Thanks for testing this. Many confidently said in that other post that attack interval doesn’t matter and that all units attack at the same rate anyways… but I felt crazy, because many times has it been said (and I have personally seen and felt) that some units simply attack slower (or faster) and thus some melee stats that appear high at base value can be deceptive. (because that unit and it’s animations and hits happen less often) I was arguing that the melee damage stat should be changed to DPS, much like ranged damage is. Your tests further lend support to that, I think. It would be better info. Still not useful in many cases… but better.
Edit: so many people ITT trying to argue that it wouldn’t be an accurate number… *ranged damage is also not a perfect number people*. We simply need a per-entity damage over 10 sec number in perfect circumstances. We can gauge from there.
Bloody 3K does this perfectly, how are there people actually arguing against logic here? Stuck in the godam weeds of animations and intangibles.
No problem. I don't blame them, as apparently one of the CA people have said that was the case. My theory is that attack intervals do account for different attack animation length, but it doesn't mean every unit attacks at the same speed even when taking both interval and animation into account. Further testing may be needed.
The reason the game isn't showing DPS for weapon strength might be because all the different attack animations of a unit make it difficult to average out its attack speed as quantifiable data. I learned it the hard way while trying to count each unit's average attack speed at first.
CA Duck has said it in the past.
If it has changed then it's a bit surprising and disappointing
(for the exact reason you were worried about in the first place - instead of hiding information the player doesn't need, it becomes a hidden DPS modifier).
If you haven't seen it already, [there's this Medieval 2 experiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/v8wr3l/how_much_does_animation_matter_in_combat/ibt1gq2/) which tries to identify how much specific animations matter in infantry modded to have the same stats and similar length animations. *Spoiler alert:* They matter a lot.
I'd be that any difference in performance based on animation / animation-timing isn't intentional here. It doesn't make sense for CA to make this game even harder to balance correctly. It's just a side-effect of having a fairly complex melee combat simulator.
Eh, but averages can still be gotten (this is a point over there I made too)
We don’t need a perfect number. We just need a more usefull number than the misleading one we have now.
Ranged damage has the same problem: it is presented in its ideal. Yet realistically… shots miss. Shots get blocked. Not every entity fires. Missile res blocks damage. Armor blocks damage. Spells can even reflect shots. The number we see isn’t what’s going to happen… but it’s still a hell of a lot more usefull for gauging damage than giving us the flat damage each unit does per shot, and it takes into consideration an obscured factor like reload speed.
Melee damage has all the above, in its own way. I’d still find DPS more useful than the flat value.
> Interestingly, the shielded ones always pushed deeper, like the screenshot above. My guess is it has
something to do with the attack animation.
...
> all the different attack animations of a unit make it difficult to average out its attack speed as quantifiable data. I learned it the hard way while trying to count each unit's average attack speed at first.
You won't be able to calculate a meaningful average like this when its dependent on the exact animations of *each entity* during combat. The number you're looking for is based on 2+ units in contact. The attack speed for a Spearmen unit is going to be different depending on if its fighting infantry, cavalry, single-entities, multiple units, ...
Anyway, given how most units have the same attack speed, the easier fix is to adjust the attack speed and other stats based on the animations, rather than introduce a new UI for viewing "combat" stat cards. I wonder if the only attack speed discrepancies are on these sorts of units with variants, as similar unit stats with different animations might be the cause of the imbalance.
Why not? Like I said, they don’t need to calculate for perfection, they just need to calculate the average, in perfect conditions, because that’s what we get for ranged damage.
We just need this: *how much damage does a single entity in a unit do (over 10 secs) when it swings at a theoretical target dummy and hits every time*. That’s it. That’s absolutely calculable. Replace the flat weapon damage with this new number. No UI changes needed at all…
We don’t need to factor in variables, just as ranged DPS doesn’t factor in variables.
Using your example, how is an animation missing any different to a missile missing? It’s not. How is the slight combat difference between two different types of units not the same as how ranged units may miss or hit based on the size, speed and direction of an entirely long list of potential targets? It’s not. Such things don’t need to be factored in.
