Dragons in duels

Green0 · November 2020

Something is wrong with Dragons and I feel like their stats are not used at full potential, or there are some stagger effects going on. For many, Dragons are probably OP because they just look at the unit card and never play Dragon factions, but I've suspected for a long time that Dragons are bugged now so I decided to do some quick tests.

The test I ran is on MP Crossroads, Princess on Star Dragon with her Bow attack turned off vs a fully-kitted Karl Franz controlled by AI. You can run this test with any Dragon I suppose though I picked Star one as it's the one closest to going toe to toe with Franz.

The battle starts at 59:07 when both monsters charge into each other. As you can see, Karl Franz has all buffs popped while the Princess is a naked Princess with no abilities or items. On the charge, the Princess has 105 MA, against the 67 MD of Karl, which after applying the 35% base hit chance gives us 73% chance to hit, a very high chance. Karl hits with 96 - 54 + 35 + 90 CB = 90% to hit chance decaying to 77% slowly over let's say 3-4 animations.

Shortly after contact is made, 2 blows are exchanged. The Princess doesn't hit while Karl does:

could be bad RNG right? Let us test anew:

in 2 attack animations, Karl hits on the 2nd one and the Princess hits 0/2.

Third attempt:

at 59:07, Karl pops all buffs, again it's 73% of Princess vs 90% of Karl:

2 animations later, Karl misses the first hit but lands the 2nd, while the Princess as usual misses both:

I ran this test 7 times and never has the Princess landed the 1st attack and only once did she manage to land the 2nd. I am not sure what exactly causes this, my theory is that the CB is not applied in aerial duels, since Karl also seems to not be rolling at 90% chance. Even without applying the CB, you'd expect the Princess to hit 60 - 67 + 35 = 28% of the times, instead that number seems to be closer to 0 to 5% based on me running this duel 10 times and some very quick maths. Something is wrong.

Overall, the duel goes like this Karl has lower HP, but more armor and better buffs, and more WS overall. You'd expect this duel to be a close thing, and generally the gold cost of the 2 units is also similar, but it seems that a lot of times the Griphon dodges a successful hit with a stagger animation, along with just ignoring other hits. Overall, after the buffs expire, you'd expect the Princess to have a substantial advantage, while the average result of the duel is as follows:

this is a particularly bad result, on average the Princess lands 2-3 more hits. Rarely she manages to almost kill KF while being left with some ~1000 HP herself. The duel is won by Karl a good 80% of the time. Regardless of what your take is on who should win the duel, with or without buffs, it seems to me that here the stats are not working, and the Dragon is getting staggered, turns the side randomly, and just suffers a ton of unnecessary damage which is not what you'd expect given its strong statline. I'd ask @CA_Duck to investigate in this, my theory is that there is some weapon length or stagger issue at hand, and the CB might also not be working as intended. Other units, such as Volkmar on a War Altar, or Death Hag on a Chariot might also have their CB refreshed too often without hitting the charge animation. As for Dragons, you can test them vs Kholek, Rotting Leviathans, or your monster of choice, to me it seems they tend to do poorly, which is why I'd ask to look into their animations because something might be preventing them from using their full statline. Even without the CB, Dragons often either don't attack or don't hit.

Green0 · November 2020

also I should mention, I am not against rebalancing Dragon stats if they prove to be too strong once fixed, but I'd like to get my gold's worth from what I buy and not some unit that might or might not work. For me this post is not about making Dragon factions any stronger or weaker really, rather making Dragons more consistent in their performance (remember also that many factions have Dragons, including DE, Chaos, VC, WE and Norsca so bug fixes would help these factions too).

mightygloin · November 2020

You seem to care a little too much about the wellbeing dragons for a dwarf player eh lad?

Green0 said:

mightygloin said:

Green0 said:

Sarmatianns said:

Green0 said:

mightygloin said:
I'd disagree. If you want simple, there are plenty of nice historical total wars around. They are pretty simple with Human Spearmen duking it out on another Human Spearmen till kingdom come. Randomness is a strong part of Warhammer and should be improved upon. There is plenty of potential here.

Rebirth is only annoying because it can tilt the game all by itself in clutch moments.
glad you admit infantry spam is already present in other titles hence is not needed in this one, and it's best to devote this Total War to having fancy monsters with good animations.
That is a silly argument.

Warhammer isn't about monsters duking it out with each other. The staple of fantasy genre is humans being pitted against mythical creatures.

