Sync damage output with animation (Optional)

[Tunda]

It feels weird that I have a skill for example monk bootshine.. if you look to the animation the character doing 3 punches but it shows 1 damage number..

I wish that we have an option that sync damage output with the animation.. it feels more natural to me.. it is just breaking the immersion for me sometimes.

[Cyrtip]

That would be cool, give each actual swing more feedback. Make jobs like monk feel even faster, too.

Could even use it from a balance perspective, I remember hearing how last expansion a Gunbreaker's damage depended quite a bit on if they crit Double Down. If Double Down, as the name implies, hits 2 times instead of just once, outlier runs where no hits crit (or alternatively, all hits crit) would be far less common. Hysho Ranryu (NIN's 1300p skill) could get a similar treatment, hitting 8+ times like BLU's Matra Magic. Would make "I got a lucky crit on a nuke skill" (Something out of the players control) less of a determining factor for damage, so things like if or when you hit the button would matter more (relatively).

[Tunda]

That would be cool, give each actual swing more feedback. Make jobs like monk feel even faster, too.

Could even use it from a balance perspective, I remember hearing how last expansion a Gunbreaker's damage depended quite a bit on if they crit Double Down. If Double Down, as the name implies, hits 2 times instead of just once, outlier runs where no hits crit (or alternatively, all hits crit) would be far less common. Hysho Ranryu (NIN's 1300p skill) could get a similar treatment, hitting 8+ times like BLU's Matra Magic. Would make "I got a lucky crit on a nuke skill" (Something out of the players control) less of a determining factor for damage, so things like if or when you hit the button would matter more (relatively).

in my mind the idea was for aesthetic.. but bringing your point that making each hit crit/direct hit separately is actually a smart idea.
making non auto direct hit/crit have multiple hits some of them crit is not only more satisfying but less frustrating.

[Eyrilona]

It would be very nice, yes, but to temper expectations - unfortunately this ties into the notorious issues with the game's net code (also responsible for weird AoE snapshotting issues and other woes resulting from client-server communication taking time to update and verify things that the client isn't predictively compensating for) so I am not holding my breathe for this request to be taken up. It will require overhauling so many other fundamentals first.

[BabyYoda]

It would be very nice, yes, but to temper expectations - unfortunately this ties into the notorious issues with the game's net code (also responsible for weird AoE snapshotting issues and other woes resulting from client-server communication taking time to update and verify things that the client isn't predictively compensating for) so I am not holding my breathe for this request to be taken up. It will require overhauling so many other fundamentals first.

I am not IT expert but
I have seen things that against TOS has done this already..

But I don't want to get banned sharing this information

[Toskastic]

I am not IT expert but
I have seen things that against TOS has done this already..

But I don't want to get banned sharing this information

Hypothetically speaking, should such a thing exist (likely created by a single dev in their free time), surely the humble indie company Square Enix can spare some resources and find a way to replicate it! Give them several years. They'll figure it out!

[Cyrtip]

It would be very nice, yes, but to temper expectations - unfortunately this ties into the notorious issues with the game's net code (also responsible for weird AoE snapshotting issues and other woes resulting from client-server communication taking time to update and verify things that the client isn't predictively compensating for) so I am not holding my breathe for this request to be taken up. It will require overhauling so many other fundamentals first.

What issues does it have?

As far as I can tell, Ninja's Dream within a Dream and Blue Mage's Matra Magic (I can't think of any other multi-hit-on-one-target abilities) work fine. I don't think too many people would raise a stink if the Blue spell were janky (Other Blue spells like Diamondback have had slidecasting jank for a long time), because dps usually doesn't matter as much if you're bringing Blue Mage, but Ninja's a normal job. If some netcode peculiarity was causing problems with Ninja's damage, that'd be a pretty big bug like the one we have with pet potencies not benefiting from traits, which the devs are looking into now.

[Eyrilona]

What issues does it have?