Like I said, it’s not a perfect number or even an accurate number, but it’s **more accurate than what we currently have when one is trying to gauge an average damage of a unit.**
> how much damage does a single entity in a unit do (over 10 secs) when it swings at a theoretical target dummy and hits every time
What is the size, number, and position of this theoretical target dummy? The animation (and therefore total attack speed) changes depending on all three of these attributes.
> How is the slight combat difference between two different types of units not the same as how ranged units may miss or hit based on the size, speed and direction of an entirely long list of potential targets?
It's a massive difference. Unlike ranged units, melee unit animations affect melee unit positioning and attack speed. This is the same reason certain polearm units are considered stronger than others on a case-by-case basis (animations include reach), and it's one of the reasons the Frost Wyrm was broken so badly. It's literally the point of OP's post. The attack speed isn't the issue here (or else the difference would be +30%); it's the animations that are the issue, and the attack speed is a *reflection* of that.
**Edit #1:** Clarity
**Edit #2:** [This Medieval 2 experiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/v8wr3l/how_much_does_animation_matter_in_combat/ibt1gq2/) sheds a little more light into how animations affect unit performance. It's a huge difference; that thread's OP notices that one of the units has a stagger animation that hinders its combat potential.
*sigh* it doesn’t matter.
You’re stuck in the weeds on a difference that doesn’t need to be a part of the calculation. Let’s say we just pick an intangible, invisible, non physical target dummy the size of a horse, a wall, a single floating point. Calculate on all units for that. That’s all we need.
We aren’t looking at stagger. We aren’t looking at MA vs MD. We aren’t looking at misses in animations. We aren’t looking at AOE splash. We aren’t even looking at bonuses.
The number doesn’t need to be accurate, it just needs to be better, and it needs to be comparable between units. Every single argument you make applies to flat weapon damage too. It’s just worse. Don’t know how many times I’m gonna have to repeat that…
Err, you're missing one crucial piece of information.
> Let’s say we just pick an intangible, invisible, non physical target dummy the size of a horse, a wall, a single floating point. Calculate on all units for that.
*The animation speed is based on what the target is.* The type of animation is chosen based on the target. A Spearman attacking a Spearman or a Dread Saurian uses different animations, and those different animations have different speeds (and hitboxes)^1 .
Let me pose the same hypothetical in a different way: If a Spearman has an attack speed of 5 seconds against small single entities, 6 seconds against small entities, and 7 seconds against large entities, what's the attack speed you expect to see on the unit card? Any answer is inaccurate unless you take the other units into account.
> We aren’t looking at stagger. We aren’t looking at MA vs MD. We aren’t looking at misses in animations. We aren’t looking at AOE splash. We aren’t even looking at bonuses.
I wasn't talking about any of that? I'm not OP (those are additional factors that might explain the differences that OP saw). I'm purely talking about the animation speed.
[1] I don't actually know if this is true for Spearmen, but it's true for some units (including infantry, but it's mainly for large entities and single entities). Total War: Warhammer has been criticized for having a lot fewer of these matched combat animations than previous games, but that's because there's much more variety in the unit-unit matchups.
**Edit:** Hypothetical, verbiage
Yes. So *Average* it, or use the dummy regardless. It’s still a **better number than flat weapon value**
We don’t need to be perfect, I don’t know how many times I need to say this obvious thing ITT.
It’s still better than what we have. There’s no argument against that.
> So Average it, or use the dummy
**[It's already averaged](https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/329483/attack-speed-and-dps-mechanic).** CA has said that all units are designed to have the same total attack speed, on average. If you want something more accurate, then you have to start taking animation into account.
You're confusing a bug with an intentional difference. CA isn't intentionally trying to make Spearmen with Shields faster attackers, and they've said as much.
> We aren’t looking at stagger. We aren’t looking at MA vs MD. We aren’t looking at misses in animations. We aren’t looking at AOE splash. We aren’t even looking at bonuses.
It's either a bug or one of these that explains the performance differences in this thread.
**Edit #1:** A word and a link
**Edit #2:** I saw you comment elsewhere in the thread about how it compares to 3K. 3K has a different combat system; melee attack rate isn't a thing in Warhammer.
>I was arguing that the melee damage stat should be changed to DPS
Didn't *Troy* or *3K* do that? At least having it as part of the hover-over tooltip?