It is as much about dragons fighting shaggoths as it is about ordinary state troops holding the line against undead. Or immensely skilled wardancers trying to hold out against a horde of Beastmen. Or individuals like Tyrion prevailing against a bastiladon. Or someone talented as Teclis besting a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh.

If you remove humans from any fantasy setting, you lose all frame of reference.

There is very little point in having creatures of godlike powers like Kholek or Orion or Mazdamundi unless there's a Karl Franz type character to keep them grounded
well, my remark was a form of mockery, overall I agree I suppose.

what can I say, from Dwarf main to Dwarf main I agree with you, lad.

Bastilean · November 2020

Yeah, I noticed a lot of units didn't match up into griffons well, especially on the charge. Orc wyverns did especially bad.

Master on Dark Pegasus defeated all mid tier fliers but not Griffons for some reason.

I was almost wondering if the blood roar was negating the charge bonus or something, but I also noticed elf griffons doing better than other mid tier fliers as well vs. Master on Dark Pegasus my several tests.

On the plus side, dragons will be able to breath fire point blank now in this patch. At least, I believe this counts as an ability so no minimum range.

Also, not firing your bow during a skirmish with Franz is a big loss of DPS. Franz kitted out is far inferior to a feral moon dragon. Why didn't you test one of those? In general, I found the Princess on the Moon or Stardragon was very powerful in duels because of the missile damage.

I tested 2000g Moon Dragon vs. Franz on Blood Claw with Hold the Line (1981g). Moon Dragon took 7 of 10 wins.

Maybe you didn't run enough tests. I will try the Princess too, but I am not turning the bow off. That's the whole point of running the Princess. It should be about the same as the Feral but better.

yst · November 2020

mightygloin said:
You seem to care a little too much about the dragons for a dwarf player eh?

Gyrocopter needs +3000 mass and dragon breath it seems

Bastilean · November 2020

His stats are clearly inferior, so maybe he has a shorter attack interval.

Princess used breath weapons and was shooting.

Princess won 5 of 10. Maybe the princess has different animations or maybe the -2 MD is making a super big impact. Overall, this may show something might be off with princess on moon dragon.

That's the exact opposite impact you would think adding the princess to the dragon for 200g would have.

I will run 10 more just to gather some more data.

Loupi_ · November 2020

Bastilean said:

On the plus side, dragons will be able to breath fire point blank now in this patch. At least, I believe this counts as an ability so no minimum range.

.

i think the requirement is "not in melee" rather than a minimum range, so it shouldnt work.

Bastilean · November 2020

Well I hope that's not true, because that's anti-fun

Bastilean · November 2020

Second batch of tests, Princess on Moon Dragon beat Karl 9 out of 10, which is more like what I expected. There you go. There is a lot of RNG, and yes sometimes the models expose their flanks for no clear reason. Karl does it too. It's dumb and they do it, and I swear when their leadership goes down or they are losing they are more likely to go full moron, but there you go.

Bastilean · November 2020

I would really like to get attack intervals into the stat line. Seems very important and can be a big deciding factor. In TROY this stat is very clearly presented.

mightygloin · November 2020

Bastilean said:
sometimes the models expose their flanks for no clear reason.

Not even unique to birds. In that recent video, Grimgor turns his butt to Warsphinx as if readying to fart on its face and getting rear hit in the process.

Sarmatianns · November 2020

Yep, this is not unique to dragons or gryphons. A lof of attack animations are simple cancelled due to stagger from bumping. Karl probably has shorter animation, so he gets to land that first hit. Who knows, could be one of hundreds of reasons why they behave this way.

Witchblade · November 2020

This aligns with the generally iffiness of aerial combat in this game, as shown in the other thread on the first page here. Also, I think sometimes star dragons have trouble landing hits on ground targets too. I recently did a couple tests charging Imrik on dragon into Kroq on a cold one and he hits barely 50% of the time, though it should be 90%. Maybe bad luck, but I ran the test 8 times.

MamaLuigi · November 2020

Sarmatianns said:
Yep, this is not unique to dragons or gryphons. A lof of attack animations are simple cancelled due to stagger from bumping. Karl probably has shorter animation, so he gets to land that first hit. Who knows, could be one of hundreds of reasons why they behave this way.

Yeah happens a lot to vargulf which makes it worse than it seems when I use it

AWizard_Lizard · November 2020

It seems the animations are the game's Achilles' heel. Already mentioned in the General on Gryphon beats Master on Pegasus thread and others. Stats are less important than they seem in duels. That's basically what drove the change for the footlords in the first place. Hopefully air units (and horse characters) will be the next on the list.

tank3487 · November 2020

Gryphons perform really well in air duels are a well known thing. It is not just dragons. Try Hellsteeds vs Karl. Or Pegases AL specialist vs Karl.

