Art Feedback [TW4 Megathread]
Models, animations, sounds, visual effects and particles, textures, environment, icons - it all goes here! In addition to how it feels, also let us know how our art adds to or detracts from gameplay.
When providing feedback, please use the following format:
- X happened
- It made me feel Y (or I’d like to feel Y)
- (optional) Here’s a suggestion to improve it
Comments
I think that it may be nice to have a much larger contrast between gems that are being collected and gems that are not. Right now it feels like there's not much of a difference between the visual for them.
@Millea
Right you are! Those are a work in progress as is a lot of our art and we hope to have something more obvious for players soon!
In my opinion, the portrait pictures for the Zephyr and the Conduit look too similar. I often confuse them/can't tell the difference.
@Platypus agreed! in fact other than Hero portraits, we haven't really spent too much time on the portrait pictures. I'm glad you mentioned this.. we'll be sure to make those more distinct when we do a proper pass! Thanks!
For the little blue scuttle bug units that can roll into a ball, the impact of the rolling ball attack does not feel very good. It hardly looked like anything even happened! Cool ability nonetheless though.
Two things:
First, Vex's audio when selected feels disproportionately loud compared to the other heroes (specifically in the hero selection screen). Secondly, the Trebuchet's sound effect upon firing seems loud and obtrusive in the game. I feel this stems from the nature of the noise - a hollow thud - that makes it stick out from the rest of the sound effects. Thanks guys!
@Yeldarb our new vfx artist actually hasn't tackled that yet! Sometime soon we'll have a way more impactful hit!
@arigato thanks so much for the audio feedback, it's all really new (2-3 weeks old) and great to get fresh ears on it. Really appreciate the feedback!
See ya in game, folks!
Personal preference, I know, but I am just not a fan of the mustache on Ryme.
I thought the music was very tame. In the midgame things can get long and slow, so having an entertaining soundtrack is important when I'm doing repetitive tasks. Perhaps the current music could be used in a bigger soundtrack.
Unit art for red units
Devilkin Dervish
I thought the art was awesome for this unit. Nice casting animation, great animation for the War Dance ability, and looks like a Shaman. 10/10
Sandstinger (Eris's sidekick)
I think this unit's Sandstinger ability looks great. However, it's such a small looking unit, even for a light, fast basic-teir unit. It would help if one or more features of the current model were bulked up, like bigger claws or a bigger metal spine.
Beetle Fighter
This unit definitely needs some work. The in-game portrait makes it look like the Beetle Fighter has traffic cones for legs, and the colour scheme does not fit in with the army. I suggest trying to come up with a way for it to look unique in a way that fits. Why not remodel the Beetle Fighter to actually look like a beetle? Draw inspiration from the SC2 Roach!
X happened:
Patwold said this
It made me feel Y (or I’d like to feel Y):
It made me feel terrible.
(optional) Here’s a suggestion to improve it:
Ryme's mustache is the best thing in this game.
Add more facial hair to all characters. Celesta needs a lumberjack beard.
I made a poll to settle any Ryme Mustache debate
http://www.strawpoll.me/10286742
For some reason I thought Ryme had an "h" in it
Kingpin's model and especially attacks felt pretty misleading. I see this tiny blue circle and I figure I can just ignore it, and then I get murdered. I was pretty surprised. I also didn't realize its attack was AOE for a while (it is, right?).
I second Kingpin's animation feeling very wrong. It feels like it's trying too hard to be a reaver, but the attack/unit don't seem to jibe. Also, in a game where you're normally supposed to run TOWARD glowing, circle-shaped objects, having one you're supposed to run away from feels off.
I find that it seems very samey to other moba-esque games I have played. It doesn't standout to me to the point I would be able it distinguish it from similar art in other games.. I know people who would like the art style I think they would call it "cute", and they are also the kind of people who would play this game on, and off.
I feel like the art style between the different type of factions is definitely distinguishable, and I did not have any trouble figuring out what unit belongs to what faction, or even picking out individual units from blobs. As well as the warning for skill shots were easily seen, I never got hit by an ability like the trebuchet, or deadeye's and thought "what I didn't see that!"
The music is just barely better than having no music.
I don't have a faction that I resonate with aesthetically. I don't think it would fit your game, but I would like to have a more human faction. Or to have like a faction that fits a more "Paladin?" aesthetic. I like to have heavily armored big dudes with giant cleaving melee weapons, and to have smaller basically naked dudes with just a sword and shield, and have some ranged units that like throw spears or something, a robed figure who sits in the back, and like angelic figures who can do massive casted abilities. I am a person who always chooses to play the human faction, and a warrior/paladin class in games. I like White in magic the gathering.