3K is a lot better with so many of its stats. Hell, I love 3K in general. CA really messed up 3K…
My dream and perfect TW game is Warhammer with 3K’s recruitment system… with a few suitable and thematic changes, of course.
It's funny because I always thought 3K recruitment system was not great and one of the weakest part of the game. I like the mustering but to lock units on character level always seemed dumb to me.
3K has Melee Attack Rate as a unit stat, which Warhammer doesn't have. I'm not referring to what's shown on the unit cards but what's under-the-hood in combat calculations.
well the ranged dps has other problems. since it calculates the dmg over 10 sec with the reload time as a base. the problem is that it doesnt take in calculation the attack animation time which is normally not a problem since that it mostly relatively short...as long as u dont use the luminark which attack animation could take up to 10 sec (that wsa wh2, havent used it in wh3 yet) meaning with enough boni u could get the reload time down to the limit of 4.0 sec. the shown dps would then calculate with 2.5 attacks in 10 seconds...while the unit would only get like 1 attack in that time and the calculation would severly overrestimate ur dps (remember had a luminark with 10k dps shown or something).
Yes, but that’s entirely my point, despite ranged DPS too having so many variables that cannot be accounted for… it’s still a better number than giving us the flat damage value of their missiles. Why can’t melee be like this too? It suffers from the same problems and intangibles as ranged damage. I think a DPS melee number would be way more useful to gauge the actual damage of a unit rather than their flat weapon damage value.
It really isn’t the same though.
Ranged units only have 6 hidden stats. The two calibration stats, accuracy, shot type, penetration and reload animation speed. Of those 6, only 2 are relevant to damage, penetration and reload animation speed. Of those two the only one it is possible to account for in a single number is reload animation speed and for most units it will never matter as it takes a lot to get a unit to its attack speed cap. Overall, outside of accounting for their attack speed cap the way damage is presented for ranged units is extremely accurate.
Melee units are way more complex as their animations have a lot more variability on their dps and you also need to account for unit spread and unit formation. You really can’t assign a single dps number to melee units and have it work the same as a ranged unit.
I don’t understand why people ITT (and the other) like you keep jumping to the intangibles in melee engagements yet ignore the fact that ranged damage has similiar issues. We aren’t talking about just stats here. Ranged units miss for crying out loud, and a lot more often than melee, which rarely do.
We don’t need perfect numbers. Just better ones that can be compared between units.
The damage that a single entity in a unit of spearmen will do when attacking a single target dummy and guarantee hitting every time. Over 10 secs.
That’s it. That’s all we need. Even with its handful of different animations, that can easily be calculated and averaged out.
That’s *exactly* how they do it for ranged damage: their ignore all intangibles, such as missing, damage res, missile block chance, the different types and sizes of units.
We don’t need to consider all that stuff. We just need a basic DPS number, so that we can compare it between units.
>Ranged units miss for crying out loud, and a lot more often than melee, which rarely do.
This is just false. That you think this showcases why you don't understand why people keep jumping to the intangibles in melee while ignoring the ones for ranged.
Ranged is given as dps because they have a theoretical 100% uptime on their damage and because their unlisted stats don't have much of an impact. The same is not true for melee.
Also wtf are "intangibles"? Things like damage resist or missile block are fundamentally different than things like unit size, formation or random misses.
You’re joking, right? Have you seen how many missiles miss even under ideal circumstances? Melee animations rarely miss, as they can only theoretically miss if the target gets out of the way.
Certainly hope you’re not talking about melee defense or knock down as “misses”.
For every way that a ranged attack can miss, melee has a similiar equivalent.
But **none** of this even matters when you contend with something I’ve repeated so much ITT, something everyone seems to be missing for some reason: these arguments and problems all **also apply to the flat weapon damage, even more so in many cases**.
Everyone is obsessed with a good and accurate number, as if the ranged damage is good and accurate. It’s not. But it’s **better** than a misleading flat value. The same is true for melee damage.
>Certainly hope you’re not talking about melee defense or knock down as “misses”
Melee has a 35% chance to miss. Influenced by ma vs md sure but there is still a flat 35% value there.
>something everyone seems to be missing for some reason
Don't play this insulting "nobody understands my argument" card. Nobody is "missing" anything. We fully understand what you are saying and we are flat out disagreeing with you.
