Something that kills immersion totally for me and feels really bad. Read inside

[Shurrikhan]

I'm a pretty mechanically focused person, but if we're going to do it just for display, I'd rather it be done at the root calculation, because that can add more avenues for combat ability interactions. Debuff windows that add flat potency per hit, for example.

I mean, I'd of course want to see differences between multi-hit and single-hit skills down the line, moving towards nuances of combo play, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up or derail the discussion as one of an optional immersion-aiding feature.

True, a change such as the one I've suggested does slightly run the risk of precluding the "need" for a root calculation, as it'd be a purely modular, purely QoL feature. But by the point the the devs would be discussion reasons for which to, or to not, go further with combat mechanics, we'd really just be talking excuses for whatever the devs have already set their minds to, if history proves out.

[LeonKeyh]

You're right, but if they broke it up it wouldn't be impossible.
In each expansion they're always adding new actions and taking away old ones.
Just make the new actions in mind and tweak a few old ones here or there with each expac and in a couple of years you'll have this huge task done.
It's not something that needs to happen now. Just... getting it at all would be nice.

Yep... that was the only thing that I said in the post. Great job snipping out the actual substance that explained why it would likely not be done and shouldn't be done...

[Cabalabob]

The reason the damage appears at the beginning of the skill is due to the way mobs react to your damage. Old jobs like lancer work that way because that’s how it used to work in ARR and it caused all kinds of problems, the mob moving after you pressing your GCD would interrupt the attack mid animation and the biggest offender being gladiator/paladin’s rage of halone which has a crazy long animation and the mob would not react to the enmity of the attack until the damage displayed at the end of the animation (likely causing it to go and chase after your healers), people literally had to work around rage of halone by clipping the animation with spirits within to cause it to end faster.

That’s why you don’t see it in jobs added later like rouge or samurai and most of the old skills on old jobs have been replaced by new versions that resolve the delay issue such as rage of halone being replaced by royal authority.

[ItMe]

Yep... that was the only thing that I said in the post. Great job snipping out the actual substance that explained why it would likely not be done and shouldn't be done...

It was not malicious and I apologize.
You're right, it would take a lot of work and we shouldn't expect it.
But if it was something they were intent on doing there are ways to break the project up to make it manageable.

[Aurelius2625]

I'm pretty sure this dude is a troll like Militaryvet and TitanMen and all that jazz. I'm ALMOST certain it's the same dude or another dude like him. Think about it: topic is vaguely on topic, but kind of off topic... just convincing enough to spark discussion but not really something of import.... yep, this dude's a troll. Y'all just got played.

[Renkei]

When my character, let's say a lvl 1 rogue, uses his damaging ability, the character animation attacks twice. Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but the damage numbers (and loss of life on the mob) appears on the first hit instead of the second. This makes it feel like the second attack of the animation is completely useless. Why would the character attack twice if the damage appears instantly? It feels stupid and really bad because the 2nd animation is pointless. It ruins the WEIGHT of the ability and it doesn't feel satisfying.
And I know the developers understands this concept because the lancer's first ability has a small delay for when you press it until the damage shows up because it makes sense for the damage to appear at the same time as the actual animation strike hits. Why would you give Lancer this level of detail but not rogue or samurai?

So these issues aren't as bad (seemingly) on lancer, but on rogue and samurai, it is terrible. Samurai pretty much ONLY has abilities that has 2 attacks in the animatinon, and the damage appears on the first hit on all of them.

This COMPLETELY ruins immersion for me and for many others also. I cannot believe this game has been out for 10 years without this getting fixed.

My suggestion is to make 2 separate damage numbers appear for each individual animation in the ability, or make the damage appear at the end of the animation where it makes sense instead of at the beginning.

As Kevin Jordan, lead designer of WoW classic and Burning Crusade says, and Steven Sharif, lead designer of Ashes of Creation says, nothing is more important in an MMO than the feel of combat and it feeling responsive and fluid.

The combat in this game for the reason above alone makes it feel very bad to the point where I'm having a hard time enjoying the game. I don't have very many complaints outside of this though but this is a BIG one.

I really hope this gets read by someone who can make a difference in the game, especially since the fix to this must be extremely simple to implement.
Imagine using Cloud's level 4 limit break in Final Fantasy 7 and having all the damage appear at the start of it instantly, as opposed to having 9999 show up on each strike. You would end up looking at him go berserk without any actual real impact. I don't think I need to explain to you why they didn't go with that design 23 years ago when they made FF7. That's what this feels like.

Thank you for reading and understanding.

Solid points, Pointless appeals to Authority though, but nether the less very true about weight of animations A lot of that was abandoned in 1.0, the animations had fantastic amounts of weight behind them then, unfortunately there is a lot of newer animations that didn't exist since then that have been added to the game where you can't see this same type of heaviest added to designs of combat.

[Ricola]

The only time I care about/see the numbers is when i'm doing big 100k+ crit hits on blm or 80k+ hits on warrior...other than that i'm actually surprised someone cares about what numbers appear.

[Navnav]

I agree with you. The coding for combat in this game, along with it's netcode is AWFUL! There is no debate about that. If anyone says otherwise, they clearly never played a game like WoW. Fluid and responsive combat is VERY important for mmorpgs, however I will say square done one hell of a good job with everything else, because the game is phenomenal outside of its clunky combat, with its silly animation locks.

Word of caution though - don't say anything bad about the game, this community will rip you apart unless you are moaning about healers doing more damage. The most fair and logical arguments are always sht down, with a mob like mentalityn on these forums.