mod edit: moved the topic into his thread, be civil
I wouldn’t call it improved, more alternate.
It bugs me a bit when I see map sprites or animations called “improved” like “improved archer” or “improved soldier”, does the bow being brown in the map sprite make it “improved”? It’s different, not improved. It’s also gonna be compared to the other map sprites around it so it could stand out as too detailed compared to everything else.
I’d keep going talking about the “improved” archer and soldier animations but this isn’t the topic for that, if anyone cares I can make a topic about it
I think if the creator claims the animation as a specific class, you should list it as “Creator name’s Class name”. Why would you have to do all the things the hard way? Just create a Tier Extra Animation group, then throw all of the animations that you feel do not belong to tier 0, 1, or 2 into it. The one who uses those animations will always re-design the tier list of their own, you don’t have to do it for them.
For example: “Sax-Marine’s Better Warrior” goes to the Tier Extra group. If someone wants to use it for a tier 2 or even tier 3 class, that is their choice.
I was responding to Dancer, “it” being the topic I was thinking of making.
Please don’t just use something because it’s called “improved”, as Klok said he doesn’t always believe they are improvements. Consider using vanilla map sprites and animations, the general consensus seems to be that GBA animations are great. Salvaged armour map sprites and the associated animation from what I’ve seen are used in basically every hack, because they’re so good, while vanilla knight has become very rare, which does bring up the problem of knights feeling same-y across all hacks. You could tie their character to the animation they use. Salvaged sword armour is elegant and confident while vanilla with sword is a bit more powerful and amateurish.
It’s also not ideal to have more than 4 (subjective number) units using the same map sprite because it becomes hard to find the unit you want, using more than salvaged armour can help if you have 5 salvaged lance/axe/sword/bow armours
Maybe instead of debating semantics about names, we sit back and appreciate that people are making animations for Fire Emblem GBA games over a decade and a half since its original release and also alowing anyone to use these in their projects. It is a ton of work and it is incredibly generous.
Regardless of the supposed “quality” of the animation, whether it is “improved” or “2.0”, I am consistently floored by the overall artistic quality and output that artists and animators in this community create. It is a rare and special thing that we have what we have and we should cherish it more.
Getting focused or trying to police what people call the animations is petty nonsense - creators will make what they want to make for their own purposes, and hack creators will use what they want that best suits their needs, regardless of supposed “improvement” or whatever.
It’s art - there isn’t going to be some objective quality measure unless you get super technical, but it is a matter of taste more than any sort of quality measure in almost all cases imo.
Let’s be appreciative that we have a great repo of animations and that folks are willing to create cool stuff for us to marvel at.
I don’t think concerns about what the animations are called are petty (of little importance, trivial) at all, it affects how people choose their assets, in a sense it’s misleading because if it’s called “improved” that must mean the community wants you to use it right? Why would it be called improved if that wasn’t the case? I do agree with the rest of what you said maybe with the exception of calling it “policing” because it hasn’t reached that stage yet
And gushing about how we should be appreciative that people are still making animations for GBA games over a decade old as if other games don’t have hacking communities doesn’t contribute to the discussion, it just makes you look good
Because the person who made it says it is “improved” for their own purpose.
You are not the arbiter of quality. I am not the arbiter of quality. If the creator made it to “improve” on the animation for their own purposes, let them call it that.
It’s easy enough to see the animation for yourself to determine if you want to use it in your project. I never cared that some animations are called “improved” even if I prefer the vanilla ones or whatever.
why are we fussing over naming convention anyway
the important thing is the animations themselves not the names
marketing be like “hey my item is the number one! buy it and use it” when it’s actually not
every marketed product is misleading when you think about it, all in all the buyers will judge if it’s a quality product or not
it’s the same here, no matter what the animation name is, you judge based on the animation itself, not the names, and you use the one you think is good
no one’s gonna name their product “Ugly X” or smth
tl;dr stop with this talk because i want to see new things being put into the repo, you guys are scaring everyone else
nah dude it is actually just a title - you could argue everything in the repo is endorsed because it is there. People will view it and choose what they like for their purpose.
nobody wants to call their own creation bad wdym
and when they submit things into the repo there might be something inside them that like “i’m contributing my thing into the repo, hope people use it”
ofc it’s gonna be endorsed in some way, people just want to help by providing assets
what point are you trying to say here
and why are we nitpicking things like this, this is not like our first world problem
counterpoint: If we’re gonna continue this talk, I suggest to move somewhere because this thread has derailed long enough, thanks.
I guess which side you take depends on how much faith you have in people to compare their options and not just look at “improved” and use that because it’s called improved. I still think being an authority and choosing to put something in the repo with “improved” in it says “This is an improvement over the original and nobody would disagree, if I thought they would I would change the name, this is what the community wants, use this instead of the yucky vanilla map sprite/animation”
What would you think if you replaced every instance of “improved” with “better”? It means the same thing
to some degree i think that if you’re going to bill yourself as “official” it probably makes sense to try to maintain some kind of standard
on the other hand, i think this problem is equally well-solved by slapping a “the names are exactly as given by the creators and are not indicative of anything”
People are going to infer things from how they’re named unless you tell every new member not to infer things from the names, which is impractical. Standards good