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What few of you actually read my previous blog posts on game design may remember that I made a lengthy post about the unit death system in SC2 compared to that in Myth 2. I just watched a video that HD posted on Youtube of the new unit death animations in HotS and I must say I am vastly more impressed than I ever anticipated I would be. It's not exactly what I want, but it's a damn good improvement and I'm quite excited to see that in action as a player and spectator!
They made everything far more physics based and added ground-altering effects that persist for a short duration. Overall I think it will be vastly more satisfying to watch units die both in isolation and in massacres such as seen in this video. I wish it would last a wee bit longer myself, though I can understand that having that much debris on the screen would make for an extremely cluttered battlefield if it didn't fade relatively quickly.
I felt compelled to share this for those who have not yet seen it, because I find it very exciting 
 
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Looks goofy I think. And probably going to end up being yet another reason for pros to play with LQ graphics. If you think HQ creep clutters the screen, this is going to be unbearable.
Edit: Some of them aren't too bad tho.
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On November 10 2012 12:18 Djzapz wrote:
Looks goofy I think. And probably going to end up being yet another reason for pros to play with LQ graphics. If you think HQ creep clutters the screen, this is going to be unbearable.
Edit: Some of them aren't too bad tho.
Yeah I can see what you mean, some of them do seem a bit over the top. Personally I would like to see less straight up ragdoll of the entire corpse and instead smaller fragments of the units flying. Myth was entirely small pieces, this seems like it is about 50/50 with intact corpses and fragments. I think a 20/80 ratio would probably be the best compromise. The end result would be less visual clutter and, in my opinion, a more realistic appearance to the carnage. The amount of acceleration on a lot of the death animations is also a bit absurd in my opinion. If they were to scale it back a bit on the force imparted to the death objects (less insane trajectories) I think it would be easier on the eyes. I suppose it's always possible they will tweak it, seeing as it is still in beta...
That said, I'm still pretty happy about it 
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hahaha yeah it does seem a bit comical, though the change is pretty cool. Maybe a bit less of stuff flying around and some more kind of visceral models and whatnot and maybe more lasting postdeath models. P cool for sure.
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It probably won't be as ridiculous when not everything is ragdolling cuz one army isn't pure tanks. It is over the top though haha, but I like the approach
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I like the direction they're heading with this!
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Good that it at least made one person very exciting
It's a nice extra, but I hope you can turn it off, because I'm sure I wouldn't want flying corpses during ladder play.
For single player it's nice, though.
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Seeing infestors get blown up like that made my day too!
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Zealots are like fireworks
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Sc2 has got so many problems and blizz is focusing on death animations?
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If it was already very messy to see what's happening to your units behind all the shiny lasers and bright explosions before, now with flying corpses it gets even worse.
Fun for viewers who only watch for the show, horrible for players and viewers who are interested on what is happening on the field.
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That's it. After preaching good balance since I bought this game I have now concluded Terran will be OP in HotS!
They have the best death animations of all!
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On November 10 2012 20:31 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Sc2 has got so many problems and blizz is focusing on death animations?
If blizz knew whats important it wouldnt have so many problems to begin with...
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Am I the only one that thinks they just tweaked the death animations for Diablo 3 and ported it straight to SC2? It looks uncannily familiar.
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On November 10 2012 21:49 Illiterate wrote:
Am I the only one that thinks they just tweaked the death animations for Diablo 3 and ported it straight to SC2? It looks uncannily familiar.
you can't just port one game's animation to another game though, unless the engine is similar/same/extremely easy to port over
personally I think they are looking really nice, one of the maps I can't remember which or maybe not even in Hots, the broken parts actually fly up, I think it is one of the newest map in GSL.
Pretty excited to see this effect with the new death animation
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I hope this doesn't cause massive lag on those of us without super high end PC's.
I am sure you can turn it off, but when maybe the units would just disappear when they die which is almost as bad?
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On November 10 2012 21:34 diehilde wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2012 20:31 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Sc2 has got so many problems and blizz is focusing on death animations? If blizz knew whats important it wouldnt have so many problems to begin with...
... the people who work on battle.net are not the same people who work on balance who are also not the same people who work on graphics. Do you think they can just take an artist and put them to work balancing the game?
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On November 10 2012 21:52 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2012 21:49 Illiterate wrote:
Am I the only one that thinks they just tweaked the death animations for Diablo 3 and ported it straight to SC2? It looks uncannily familiar. you can't just port one game's animation to another game though, unless the engine is similar/same/extremely easy to port over personally I think they are looking really nice, one of the maps I can't remember which or maybe not even in Hots, the broken parts actually fly up, I think it is one of the newest map in GSL. Pretty excited to see this effect with the new death animation
Fairly sure D3 is made in SC2's engine
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On November 10 2012 20:38 fabiano wrote:
If it was already very messy to see what's happening to your units behind all the shiny lasers and bright explosions before, now with flying corpses it gets even worse.
Fun for viewers who only watch for the show, horrible for players and viewers who are interested on what is happening on the field.
This shouldn't be a problem if, like most professionals, you play on low or low-medium hybrid settings. If you just turn the physics way down it shouldn't happen at all, I would think. I personally never found explosions or gore particularly distracting as a spectator or a player, but I suppose that would vary person to person. I currently play on low graphics with medium shaders, though I'd be willing to change it to a higher setting if I felt like watching my enemy's or my own units die would actually be a spectacle worthy of repeated viewing (that is, not monotonous and always context-sensitive).
It could certainly be a problem when watching tournaments though, since they generally use the highest graphics and physics settings possible. If it becomes distracting enough I expect either Blizzard or the tournaments themselves will take steps to mitigate the clutter during big battles.
On November 10 2012 20:31 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Sc2 has got so many problems and blizz is focusing on death animations?
I don't expect the people working on this portion of the game have much to do with the other parts of the game that need work, as another poster mentioned. Regardless, I think that the unit death system is an important part of making the game exciting to watch and rewarding to play well. Killing 30 marines with banelings, at least in my mind, is a lot more dramatic as a spectator or rewarding as a player when the resulting carnage is more visually interesting and responsive to the unique context in which it occurred (as in accounting for the direction the banelings came from, the slope of the terrain, etc). Seeing every marine do the exact same death animation nearly simultaneously puts a damper on such moments on a more visceral level. Of course the play itself can still be impressive and could well be game-changing, and thus exciting for those reasons, but why not make it look good too?
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saw this video a week or so ago, left wholly unimpressed (read, way too over the top).
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EPT
