By initial design, the ability phase system only supports one duration animation. Any subsequent locomotion/attack animation overrides that. This means the first animation is lost if a new ability phase is activated.
This new feature improves the ability/phase stacking. The system will now know which animation is the last one you activated and, when this one ends, it will continue any existing animations/locomotion that might still be active.
Example in the old system:
- Ability 1 starts with a duration of 60 seconds.
- (10 seconds later) Ability 2 starts with a duration of 20 seconds. This animation is played and the Ability 1 animation is overwritten.
- (20 seconds later) Ability 2 animation finishes. All animations are cleared.
- No more animations are played but Ability 1 is still active for a further 30 seconds.
With the new system improvement:
- Ability 1 starts with a duration of 60 seconds.
- (10 seconds later) Ability 2 starts with duration of 20 seconds. This animation is played and the Ability 1 animation is overwritten.
- (20 seconds after) Ability 2 animation finishes. The last ability animation in the stack is restored.
- The remaining 30 seconds of the animation from Ability 1 will be played.