Simplified, the way the server and net code are written, any lag on the line between client and server (both ways) adds up with the 500ms server tick, which makes it entirely possible to be a full second out of sync between what you client shows you and what the server thinks the situation is. That doesn't sound like much until you realize how much movement and action happens in a busy fight in a full second. Try it with you and a friend on a high latency connection both recording your screen, just try to run exactly next to each other. To have the server see you as running right next to each other, you will have to be running well ahead of your friend on your own screen, and your friend will at the same time see themselves as being well ahead of you on theirs.

That also happens to be basically how most of those situations happen where you are screaming because during a spread mechanic, someone is chasing you with their target marker, while that someone is behind their own computer also screaming because on their screen, you are chasing them with your target marker. Since both of you see yourself as the one in front and the other as the one chasing, you will both decide the thing you must do is sprint ahead harder and hope for the other to turn around. Since you both do that, the silly circus continues until the computer applies the mechanic and lets you know you killed each other. Seconds after which you will see the other person catch up to your location as the server's latest updates on everyone's position come in (now that you are both dead and no longer moving) and you will lie happily tanking the floor side by side.

But anyway.

To kind of make this look less jarring, they decoupled snapshotting (this determines who the attack is about to hit), animating the attack happening, and having damage applied (after the server does its calculations), into three separate events so that you don't have to feel like you are fighting in stop-motion cinematography. But the result of this is that depending on length of animation, connection ping, and your timing relative to the server tick, the timing of when damage numbers are shown can drift from the animation associated with it.

Which, I will admit, is not at all what OP posted about but I misread that as that there were supposed to be three damage numbers and only one of them was showing while the animation was happening. On second reading it does look more like they mean that the damage from the three hit animation is processed as a single attack and therefore returns only a single damage number. That last one is an easier problem to solve, but since the monk triple punch is still just a single attack in the code, I guess they could make it pop (1/3 damage) three times?

[Tunda]

Which, I will admit, is not at all what OP posted about but I misread that as that there were supposed to be three damage numbers and only one of them was showing while the animation was happening. On second reading it does look more like they mean that the damage from the three hit animation is processed as a single attack and therefore returns only a single damage number. That last one is an easier problem to solve, but since the monk triple punch is still just a single attack in the code, I guess they could make it pop (1/3 damage) three times?

I will try my best to solve a problem that I mentioned..

since we have Monk doing 3 punches which is do for example 30,000 damage.

split this 30,000 into 3 which each punch will do 10,000 (without crit/direct hit, let's assume it is not under bootshine crit buff)

each 10,000 will be calculated differently in backend.. for example:
first 10,000 will crit to be 20,000,
second 10,000 will direct hit to be 15,000
third 10,000 will be as it is with no direct hit or crit.

in the animation it will sync the animation first punch with 20,000 second 15,000 and third 10,000 then it will sum them to 45,000 after third punch animation is done.

As for my knowledge of learning python this could be possible but how will it affect the server communication Idk

[Eyrilona]

I will try my best to solve a problem that I mentioned..

since we have Monk doing 3 punches which is do for example 30,000 damage.

split this 30,000 into 3 which each punch will do 10,000 (without crit/direct hit, let's assume it is not under bootshine crit buff)

each 10,000 will be calculated differently in backend.. for example:
first 10,000 will crit to be 20,000,
second 10,000 will direct hit to be 15,000
third 10,000 will be as it is with no direct hit or crit.

in the animation it will sync the animation first punch with 20,000 second 15,000 and third 10,000 then it will sum them to 45,000 after third punch animation is done.

As for my knowledge of learning python this could be possible but how will it affect the server communication Idk

For each punch to have its own crit/direct hit checks, it would have to stop being a single attack in the server code. Nothing else in FFXIV works that way, I am not sure if it would even support doing that without also making it into having to press an action three times. I think it would be far easier to just change things in how it is displayed. If you absolutely do not want to just have three times the same number, you could just introduce RNG to split the total damage in different ways across the numbers displayed for first, second, and third strike, while always having them add up to the single damage number the server returned. That way the client can handle it, and you should not put extra workload on the server side just for what amounts to a display effect cosmetic, right?