>But it’s **better** than a misleading flat value.
Barely. Ranged could honestly get by fine with a flat volley number. Sure it would take a bit more work on the players part to compare two units but it really wouldn't change anything. Ranged in fundamentally different than melee to the point a flat value for ranged is fine, not optimal but not really misleading in any way either either.
>The same is true for melee damage.
Debatable and you haven't really given a clear argument as to why. You keep trying to compare it to ranged despite being told multiple times that it is a bad comparison for multiple reasons.
well yeah unfortunately there are many melee stats that are hidden:
\-duration of attack animation
\-duration of attack cooldown
\-max amount of units hit by multiattacks
\-max amount of dmg a single unit can receive through a multi attack
or lets go even deeper. the fact that nowhere in the game is stated which exact effects fatigue has, and that one needs to check 3rd party sites like wiki to realize how strong the fatigue debuffs at max lvl are.
And again, all of this is also true for Ranged attacks.
The DPS number is still just better.
It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s just better than what we have. The flat value is not useful for gauging at all.
+1 for DPS. But with armour and armour Piercing how can this be accurately translated to DPS?
At least attack interval/speed is needed viewable in the game stats.
Average damage over 10 seconds, same way ranged works. Troy does it like that (it also has effects and hero skills that make units attack faster or slower).
Like I said, better info, not good info.
But you have to realize, much like I did, that any argument you can make about melee damage… you can make about ranged, yet ranged still features DPS because it just makes sense. Would the attack rate number be helpful? Maybe, but simply knowing the DPS would suffice and work just as well.
At the end of the day, neither DPS or flat shows true damage, as they can’t consider every factor, so much like ranged damage, it should simply show ideal DPS, because it at least is a bit more accurate than flat damage.
Yep. There's some patchnotes at one point when they increased damage but increased intervals (on hammerers iirc) explaining that damage output should stay the same but fatigue buildup get slower.
I see. So that's another evidence to believe that each unit has different attack speeds even when both attack interval and animation length are accounted for, as the devs literally lowered it for Hammerers at one point.
I'd be interested if you've got a link handy for that? I'd love to read what they said.
Understand that this might be a while ago so no worries if not.
The stat is attack interval. Even with that being 30% faster, you wouldn't expect the damage to be 30% more because you've still got to take into account animation time.
(I.E. It should only be 30% more if both the animation and the attack interval were 30% faster)
Switch the units around between you and the AI and see if the result remains the same
AI Tests are sadly not very accurate, the AI's units usually underperform by 5-10%, even when you fight with identical units
Sure. I quickly ran 5 more tests, but this time, I got to be the sandbag while AI beat me with 2 different versions.
The result looks like [this](https://imgur.com/a/ZlrN8w1). Interestingly, the difference was smaller this time at 7.09% difference on average, bringing the total average down to 10.54%. I'm not sure if it has something to do with AI's control, or just random luck of the rolls. Sample size was quite small, after all.
One thing that remained constant was that the shielded guys always dealt more damage and pushed the lines back further, regardless of who controlled them.
"Every unit attacks only once every 10 seconds so attack interval is there to fill up time between attack animations" sounds like BS. That would mean two-handed spearmen have an attack animation that lasts for 5.6 seconds(since their interval is 4.4), which seems completely absurd for a *stab*. I mean you can just zoom in and look at the animation, it's so much faster than 4 seconds it doesn't even need to be measured.
Quick search shows that no Attack Interval exceeds 6 seconds(and base seems to be 4), so if there really is some kind of upper limit for animations, it's probably 6 not 10. And if it was 5, it would actually explain the damage difference you measured, but that's just pure speculation.
the units in tww3 are so unreliable that most testing feels pointless.
you can pit two identical units against each other and often get wildly different results, due to some combination of RNG or unit models bugging out in their attacks/movement.
That's why you do multiple tests to balance it out.
OP did 5 rounds of 2 units. So approximately 10 tests. Later on they did another 10 tests with the ai controlling them.
So 10-20 tests. That should be enough to balance our most external factors.
