1v1 Motion Captured Anmations and General Attack Animations

[Kadoken]

Why are there complaints about there only being 1v1 animations? There are actually generic attack animations (Where they do a simple thrust or slice without synchronizing animations) in the game, which means that one guy could be going through a synchronized animation, and another could be doing a generic attack at the same time. By "generic animations" I mean there are times when you look closely at combat, there are actually simple attack actions like thrusting or non-specific slashing. Granted, 1v1 animations are seen 90% of the time and you have to look closely at battles to actually see the generic attacks, and why the heck didn't CA just program cavalry to do general attacks to routing units I don't know, but they exist.


Actually, I'm curious whether one could increase the frequency of the general attacks vs Synced mo-capped animations, or if CA could do it themselves . I actually like the animations, but what if they changed the frequency based on what faction is attacked and what culture they are.

Something more akin to Medieval 2’s animations, where sometimes you would get a semi-synchronized killing blow animation, could be achieved, but balanced so you can see the hard work they put into the mo-capped animations.


For example, Rome vs Greek faction fight, both known to be disciplined and fight in formation (and keeping it), mo-capped 1v1 animations could be made to only trigger at maybe %10 of the time, and all of those would be kill animations, and the rest would be general thrusting attacks with gladii/pikes.


then, something like Barbarian vs Barbarian where formation isn't a big deal, 70% of the fights could be mo-capped, with friends putting in non-mocapped thrusts (like they do right now, although it's more like 90% 1v1 animations), and when it's something like a Barbarian vs Roman faction, the barbarians could attack half the time with 1v1 animations, and the other half with general animations, and the Romans could tend to initiate generic attacks 70% of the time and 1v1 30% of the time.

That way you could differentiate the fighting styles of different cultures more, and make more multiple men vs one/multiple fighters fights happen more.

[the lightning legion]

I like this idea but it wouldn't be high on CAs list of priorities right now
mods will have to do the job until CA finish with the AI and its impossible to know how something that precise could take

[crzyrndm]

Atleast for me, the problem with the synched animations is that you get two guys completely ignoring the formations aound them and dancing off to wherever (some of them have absolutely rediculous amounts of travel). Now you've got a guy standing in the middle of the enemy, instead of doing his job and standing as part of a formation.

So really, it's not the synched animations at all, just the animations they use them for are too showy/flashy.

[Evan MF]

The mocaps are one of the worst additions to the Total War series since Warscape came into being. They completely kill the feeling of momentum in the fights and the unnatural movement of the individual combatants messes up formations. In pre-Warscape Total Wars the melees were organic with each combatant interacting with every threat around him, and any elaborate death animations were kept short and occasional, as a result the melee was immersive to watch and intuitive to follow from a tactician's perspective. Warscape has none of that and feels completely and utterly cosmetic and nothing else.

No more elaborate mocaps I say, give us organically developing melees with short, sharp animations to give it a natural flow. Save the cinematic mocap for rare occasions.

[Kadoken]

I don't know, I felt that the motion capture was suitable in Empire, Nappy, and Shogun 2, because there really was t that much formation fighting to be done with bayonets, and in Shogun 2's case, Samurai are said to commit to 1v1 melees, so it makes sense for them there. Not so much for the Ashigaru, but hey.

I actually do like the motion captured animations, but I feel they should be happening as I said before, 10% of the time for Formation vs Formation combat like Romans vs Greeks, and around 70% of the time for the actual brawl mentality of Barbarians.
The combat animations in Med 2 weren't that great, and the "Figure 8" double slash animation for sword troops got over used, and the combat animations weren't that varied.

[LordInvictus]

The combat animations in Med 2 weren't that great, and the "Figure 8" double slash animation for sword troops got over used, and the combat animations weren't that varied.

Oh god...The sword punch and shield bash. I swear that in every battle I've ever fought those are 90% of what I see.

The non-matched animations in Rome 2 are more obvious if you flank an enemy unit in the rear. When engaging in the front, there is very little opportunity for 2v1 since there will always be an enemy to fight in front.

[universalmind]

you can't even see the animations because of combat bugs including units having no collision detection so they all mush together and certain animations not even playing. That combined with the ridiculous battle speed means you rarely have time to zoom in and casually watch anyway. What a waste of resources.

[Cadian Guardsman]

I like the animations like the OP but I don't believe they're inherently bad just stupidly implemented.

For example most of them are long drawn out battles in which 2 units are positionally locked into duelling each other. From what I've seen (correct me if I'm wrong) there are very few probing attacks which are simply hit away. While I'm no expert at swordsmanship for the brief time I was choosing between Archery and Swordsmanship training I watched a few sword fights at the school and in said fights the two people would often do simply probing attacks no intended to hit but more test their opponents weaknesses before going in for the kill. What has this got to do with fights in game? Well Imagine the same two units locked into a duel for the animation well the animations would mainly be probing attacks allowing for more deliberate attacks meaning more attacks will be kills and because of such 1 Legionary won't stay fighting on his own at the back of enemy lines till his animation plays only to get stabbed in the back.

Simply put you could have an animation pattern like this
(Start)
Probe Attack #3
(End)
(Start)
Move into Formation "Disciplined"
(End)
(Start)
Probe Attack #6
(End)
(Start)
Kill move = Success # 7
(End)

as opposed to the thing it kinda has now

Play animation #12 Kill move success

Yes I know I'm obviously over simplifying the amount of codding necessary but it is just an example, one which is better than the "Animations only play for kill moves and never show any blocks". It broke immersion in Rome I to see professional full time legionaries stand in awe taking axe blows to the head and it would be just as bad as the current blobbing we have now.

[Stone Sentinel]

I personally like the 1v1 animations quite a bit. When I first saw them in Empire, I thought "wow this looks sweet!" Of course, not having any complex 1v2, 1v3, etc animations was kind of a letdown. I like that Rome II has has teaming up on others with unsynced animations. It's just..... they kinda suck lol. It doesn't always look like they make contact and the death animation for the unsynced attack is this dramatic spin that's kind of jarring.

[Kadoken]

Oh, I totally agree that it's dumb that te mo-cap animations are limited to 1v1, ESPECIALLY since CA stated in a rally point that they can record up to FIVE actors at the same time, meaning we should be able to see 1v2,1v3,1v4,2v2 and 2v3 animations, but maybe there were coding constraints, like trying to sync. 5 soldiers at a time would probably be hard to do.

However, I like the spinning general death animation in that its quick enough that you don't notice it that much. I do think more general death animations would be helpful.