142848-the-audio-and-visuals-of-mounts

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Ok, now that f2p is upon us, and Carbine is looking towards us mount collectors as prey for cash shop fodder, I'd like to resurrect some critiques on mounts that I've been giving over the past year so they might actually be successful in nabbing my dollar for some cool cash shop mounts (And, of course, my effort for achievement mounts!).
 
Part 1: The Audio
First, forgive me for this part of the critique.  I don't quite have the vocabulary (or skill to onomatopoeia) to portray a lot of my thoughts on this subject, but I WILL TRY, DARN IT!
 
There's something off with most of the mounts footfalls.
Some of them are too soft, some are too loud, some don't match up at all with the actual impact of the animation, and most aren't context sensitive when it comes to terrain type.
 
You may need to turn your system sounds up for these. (or not, there's a weird sound effect that keeps triggering and I don't know what it is >.<)
 
Equivar
Walk: This poor not-horse's walk is missing some major clippitty-clop.  It's walking on straight up stone in the beginning, and it sounds like someone lightly patting at their jeans!  I have to turn all my sounds up just to get it at a recognizable level, but at that point all the other sounds are so loud that they'll just drown them clip-clops out just the same!  Also, there is no difference between walking on stone, dirt, or metal.  Hard to notice though when the sound is so soft.
Run: The run isn't as quiet but it is a hell of a lot weirder.  The first thing I notice is that the sounds in no way match up to the animations.  Your not-horse can be suspended in air, mid gallop, and you'd hear the KA-THUNK-A K'THUNK before a single hoof hits the ground. This is extremely immersion breaking and rips the enjoyment right out of pretending I'm riding a space-horse.  As for the sounds themselves, they're pretty legit, man.  They sound like you had a horse-friend with ya.  Unfortunately it sounds like that horse-friend was only available for one day on one surface type because, while the dirt-impact sounds spot on, the metal, stone, and wood impact sounds... dirty.  So Carbine, WHERE IN THE EVERLOVING SPACE-HELL IS MY FREAKING CLIPPITY-CLOP?!   Riding through the fields hearin "Thudda kathudda thud kathud" is just dandy.  Riding through a spaceport or paved street hearing the same thing is anything but.  srsly wtb coconuts.  This sound also takes a while to actually trigger
Backpedal: Yeah it's fine.
Stop: A-OK
Idle: Absolutely fine.
Mount/dismount: Mounting is flawless.  Dismounting is silent.
 
Trask
Walk: So this seems to be a theme with this mount, but when you're just hearing the mount walk without seeing it, you'd assume it was a bipedal creature with a limp.  Half of its feet are completely silent! (only the front left leg and the right back leg seem to be audible)  As for the sounds themselves, vaguely dirt-like I guess.  There's no differentiation between surfaces, and I'd assume with the feet like the Trask's, you'd hear the flesh slapping against stone and metal with the claws adding a bit of color when they impact the specific material, instead of the thuds we get now.
Run: omg what the hell is happening?!  What am I hearing?!  I think the sound effects are triggering before the previous ones can finish!  Once again the sounds are only attached to two legs (the back two this time.. I think, it's really unclear.)  The sound effects take a while to actually trigger (like, if you mash forward, there's no sound at all) and if you actually time it right the sound can carry on when your mount is completely still! (We'll be seeing this again)
Backpedal: Still having the difficulties of the previous two, in that the number of feet seems halved (though the soundful feet seems to be the opposite pair from the walk cycle)
Stop: That's just what it is.  All sound effects stop.  There's no change in the footsteps to accompany the jolt of the animation.  Well, either that or it's timed horribly.
Idle: Well the sounds are cool, but the animations don't fit it as well as the equivar's do. (not-horse whinnies when it shakes its head.  space-lizard hisses when...??? I guess when it is just standing there, same as when its growling, or sighing.)
Mount/dismount: This one is weird.  I like what you were trying to do with the roar, but the entire thing sounds less like it's happening between my character's legs (haay) and more like it's happening in a movie theater.  I'm not quite sure how to describe it.  But it's like a cartoony explosion of bassy lizard for both the mount and dismount.  Like, you know how movies tend to over exaggerate certain sounds?  I'm hearing that. (Curse my limited vocabulary!!!)  Also, the mounting sound effect is the only time that tail has any sonic presence and it took me a while to know where that whip sound effect was coming from. 
 