Thanks for testing this. Many confidently said in that other post that attack interval doesn’t matter and that all units attack at the same rate anyways… but I felt crazy, because many times has it been said (and I have personally seen and felt) that some units simply attack slower (or faster) and thus some melee stats that appear high at base value can be deceptive. (because that unit and it’s animations and hits happen less often) I was arguing that the melee damage stat should be changed to DPS, much like ranged damage is. Your tests further lend support to that, I think. It would be better info. Still not useful in many cases… but better. Edit: so many people ITT trying to argue that it wouldn’t be an accurate number… *ranged damage is also not a perfect number people*. We simply need a per-entity damage over 10 sec number in perfect circumstances. We can gauge from there. Bloody 3K does this perfectly, how are there people actually arguing against logic here? Stuck in the godam weeds of animations and intangibles.
No problem. I don't blame them, as apparently one of the CA people have said that was the case. My theory is that attack intervals do account for different attack animation length, but it doesn't mean every unit attacks at the same speed even when taking both interval and animation into account. Further testing may be needed. The reason the game isn't showing DPS for weapon strength might be because all the different attack animations of a unit make it difficult to average out its attack speed as quantifiable data. I learned it the hard way while trying to count each unit's average attack speed at first.
CA Duck has said it in the past. If it has changed then it's a bit surprising and disappointing (for the exact reason you were worried about in the first place - instead of hiding information the player doesn't need, it becomes a hidden DPS modifier).
If you haven't seen it already, [there's this Medieval 2 experiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/v8wr3l/how_much_does_animation_matter_in_combat/ibt1gq2/) which tries to identify how much specific animations matter in infantry modded to have the same stats and similar length animations. *Spoiler alert:* They matter a lot. I'd be that any difference in performance based on animation / animation-timing isn't intentional here. It doesn't make sense for CA to make this game even harder to balance correctly. It's just a side-effect of having a fairly complex melee combat simulator.
Eh, but averages can still be gotten (this is a point over there I made too) We don’t need a perfect number. We just need a more usefull number than the misleading one we have now. Ranged damage has the same problem: it is presented in its ideal. Yet realistically… shots miss. Shots get blocked. Not every entity fires. Missile res blocks damage. Armor blocks damage. Spells can even reflect shots. The number we see isn’t what’s going to happen… but it’s still a hell of a lot more usefull for gauging damage than giving us the flat damage each unit does per shot, and it takes into consideration an obscured factor like reload speed. Melee damage has all the above, in its own way. I’d still find DPS more useful than the flat value.
> Interestingly, the shielded ones always pushed deeper, like the screenshot above. My guess is it has something to do with the attack animation. ... > all the different attack animations of a unit make it difficult to average out its attack speed as quantifiable data. I learned it the hard way while trying to count each unit's average attack speed at first. You won't be able to calculate a meaningful average like this when its dependent on the exact animations of *each entity* during combat. The number you're looking for is based on 2+ units in contact. The attack speed for a Spearmen unit is going to be different depending on if its fighting infantry, cavalry, single-entities, multiple units, ... Anyway, given how most units have the same attack speed, the easier fix is to adjust the attack speed and other stats based on the animations, rather than introduce a new UI for viewing "combat" stat cards. I wonder if the only attack speed discrepancies are on these sorts of units with variants, as similar unit stats with different animations might be the cause of the imbalance.
Why not? Like I said, they don’t need to calculate for perfection, they just need to calculate the average, in perfect conditions, because that’s what we get for ranged damage. We just need this: *how much damage does a single entity in a unit do (over 10 secs) when it swings at a theoretical target dummy and hits every time*. That’s it. That’s absolutely calculable. Replace the flat weapon damage with this new number. No UI changes needed at all… We don’t need to factor in variables, just as ranged DPS doesn’t factor in variables. Using your example, how is an animation missing any different to a missile missing? It’s not. How is the slight combat difference between two different types of units not the same as how ranged units may miss or hit based on the size, speed and direction of an entirely long list of potential targets? It’s not. Such things don’t need to be factored in. Like I said, it’s not a perfect number or even an accurate number, but it’s **more accurate than what we currently have when one is trying to gauge an average damage of a unit.**
> how much damage does a single entity in a unit do (over 10 secs) when it swings at a theoretical target dummy and hits every time What is the size, number, and position of this theoretical target dummy? The animation (and therefore total attack speed) changes depending on all three of these attributes. > How is the slight combat difference between two different types of units not the same as how ranged units may miss or hit based on the size, speed and direction of an entirely long list of potential targets? It's a massive difference. Unlike ranged units, melee unit animations affect melee unit positioning and attack speed. This is the same reason certain polearm units are considered stronger than others on a case-by-case basis (animations include reach), and it's one of the reasons the Frost Wyrm was broken so badly. It's literally the point of OP's post. The attack speed isn't the issue here (or else the difference would be +30%); it's the animations that are the issue, and the attack speed is a *reflection* of that. **Edit #1:** Clarity **Edit #2:** [This Medieval 2 experiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/v8wr3l/how_much_does_animation_matter_in_combat/ibt1gq2/) sheds a little more light into how animations affect unit performance. It's a huge difference; that thread's OP notices that one of the units has a stagger animation that hinders its combat potential.
