Animations

[sharpappple]

Here's the flaw with your argument: Dark Souls games are both very slow games compared to The Witcher 3. The Witcher 1 is also a slower game with a quick drinking animation that didn't intrude on gameplay at all. Something in line with Bloodborne would be a better comparison. But even Bloodborne managed to have a "potion drinking" animation. What they did do to balance out the speed of the game and the drinking animation, was they sped up the animation to make it match the pace of the game. They also made potions heal less in exchange for larger stacks (which I'm not as much of a fan of).


They could have easily got it in, you're right. I'm hoping there will be a patch that adds in an optional animation or a mod, because it does add immersion and difficulty to the game.

thanks for replying.

True dark souls is slow, but i think you underestimate the speed of combat in the witcher 1. in the witcher 1 it was only necessary to use potions on the hardest difficulty, in fact when when you chose a difficulty it it tells you as much. this is important because battles are not long in the witcher 1, they are very short, and hard, and any advantage you can get is one you need to win. also when your life can be so easily taken, only then do players really have to deal with the drinking of potions as a tactical question, because the drinking animation is actually slow next to the pace of combat, slow enough to give a devastating disadvantage against harder enemies.

some one will put it in the game I am sure, but the CDPR should have put it in, along with a host of other things.

 

[azrael.1289]

So far these are the only thing i don't like in the game, no animations for potions and the fact that meditation happens in a menu, nothing gamebreaking but it would be nice if a mod or official patch would add these.

I think there is no meditation animation because this time enemies will be moving around you and can interrupt you during meditation. I don't how a sort of time-lapse will work with monsters roaming around you.

 

[sharpappple]

I think there is no meditation animation because this time enemies will be moving around you and can interrupt you during meditation. I don't how a sort of time-lapse will work with monsters roaming around you.

back when they had the meditation animations with its time laps, I remember a dev saying that enemies could actually attack you while meditating. it was actually a feature that enemies would disrupt you because you decided to take a nap in a dangerous place. its immersive, and next to that impacts game play, but now I don't know if that is in the game any more, along with other features since the 35 min demo.

 

[Dprelate]

Are we SURE there is no drinking animation?

There are two steps to potion use.

1) Drink it and it is unactivated and waits for activation.

2) Activate it and its duration timer starts.

So is it confirmed that there is no animation for step 1? because there really shouldn't be an animation for step 2 that is an internal thing. And if it is done during meditation then really there isn't a need for a drink potion either because you are meditating which is an active animation.

I brought up this matter in the alchemy thread about a week ago but no one seem to care.
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/28983-The-Witcher-3-Alchemy-System?p=1644245#post1644245

actually there's no step 1 at all !
potions are placed in quick slots, from there the player can activate their effects by pressing the corresponding button. just like that.
it was confirmed during the official combat gameplay which showed various character builds and so on.

 

[Gothfather]

I brought up this matter in the alchemy thread about a week ago but no one seem to care.
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/28983-The-Witcher-3-Alchemy-System?p=1644245#post1644245

actually there's no step 1 at all !
potions are placed in quick slots, from there the player can activate their effects by pressing the corresponding button. just like that.
it was confirmed during the official combat gameplay which showed various character builds and so on.

To be honest I am not going to lose sleep over this. I hated the system in Witcher 2 if they go this route then i think it is better vs the witcher 2. They are responding to player feedback, that means that sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. (Ie sometime you get features you like sometimes you don't) If this thing breaks people's immersion then your barrier for immersion is far too fragile, given that so much of this game is nothing but setting the state to be immersed. If you really can't stand it then mod it. If you don't have a PC version then make the choice deal with it or don't play.

 

[JasonShepard]

thanks for replying.

True dark souls is slow, but i think you underestimate the speed of combat in the witcher 1. in the witcher 1 it was only necessary to use potions on the hardest difficulty, in fact when when you chose a difficulty it it tells you as much. this is important because battles are not long in the witcher 1, they are very short, and hard, and any advantage you can get is one you need to win. also when your life can be so easily taken, only then do players really have to deal with the drinking of potions as a tactical question, because the drinking animation is actually slow next to the pace of combat, slow enough to give a devastating disadvantage against harder enemies.

some one will put it in the game I am sure, but the CDPR should have put it in, along with a host of other things.

