The title says it all. I guess many people are not satisfied with certain ability animations or would like different ones that change the theme of a character. Obviously, opinions are different and I'm not one to argue personal taste. The solution I suggest would leave everyone happy.

 

So first some suggestions for alternative ability animations:

 

• Dark/Light Side Abilities for Jedis/Siths: Currently many Jedi Abilities are tinted with some blue "light side" hue. I think a set that changes the blue to a red or reddish hue and adds some crackling lightning to represent that your Jedi has fallen to the Dark Side would be very nice and well liked by the community. The same goes for the other side. I guess light side Sorcerers and Warriors would love to have the ability to represent their alignment in their ability animations too. For example, Sorcerer Lightning attacks could be tinted white-blue, closer to the Vanguard Attacks, instead of white-purple.
  
• Force Quake -> "Project Barrage": Instead of shaking the ground, the Sage pulls debris out of the ground and bombards the targeted area. Think the new "Cascading Debris" ability form Shadow Tanks, but instead of pulling the objects close to the enemy out of the ground, you pull them from near you. Like the old Project
  
• New Project -> Old Project: I don't like the "new" Project that much. I liked it much more when my Sage actually threw stuff at my enemies.
  
• Grav Round -> anything really: Grav Round is the reason I don't ever touch the Gunnery Spec of my Commando. I don't really like the look of the ability and the sound is really underwhelming. A lot of different things could be done here. "Sundering Shots" that would look like the Smugglers Charged Burst or something named Ion Bolt that would be inspired by the Commando's Concussive Round which just looks awesome.
  
• Full Auto -> Laser beam: Many enemies attack you with a laserbeam like attack. Having something similar would be nice
  
• Explosive Surge -> Static Discharge: Instead of exploding the Trooper creates an electric discharge. Considering how many Vanguard Abilities are centered around electric attacks it would fit really well thematically.
  
• ...
  

 

So how will this be implemented?

Easy, you purchase the animation from the CM and get a new tab at your trainer that reads "CM Abilities" there you can train these abilities with the alternative animations. A bit like it is now already with the replacement abilities, with the exception that the CM abilities would always be on the same level as the ability it's supposed to replace.

It would mean that players can mix and match as they desire.

 

What about PVP:

To keep things from becoming confusing, these replacement abilities should propably be restricted to PVE and could simply not be used in PVP.

Edited March 14, 2015 by -Blasto-

I'd love a new Fire Pulse animation for Vanguards, cause that one's extremely underwhelming. However I also think it would be cool if they let us actually choose whether to use the old or new ability animations added in 3.0, such as project vs. psychokinetic blast, boltstorm vs. full auto, ion pulse vs. tactical surge, etc.