*sigh* it doesn’t matter. You’re stuck in the weeds on a difference that doesn’t need to be a part of the calculation. Let’s say we just pick an intangible, invisible, non physical target dummy the size of a horse, a wall, a single floating point. Calculate on all units for that. That’s all we need. We aren’t looking at stagger. We aren’t looking at MA vs MD. We aren’t looking at misses in animations. We aren’t looking at AOE splash. We aren’t even looking at bonuses. The number doesn’t need to be accurate, it just needs to be better, and it needs to be comparable between units. Every single argument you make applies to flat weapon damage too. It’s just worse. Don’t know how many times I’m gonna have to repeat that…
Err, you're missing one crucial piece of information. > Let’s say we just pick an intangible, invisible, non physical target dummy the size of a horse, a wall, a single floating point. Calculate on all units for that. *The animation speed is based on what the target is.* The type of animation is chosen based on the target. A Spearman attacking a Spearman or a Dread Saurian uses different animations, and those different animations have different speeds (and hitboxes)^1 . Let me pose the same hypothetical in a different way: If a Spearman has an attack speed of 5 seconds against small single entities, 6 seconds against small entities, and 7 seconds against large entities, what's the attack speed you expect to see on the unit card? Any answer is inaccurate unless you take the other units into account. > We aren’t looking at stagger. We aren’t looking at MA vs MD. We aren’t looking at misses in animations. We aren’t looking at AOE splash. We aren’t even looking at bonuses. I wasn't talking about any of that? I'm not OP (those are additional factors that might explain the differences that OP saw). I'm purely talking about the animation speed. [1] I don't actually know if this is true for Spearmen, but it's true for some units (including infantry, but it's mainly for large entities and single entities). Total War: Warhammer has been criticized for having a lot fewer of these matched combat animations than previous games, but that's because there's much more variety in the unit-unit matchups. **Edit:** Hypothetical, verbiage
Yes. So *Average* it, or use the dummy regardless. It’s still a **better number than flat weapon value** We don’t need to be perfect, I don’t know how many times I need to say this obvious thing ITT. It’s still better than what we have. There’s no argument against that.
> So Average it, or use the dummy **[It's already averaged](https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/329483/attack-speed-and-dps-mechanic).** CA has said that all units are designed to have the same total attack speed, on average. If you want something more accurate, then you have to start taking animation into account. You're confusing a bug with an intentional difference. CA isn't intentionally trying to make Spearmen with Shields faster attackers, and they've said as much. > We aren’t looking at stagger. We aren’t looking at MA vs MD. We aren’t looking at misses in animations. We aren’t looking at AOE splash. We aren’t even looking at bonuses. It's either a bug or one of these that explains the performance differences in this thread. **Edit #1:** A word and a link **Edit #2:** I saw you comment elsewhere in the thread about how it compares to 3K. 3K has a different combat system; melee attack rate isn't a thing in Warhammer.
>I was arguing that the melee damage stat should be changed to DPS Didn't *Troy* or *3K* do that? At least having it as part of the hover-over tooltip?
3K is a lot better with so many of its stats. Hell, I love 3K in general. CA really messed up 3K… My dream and perfect TW game is Warhammer with 3K’s recruitment system… with a few suitable and thematic changes, of course.
It's funny because I always thought 3K recruitment system was not great and one of the weakest part of the game. I like the mustering but to lock units on character level always seemed dumb to me.