When I said slow for The Witcher 1, I wasn't trying to undermine the value of potions anything. The combat isn't horrible slow either and can get pretty fast in boss fights or in groups. But majority of the time you know when there will be an enemy. And if you don't know, switch to Group Style, run, chug a potion, and succeed. It was a very forgiving and very essential system if you knew what you were doing. If you get surrounded though and go to chug a potion, your fucked.
In The Witcher 3, not only is the combat faster, but enemies are too. A pack of dogs can keep up with your horse as seen in one of the most recent trailers. And if that player wanted to chug a potion and deal with an animation, I'm sure he would have been fucked. The key is balancing the time of the animation, making the animation look as believable as possible, and making sure potions are worthy enough to risk dying for. Now, I'm sure they tried to implement it. But compared to Bloodborne where the character literally just crushes a glass into his hand, Geralt has to take a potion, drink it, and then get back into combat. That's a tricky animation to do when it needs to be done fast without the player being taken out of the experience.
I would have honestly preferred The Witcher 2's system, just with longer potion times. That way we could get a cool as fuck animation, long potions, and more of a focus on always being prepared.

 

[sharpappple]

When I said slow for The Witcher 1, I wasn't trying to undermine the value of potions anything. The combat isn't horrible slow either and can get pretty fast in boss fights or in groups. But majority of the time you know when there will be an enemy. And if you don't know, switch to Group Style, run, chug a potion, and succeed. It was a very forgiving and very essential system if you knew what you were doing. If you get surrounded though and go to chug a potion, your fucked.
In The Witcher 3, not only is the combat faster, but enemies are too. A pack of dogs can keep up with your horse as seen in one of the most recent trailers. And if that player wanted to chug a potion and deal with an animation, I'm sure he would have been fucked. The key is balancing the time of the animation, making the animation look as believable as possible, and making sure potions are worthy enough to risk dying for. Now, I'm sure they tried to implement it. But compared to Bloodborne where the character literally just crushes a glass into his hand, Geralt has to take a potion, drink it, and then get back into combat. That's a tricky animation to do when it needs to be done fast without the player being taken out of the experience.
I would have honestly preferred The Witcher 2's system, just with longer potion times. That way we could get a cool as fuck animation, long potions, and more of a focus on always being prepared.

yeah ok I can sort of agree, I still think it could have been done easily and similar to the witcher 1, I do have a point. your right about the length of the animation, I agree with that, and it should be balanced with the faster combat, I will agree that can be very crowded and difficult. however, there are other ways to balance the drinking animation with combat that make it more forgiving, like allowing the animation to be canceled if the player dodges of parries and attack by tapping the block button before the enemy hits him. this also plays into a typical action game psychology trick, often used in games like devil may cry where even if there isn't a smooth transition between animations (from one action to another) if the player is punting in physical input like pressing a button, than the gap between states isn't as noticeable. and because the dodge animation starts in a idle position, the only thing that will look unusual is how fast he moves his left arm and his head and possibly part of his upper torso. its a neat safety net, and with a short but reasonable animation no longer than 2-3 seconds or so, you could make it work, and without compromising already established mechanics. all the animation really needs to do is bring the potion to his lips and down again, or throw the bottle away, and that can be done. there are good ways to get around issues, even turn them into advantages, the simpler solution though is the witcher 2 system with its awesome animations, true. anyway that's my 2 cents

 

[coronel_pekerman]

anybody else thinks the older jogging/walking animations looked better than the new ones? (right is the old build)

 

[thislsmadness]

anybody else thinks the older jogging/walking animations looked better than the new ones? (right is the old build)

Walk looks the same, I def prefer the new run. Old one looks weird with all the exaggerated head movement.

 

[sharpappple]

anybody else thinks the older jogging/walking animations looked better than the new ones? (right is the old build)

they are the same though I think the difference between the two here is that in the 35 min demo someone is using a controller and rather than switching speeds instantly they have slowed down before the walk. that or someone removed a transition between run and walk to make controls more responsive, but only a dev could answer that question.

 

[coronel_pekerman]

they are the same though I think the difference between the two here is that in the 35 min demo someone is using a controller and rather than switching speeds instantly they have slowed down before the walk. that or someone removed a transition between run and walk to make controls more responsive, but only a dev could answer that question.

run animation is definitely not the same. i think the hands placement and the overall movement are more realistic. but i see there are other opinions

 

[Killgrow]

I thought one of the developer videos noted that the potion animation was removed because the action was too fast and it made it so you had to do it pre-battle which is difficult in an open world with surprises all around?