CA_Duck · November 2020

There's most likely an animation issue at play there. There's an outstanding issue where one of the flying attacks ends with the dragon facing 45 degrees away from the enemy. This can open up the flank and also forces a turn to readjust the facing. That alone might explain the outcome.

EDIT: Looks like there are also moments where the defend animation sends the dragon back far enough to break the engagement and the entities get to charge in again. This favours Karl Franz due to the high charge bonus.

Green0 · November 2020

CA_Duck said:
There's most likely an animation issue at play there. There's an outstanding issue where one of the flying attacks ends with the dragon facing 45 degrees away from the enemy. This can open up the flank and also forces a turn to readjust the facing. That alone might explain the outcome.

EDIT: Looks like there are also moments where the defend animation sends the dragon back far enough to break the engagement and the entities get to charge in again. This favours Karl Franz due to the high charge bonus.

ah interesting. Ty for shedding light on this. I would like Dragons to become more consistent. Stats can be adjusted if needed so that they feel fair as I said, for me this is not about buffing some faction in particular.

Incidentally, we discussed this yesterday in Lotus's discord and it seems any non-Gryphon flyers share this issue of buggy attack animations/charge.

mightygloin said:
You seem to care a little too much about the wellbeing dragons for a dwarf player eh lad?

Green0 said:

mightygloin said:

Green0 said:

Sarmatianns said:

Green0 said:

mightygloin said:
I'd disagree. If you want simple, there are plenty of nice historical total wars around. They are pretty simple with Human Spearmen duking it out on another Human Spearmen till kingdom come. Randomness is a strong part of Warhammer and should be improved upon. There is plenty of potential here.

Rebirth is only annoying because it can tilt the game all by itself in clutch moments.
glad you admit infantry spam is already present in other titles hence is not needed in this one, and it's best to devote this Total War to having fancy monsters with good animations.
That is a silly argument.

Warhammer isn't about monsters duking it out with each other. The staple of fantasy genre is humans being pitted against mythical creatures.

It is as much about dragons fighting shaggoths as it is about ordinary state troops holding the line against undead. Or immensely skilled wardancers trying to hold out against a horde of Beastmen. Or individuals like Tyrion prevailing against a bastiladon. Or someone talented as Teclis besting a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh.

If you remove humans from any fantasy setting, you lose all frame of reference.

There is very little point in having creatures of godlike powers like Kholek or Orion or Mazdamundi unless there's a Karl Franz type character to keep them grounded
well, my remark was a form of mockery, overall I agree I suppose.

what can I say, from Dwarf main to Dwarf main I agree with you, lad.

what can I say, studying your enemy helps winning the Dreaded Matchups (is that what we call it in Karak discord? )

ShiroAmakusa75 · November 2020

It feels good when CA devs actually chime in on these issues. That creates more clarity and also makes one's input feel more appreciated, thanks, Duck!

Pocman · November 2020

ShiroAmakusa75 said:
It feels good when CA devs actually chime in on these issues. That creates more clarity and also makes one's input feel more appreciated, thanks, Duck!

For once, I agree with you

The_real_FAUST · November 2020

Thanks for the insight Duck

Disposable Hero · November 2020

CA_Duck said:
There's most likely an animation issue at play there. There's an outstanding issue where one of the flying attacks ends with the dragon facing 45 degrees away from the enemy. This can open up the flank and also forces a turn to readjust the facing. That alone might explain the outcome.

EDIT: Looks like there are also moments where the defend animation sends the dragon back far enough to break the engagement and the entities get to charge in again. This favours Karl Franz due to the high charge bonus.

Awesome, thanks!

I have noticed Pegasi like Boris or Karl peg do this vs arcane phoenix too and lose a fight they should not lose stat wise.

Godefroy_de_Bouillon · November 2020

No free buffs to spiky ears.

The_real_FAUST · November 2020

Bret peg hero's and Lords as well

The_real_FAUST · November 2020

I wonder of this affects the woeful ability of flyers to deal with small flying entities as well? They seem to hardly ever hit

Pico0 · November 2020

yep there is also a bug one of with another of the dragons animation when fighting on land, I made a topic in the bug category of the forum, but not sure it was taken into account.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Dm_o10UtJg

I think the original animation was the one in the glade lord introduction video, see timestamp 1:12 when the dragon rear up and slash the minotaur with its claws.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=O3wuS5zY_E4

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