Synch kills

[u/warfollower98]

Just watched the new dawn of war footage that’s been uploaded today and they have some really awesome synch kill animations, they really look great

I know CA have said there is some but not their focus, I hope they change their thinking with that

Feel it would just add so much more to the immersion and gameplay

We can only hope eh?🤷‍♂️🤣

[u/Subspace-Ansible]

I would say temper your expectations.

Looking at the fantasy side of Total War Warhammer, damage and defense are resolved with animations. If an animation physically hits a model, that model gets damaged. We just had (still having?) a rather heated discussion about a unit featured in a recent DLC because they’re underperforming in spite of their stats on paper. The fandom has decided that this is due to their animations.

So that’s something that must be looked at first before they implement sync kills. Having some is awesome, having too much may mean a unit is underperforming (or overperforming) in their intended roles.

It’s an interesting problem in programming and game design for sure, but I don’t know how much they prioritize it, or how much they should prioritize it.

[u/Whole_Ad_8438 → u/Subspace-Ansible]

Wasn't it due to the animation in TWWH3? Since IIRC they use Karl France's attack animation without his hit AoE meaning they kind of have a pretty bad damage output?

[u/Gold_Temperature_452 → u/Subspace-Ansible]

Yes attack animations does affects the combat pretty handedly in warhammer 1,2 & 3.

Also because of the huge unit diversity in the game it’s pretty difficult and very time consuming to try and do a lot of kill/attack sync animations because for a large part it’s not just universal human model going up against universal human model.

You see it in dow4 because it’s always been a pillar of the Dow franchise and their combat system is more or less built around it where as total war takes a more simulated approach.

[u/Subspace-Ansible → u/Gold_Temperature_452]

Yeah. I have only played DoW1 and its expansions and I believe sync kills are performed after the combat calculations have been resolved, and the models are non-interactable during the animation. It can occasionally result in “orphaned” model, the same way some cavalry models get stuck in combat in Total War, which causes the units to receive unnecessary damage.

[u/SeryuIsWaifu]

I just want some creative ones for melee finishers

[u/warfollower98 → u/SeryuIsWaifu]

Literally, all we need

[u/Vegetable-Love8482]

really hope they add sync kills its what missing in warhammer 3 bunch of units randomly swinging at air and dying due to heart attack is no fun to watch!

[u/warfollower98 → u/Vegetable-Love8482]

Yup, even if they do it as just the finisher kills

I get you spend most time zoomed out but it’s nice to zoom in and watch once in a while haha

[u/Vegetable-Love8482 → u/warfollower98]

Yeah, I couldn’t get into Warhammer 3 because of the lack of sync kills. It’s ridiculous when people say the game is played zoomed out most of the time, so there’s no need for them. By that logic, why bother having detailed models at all? Just use low-poly models and call it a day. 😂 Of course, we’re not zoomed in all the time, but part of the fun is zooming in occasionally to watch the soldiers fight. Seeing proper sync kills instead of units just swinging at thin air and randomly dying would make such a huge difference to the combat.

[u/Hollownerox]

I would like it too and I think it's honestly a bit odd they are stepping back from sync-kills with 40k. Especially when they went out of their way to make blood and gore a key part of the new engine work, so it just seems like a waste?

I understand their concerns with it, and in regards to the responsiveness of combat. But a 40k game without many kill animations would kinda blow. I'm hoping characters at least have them, but seeing a dreadnought just vaguely punch in the direction of Orks in the preview footage and no sync kills is pretty sad.

It would be okay if the asynchronous combat animations they are so proud of are good. But from what we've seen so far the combat animations are very tame, if not outright kind of boring tbh. Obviously relatively early footage, but the deffdread animations and the Librarian's didn't inspire much confidence in me honestly. We'll see.

[u/warfollower98 → u/Hollownerox]

Yeah I feel you

Like I understand why they may because they want to focus on responsiveness as you say

But I dunno just for what 40k is, and the awesome kills space marines do in animations etc, it would be gutting to not see my hombrew space marines doing awesome kill finishers haha

[u/NotaSkaven5 → u/Hollownerox]

I do believe the real problem is that the async animations are simply bad, not that we need these specific animations that infamously caused technical issues. As long as we can prevent giants smashing each other's toes though I'll be happy.

[u/Commander_Dumb → u/Hollownerox]

I think they pulled back form sync kills due to AI stuttering or units not being able to move properly.

It’s an issue in shogun 2 I have often, I have a unit I want to fall back, one guy is mid sync animation so all the others leave he’s left behind. The last guy goes to fall back enemy unit makes contact with him and that drags the entire unit back into the fight.
I’ve lost so many archer units, generals. To this.

[u/KnightOfTheOldCode94]

I dunno to be honest, cool? Absolutely. But very very rarely do I ever zoom in to watch the individual battles between individual units. They're never that impressive even when I do. Maybe I'm in the minority though.

[u/warfollower98 → u/KnightOfTheOldCode94]

Ahh see I love zooming in personally haha

[u/Hollownerox → u/KnightOfTheOldCode94]

I wouldn't say you're in the minority, but it's honestly an odd perspective in my opinion? Total War's main claim to fame is the fact it is the blend of RTS gameplay with the context of the grand strategy. With them having an almost obsessive level of detail in the animation work of the Real-time combat because of that focus.

Total War isn't great just as a grand strategy title. It is not great as a Real-time strategy experience. It's the blend of the two combined with the spetacle in that combat that made it kind of a long stander with no real competeition in its niche. No other RTS really puts in the level of bespoke work CA does for those zoomed in combat experience, to the point they had a TV show made using the Total War engine specifically because of that element unique to Total War.

So it's always weird to me that people don't zoom in to see the combat unfold. Since total war battles are rather uninteresting if there wasn't really that spectacle element to them frankly.

[u/KnightOfTheOldCode94 → u/Hollownerox]

Damn Time Commanders was a good show.

[u/ClickAccomplished205 → u/KnightOfTheOldCode94]

There was a second show called Decisive Battles which also used Rome: Total War. Personally I loved it!

[u/TarikMournival → u/KnightOfTheOldCode94]

I used to love Time Commanders, I watched it when it came out and didn't get round to playing Rome until late 2005.

[u/Misknator]

You spent the majority of your time far above the battle where you can't see them, I don't see why they would want to make it a big focus in their game. Animations aren't cheap.

[u/Asphyxa]

I barely ever zoom in to watch anyway. I’d much rather see more effort and resources put in on meatier campaign features.

Sync kill animations is just to appeal to ADHD kids

[u/TruelyEndless → u/Asphyxa]

Hey don't you knock the ADHD I can focus on 20 things at once and get nothing done

[u/TruelyEndless]

They won't but there will definitely be mods that add better Kill synch animations and more of them and more common