[SUGGESTION] Booster and shielding animations to make arena fighting more believable

I actually got this idea from playing Armored Core and from the Winglies in Legend of Dragoon. In an attempt to make the over-the-top movement possibilities believable, I think it would be a good idea to add animations (just an animation, no physical jetpacks or anything like that should look fine) to the backs of the character models for when the jump key is pressed and a shield flash where they're hit for when they take damage.


Here's three videos from the Armored Core 3 games, as you can see the ACs have jet boosters on their backs that allow them to jump and accelerate like mad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrZRoJxq3rI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os_gG0jLna4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUlMrZ04UjA


Then here's the Winglies from Legend of Dragoon. In that game, the only time their wings were ever visible is if they were flying or accelerating towards something.





Something like this would make the game a bit more believable and offer a visual explanation as to how the players are able to get around like they do.

<offtopic>
-_-

Some day fantasy concept artists will learn to make believable outfits.

Yes, it would be nice to immediately know where you're receiving damage from, maybe your screen would flash "redder" on the side that you receive the damage from, instead of just red.

The booster is unnecessary and would be confused with jetpack though.

speaking of jetpacks, the place where the jet comes from needs to be changed. right now the fire comes out of the players anus.

and I think a jet booster effect could be cool, and it would be fairly easy to distinguish it from the jetpack imo

Could replace the fuel pick ups with burritos... That might explain why the jetpack animation makes players look like they got some seriously volatile gas lol j/k

As for the boost animation, I was thinking as cheap as possible, maybe implement it similar to a muzzle flash or something where a couple of sprites (possibly animated ones) display whenever the jump key is pressed. The jetpack animation (assuming a boost animation is put in) could just be a more bad-ass looking version of the boost one that shoots down a bit more.

I think bunny hopping should also be changed to something else... I picture a kid who is used to Call of Duty firing up Xonotic and watching people jump up and down repeatedly to accelerate and thinking, wow, that makes no sense (is this a low gravity thing?). I can't come up with a convincing way to make it more realistic though. Ayumi from OA comes to mind (rocket skates), but that's already been done. And they still strafe jump etc. anyway.

Jumping with both legs together like that is what makes the bunny hopping animation so... weird. If you changed it so that they leaped in a more running type motion (more like Parkour), it would put it in the Epic scale rather than the Cheesy scale. That is my view at least. Harder to animate yes, but not impossible in this day and age, and quite worth it.

And for visual sci-fi cues of the effects of the suit giving you this super jumping ability, you can have sparks fly from the character's feet when they are jumping. Completely distinguishable from the jet pack and still cool.

An idea in the same vein would be to make it so laser jumping causes a bright red effect to trail behind the laser jumper. It'd make it seem less like an exploit and more like an intended gameplay mechanic.

Jumping with both legs together like that is what makes the bunny hopping animation so... weird. If you changed it so that they leaped in a more running type motion (more like Parkour), it would put it in the Epic scale rather than the Cheesy scale. That is my view at least. Harder to animate yes, but not impossible in this day and age, and quite worth it.

And for visual sci-fi cues of the effects of the suit giving you this super jumping ability, you can have sparks fly from the character's feet when they are jumping. Completely distinguishable from the jet pack and still cool.

That would work EXTREMELY well and look good too. Unreal Championship 1 & 2 actually did something kinda similar with the first one doing leaps and the second using jump jets on the fighter's boots. Some of the fighters (the juggernaughts Gorge and Arclite I think and one light weight character, that robot whatever her name was) even had boosters on their backs. Made the ridiculous movement (UC1 actually cloned a lot of Quake's mechanics, including the use of bunnyhops to compensate for lacking a dodge ability) look believable.