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Sjorpha, on 10 November 2017 - 03:51 AM, said:
It's been like this before, long gaps of minimal communication and seemingly anemic development mixed with bursts of hype and rushed low quality "big" patches followed by a couple equally rushed hotfixes for whatever they broke and then a new period of slumber and silence.
Whatever the reason is, this is how PGI operates. It's not a good sign of course but can't really be used as an indication of doom either since this isn't really different from before. This is simply their workflow, they think this is a good way to develop and market a game.
What IS different is the reduced quality of mech animations and other slip ups around mech releases, yes that is worrying because mech releases are the one thing that used to have consistently high quality all around (except balancing) even when nothing else happened. That is a difference that perhaps warrants some questions about what's going on up there, but it could also be that someone on the mech release team quit and they haven't caught up.
Whatever the reason is, this is how PGI operates. It's not a good sign of course but can't really be used as an indication of doom either since this isn't really different from before. This is simply their workflow, they think this is a good way to develop and market a game.
What IS different is the reduced quality of mech animations and other slip ups around mech releases, yes that is worrying because mech releases are the one thing that used to have consistently high quality all around (except balancing) even when nothing else happened. That is a difference that perhaps warrants some questions about what's going on up there, but it could also be that someone on the mech release team quit and they haven't caught up.
I hate to say it but the quality has been the same since 2014.
Reuse animations whenever possible, tweak them after Christmas.
Adder/Kitfox use Raven animations, minus the toes. Locust does too.
Most mechs are using the same 6 animation sets. There's the hobble humanoid (Awesome, Thunderbolt for some examples; very common), the waddle humanoid (Battlemaster), the Generic humanoid (Dragon, Centurion, now the Hunchback -- it used to have an original animation set that I call the "swagger" due to the extreme torso twisting motion with each step, since removed though based on Mech Commander's opening cinematic's "HardCase" which had some swagger in his Hunchback's walk) the excited chicken (All derivatives of the Raven walk/run cycle based on MechCommander's Raven run opening cinematic -- Hunchback's original walk animation was also based on this; but has been replaced with one of the two generic humanoid motions]) (Catapult, Mad Dog, the Waddle step (Timber Wolf, Ebon Jaguar, Stalker), the 100 tonner Waddle step (modified Stalker animation to give more exaggerated sway, used on King Crab and Night Star; I don't consider this its own set).
Most double-jointed mechs (except the Cicada which has its own unique animations) are using Hobble Humanoid and Generic Humanoid... which doesn't have that extra knee joint and as such doesn't move.
Since there's a crapload of likes already, I wanna put this link here in the hopes that it gets the popular tag and maybe PGI will see it... or at least the community manager. Feel free to link it in a tweet to Russ, too.
There's a few kinda unique animations from 2012 still lingering around, but not really.
Jenner shares Commando run animations and generic humanoid walk.
Commando shares Atlas walk animation (butt swagger!)
.....that's pretty much all that has survived.
Take a look at when Swagger Walk was both in cockpit and on the mech.
Now....
Take note: The cockpit change had been around since 2013, but Hunchback didn't lose his swagger walk until 2014.
Firestarter, Panther, and Wolfhound use Generic Humanoid walks of the Dragon/Centurion, and each uses a different run from the other animation types. You know back when they at least tried to vary it up.
To follow up, 2014's issue.
Again the topic is the animations.
