skeletons and unit balance

[xerex]

Ok, take two units with perfectly identical stats in the EDU. Then give one of them a fs_slow_swordsman skeleton and the other fs_swordsman skeleton. Am I going crazy or does the normal skeleton win 95% of the time in a one one mock battle on flat ground?

Why does this happen? If I give them both the same speed skeleton, the battles are about even again.

I know the next to last parameter in the stat_pri line is a min_delay between attacks that supposedly accounts for variations in animation time, but I have it set to 50 for both units which should put 5 seconds between attacks (well more than any of the animation times of the units' attacks).

So why are the fs_2handed still beating the fs_slow_2handed. Why are the fs_swordsmans still beating the fs_slow_swordsmans? And more importantly, how do I stop it from happening!

Skeletons, models, and animations (front end) should *not* affect back end (combat calculations). Its just bad programming if they do.

[Monkwarrior]

Let's see if I'm able to explain.

Skeletons have no parameters included in export_descr_unit. For me it is not surprising that the faster unit beats the slow one with the same stats. The fast unit hits more times than the slow one in the same period of time.

The delay in export_descr_unit stablishes a wait time between repetition of animations (two hits for example), and it is only a small fraction of the total time. This is the reason because its effect is so small.

[Dol Guldur]

And I seem to remember that the dagger animations were the ones that won out against fast spears hands down when testing (I adjusted lethality to compenstate).

It is strange though that CA said the min delay was to adjust the attack animation times (which differ) and then set them all to 25 ...

[xerex]

that min delay between attacks...is it not irrespective of the animations? or is it added to the animation time?

e.g. let's say swordsmen have several different attack animations ranging from 22 to 28 frames (1.1 to 1.4 seconds). So, if I set min delay between attacks to 30 (3 seconds), then which attack animation it chooses shouldn't matter because after the 22 frame animation, it waits 1.9 more seconds before initializing the next attack and after the 28 frame animation, it waits 1.6 more seconds before initializng the next attack. This is how I *thought* the min delay between attacks paramter worked.

Are you saying that it works like this? If I set it to 30, the game waits 3 seconds after each attack regardless of thge number of frames in the animation?..so after the 22 frame attack, it waits 3 seconds giving the unit 1 attack every 4.1 seconds..and with the 28 frame animation, there is one attack every 4.4 seconds?

That would be just plain silly. That makes attack speed completely dependent upon what animation a unit chooses for each attack with no way of normalizing all units to attack at the same rate regardless of animation speed. I *thought* that is what the min_delay parameter was for.

Does the ai randomly select attack animations so that I can at least average out the number of frames of each attack to get an attack speed? Or does it preferentially select low_attacks against short opponents making balancing of differnt sized opponents nearly impossible?

[xerex]

I found this quote from JeromeGradskye on the subject, but which of the two scenrios I posted above is the correct one is unclear from this post. Perhaps he could clarify his remarks :)

There are some fairly subtle game balancing facts involved with the animations, which i should probably mention. For example there is only one attack per animation, so the length of the attack animation determines attack frequency for that troop type. The attack delay values in export_descr_unit.txt are used to balance this, so that it doesn't become too restrictive for artists.

[Dol Guldur]

That's the quotation I was thinking of - I do not think Jerome has posted for a long while though (?)

Not just artists either, eh? ;)