To allow us to fully savor the moment of destroying the final building and watching it crumble to the ground after a long match, I’d prefer it if the, “You are victorious!” screen didn’t appear until that building fully crumbled to the ground.
I just beat the AI, but the victory overlay appeared and immediately stopped the crumbling animation mid-crumble. Actually, the crumbling had just begun and it stopped there.
I know this is minor, but it’s just a ‘quality of AoE life’ thing.
It’s like watching the ball in a winning shot in basketball pause mid-air after going through the hoop but before fully going through the net, with an overlay saying you won.
It’s like the winning shot of a soccer/hockey match where the ball or puck crosses the goal line, but it immediately stops there and you don’t see it go into the net
It’s like the winning home run in baseball pausing mid-air right after it crosses the fenceline and you don’t get to see how far away it lands
Hopefully you see what I mean In this screenshot from my game, you can see the final building’s animation (a castle) stopping mid-crumble. I think the flag that tells the game when to show the victory screen should be more in-sync with when the building is actually flattened. (If it, similarly, stops the game as soon as you kill the last unit before they hit the ground (like I think it does? at least it did in AoE2:HD, I’m pretty sure), then I think that should also be re-timed.)
I believe that this is a situation regarding castles and other big buildings. On DE their structures have a bit of delay and kinda of a long animation to collapse and fall to its foundation.
I like the victory screen clicking on the moment that the last enemy building/unit reaches 0, brings me a sensation of immediate response. But seeing your topic makes me think that a 2 to 3 seconds delay on the screen trigger to regard these animations would be not bad also. Although winning through destroying enemy buildings/units that don’t have this delayed crumblimg could cause some little bit of awkwardness on the response
What I’m saying is that smaller buildings don’t have as much as long animation and delay when destroyed as a castle has, for example. Winning a game destroying a house, by the trigger delay you propose, would cause this small instant of nothingness before the victory screen appears, leading to a small moment of confusion. xD
Oh, it’s on this corner, finally found they. It’s the last one. Done, destroyed. … Did I win? … Oh nevermind, I win.
I think the DE’s timing of sound and graphic response is a bit off compared to let’s say the HD version. The victory screen pops up unexpected in multiplayer games also. On the other hand when you are in the lobby and start a new game it’s all coming off a bit too late. The HDs sound effects when a game is started is just on point. Same goes with aging and when someone gives up. It’s immediate and right at the correct frame in HD but very random in DE. Maybe the Devs can check sounds and animation in regards to timing to make the game feel more precise and accurate.
I don’t think that it’s even possible to put in these particularities to every different possible interaction in the game. Animations timing can vary on framerate, connection. And how would it be done for simmultaneous animations in course (e.g. a castle is the penultimate enemy thing on the map to fall, as the villager would be the last. The villager is killed shortly after the castle reaches 0 hp. Should the game just consider the villager death delay, and thus display the victory screen while the castle still crumbling, or should it try to considerate the castle animation somehow? If the latter, how could every particular situation be coded, or should the game start the trigger everytime a building/unit falls?)?
Good thoughts. Using seconds was just an example; of course it would need to be frame-related. Each animation has a Frame Start and a Frame End. They could just use the ending frame for each animation as the trigger.
Where N is the final frame of death animation…
-If X is the last unit or building of player,
-And X is killed or destroyed,
-Then when N is reached of X,
-Display Victory overlay.
In the case of units inside a castle, the devs can get creative. I dont think we see 10 units fall to the ground and die when castles crumble. I have a feeling we just see the castle crumbling animation. If this is the case, just using the last frame of the castle crumbling makes sense and would be implied anyways.
The game already has some check to determine when the final building or unit is gone, in order to display the victory overlay. So that’s nothing different or added. Taking the final frame of the animation shouldn’t be too intense, imo. But if it is, just globally delay the victory screen by about 1 second for everything and I’m okay with it. Even 0.5 seconds would be better than current situation, imo. It’s just too sudden and abrupt currently, considering the final building (and unit?) hasn’t even fallen yet
Welp there is 1 reason this can’t be implemented (or a good reason to implement it, depends on how you look at it). It happens that in the current state of the game, if a player’s last unit is a konnik (mounted) killing it will end the game because the player will have no unit and will lose before the dismounted konnik is spawned. However, if there is a delay, the dismounted konnik will have enough time to get up and the game will keep going on. Of course it’s really situational but since it seems you like to fight to the bitter end it’s defintely something to look into.