The way the art as a whole made me feel was, eh. I don't feel bonded to any of these unit's aesthetics so unit's were just whatever their stats were. The only time I went, oh this is cool was the abominable sludge , but as I said before I know a few people who would like a few of the units like the scuttlecrab.
I personally feel underwhelmed by the current "color-based" aesthetic, both because it prevents team identification by color (I've been flanked by "Green Guy" before thinking he was my green teammate) and because it doesn't give me any connection whatsoever to my guys. Even just being "Air" or "Earth" leaves me wanting, and I'm not even that much of an art guy. I do, however, care about the "feel" of a faction or unit, and particularly care about factions that play out how they conceptually could be described.
I feel like part of the draw of a faction in an RTS is the culture/personality of the standout units which ties back into aesthetics for me. Not only does it let me identify with a facet of a faction, it gives me ideas on how to play it, how to leverage its strengths, and how to think about it as an enemy. Yes, red calls to mind "fire", "chaos", "destruction", and whatever other Magic: The Gathering terminology you might look to, but it doesn't give me any cultural or intellectual fuel to embrace. It's kind of like the difference between "I play Blue" and "I play Merfolk": I see the Blue Mage as a robot, but the Fish player as a particular type of opponent, and that tells me a richer story.
I've only played a little bit of Warhammer in my life, but I look to that venerable franchise as a great example of how an aesthetic can absolutely definite a faction so much so that people become lifelong devotees of that faction alone through hundreds and thousands of battles and painstakingly painted miniatures. Or look at Brood War: there's simply no way Boxer could have played anything but the Terran race.
Ryme recieved a mustache.....
I felt lost, uncomfortable, and confused in the world
My suggestion to fix this would be to either give that man a good ole day[shave].... or a top hat and make him the classiest Mustached blue man.
But really, if anyone watches Sherlock and wasn't ok with Martin Freemans mustache at the beginning of season 3.... thats my feeling with Ryme's mustache....
The buildings all look very similar. I had multiple games retreating to buildings that were hopefully healing buildings or behind buildings that were hopefully defensive. All of the structures are very similar, I don't think I could pick which home base building did what if I didn't use hotkeys and had to click them directly. It makes some of the strategy less intuitive until gaining more of an understanding.
I'm having trouble reading the progress bar on stuff. Especially in the middle of battle. Can I defend this pickup? Do I need to? For how long? If you look at the screenshot (no local copy) its very hard to tell since the glowing shield is blue, the progress bar is light blue and the progress is white. In addition to that it very closely follows the curve of the shield.
Also judging the progress on a titan-fountain quickly through fog of war seems more difficult than it should be.
I really like the consistent scheme across everything (camps, fountains, tower restoration etc) but the scheme of colors isn't optimal i feel.
Reposting a few things from my test diary megathread at the request of @Brandon . These are art-related things have been brought up by a number of fellow testers as things that seem to be having significant gameplay impact:
Quadrapus Visual Issue
Some ideas that might make Quadrapus play feel less frustrating:
Igniter Effects
Apocalyte nukes visuals
These are very hard to see. I feel like they are maybe too hard to see. Considering they instantly kill most of the stuff they hit, it feels like if I am specifically looking for them in order to dodge, and I am on the screen they are likely to be cast on, I should be able to spot them before they go off the vast majority of the time.
I might not be able to dodge them, of course. But there are many fights where I don't even see them until they've finished, in cases where the only thing I am doing is trying to spot the glowing ring.
This is mostly the case because the ring appears under units, and some units seem to obscure it more that others.
I feel like a slightly more apparent graphical effect would lead to less random army wipes vs. Apocalytes. In mass fights, they are already fantastic and hard to dodge. Making their nukes very hard to even spot seems like overkill to me and doesn't feel good when it happens.
I don't mind when I fail to dodge because it's my fault, but when I fail to see I find myself blaming the game, and that feels bad.
I think there should be a different default profile picture because the the current one feels like the typical filler icon. If that makes sense. I'm not sure what you would set the default icon to be but I feel like it should be similar to the other icons. You could also just bypass the default icon all together and make the player chose one of the icons on their first log in.
On the minimap I sometimes read the circle in the archive icon as a unit icon.
I've been using Scuttleguard quite a lot, and I find that the visual effects for Retracting Roll to be really underwhelming. I love the roll itself, but when they hit their targets, they just seem to come out of their roll. It makes me feel like the ability doesn't really do anything, even though the splash damage and slow are really nice effects.
I think it would help greatly if there was a little more 'pop' when the Scuttleguard impacted.
Regarding unit selection UI
First off I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct of posting this feedback, or if there are announcements regarding it since I'm new to the forums, but here goes:
I find it weird I couldn't find any post about this on the forums, because it's probably the first thing I noticed that really should be improved(yes, before melee pathing :P)