 

[Dprelate]

If this thing breaks people's immersion then your barrier for immersion is far too fragile

It's nothing like that; it's immersion breaking because this decision is a step backward. the way Geralt drank a potion in TW2 was one of the game's unique features. that was a brand new approach toward using potions in a video game. however it has its own drawbacks and of course players felt being shackled or something like that. so CDPR realized that it's necessary to evolve the system and now instead of evolution, the whole idea has cast aside.
this simple mechanic isn't a problem for many games like Diablo series because those utilize only 2 or 3 kinds of potion (Health, Mana and . . .) but TW3 is completely a different matter; alchemy is a major part of gameplay not a simple life giver. that's why it becomes important.

I'm not talking about this for myself. I'll be playing on PC and everyone knows it can be easily fixed by a simple mod. it's not about a personal taste, it's about the game's reputation for unique alchemy system in its gameplay.

 

[moonknightgog]

It's nothing like that; it's immersion breaking because this decision is a step backward. the way Geralt drank a potion in TW2 was one of the game's unique features. that was a brand new approach toward using potions in a video game. however it has its own drawbacks and of course players felt being shackled or something like that. so CDPR realized that it's necessary to evolve the system and now instead of evolution, the whole idea has cast aside.
this simple mechanic isn't a problem for many games like Diablo series because those utilize only 2 or 3 kinds of potions (Health, Mana and . . .) but TW3 is completely a different matter; alchemy is a major part of gameplay not a simple life giver. that's why it becomes important.

I'm not talking about this for myself. I'll be playing on PC and everyone knows it can be easily fixed by a simple mod. it's not about a personal taste, it's about the game's reputation for unique alchemy system in its gameplay.

I still think that The Witcher 1 alchemy system is the better one. A copy&paste would be a good solution. Also, I don't like how they have devalued the meditation, which now is just a "skip time of day" in a bad skyrim-way.

 

[Gothfather]

It's nothing like that; it's immersion breaking because this decision is a step backward. the way Geralt drank a potion in TW2 was one of the game's unique features. that was a brand new approach toward using potions in a video game. however it has its own drawbacks and of course players felt being shackled or something like that. so CDPR realized that it's necessary to evolve the system and now instead of evolution, the whole idea has cast aside.
this simple mechanic isn't a problem for many games like Diablo series because those utilize only 2 or 3 kinds of potion (Health, Mana and . . .) but TW3 is completely a different matter; alchemy is a major part of gameplay not a simple life giver. that's why it becomes important.

I'm not talking about this for myself. I'll be playing on PC and everyone knows it can be easily fixed by a simple mod. it's not about a personal taste, it's about the game's reputation for unique alchemy system in its gameplay.

I still think that The Witcher 1 alchemy system is the better one. A copy&paste would be a good solution. Also, I don't like how they have devalued the meditation, which now is just a "skip time of day" in a bad skyrim-way.

Games evolve and part of that evolution is to discern what things work and what features don't. Yet how do they determine what works and what doesn't? Feedback but not just forum feedback but actual consumer focus group feedback and this can give them a picture of what gamers as a majority want. And because gamers want mutally exclusive things there will be times when your preferred method of handling a feature will be dropped. It is not a step backwards it is not devalueization it is an evolution in game design. It is simply a design feature changing to something other gamers felt is a better way to handle things. Games immersion should be taken as a whole. If a gamer can't handle "gamey" aspects to their immersion then it is on them because games have "gamey" components.

Games are made for a wide reaching community and within this community there are people who want mutually exclusive things. They have to put up with the things they don't like just as I have to put up with the things I don't like and you have to put up with the things you don't like. The success of a game is whether or not the good far out weighs the bad because no game is perfect not because it's gotta have a flaw but because people like games for different reasons. For the immersion crowd there are soooo many things that create that feeling of immersion I think people a sweating a detail that really isn't a big deal unless you make it a big deal.

just a FYI my skyrim is modded to the hilt with immersion mods so I value the immersive experience but I never let the game's minor mechanics jar me out of that experience. i don't sweat the little things, I look for a mod to change them.

 

[BurningVigor]

I would have liked a quick chuck. Like in battle just drinks it while running and tosses it.

But then what about eating food and stuff lol.

It's fine imo without any of that animation. This game isn't really about immersion like Skyrim. Heck actually Skyrim only became immersive after tons of mods to make eating drinking camping a thing.