Glitched Combat Animations

[Selereth]

After several minutes in-game, the combat animations do not seem function fully. (i.e. artillery missiles are invisible, soldiers' guns have no muzzle flash, etc.) I've updated the driver for my Nvidia 650m, but it didn't help. The only way to fix this seems to be to restart the game. I know it's a small thing, but the animations are really cool and worth watching to me.

 

[Witterick]

After several minutes in-game, the combat animations do not seem function fully. (i.e. artillery missiles are invisible, soldiers' guns have no muzzle flash, etc.) I've updated the driver for my Nvidia 650m, but it didn't help. The only way to fix this seems to be to restart the game. I know it's a small thing, but the animations are really cool and worth watching to me.

I too can attest to this. The time it takes for the animations varies, but after watching the combat animations for ranged units after a while they just disappear. You can hear the weapons firing and see the dirt being kicked up where the shots land but you can't see the actual projectiles being fired by ranged units. PLEASE FIX!

 

[charrison]

Thank you for the report. We are looking into this.

 

[Omega553]

Thank you for the report. We are looking into this.

Thank you for acknowledging the issue. I hope it is fixed in the next patch!! It's a true immersion-breaking bug.

 

[efurstie]

I've had fighter jets shooting at their target after having already landed. Once, I had a unit whose shots went in the opposite direction from the target and ended up striking from all the way around the world. In a different category, fighters (needlejets etc) will occasionally take a dozen or more passes against a ground unit (I feel like I saw this in CivV as well).

 

[Omega553]

Attaching DxDiag in case it helps.

 

[KingCraig]

Happens occasionally to me as well. I had 3 rangers lined up. I hit the button for the first one to fire. It went ready, aim.... and stood there doing nothing. I hit the button for the second one while waiting for the first one. After a bit of lag, the shots were recorded. Only 1 point of damage against the Worm each, though. Basically just for the XP.

I can attest to the planes circling as well. They just keep circling and firing while I queue up the next unit and issue orders. The plane finally returns to base after the next unit finishes his job. Or maybe at the same time. I dunno. I stop watching after a while.

 

[simcoast]

Yeah this happens for me very consistently, especially on larger maps and when there are loads of tile improvements.
The worst is for aircraft as it looks like they're just flying over the target doing nothing but taking and dealing damage..

From my experience seems to me to be related to performance or too much clutter onscreen.

 

[Omega553]

Does anybody know if this patch that will be released soon will address this combat animation issue?

 

[Omega553]

Confirmed that this issue still exists even after the patch. I've also noticed it starts off slowly. First the water trails of sea units disappear (the wake they leave behind as they travel forward). Then other minor things start vanishing like dust getting kicked up when armor units move through terrain. Finally, it gets to the point where it does not show the flashes, tracers, or other graphical effect any ranged unit when shooting at a target.

 

[Selereth]

Confirmed that this issue still exists even after the patch. I've also noticed it starts off slowly. First the water trails of sea units disappear (the wake they leave behind as they travel forward). Then other minor things start vanishing like dust getting kicked up when armor units move through terrain. Finally, it gets to the point where it does not show the flashes, tracers, or other graphical effect any ranged unit when shooting at a target.

Combat animations were working fine for me even after playing for about an hour and a half. Before they usually would've glitched out after maybe, 15 minutes or so. Haven't noticed any missing water trails or dust trails either. Will play further to investigate.

EDIT: The combat animations still glitch out. I loaded up an older save game and yes, they had indeed glitched out in about 10 minutes. I'm done with this game.

 

[Omega553]

Combat animations were working fine for me even after playing for about an hour and a half. Before they usually would've glitched out after maybe, 15 minutes or so. Haven't noticed any missing water trails or dust trails either. Will play further to investigate.

EDIT: The combat animations still glitch out. I loaded up an older save game and yes, they had indeed glitched out in about 10 minutes. I'm done with this game.

I share your frustration. I hope somebody from Firaxis sees this and reports it because I feel it is truly a game-breaking experience. I cannot play this game till this issue is resolved.

 

[simcoast]

I thought this issue would be resolved by the patch and it did look like it was better after loading an existing game after the patch. It lasted about 5 turns when it usually only lasts around 3 turns after a load.
I started a completely new game just to make sure but the combat projectiles disappeared again after about 10 turns..

This is seriously, seriously lame. The combat animation looks so crap without the projectiles animation..

 

[Omega553]

I agree and I am surprised more people haven't complained about this issue. It greatly detracts from the game experience.

For me the effects start slowly disappearing after about approximately 10-25 turns. I haven't kept accurate count.

It always starts with the water wakes off of ships and embarked units first and then slowly works its way up to all ranged combat effects.