You get victory message when you achieve victory conditions. It might be achieved by destroying a castle or can be achieved simply by AI giving up. Building/unit is considered killed when its HP reaches 0. You basically want to delay victory message after building/unit is killed till its death animation ends. This would be confusing because player sees, that last building/unit has been killed and expects a victory, but has to wait until death animation ends for confirmation.
Also if this would be changed, then what about objectives, which don’t end the game? Like when there is an objective to destroy castle and player destroys castle, he then has to wait until castle has fully collapsed to the ground, until objective is marked as achieved?
It sounds like you all wish movies ended at the precise moment the bad guy dies. Just jump to credits as soon as the moment occurs.
Or want songs to end 5 seconds before their true ending. Or want golfballs to hover in the hole and not reach the bottom of the cup.
I can’t reason against that, so there’s not much else for me to say
Enjoy the jolt of the game immediately pausing and the victory splash screen taking over your view.
Oh, just thought of something. Would you be against this, too? Upon the exact moment of victory condition reached, a message appears across the top: “Victory!” while the building or unit death animation concludes. And then it fades to the big, dark, Victory overlay we all know and love. This way, the game explicitly tells you you won at the.exact moment you did, and then there is a brief moment to enjoy the reward of your final destruction by viewing the animation (rather than immediate pause), and then a nice transitionary fade to our beloved overlay.
Actually thinking about it I usually play scenarios and when those are going to end in victory there usually are a few seconds, during which some conclusion message is displayed. This way their ending is not that sudden. So I have not really felt those sudden endings you are complaining about. It might be more noticeable in standard/multiplayer games. It would be pretty unclimatic, when upon enemy wonder destruction game would immediately end before wonder has started to collapse
Having unit/building death animations continue after victory seems good idea, but I don’t know, whether it can be done without rest of the game continuing at the same time. Having whole game continuing might cause problems.
Also, doesn’t standard/multiplayer games usually end not with unit/building death, but instead with resigning? So change suggested by you would only apply when player has not resigned and lets you kill his last unit/building. How often does this happen?
The situation I describe happens quite a bit in games I play. I play single-player random maps vs. AI opponents a lot. And I make it so they can’t resign by sending the AI chat command of “104”… which works a percentage of the time. (It should work 100% of time, but with a current bug, I sense it only works 30%-50% of the time.)
So, it is a bit anti-climactic for me to win but not get the reward of seeing the final thing getting destroyed.
I’m pretty sure an immediate pause happened quite a bit in single- and multi-player vs. AI games that I played in AoE2:HD, too. For DE, I just felt I would like to share my displeasure in hopes it could be fixed. If I remember correctly, DE’s stoppage might be even more abrupt than HD because the dark victory overlay happens and obscures the game screen; whereas I think HD just stops cold in its tracks with no overlay.
Nah, I’m just fine with the song ending right when it ends. What seems to me is that you want the song to be on full volume when it is actually fading out.
Anyway, I don’t know if I have very much more to add on without repeating myself or others on the discussion, but I just thought of another thing: the victory delay can be specially confusing to players that lose.
For every victory screen on multiplayer there is also a defeat screen. And, to be honest, I can perfectly picture myself losing a game with this screen delay and calling bull on my defeat, just because it would be rather confusing and a taste of still being alive when I would really be not.
In this screenshot from my game, you can see the final building’s animation (a castle) stopping mid-crumble. I think the flag that tells the game when to show the victory screen should be more in-sync with when the building is actually flattened. (If it, similarly, stops the game as soon as you kill the last unit before they hit the ground (like I think it does? at least it did in AoE2:HD, I’m pretty sure), then I think that should also be re-timed.)
on my defeat, just because it would be rather confusing and a taste of still being alive when I would really be not.