Woolie (and velocirex, since they're mostly reskins of eachother)
Walk: Aah! You did it!! Sound effects!!  Sound effects that change when you're walking on different materials! Wahoo! \o/  Though..  Why is my woolie wearing tennis shoes?  Those feet are just as slappy and clawed as the Trask's, and I'd assume you'd hear that on the metal and stone.  These are just not the sounds that would come from those big fluffy raptor feet.  Really, they're the same sounds my little Aurin's feet make.  The generic foot-step sound is extremely immersion breaking when you have a Chua, a Granok, and a fluffraptor all making the same foot step noises on the same materials.
Run: The complaints with the generic foot sounds carry over from the walk critique, and this mount has the same issue as the other mounts where the running sound effects take a little while to get started (was there supposed to be an initiate-run animation and sound effect that never got put in?  this delay is really odd.  Like, I can here some semblance of a lift-off, but there are no footsteps at the beginning).  But the timing seems to be perfect when the sounds effects decide to not skip over a step randomly.
Backpedal: Same issues with the generic sound effects, but the timing is fine.
Stop: Just like the trask, there is no stop noise, just a stop to all noise.  The feet slam down as the Woolie stops, but there is no sound effect to accompany it.
Idle: Silent as a bunny.
Mount/dismount: Eh, for the woolie, the roar is good, but the animation would suggest that it would start a little sooner, but it's nothing offensive really. The velocirex is much better in roar timing.  The dismount is disappointingly silent for both (srsly it  nopes out with a spin! The possibilities!)  
 
Warpig
Walk: With all the sounds on, this mount's footsteps are nearly silent.  Like, I have to silence my entire game except for sound effects to hear these dainty little feets.  And though this mount is also missing its context sensitive footsteps, it is far more clippity cloppy than the equivar!  Though, I can't quite place which hoof is making which clip or clop.  It's not as bad as the equivar's gallop, but it's still a bit difficult.   Though, maybe I'm a bit fatigued.
Run: The footsteps are still almost silent and have the same start-up issue the other mounts have.  The individual footsteps are so ambiguous I can't even pick a single footstep sound out of the noise.  This is just not the sounds of a car sized space-boar.
Backpedal: It's the same sound effect for the walking and ironically, it works fine for every speed but the walking backwards.  When you backpedal you move slower than you would if you moved forward in whatever mode you're locomoting in.  Unfortunately, the backpedal only has one sound effect and that's at the speed of walk, and when you're walking slower than the speed of walk, your animation is not going to match up with that sound effect.
Stop: The grunts are nice, but once again the clip-clops are too quiet.
Idle: Still silent.  This fat thing should be the noisiest stationary object around!  Panting, snorting, ear slapping and tail slapping to get rid of flies, the works!
Mount/dismount: The mount isn't too aggressive sounding, though it couldn't hurt to move that way, since , you know, WARpig.  And the dismount is as silent as the rest of them (except for the trask!)
 
Crawler
Walk: The walk is actually pretty fine.  I think the impact of the "feet" could be louder as this is a big *cupcake*off robot, but these sound effects are the highest quality of its loops.
Run: In contrast, I'd say this is the worst of its loops. BECAUSE IT'S *cupcake*ING SILENT!  Seriously, you start up, it's great, and then you continue on and.. nothing. 
Backpedal: It's just okie dokie.  I'm not gonna even try to keep track of all the footfalls and footsteps.  Four legs was givin' me a hard time.  I'm just gonna assume it's timed well.
Start/stop: So this is the first mount out of the ones I've listed with a start noise, and I'd say it does a pretty swell job.  The stop noise is spiffy too.
Idle: Silent again. It's vibrating like it has an engine running, but there's no noise for it.  And it's legs are working to keep it balanced, but still nothing, even though leg movements would suggest that there's noise supposed to be happening, what with the noisy start-ups and walk loops!
Mount/dismount: A+ mecha bug noise.
 
 
Misc:
Something is up with the Dawngrazer sounds.  Only the video can really describe what's up with that mess.  It's been like this since beta, and I think it highlights a lot of problems with the mount sound effects when it comes to timing. (seriously, this is placeholder nonsense and it has no business being in a year old released game.)
 