 

[simcoast]

I agree and I am surprised more people haven't complained about this issue. It greatly detracts from the game experience.

For me the effects start slowly disappearing after about approximately 10-25 turns. I haven't kept accurate count.

It always starts with the water wakes off of ships and embarked units first and then slowly works its way up to all ranged combat effects.

Yeah I agree too, there does seem to be an order about it at times.
I find that aircraft and naval attacks disappear very quickly.
For land units I find that the level 3 ranged infantry mortar animation disappears almost instantly.
I find that the Supremacy UU 'plasma gun' yellow animations seem to last a lot longer, but the attack impact animations disappear right from the start.

Seeing as there sometimes are variances in when these animations disappear for specific units, I wouldn't say that there's a trigger, rather an underlying bug

 

[Selereth]

When you guys started a new game, what biome were you playing on? Since beginning a new game as the PAC on the Lush biome I have yet to see the animations disappear, and I must have played at least 30-40 turns. I didn't notice one single glitch in the animations. It seems that the animations take longer to disappear on the Lush biome, at least for me, and this is from playing several games on different biomes.

 

[Gorbles]

I agree and I am surprised more people haven't complained about this issue. It greatly detracts from the game experience.

Probably because there's a game option to skip / speed them up, and people presumably tick this in MP games to speed gameplay up.

I've seen the issue myself, but I can't reproduce it reliably. I wouldn't call it game-breaking - the game functions fine apart from that. Will try to see if I notice it again, for troubleshooting.

 

[Omega553]

When you guys started a new game, what biome were you playing on? Since beginning a new game as the PAC on the Lush biome I have yet to see the animations disappear, and I must have played at least 30-40 turns. I didn't notice one single glitch in the animations. It seems that the animations take longer to disappear on the Lush biome, at least for me, and this is from playing several games on different biomes.

You don't notice the tracers disappear from any unit that fires mortars, missiles, or anything of that sort? It became painfully obvious for me when I used ranged units to take cities. I started noticing how they would shoot and then there would be magical explosions on the city itself and no trace of any projectile leaving the unit and traveling to the city to cause said explosions.

Additionally, I just noticed how there is a huge lack of effects when an alien kraken destroys one of my sea vessels. The ship just sinks, no lights, no flares, nothing spectacular. Again, this only happens after many turns in a game. If I were to exit the game entirely and start it back up again everything plays fine for some number of turns before encountering these problems again.

I typically play on random map terrain but I think I've mostly had the lush or fungal map terrain types most.

Try playing a game for many turns and watch the wake of ships and see if they disappear for you over time. Again, that is typically the first glitch I see before the ranged combat animations start to glitch out too.

Probably because there's a game option to skip / speed them up, and people presumably tick this in MP games to speed gameplay up.

I've seen the issue myself, but I can't reproduce it reliably. I wouldn't call it game-breaking - the game functions fine apart from that. Will try to see if I notice it again, for troubleshooting.

The option to disable combat animation in favor of speeding the game up is dreadful in my opinion. Half the fun of the game (in my opinion) is the strategy involved in winning and the other half is watching your army lay waste and your strategy put into action. The "fun factor" of the game for me is heavily based on seeing the combat, seeing the units fight, things like that. That is why this problem is "game breaking" to me.

I agree, if you select the "Multiplayer quick combat" or "singe player quick combat" then this problem is completely moot, and yes, if most people do have this option ticked then they don't see or care about this issue.

**EDIT:

I quote Selereth from another post below with a link showing one example of what we are talking about:

His problem is not the animation repeating itself (unless you were specifically referring to my post in that thread), it's the fact that the projectiles actually disappear, as in you can't see artillery firing shells or rangers' muzzle blasts anymore, as described in this thread by me:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=536811

A Firaxis employee said they would look into the problem. Seems that we can only hope for a fix now.

EDIT: The funnier part is that this bug has existed for quite some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7puJXHMx6w: This is the Discovery trailer for Civ Beyond Earth. If you look closely at the Purity Devastator at about 1:12 you can see that when it fires, the little red balls it normally fires are missing, and the red blasts where the shells would land are also missing (there's just some dirt being kicked up instead). It's definitely a game bug at this point, and it's happened in front of Firaxis employees without them even noticing. Unfortunately, since I like watching the combat animations, I did happen to notice.

Just click here to skip to the relevant part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7puJXHMx6w&feature=youtu.be&t=1m13s

Link to that thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13563519#post13563519

 

[Serenum]

Having the same issue here. I see Firaxis already replied, but the problem is still there even after the patch.

 

[Omega553]

It has been a while since I am revisiting this topic. Does anybody know if this issue has been resolved?