I know there's already been quite a lot of discussion on this subject before, and that Colossus attack animation has already been changed once but when I saw Blizzcon videos I must say that I was utterely disappointed with how this has been solved.
While the old animation produced too many beams which was rather confusing the new one with this single beam drawing the same line over everything is so crappy that it's hard to watch it.
I was wondering if the Blizzard changed this once, maybe they could do it again?
Personally I'd like for it to be less 'War of the Worlds' style and more Protoss style.
I mean a psionic explosion that would deal AoE damage, a bit like the old scarabs and siege tanks. The animation could be similar to the one for Avenger unit in Armies of Exigo.
It would in my opinion create less confusion and would look 10x better/be more distinctive.
Or even just blue lightning, or a combo of those, blue lightning -> explosion.
The general idea is for the attack animation not to last as long as it is now while also looking much better.
What do you think?
Edit:
I forgot not everyone played AoX The attack animation I'm referring to are those 2 bright circular thingies on the ground in the picture.
It can also be seen in this movie at 3:42. The Avengers are the ones with tentacles on their heads(?) dodging the troll shots.
I think that instead of having a single beam like it is now they could make it a dual beam scissoring the area while at the same time the beams lose in visual intensity over the animation so that it looks more like a charge release.
Changing the animation would mean going away from the line shaped attack. And that could change the role of the unit. That Blizzard seems to switch the Collossus attack for every build tells me that they are still playing around with different ideas. Personally I think the important thing is that the graphics should fit what is actually happening.
I'm glad you made this topic because I was thinking about this but didn't know where to post it to get some visibility.
How about a firing animation like a shockwave, a boom? Imagine the expanding shockwave created by an explosion or the ripples of a pebble in a pond, but use that animation only for the sector the colossus is facing (probably less than a quarter of a circle or so). So you get an arc that leaves the colossus' head and becomes bigger as it descends and moves forward, finally hitting the ground with the same line-AOE it has now (if you really want to keep the line shaped attack). The shock wave can travel very fast - yet maybe just slow enough for a line of zerglings or frenzied zeals to dodge it by dancing right after the wave is fired.
The "boom" can be caused by the two structures on either side of the collosus simultaneously closing very violently. The structures then slowly opening and "charging" would provide a nice, clear visual indication of the cooldown.
Imagine this with a loud BOOM and the shockwave traveling fast, with an explosive animation. I don't know how to create gifs; this is supposed to be the same wave at different times, not succesive waves.
The attack looks fine they just need to fix its pathing so it actually does something to units and doesn't fly off to the side of the group and hit nothing.
The attack now just looks lame. I loved the old one, and the fact that it used both its lances instead of just one like now. A different AoE attack would probably be best. Either a zigzagging move with both beams, or a single concentrated impact with AoE similar to that of a siege tank.
On November 22 2008 21:12 Doctorasul wrote: I'm glad you made this topic because I was thinking about this but didn't know where to post it to get some visibility.
How about a firing animation like a shockwave, a boom? Imagine the expanding shockwave created by an explosion or the ripples of a pebble in a pond, but use that animation only for the sector the colossus is facing (probably less than a quarter of a circle or so). So you get an arc that leaves the colossus' head and becomes bigger as it descends and moves forward, finally hitting the ground with the same line-AOE it has now (if you really want to keep the line shaped attack). The shock wave can travel very fast - yet maybe just slow enough for a line of zerglings or frenzied zeals to dodge it by dancing right after the wave is fired.
The "boom" can be caused by the two structures on either side of the collosus simultaneously closing very violently. The structures then slowly opening and "charging" would provide a nice, clear visual indication of the cooldown.
Imagine this with a loud BOOM and the shockwave traveling fast, with an explosive animation. I don't know how to create gifs; this is supposed to be the same wave at different times, not succesive waves.
Hmm... Any good animators here? What if you changed this a bit for the wave to have fade-over time effect and where it goes it produces the 'hot air' effect like from the explosions in SC.
Would look wicked powerful
@ Tritanis: Tomorrow I'll go back to my parent's place where I've left my AoX copy and sure I'd love to skirmish some Or maybe I'll just buy a new copy since it's cheap as hell now.
The original beam looked awesome but I think there was a problem with its cooldown where you could attack/move/attack move spam and shoot really fast. The color of the beam being blue might be cool but that's the same as the warp/void ray. Maybe if they made the damage start lower and scale up like the warp ray that would balance this type of micro. Then they could like implement some kind of a pro technique for full micro attention making them better than just auto firing ones.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamershell.com/static/screenshots/3000/48937_full.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y246/Doctorasul/firing.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/6689/firinglp7.gif)
