i brought up Dragons Dogma instead which you chose to ignore completley because its actually a better example than Dark Souls for my argument.


>Jump
well Jump and Dash are the only actions where i already said i agree with your position.
>reactive shot vs XCOM
well, theres anohter comparison YOU made not me.
Theres nothing like reactive shot in BG3 from what we know so nothing we can compare it to.

my compariosn was between XCOM (screenshake, deliberate cmaera angles, visible bullets, impact animaitons) vs Age of woners planetfall (no screenshake no visible bullets)

Yeah, I “ignored” games that I haven’t actually played. Shame on me. And I compared one of the games you brought up with the latest Larian game. I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that only comparisons you want to make are valid.

BTW, I just had a look at some Dark Souls footage. Seems there is sometimes a little bit of swooshing effect. It’s quite subtle (except for specific magical weapons) and I didn’t even remember it was there at all. Hardly seems core to the feel of the game to me.

Skyrim though. You have to admit that’s a terrible example to argue that aiming for a degree of realism is bad.

im not arguing in favor of realism versus not realism.
Im arguing in favor of effects to enhance the expirience versus none.

Skyrims animations arent very realisitc, and no effects. Meanwhile Dragons Dogmas animations are also not very realisitc, but they do have effects.
Dark Souls animations are also not very realistic, but at least much better than Skyrims, tho i dont think theres a game that features dark souls like animations without any effects going on so the comparison s a tough one to make on a completley equal basis.

Games like Kingdom Come id compare to For Honor.
Both have mocapped animations for medival fencing, one tries to go for full realism, the other for hollywood realism but i think you can make the comparison.

Animation wise id compare BG3 most to Dragons Dogma than to anyhting else

Combat in Skyrim, or the lack of impact in all of the Elder Scrolls games is the one reason i don't play them, I just can't deal with floaty swish mechanics. Awful.

DIablo 3 was the complete opposite, animations and light shows for everything and a complete mess.

BG3 needs to find the right balance. Melee attacks without magical influence should feel impactful, but without being a showy mess of lights and sounds and screenshake other than for crits (all IMVHO of course), and similarly for actions such as dash it should have visual clues but again, less is more for me personally. I am not advocating Realism to the point of visual boredom, especially in TB combat, but there is much to be said for toming down normal actions and egging up the magic where appropriate.

I think I agree to the person who said normal actions should look powerful but not magic.

When you select dash, the character should have a pose that runners have right before the start of a race.
When you select jump the character has a pose that shows he is ready to jump.
Sorry, my english is not good enough to describe how to move your body, but I guess most of you did run or jump (from standing still) in their life or saw somebody doing it and you know that you have a specific pose before this action.
Same thing for attacks with a non magic weapon.
When selecting to use items, the char could grap into his pockets (do armors have pockets?)

Magic effects can look "flashy", like when you want to cast a spell.
Would be great if you hold a scroll in your hand while preparing to use a scroll.

I think it makes sense to have 2 animations, one for preparing an action and another one for performing the action.
The prepare animation can be a bit "over the top" to make sure it is easy to identify.
The prepare animation has to make sure that everybody knows this char wants to cast a spell, use a scroll, make an attack, dash or whatever.
So you can tell if a char is shooting a fire arrow with a bow, uses the fire arrow spell or uses the fire arrow scoll.
This can be useful in multiplayer to see what other players want to do and in all cases to see what enemies do.

Example for a hypothetical forum discussion:
Player A: I killed the bandits with the fireball scoll dropped by the goblin mage.
Player B: The goblin mage did not drop a scroll. What did you do with him?
Player A: I sneaked on the wall above him and threw a giant rock on him which killed him before he could do anything.
Player B: OK, He used the fireball scroll against me when I was fighting him.

I totally agree with OP here. Over the top animations for mundane skills steal the limelight to magic.

I understand the desire of making warriors and other non magical characters also special when using them, but please not with lights and particle effects.
If everything is magic then nothing is.

I think the animations are fine as is. They don't look too over the top to me, but they are noticeable which is the goal from what I can tell. I think especially in a multiplayer atmosphere, it is important feedback. To have visually distinct animations that indicate what a player or NPC use in battle is important. Sure, there are other ways to see these effects, but animations do a good job of giving that feedback without having to search the UI.

