Animation Variety / Quality is Very Disappointing

General Discussion
1

So, it looks like all of the game’s files have downloaded. I’ve been checking out the World Editor and I’m quite surprised, honestly. I mentioned my concerns with animations in another thread, but I feel like this deserves a thread of its own. There are a handful of units out there that are supposed to have multiple attack animations, yet Blizzard merely copied and pasted them into the other attack animation slots, leaving some units that had multiple attack animations in Classic WC3 with more animation variety than their Reforged counterparts. Why is a newer version of the game getting LESS? I can’t even believe this was permitted to occur and I worry that the result of this occurring wasn’t merely oversight, but actual laziness, time constraints and unconcern. There are also other units that have multiple attack animations, but they are somehow less creative than their Classic counterparts and look far to identical to each other.

UPDATE:
Patch 1.32.1 addressed none of these issues.

Patch 1.32.2 addressed none of these issues.

Patch 1.32.3 has demonstrated that BlizzSky possesses the capacity to address animation issues, yet they decided to waste time on tweaking the Blademaster’s attack animations rather than prioritize units that have missing animations.

Human Melee Units:

Paladin

  • Had a horizontal attack animation and a vertical, overhead attack animation. Now has two vertical attack animations, with the second one curving upwards slightly.

Human Campaign Units:

Swordsman (Thalassian)

  • Stand 1, 2 and 4 are completely identical. Attack 1 and 2 are completely identical. Honestly, it’s disgusting. This unit is used by Kael and Illidan in the Classic campaign, so it isn’t a cut unit. Why does the Footman have multiple stand and attack animations, yet Blizzard decided to neglect this unit into oblivion?

Anasterian Sunstrider and Thalorien Dawnseeker

  • Probably cut – and I hope they are cut, because their lack of animations are disturbing. They have one Attack Spell animation and that’s it, aside from a walk animation, standing animations and a death animation.

Arthas (wielding Frostmourne)

  • Attack 1 and Attack 2 used to be different in Classic. Now, Blizzard merely copied and pasted the first attack animation to the second. They are identical now.

Dagren the Orcslayer and the rest of the new Paladins

  • Attack 1 and Attack 2 are identical for all of them.

Orc Campaign Units

Mathog, Slave Master & Orc Warchief

  • Attack 1 and Attack 2 are identical. Stand 1, 2 and 3 are all identical.

Gar’thok

  • 3 stand animations and, of course, they’re all completely identical.

Chen Stormstout, Rexxar & Grom Hellscream (Possessed)

  • Blizzard decided to copy Attack 1 and paste it to Attack 2.

Undead Melee Units

Crypt Lord

  • The Attack 1 animation was merely copied and pasted to the Attack 2 animation.

Infernal

  • Instead of alternating between two attack animations that switch between limbs, the Infernal has two similar attack animations that only use one arm.

Undead Campaign Units

All Pit Lords

  • All of the Attack 2 , for each Pit Lord respectively, were copied and pasted to fill the Attack 3 slots (or Attack 1 and Attack 3 in the case of Magtheridon).

Detheroc

  • The Attack 1 animation was copied and pasted to Attack 2.

Night Elf Melee Units

Druid of the Talon

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Warden (and Maiev)

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Ancient Buildings (Uprooted)

  • All of the uprooted Ancient buildings (minus the main structure) have had their Attack 1 animation merely copied to fill the Attack 2 animation slot.

Ghost (Keeper of the Grove)

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Malfurion (all variants)

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Neutral Units

Forest Troll Berserkers (and others with axes)

  • The stand 1 animation was copied and pasted to fill the other stand animation slots. Spell -Berserk / Buff animation removed.

Forest Troll Priest (and variants)

  • The stand 1 animation was copied and pasted to fill the other stand animation slots.

Centaur Khan

  • Attack 1 animation was copied to Attack 2.

Pandaren Brewmaster

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Giant Skeleton Warrior

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Furbolgs

  • Some Furbolgs have two Attack Spell animation slots, but Blizzard copied and pasted them.

Dragonspawns

  • Attack 1 was copied to Attack 2.

Ancient Wendigo

  • While all of the other Wendigo units have a roar-like Attack Spell Slam animation, the Ancient Wendigo uses its Attack 1 animation for its Attack Spell Slam animation.

Sea Giant Behemoth

  • The Sea Giant and Sea Giant Hunter have two attack animations, yet the Sea Giant Behemoth only has one for whatever reason.

Skeletal Orcs

  • Attack 1 animation copied to Attack 2.