Jumping/landing.
This needed its own category, as all the mounts seem to have the same issue.  Jumping while still: A+ good job, there's sound.  Landing while still: Yep A+ Sounds like a thud to me.  Jumping while moving: yep pretty good A+.  Landing while moving: Silent. F-, see me after class.  There is a certain speed where the landing noise will not trigger and it'll go straight into the sound of whatever speed you're moving in, and it's really noticeable when you're running since the sound effects take a while to kick in for that speed.
 
 
 
Part 2: The Visuals
Ok, so I'm going to first address some things you may have noticed in the videos from the last segment.  But after that, I'm going to address the #1 thing keeping me from spending any money on a mount
 
 
First, the most noticeable.
 
Woolie (and velocirex) is wearing both tennis shoes and ice-skates when it walks.  I've got the advanced riding license in the video and the walk animation has an UNFORGIVABLE amount of skating going on.  Please speed up that animation, pronto.  The equivar also has some serious skating on all speeds of its backpedal.
 
Speaking of speeding up animations...  Ever notice how when you run in-game you have a nice little jog animation, and when you sprint your character really gets into the whole "running" idea?  That's such a nice little detail.  I sure wish the living mounts got that same treatment.  It works kind of fine on the raptor-based mounts.  But on the luminous equivar it looks like it's skipping out of control and cartoony in a bad way (as in the cartoon studio is trying to save money by recycling animation).
 
If you noticed on those videos, your character has basically four poses in non-hoverboard mounts:  Saddled, kick the damn thing while in the saddle, hovercycle, and joystick.  Your character does not bounce up and down with the gallops of your not-horse or not-boar.  There's no reigns to tug at to control your beast.  Your character doesn't lurch forward when your mount stops, even though the mount doesn't ignore inertia.  There's no turning of steering wheels, or pulls of the joystick.  Aside from your character's head turning when you turn, and the wonderful addition of the mount-kick, your character just seems to turn off when mounted.  Hell, my character has short hair, so if anyone here has long hair, can you tell me if your character's hair does anything while mounted?
 
 
 
 
And now..
 
The most important..
 
most unforgivable flaw in wildstar's mounts.
 
 
Listen.
You have these wonderful races in your game.
Humans, your standard character.
Granok, the beefmeisters.
Aurin with their cute ears and fuzzy tails.
Mordesh, undead with a cyberpunk twist.
Draken, Lizard-skinned, devil horned, and lion-tailed monsters.
Mechari, Manbots and mammaldroids.  Nuff said.
And Chua, little shits with their floppy gremlin ears and their massive meaty rat tails.
 
All these lovely races, half with some similar, yet still distinct features.
 
YET
WHEN MOUNTED
YOU DECIDE
TO TAKE THAT WHICH DEFINES
SO 
MANY
CHARACTERS
AWAY
 
CARBINE. PLS.
 
Do I HAVE to type out a lecture on silhouettes? 
 
You guys are savvy, you know how important it is.
 
Not only is it extremely jarring, no, immersion shattering to see 2/3 of your character's spine just disappear like it was never there, but it removes the identity of these characters, and a huge reason why a lot of people chose those races to begin with.
 
I LIKE ground mounts.  I WANT to ride them, but I am restricted to lifeless hoverboards because they're the only ones that will let me play the character I chose to make.
 
And I know you don't have a problem with characters with tails sitting 
 
or with characters with tails being mounted
 
So I know there's nothing stopping you outside of an arguable priority list.
 
 
"but Roooodddaaaa, there's not enough room for the taiiiil...  It'll clip if they sit like they do in the crawlleerrrr.."
LOOKIT HOW MUCH ROOM THIS TAKES UP BEHIND HER BUTT.
LOOKIT IT!
 
The gap between her ass and the.. saddle.. bolt.. thing is bigger than that!!
 
I'd say don't insult carbine by thinking they don't know how to avoid clipping, but.. I've seen that dark side of their "fixes"... *shudder* Shameless plug shameless plug shameless plug~ bump if you like~
 
BUT STILL.
IT'S NOT THAT BAD.
THE ANIMATORS CAN FIGURE IT OUT.
 