>I totally agree with OP here. Over the top animations for mundane skills steal the limelight to magic.

See this kind of proves what ive been saying.
its not about realism, its all about "Muh magic":

This is was this entire topic is about. How dare the fighter do somehting cool.
How dare it have a good animation.
No! This is a game about wizards!

You get my point wrong, it is not about making wizardry be the best and shit on the others, is about making each class unique. I wanna feel my warrior character as a warrior and not as some sort of magical warrior every time shots an arrow it gets surrounded by sparkling lights. But even being a warrior, I want magic to have the unique feeling of unnatural and powerful vibe. Not that when I open a pepper jar some kind of mystical glowing surrounds me.

Its not about classes. Every character can run, jump or attack, including mages.
Non magic actions can and should look cool or powerful.
They just should not look too magic.

since magic doesnt exist thats a bit of a hard one to pin down doesnt it?
Is any exagrated effect on a weapon attack magic?

Are weapon trails magic?
Impact effects? exagrated audio?

I hate this because the very same argument has been made for Game mechanics. "no i just dont want mundane thigns to have the same rules as magic".
but then you realize magic has rules for everyhting and that is the reason theres barely any combat maneuvers in 5e.

OP has a point, especially regarding the spellbook, which I think it wouldn't be hard to implement and it would look nice

As for the warriors animations, it could look powerful without being too colorful.

BTW, can't wait to see what they will do with monks

You keep responding in an angry and demeaning way while constantly arguing against things that no one was saying. You misunderstand the meaning behind what is being said here.
No one here that I can see wants normal actions and normal attack animations to look boring and lackluster. No one here has stated anything that meant that they only wanted magic-users to shine.
What the post is about, is to have a clearer distinction animation-wise between normal actions and magical/psionic/magic-item actions. You can still have weapon trail animations, and empact animations, and combo animations, and spectacular finishers. It can still look just as amazing as magic, but in a significantly different way. The Pushing Attack Ability with it's red lightshow, looks like the character is channeling magic into the attack. That's the thing that many of us here have a problem with. If the Ability is about channeling magic into the attack, like some sort of Paladin Ability, or like an Arcane Archer Abilty, or whatever kind of Ability that mixes magic and normal attack, then that's great. No problem with that. But when it's a normal attack or Ability that has nothing to do with magic, then it needs to look distinct from magic. Otherwise, as someone else said, if everything looks like magic, then nothing looks like magic. Then there's very little distinction, and that trivialises the difference between the normal and the magical. And they are supposed to be and to feel and to look distinct from one another.

Larian is capable of making normal Actions and normal attacks have sword trails and empact animations and cool swing animations, while still looking like nonmagical Actions and nonmagical attacks, and still look and feel amazing. But the demos have shown that they've so far done the exact opposite, which is the reason for this thread.

I agree more serious animation would be great...
It feels like to me, that they compensate with big shiny explosions for unpolished or unfinished animations.
UI and icon switch for spells/items would be great, because they are too futuristic.

I guess these will be done in later stage of development, but hopefully they change on the direction a bit.

Otherwise the game looks amazing, in other aspects, like dialogs, cut-scenes and graphic ect...

>serious
and what is serious?

>Morcar
nonsense. This threads going for three pages now and i know very well what i am arguing against.
>no one wants nromal actions look lackluster
By whose standard? By my standard yes thats exactly what several people here want.

>muh lightshow muh channeling
And thats why i have multiple times in this thread told you to THINK about presentation for a bit.
its not a "channeling" animation, its animating 101, if you want something to look impactfull, then you need a slow windup animation, a fast period where the attack flies and then a heavy impact.
it doesnt matter how anything looks in real life, this is how you get that point across form a visual standpoint, anyone that has worked on animations will tell you this.
I can show you pixel art that does it that way.
The same is true fro what you call a "lightshow", when the character is very tiny on the screen and the background is very busy you need some visual oomph or it will get lost in the details.

to make "normaL" abilities like that look as good as they do with those tricks would require an IMMENSE ammount of work.
basicalyl you would need full collision physics, hitboxes modeled perfectly on the body and the body reacting perfectly to an impact.
Unless Larian is willing to make the game look lik Exanima, you cannot remove these thigns ithout it beeing a visual downgrade.

And just to plactate the needless quest for realism in a high fantasy game? i think not.