Well, there are a few examples for you. I really hope the editor is merely glitching out (turns out it’s not), because this is going to be extremely disappointing. I might update this thread from time to time with more examples, but we’ll see. I am almost completely certain that I will find dozens of more examples after having gone through the Undead, Night Elves and Neutral units. Very disappointing, Blizzard. You deserve to be ousted and shamed for this. You know there’s a problem when the Classic version of the game has better animation variety. I can’t even believe that you folks copied and pasted the animations of a few units in order to fill variants. Disgusting.

79 Likes
2

From all the videos I am watching until now… The game looks almost the same as the beta but only slightly improved.

13 Likes
3

I’m pissed. I knew some things were going to be cut from the game because direction changed, but I can’t believe they even skimped out on animations.

15 Likes
4

It is amazing what blizzard manage to achieve. They managed to make animations worse than in the game which was made 18 years ago.

43 Likes
5

The animations themselves seem to be very low FPS compared to other elements of the game. Looks terrible… what’s the point of even having a high-refresh resolution option when all your models and other graphical elements don’t utilise it. Looks disconnected…

7 Likes
6

This is essentially a reskin isnt it? Wouldnt they have to go out of there way to remove animations?

I’d like to see comparison vids since the classic is still there for testing.

1 Like
7

Seriously, check em’ out on the editor. It’s insane. They actually removed / forgot about some attack animations. I went through each unit in the campaign and melee section for the four core races in the editor. The clowns actually copied and pasted animations in order to fill animation slots.

We get to play as Rexxar throughout the ENTIERTY of the Founding of Durotar campaign, yet the somehow thought it acceptable to remove / forget about one of his attack animations? Rexxar, in Reforged, hacks away at people with the axe in one of his hands, but apparently doesn’t feel like using his other hand as he does in Classic WC3. It’s not even two separate attack animations that look similar, Blizzard literally copied and pasted the first attack animation into the second attack animation slot. This is just one example.

17 Likes
8

i just checked Merc Hero, Beastmaster - and he has attack animation 1 and attack animation 2. Left and right attack animations. Looks like a bug then with Rexxar. Try comparing the non campaign animations to the multiplayer ones. Even if it was a bug or oversight, it shows how shoddy and rushed the game is.

1 Like
10

Nice write-up. This is very disappointing indeed. So many animations missing, and Baine is still a spirit walker! I truly hope they have patches planned for this. :pray: :pleading_face:

4 Likes
11

I wasted all my likes with angry comments (yes they have a limit now imagine that lmao), consider this comment a like

12

I hope so too, but I won’t be holding my breath. Game developers, especially when it comes to RTS games, have been skimping out on animation variety for over a decade now.

It’s all about budgets, cuts and streamlining now. Warcraft III: Recut. I want whatever Warcraft RTS game the devs were talking about back at Blizzcon. That game sounded great.

13

what are your thoughts on the animation playback quality in the editor vs ingame?

i found the ingame animations to be really stuttery or dropping frames, while the editor animations are smooth.

1 Like
14

I noticed that as well. I’m not even sure if that it’s present in WC3: Classic. If it was an imposed limitation, it wasn’t as noticeable as it is now, considering that Reforged bumps the game up with new models and textures.

It’s almost as if the animation playback frames are capped when you’re playing the game outside of the editor.

15

i did some digging and found out that even classic version 1.20 shows this behavior.

its a “legacy” problem, but still should be fixed for reforged, as it looks quite ugly.

3 Likes
16

I’m glad you’ve detailed this, but others have pointed out similar things, I’ve made some posts that are blatant bug reports and have not at all been addressed, I doubt they care all that much, but yeah, hard agree on all of this, hopefully they break the trend of ignoring forum feedback and only paying attention to streamer shit for their feedback:

"Honestly animations as a whole need some work. Things like units that used to have spell animations(Forest/Shadow/Frost Trolls spell animation is absent), and attack anims are disappointedly sparse, most units have only one or two animations, not unlike classic but it’s more jarring with the detail.(Some units seem to have less than classic. )

Many units that have two weapons or limbs only attack with one.(Troll axe throwers, Inferno), and a lot of the animations are timed poorly as of right now.(Grunt spell animation is totally useless for most spells at 3+ seconds, and always interrupts in an awkward way.)"

1 Like
17

Great response. It all needs to be said because nothing about this animation fiasco screams ‘Blizzard quality’ in the way that they attempt to preach it.

The Infernal was another unit that bothered me because they decided to have both attack animations use the same arm for whatever reason in Reforged, but I forgot to mention it. I’ll add that to the list at some point in addition to the Trolls.

1 Like
18

Why do these new animations freaking stutter, when the old ones are smooth. What is this nonsense.

1 Like
19

Thats called a rush job and sloppy oversight

1 Like
20

the old ones stutter aswell, its a general problem.

21

actibli$$ard cuts

1 Like