Gameplay Feedback: Footplant Nitpicks and Suggestions

I attached a video that explains some of what I've written but raised some other things I wish footplants would have (or not have) - I summarize the video in the nitpicks section.

I've noticed the footplant update this season is mostly just making the character stop their motion for a fraction of a second then continue moving after the foot leaves the ground. With medium-fast speed air footplants, this looks jarring. I would prefer that the leg would follow the ground coming up to the point of ground-contact then jump past the point of ground-contact -- without it affecting how footplants look if done at a slow speed. 

*It's very important it doesnt affect slow or stationary air footplants because that's the speed where some footplants are used (ramp apexes, onto coping) - if my character did a big kick motion backward while I'm just doing a stationary footplant that wouldn't look good. Aside the jump speed, the current air footplants look good stationary, Just not while moving at a moderate speed. and even then at a slow speed I would like if there was a more elaborate leap motion or tweak, or anything cool.

Basically the jump animation when the foot is on the ground should be elongated and should kick out depending on the direction of travel.

here's a drawing with exaggeration to make my point:

The game currently has the leg below the knee move forward a bit before the footplant, which I think helps - but the jump animation is vertical regardless of speed and direction. If moving and facing forward, the leap of the leg should happen behind the character a bit. if this was how the animation system worked you probably wouldn't need to have the entire character stop their motion as hard to fix the feet sliding.

I implied it already but It would be nice if the leg can move side to side (or in reverse) so you can do the footplant mid-spin without the leg kicking in the wrong direction.




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Footplant nitpicks summary:
I attached a video that explains mostly what I've just written but raised some other things I wish footplants would have (or not have) - I summarize and elaborate on it more below.

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1 - Footplant Height (air and ground)
There's no height control of the footplant, it's this very fixed strange unnatural arc that jumps up sharply not matching the momentum of the footplant jump animation.

A solution to this is reverting the change of making footplants higher - or adjusting the animation. 
Additionally it would be cool to have a feature that adds a short hop & high jump for footplants. Much like how a platformer game works or like Super Smash Bros. Where the input behavior is basically releasing the button before the jump force is initiated =  a short hop. if you hold the button past that point it will do a normal jump.
If you actually elongate the jump animation of the footplant you can probably add an additional option between where tapping it is a very precise input (window of a dozen frames), between that and moment of the jump is the medium option, and holding the button past the point of where the jump starts is the high jump option.

Short Button Tap / Very-Early Button Release = Ground: short hop. Air:  kick a wall or run with the ground one-foot briefly before putting your foot on the board
Medium Button Press / Early Button Release =  Ground: normal footplant height. Air: normal behavior, normal kick away from a wall
Long button hold / Late or No Button Release =  Ground: exaggerated animation and height. Air: holding the footplant pose for a while before leaping if done at slow speed. If already going fast speed normal behavior + extra jump height.

The reason I specify "button release" is because footplants most of the time are held in one-foot position somewhat before ground contact, we already are holding the button it feels like, so it's the release timing during the start up of the footplant animation that actually determines the jump height

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2 - Footplant (air and ground) Spin Flow:
Ground/Air Footplants only allow you to spin after the foot leaves the ground, IRL you can tweak the board and even spin your body in the direction somewhat mid-leap. It looks better not because it's "realistic" but it's because the current way of spinning from a boneless is very canned - it's not a smooth transition.

A solution is perhaps just adding a slight rotation if already holding LS with the footplant, or having a slight unique animation for it, where its largely the foot, head, and skateboard angle being adjusted to face the direction of the spin.

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3 - Footplant (air and ground) Trick Flow:
Ground/Air Footplants don't allow you to do fingerflips or tweaks until the foot is on, and even then it takes a while after the foot is on for the trick animation to kick in.

A solution is IDK, but for grab tweaks maybe you can blend animations half way into a pose until you are "truly" in the air state then you finish the tweak. 
For finger flips it might require new animations, but it would be interesting if you can experiment with the leg animations being independent of the finger flip and seeing how that would look off of bonelesses. but this seems like multiple animations playing at once blending into each other which might be black magic.


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4 - Footplant (air and ground) Jump Speed:
My issue is specifically the part where the foot is on the ground - it's massively shortened in-game. An IRL vid I compared it to (which has comparable air time to the in-game version) show that the foot stays on the ground longer and the leg takes longer to extend off the ground.

this one is more subjective but my best argument is that it makes the footplant seem anticlimactic or unceremonious  - like it's this quick derpy thing that happens.. skate 2 and skate 3 did a better job at the jump animation length, and I think it really adds to the force of the jump without needing to make it literally bigger.

Making the speed slower at that part of the animation plus having the leg follow the ground somewhat would make the footplant feel more lively than the stiff leg animation having pogo physics.

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5 - Unrelated Nitpick - Making the Legs Extend More on Landings for All Tricks:
My friend made the argument that not extending the legs down and just falling with your butt already at your board is somehow steezy but I think it looks very uncomfortable. Part of why you extend your legs on a landing is to create room to soften the landing. Skate 1-3 had this effect, and it made landings look heavy and full of inertia - because usually the skater compresses their legs immediately after. New skate has this but it's not as pronounced and sometimes it never does it.

I'm unsure if this fits the style of the skater(s) mocapped for the game, but it might be worth investigating or experimenting having the legs stomp stuff, maybe only on certain drops or transition.

I suggest it can be introduced as an animation update or a feature if styles come back.


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weird small behavior I noticed after writing all this:
Last season it was probably reported as a glitch but I finally noticed this season you can't gain speed from a fastplant/boneless from 0 speed anymore. ALTHOUGH when you have a tiny amount of speed and do a boneless you can hold forward to gain speed - it just doesn't work when completely stationary - which is odd. your foot is literally touching the ground you should be able to go wherever IMO, and IRL you always move slightly to the frontside when doing a boneless stationary. Anyway I never grab or boneless at 0 speed,  it is a niche situation. But the option to go in a direction should work for stationary ground footplants, it seems odd it doesn't do anything when you hold LS on a completely stationary fastplant or boneless.