I really don't like the battle animations for the fighting

[EireEmerald]

I am enjoying this game but whenever i do a battle, and I look at the melee fighting close-up, and i see the animations for how the enemy units are interacting, it completely takes me out of it. It is really cartoonish. In Rome 2 and Atilla and Shogun you really see nice details for how people die on the battlefield, but in this game, no matter how they die, they fall back or forward in an overly dramatic fashion. Are there any mods or add ons that can fix this?

[Fallen851]

Zooming is to get a good view of the action always disappoints me too. The unit interactions are really poorly done.

[Carl Jung was right]

Let me explain. Rome II had a problem. The unit animations looked great, sure, but the overall battle handled like garbage. Unit formations tended to blob hideously, performance would randomly drop and units would generally bug out, behaving in bizarre ways. It wasn't of course always terrible, but more often than not it interfered with logically controlling the movement of your units. Many patches later the problem wasn't entirely fixed, however it became much less of an issue in Attila. Some mods remove most synced animations entirely (for instance you don't see much of them in the highly acclaimed DeI overhaul) in order to improve the overall flow of the battle. But that was sort of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as one of the best advantages of the new engine was its promise to deliver highly cinematic and immersive battle visuals. Otherwise we'd all be just play EB and RSII for R:TW.

The reason for this is that for all the complexity, it's just impossible for the TW game engine to both provide seamlessly integrated cinematic looking animations and tactically sensible flow of battle. Blame CA devs or just the lack of computing power of modern technology in the face of a complex engineering challenge, the result is that you either have cake or eat it.

Warhammer TW largely bypassed this problem by absolving the engine from having to render lockstep choreographed animations. The animations are much simpler, more akin to earlier TW titles and in game elements are generally handled as a single whole units rather than to provide a subtle illusion of an individual soldier by soldier basis. This is both a merit and fault of the game. It's good in the sense that player control and micromanagement becomes largely seamless, it's bad because it gives off the impression of a product of excessive streamlining, somewhat akin to a chewing gum that tastes too much like a latex condom. That's why you feel a natural revulsion to animations looking awkward, in fact I'd vouch it isn't so much the animations being the problem, but rather the feel of fighting a battle where abstract numerical blobs representing single units fight as opposed to thousands of men and monsters.

[drillmaster]

The animations look bad and cartooney yes. But as far as i can tell there is now way (so far) to change animations. Otherwise people would have found a way to fix the unbreakable pointy sticks of doom imperial and bretonnian knights use. To be honest though the game lacks soooo much that animations dont bother me as much as they should.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

It's not the lack of fixed animations that bothers me, it's the presence of silly animations. Every time someone jumps up and attacks someone, it looks ridiculous.

[M2TWRocks]

We're talking about a game where 160-170 lbs men are fighting giant monsters who probably weight thousands of pounds. There is no appropriate animation to represent that because it doesn't exist. Some animations look really great, but they go off at the wrong time. Flying creatures are a good example of this.

[Huberto]

No, it all looks goofy and cartoony no matter the camera's perspective. Let's hope this isn't the future of TW.

[Imperator Artorius]

No, it all looks goofy and cartoony no matter the camera's perspective. Let's hope this isn't the future of TW.

Welcome to the new age.

[Kassandros]

Uh, have you guys played tabletop Warhammer or read any of the fluff?

Those animations are pretty appropriate. You have some tiny dudes standing up to monstrous creatures fairly regularly.

[EireEmerald]

I don't care if it is appropriate to the lore of tabletop Warhammer. When I am playing this game, I want to be 90 - 100 immersed in the "reality" of what is going on. I want to believe that my men(who look ing awesome by the way, the imperial troops) are dying and killing in brutal and futile ways. Its like, when something is almost perfect, but that little gap that could have been filled, just stands out like a sore thumb, and kills the possibility of 100% immersion.

I would love to see a return to a historical game for TW. But I am also very interested in a proper Westeros Total war release, not based on the show(which will probably never happen). Yes a reinterpretation of what the Northerners, Southerners etc. look like, their cities, cultures, everything. This would be AMAZING.

[drillmaster]

Westeros has no place in TW. Politics just cant happen in TW unless CA does a miracle. But if you want immersion in a total war game im afraid i have bad news for you....especially in a fantasy setting.

[Cpt. Stables]

...if you want immersion in a total war game im afraid i have bad news for you....especially in a fantasy setting.

I never understand this argument- yes it's fantasy and a suspension of disbelief is required, but a narrative must have some element of believability grounded in reality for it to look appropriate. The humans in this game are not super powered in the manner of say, Warcraft or D&D. The humans in Warhammer are humans like you and I, and must stand up to creatures much larger than them with a mixture of discipline, engineering and a dash of magical backup. It's balls-to-the-wall horror leading to death in the grimdark Warhammer world. So with this in mind, why do we have every man in a battle breaking formation to do a silly jump in the air as he charges? Why do we have sword-equipped men constantly kicking Black Orcs? I mean for Orcs or Chaos these animations work, but look incredibly out of place amongst Empire, Bretonnia and most of the rank-and-file of the Undead.

I'm not saying that we need matched combat back, because for all it looked baller it slowed combat down and meant you'd constantly have guys clipping through each other doing a 1-on-1. Whilst the animations for monsters are awesome, the problem is that the vast majority of units in a battle are not monsters, and instead all share the exact same animation set.