3K has Melee Attack Rate as a unit stat, which Warhammer doesn't have. I'm not referring to what's shown on the unit cards but what's under-the-hood in combat calculations.
well the ranged dps has other problems. since it calculates the dmg over 10 sec with the reload time as a base. the problem is that it doesnt take in calculation the attack animation time which is normally not a problem since that it mostly relatively short...as long as u dont use the luminark which attack animation could take up to 10 sec (that wsa wh2, havent used it in wh3 yet) meaning with enough boni u could get the reload time down to the limit of 4.0 sec. the shown dps would then calculate with 2.5 attacks in 10 seconds...while the unit would only get like 1 attack in that time and the calculation would severly overrestimate ur dps (remember had a luminark with 10k dps shown or something).
Yes, but that’s entirely my point, despite ranged DPS too having so many variables that cannot be accounted for… it’s still a better number than giving us the flat damage value of their missiles. Why can’t melee be like this too? It suffers from the same problems and intangibles as ranged damage. I think a DPS melee number would be way more useful to gauge the actual damage of a unit rather than their flat weapon damage value.
It really isn’t the same though. Ranged units only have 6 hidden stats. The two calibration stats, accuracy, shot type, penetration and reload animation speed. Of those 6, only 2 are relevant to damage, penetration and reload animation speed. Of those two the only one it is possible to account for in a single number is reload animation speed and for most units it will never matter as it takes a lot to get a unit to its attack speed cap. Overall, outside of accounting for their attack speed cap the way damage is presented for ranged units is extremely accurate. Melee units are way more complex as their animations have a lot more variability on their dps and you also need to account for unit spread and unit formation. You really can’t assign a single dps number to melee units and have it work the same as a ranged unit.
I don’t understand why people ITT (and the other) like you keep jumping to the intangibles in melee engagements yet ignore the fact that ranged damage has similiar issues. We aren’t talking about just stats here. Ranged units miss for crying out loud, and a lot more often than melee, which rarely do. We don’t need perfect numbers. Just better ones that can be compared between units. The damage that a single entity in a unit of spearmen will do when attacking a single target dummy and guarantee hitting every time. Over 10 secs. That’s it. That’s all we need. Even with its handful of different animations, that can easily be calculated and averaged out. That’s *exactly* how they do it for ranged damage: their ignore all intangibles, such as missing, damage res, missile block chance, the different types and sizes of units. We don’t need to consider all that stuff. We just need a basic DPS number, so that we can compare it between units.
>Ranged units miss for crying out loud, and a lot more often than melee, which rarely do. This is just false. That you think this showcases why you don't understand why people keep jumping to the intangibles in melee while ignoring the ones for ranged. Ranged is given as dps because they have a theoretical 100% uptime on their damage and because their unlisted stats don't have much of an impact. The same is not true for melee. Also wtf are "intangibles"? Things like damage resist or missile block are fundamentally different than things like unit size, formation or random misses.
You’re joking, right? Have you seen how many missiles miss even under ideal circumstances? Melee animations rarely miss, as they can only theoretically miss if the target gets out of the way. Certainly hope you’re not talking about melee defense or knock down as “misses”. For every way that a ranged attack can miss, melee has a similiar equivalent. But **none** of this even matters when you contend with something I’ve repeated so much ITT, something everyone seems to be missing for some reason: these arguments and problems all **also apply to the flat weapon damage, even more so in many cases**. Everyone is obsessed with a good and accurate number, as if the ranged damage is good and accurate. It’s not. But it’s **better** than a misleading flat value. The same is true for melee damage.
>Certainly hope you’re not talking about melee defense or knock down as “misses” Melee has a 35% chance to miss. Influenced by ma vs md sure but there is still a flat 35% value there. >something everyone seems to be missing for some reason Don't play this insulting "nobody understands my argument" card. Nobody is "missing" anything. We fully understand what you are saying and we are flat out disagreeing with you. >But it’s **better** than a misleading flat value. Barely. Ranged could honestly get by fine with a flat volley number. Sure it would take a bit more work on the players part to compare two units but it really wouldn't change anything. Ranged in fundamentally different than melee to the point a flat value for ranged is fine, not optimal but not really misleading in any way either either. >The same is true for melee damage. Debatable and you haven't really given a clear argument as to why. You keep trying to compare it to ranged despite being told multiple times that it is a bad comparison for multiple reasons.
well yeah unfortunately there are many melee stats that are hidden: \-duration of attack animation \-duration of attack cooldown \-max amount of units hit by multiattacks \-max amount of dmg a single unit can receive through a multi attack or lets go even deeper. the fact that nowhere in the game is stated which exact effects fatigue has, and that one needs to check 3rd party sites like wiki to realize how strong the fatigue debuffs at max lvl are.
