Goofy combat animations.

[Hexagoros]

I've not seen this talked about, but one of the things that really bothers me is just how goofy some of the combat animations are.

The issue, these animations really take you out of the moment, as they 'look' so off. Here are, in my opinion, the worst offenders;

- High kicks. These are a holdover from Troy, and I just don't understand who at CA Sofia thinks having soldiers randomly high kick an enemy's shield looks good, nevermind realism.

- Flying Knees. Literal WWE-style flying knees. in the middle of combat. Into an enemy's shield. Just, why?

- Falling Over Spear Thrust. The soldier does this big wind up, then thrusts forward, and looks like he's about to fall forward from the force of his own thrust. Again, why? Spears are the simplest weapon ever. Why is this animation a thing?

- Spinning. This one REALLY bothers me. Men in battle lines just spinning around, exposing their backs, and clipping through everything. This does not look cool. It looks ridiculous.

- Spear Twirling. The soldier does this weird movement where he twirls the spear up in the air and then appears to 'boop' the enemy on the head with it. It looks as though CA were attempting some sort of downward slash attack - with a spear.

- Spear Slashing. This is a big one. Soldiers really love 'slashing' with their spears, as if they were using halberds or pole-swords. The issue is, these are not halberds or pole-swords, they are spears. Primitive spears.

[JimmyTheSnake]

How about spinning with one handed spear grip, in the middle of the spear, hitting the other guy in the shin, knocking him on his back, and then swinging a downward motion onto his head like it's a baseball bat and not a spear with a sharp point on the end?

[Hexagoros]

Escrito originalmente por JimmyTheSnake:

How about spinning with one handed spear grip, in the middle of the spear, hitting the other guy in the shin, knocking him on his back, and then swinging a downward motion onto his head like it's a baseball bat and not a spear with a sharp point on the end?

I'm convinced that CA Sofia didn't actually do any research on what fighting with these weapons would look like.

[Klutch]

Definitely disagree, I think the combat animations are the best in the series and its not even close.

[JimmyTheSnake]

Escrito originalmente por Klutch:

Definitely disagree, I think the combat animations are the best in the series and its not even close.

There were a lot of things I was concerned about with this game that made me take pause before buying. All of those things turned out way better than I expected. The animations weren't one of them. Admittedly, I'm not one of the people who really looks deeply into animations. But, after hearing all the hullabaloo about how Pharaoh's animations were a return to matched combat and it was going to be better, I had high hopes.

When I finally got the game and zoomed in, I really couldn't tell a difference from Warhammer. Some of the post-battle duel animations are fantastic, but some are terrible. And, the in battle animations just look the same to me. Like I said though, I don't have the eye for detail on this kind of thing as I'm more concerned about how the maneuvering, unit hardiness, and speed of combat is more than animations.

But, that one with the spear I described earlier always makes me cringe.

[Killersnipe]

I miss the matched combat animations from Shogun 2. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever get back to the quality of individual unit animations we got in that game 🤷‍♂️

[Ultrabot]

melee has looked stupid for ages. Mods for games like rome 2 often remove all but the kill and block animations, DEI has custom animations -- still doesn't look as good in a fight as say medieval 2, but it's an improvement. The matched combat has only really worked in shogun 2, for whatever reason.
The sliding, lock-ons, and clunky looking individual duels cause a lot of issues.