Seriously.  I've seen the teases of a Kurg mount.  I. *cupcake*ing. Love. Kurg.  They're big fluffy babies that had a hilarious bug back in beta!  But I cannot buy it if it shows up on the store, because I know I'll be buying a broken product so long as my tail keeps getting removed.
 
 
 
..
....
 
 
*ahem*
*adjusts collar*
Onto a bug.
 
What's up with the lighting on woolies?
 
The war woolie has it too, but it's harder to notice.
			
				
	Edited October 13, 2015 by Roda	
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you're my hero
 
I want to add though. The visuals of mounts in this game are absolutely gorgeous. Better than most games in my experience. I agree with Roda's post not because I want to find fault in the work, but because I want the sound design and the look of our characters while mounted to meet that same high standard.
			
				
	Edited October 13, 2015 by Lemurian	
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you're my hero
 
I want to add though. The visuals of mounts in this game are absolutely gorgeous. Better than most games in my experience. I agree with Roda's post not because I want to find fault in the work, but because I want the sound design and the look of our characters while mounted to meet that same high standard.
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			Hey Roda!  Thanks for the great feedback on the mount sfx.  I'll bring this up with the rest of the audio team for discussion :)  	
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Glad to hear it!
I really appreciate how active you are on here!	
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Glad to hear it!
I really appreciate how active you are on here!
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Agreed
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			I want to preface this by saying I think the great majority of the sound design in this game is freaking wonderful. But the mount sounds have always been pretty inconsistent. They did finally beef up the Grinder so it sounds a lot more like a chopper and it's currently my favorite for that reason alone. But then some mounts, like the Bandit Carver, are almost entirely silent. I wouldn't expect a huge sound from a hovering machine, but SOME sort of engine sound would be nice. The Uniblades are essentially the same as Grinders, but for whatever reason they're about 10 times more quiet. Which I wouldn't mind if it was for stylistic reasons, but the volume difference sounds more like a technical booboo than a conscious design choice.
			
				
	Edited October 17, 2015 by Shaen	
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{| class="blockquote"
 Which I wouldn't mind if it was for stylistic reasons, but the volume difference sounds more like a technical booboo than a conscious design choice.
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			And it absolutely kills me that the new fiery warpig skeleton mount removes yet more tails. :'(	
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Ok, gonna be a jackass and necro/bump my own thread for a suggestion, instead of creating a whole new thread on the topic of mounts.
 
But I'd like to see a flair/mount customization section for saddles.
That standard brown saddle on every ground mount is getting kind of tired and I'd love to see more styles brought in.
 
Styles..
..that...
might.....
..make it possible...
..to..
.maybe...
...see my character's tail...?
 
Just a thought!
			
				
	Edited April 16, 2016 by Roda	
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			I would love to see my tail tucked to a side! Yes please! :3	
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			Carbine, pls stop chopping off my tail.	
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Carbine, pls stop chopping off my tail.
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			Then stop impaling my mount!	
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I do apologise for this being sooo late... first I lost the screenshots, then I couldn't find the thread... I'm late. I'm sorry.Ya'll remember this bad mammajamma?
Image Credit: Chad 'Pappy' Moore via Twitter
 
There's something I know you all noticed. Something that I want to celebrate, 'cause Team WildStar is legit.The Primal Strider does not clip tails. 
 
 
 
Yes, you do know those leggings. Yes, this this Roda.I do apologize for the gratuitous booty, but I wanted to show that the character model's tail is very much intact, not negatively affected while mounted.
 
 
 
I'd love for Chua and Draken to post their own posteriors for posterity, cause these are the only screenshots I have to show this mount in action, but there are other playable races with tails, too! And mounts not clipping tails is excellent.Many thanks to Roda, to Team WildStar, and you dear reader!This has been important things from head to tail!
			
				
	Edited November 10, 2017 by KatMR	
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Yep all joystick driven mounts have shown tails
 
Draken and chua for reference:
 
 
{| class="blockquote"
I do apologize for the gratuitous booty, but I wanted to show that the character model's tail is very much intact, not negatively affected while mounted.
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 Coolio! Oh wow the deepwalker cockpit looks super spacious. I'm... kinda curious about an Ikthian House now... 
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It's mathematically impossible to take a picture of any unit of space and not capture some part of my character's butt.
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			Concider: My Fov is at 100 and i'm clipping through the outside. Things could look a little distorted in terms of space.	
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