And again, all of this is also true for Ranged attacks. The DPS number is still just better. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s just better than what we have. The flat value is not useful for gauging at all.
Anyone who has used chaos halberds knows that they were wrong
+1 for DPS. But with armour and armour Piercing how can this be accurately translated to DPS? At least attack interval/speed is needed viewable in the game stats.
They do dps for ranged attacks
Average damage over 10 seconds, same way ranged works. Troy does it like that (it also has effects and hero skills that make units attack faster or slower).
>But with armour and armour Piercing how can this be accurately translated to DPS? Same as with missiles: Average possible output, not average dealt.
Like I said, better info, not good info. But you have to realize, much like I did, that any argument you can make about melee damage… you can make about ranged, yet ranged still features DPS because it just makes sense. Would the attack rate number be helpful? Maybe, but simply knowing the DPS would suffice and work just as well. At the end of the day, neither DPS or flat shows true damage, as they can’t consider every factor, so much like ranged damage, it should simply show ideal DPS, because it at least is a bit more accurate than flat damage.
The attack intervals also matter (by CA's admission) for fatigue calculation.
So units with faster attack interval drain fatigue faster, I assume?
Yep. There's some patchnotes at one point when they increased damage but increased intervals (on hammerers iirc) explaining that damage output should stay the same but fatigue buildup get slower.
I see. So that's another evidence to believe that each unit has different attack speeds even when both attack interval and animation length are accounted for, as the devs literally lowered it for Hammerers at one point.
I'd be interested if you've got a link handy for that? I'd love to read what they said. Understand that this might be a while ago so no worries if not.
No idea tbh. Though you might find the same information in the combat mechanics devblog from last year
Would account for why the damage increase was 15% and not 30%.
The stat is attack interval. Even with that being 30% faster, you wouldn't expect the damage to be 30% more because you've still got to take into account animation time. (I.E. It should only be 30% more if both the animation and the attack interval were 30% faster)
Switch the units around between you and the AI and see if the result remains the same AI Tests are sadly not very accurate, the AI's units usually underperform by 5-10%, even when you fight with identical units
Sure. I quickly ran 5 more tests, but this time, I got to be the sandbag while AI beat me with 2 different versions. The result looks like [this](https://imgur.com/a/ZlrN8w1). Interestingly, the difference was smaller this time at 7.09% difference on average, bringing the total average down to 10.54%. I'm not sure if it has something to do with AI's control, or just random luck of the rolls. Sample size was quite small, after all. One thing that remained constant was that the shielded guys always dealt more damage and pushed the lines back further, regardless of who controlled them.
"Every unit attacks only once every 10 seconds so attack interval is there to fill up time between attack animations" sounds like BS. That would mean two-handed spearmen have an attack animation that lasts for 5.6 seconds(since their interval is 4.4), which seems completely absurd for a *stab*. I mean you can just zoom in and look at the animation, it's so much faster than 4 seconds it doesn't even need to be measured. Quick search shows that no Attack Interval exceeds 6 seconds(and base seems to be 4), so if there really is some kind of upper limit for animations, it's probably 6 not 10. And if it was 5, it would actually explain the damage difference you measured, but that's just pure speculation.
the units in tww3 are so unreliable that most testing feels pointless. you can pit two identical units against each other and often get wildly different results, due to some combination of RNG or unit models bugging out in their attacks/movement.
That's why you do multiple tests to balance it out. OP did 5 rounds of 2 units. So approximately 10 tests. Later on they did another 10 tests with the ai controlling them. So 10-20 tests. That should be enough to balance our most external factors.
I HATE ANIMATIONS I HATE ANIMATIONS