What I'd love to see from CA are:

• More context-sensitive animations, or make certain animations more common for certain races/units. Disciplined units acting disciplined. Barbarians being savage.
• A few more hero-specific animations for melee combat that makes them look more skilled or highlights their style, rather than all of them simply doing AoE knockbacks. Maybe even a few killing blow animations for hero-on-hero or hero-on-monster. Also heroes on the back of a monstrous creature actually fighting if possible; I know this is impractical but I'd love to see characters (especailly flying ones in aerial battles) taking more part in the fight after they get atop a monster.
• Increase the prevalence of combat animations by making them more regular, but with less chance to hit. One thing I always hated (and still do) when zooming into Total War battles is watching a cool fight only to see two guys fighting, stopping and thinking for 2 seconds, slightly rotating on the spot and doing it again. This is especially noticeable for large monsters. Attack. Stop. Slight shuffle left. Attack. Wobble-turns to the right. Attack.
• Animations for the untis truly lacking them *cough*waraltar*cough*
• A few animations expanded upon so we have reloading of ranged weapons and cannon just like what we used to have in Medieval 2, Empire and Napoleon. Surely these animations can be copied onto the new skeletons or otherwise replicated? Seems very odd that for all of the animation work that went into making the monsters cool, we're missing out on basic battlefield actions that they managed to animate in a game over a decade ago.
• A tweak and tone-down of the blood and a bit more variation for the gore. I keep having people blown in half by cavalry or having their heads shot apart by musket balls, and I can't help but feel that smearing the model in jam isn't the way forward.
• Formation options. Whilst this sounds more of a gameplay change (and is) it also bleeds into animations. Dwarves forming shield walls, Empire spear units forming a rough phalanx, Bretonnans actually forming the Lance Formation which they were famous for doing, loose formations, skirmish formations.
• Commanders! Every unit in Warhammer (near enough) has the option for standards, musicians and a hero leading them. Command elements were in Empire and Napoleon, and I honestly loved marching my men to the sound of rolling drums with the banner flying above them, the odd unit suddenly falling silent as the drummer copped a bullet. Again, these things existed in previous games and are central to the idenitty of many armies on the tabletop (note Bretonnia who can't actually be played without a Battle Standard present).
• Hero weapons changing depending on what they're using. This isn't that important, but I do think it daft that Karl Franz uses Ghal Maraz before you've even done the quest for it.

Ever since I played Dark Omen as a kid and then played Medieval, I wanted the two things to smush together into one glorious blob. Whilst what we've got is a good start, I want this game to be something I can play for the next ten years. I want more than anything for it to be as near to perfect as possible.

[KAM 2150]

• Maybe even a few killing blow animations for hero-on-hero or hero-on-monster.

Actually there are hero on monster kills animations, they just do not kick in very often. For example Louen Leoncoeur will jump on Crypt Horror, stab him in the chest and fall with the creature to the ground, then jump off it. I think there are more of those, but CA set the value for animation kills to happen only if target has less then 15 HP.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Actually there are hero on monster kills animations, they just do not kick in very often. For example Louen Leoncoeur will jump on Crypt Horror, stab him in the chest and fall with the creature to the ground, then jump off it. I think there are more of those, but CA set the value for animation kills to happen only if target has less then 15 HP.

So thats why I never see them, is there any way to increase the amount of hero kills?

[Cpt. Stables]

Actually there are hero on monster kills animations, they just do not kick in very often. For example Louen Leoncoeur will jump on Crypt Horror, stab him in the chest and fall with the creature to the ground, then jump off it. I think there are more of those, but CA set the value for animation kills to happen only if target has less then 15 HP.

Its such a specific situation though. King Louen (currnetly not playable in campaign), on foot (at his weakest) vs a crypt horror. I've seen it before, but would love to see more of such aniamtions being spread across the hero spectrum.

[KAM 2150]

So thats why I never see them, is there any way to increase the amount of hero kills?

It is located in kv_rules table. There is a line about minimum amount of HP for animation kill, I've increased it slightly in my Proper Combat Mod, but like I said, only slightly. Never really tested it out more though. Keep in mind that it also add more monstrous units kill animation like Giant grabbing someone and biting his head off. What should be noted is that during the animation, unit still gets attacked and can't do anything about it, so for example Giant during that animation kill is still being attacked, while not attacking himself.

[Kassandros]

So you want super badass animations for heroes, but not unrealistic ones?

I'm confused.

Warhammer is all about heroes slaughtering thousands of normal dudes. I mean... until End Times main characters almost never even died, lol. GW was always kind of notorious for it.

[Cpt. Stables]

Warhammer is all about heroes slaughtering thousands of normal dudes. I mean... until End Times main characters almost never even died, lol. GW was always kind of notorious for it.

What?
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_End_Tim...ete_Death_Toll

Also I don't see why 'realistic' and 'badass' are two seperate things in your mind here. Swinging a weapon in a few different and interesting ways and still having the same effect as now is, if anything, making them look cooler.

[Kassandros]

What?
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_End_Tim...ete_Death_Toll

Also I don't see why 'realistic' and 'badass' are two seperate things in your mind here. Swinging a weapon in a few different and interesting ways and still having the same effect as now is, if anything, making them look cooler.

Why did you link that? I said "...until End Times main characters almost never even died,". You just linked me the death toll from End Times xD

[M2TWRocks]

I've never been affected by the animations. I guess I only notice the ones I like. Like the giant monsters ripping off heads and I particularly like the animation where the giant smash a mutilated corpse on the ground over and over again. Some of the idle animations for the orcs and gobo's are great. I don't know. I think I like more animations than I dislike. I suppose it's just personal taste.