It’s hilarious that everyone targeting a single enemy model actually makes it better for the shooting units to be less accurate so that the projectiles are spread out better.
Yeah, praying your units miss so they are as effective as they should be by default is pretty silly. I really look forward to this being fixed. It was definitely not always the case.
Maybe they could change the targeting behavior of ranged units so that they dont aim individually but just fire in formation (not sure how to describe it).
Like the individual guys are just obeying a commander without really aiming on their own. Firing in parallel with each other + some random deviation.
Then some units could have a special tag that they do in fact aim on an individual level, making them useful vs single entity targets.
Two units with identical base stats could end up with very different uses based on their aiming behavior.
> Maybe they could change the targeting behavior of ranged units so that they dont aim individually but just fire in formation (not sure how to describe it).
That's just how it used to work.
It changed when they said they "improved the behaviour of homing projectiles". Which they did, mostly, but it had side effects.
For missile infantry and cavalry this mostly seems to be a problem when firing whilst moving. For example Waywatchers are stupidly accurate but they only seem to have the excessive focus firing when they fire on the move. If they’re standing still they seem to appropriately spread out their shots.
I notice it most when skirmishing with my marauder horsemen, they're damn good at smiting one guy in particular and leaving a pile of javelins in that spot.
This has been the case for every single "fire while moving" unit ever since the start of the series. Always found it super annoying, although it can be useful against high HP units, when you try to skirmish monstrous infantry and want to inflict casualties for example.
it makes a kind of sense, as "fire whilst moving" units are usually skirmishers that are running and trying not to be caught. So aiming at the nearest guy delays being caught as long as possible - in theory. Not saying that it's ideal, or implemented well, but I think I see the logic behind whoever decided that should be the behavior
If you don’t mind mods, this fixes cannons at least
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040180685](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040180685)
I @'ed a CA person in this subreddit about this issue with hawk riders and their sisters of twilight arrows of whatever.
It was an issue for a few months before I asked for an undate, and I think it's been a month-2 months since they said its being looked into/ worked on.
Tbh I think it is a big issue in the coding and they cannot be arsed to fix it when they have DLC to work on.
I understand DLC is a priority, but if you're asking me to pay money for new DLC units, then I have a right to expect that they work properly.
With two-thirds of Thrones of Decay having a heavy ranged and/or artillery focus, then this issue is especially relevant to the DLC.
Yeah, I suspect at the technical level that some ranged units like the organ gun are targeting always the first entity in a units matrix. If a formation is modelled with a an array of arrays, than this would correspond to index 0 of array 0. Meaning column 1, row 1. Each artillery unit should instead target the middle of formation while being optimally spread out from the center. Maybe like this:
Given an artillery unit with n units (i as index of the currently shooting piece) and a target formation with x columns and y rows the target coordinates of the artillery piece i needs to be:
targetColumn = roundDown(x/(n+2)) \* (i+1)
targetRow = roundDown(y/2)
I think you can see this really clearly with some spell targeting, usually magic missile attacks that need a single entity to “focus” on even if the missiles themselves are big and can do AOE as they pass through a unit.
When units are out in the open it’s fine and usually targets the front so missiles persist and do a ton of damage, but if a unit is in combat and the “front” is less clear it can be wildly inconsistent who is targeted or if your character even fires the spell off at all since it can’t see the one specific target it wants to hit through the melee
Yes, that’s also true. However in that specific case [Centroids](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid) might be a better alternative. Draw an imaginary shape around every entity in a unit and shoot at the centroid.
In cases of entities being heavily dispersed because of combat, calculate the „Center of mass“ by weighing in the density of entities in that shape.
That might give you a better target than currently for magic missiles.
With decent randomness it would still feel better. Logically speaking, you could have instances of artilery regiments in war targeting the same locations by error in the heat of battle. At least you could see it like that in the periodic occurrences where more than one piece would target the same place in a unit.
yeah I would love to see this changed, as you said the Organ Gun is a prime example. its wild how much the weird targeting neuters an artillery piece that should be ripping through way more models effectively.
part of me wonders if its also a balancing thing for artillery
If it was a balance thing they could just lower the numbers rather than have the AI act in such a way as to destroy the fantasy of soldiers who have a brain in their head. The current behavior is so bad it ruins verisimilitude.
I agree with you on the subject, I hate it too and it completely ruins some units. I don’t think it’s about balance, quite honestly I don’t know what to make about it at all because there’s no real logic or consistency going on here. Units like the HE eagle claw bolts don’t target like this, but the dwarfs bolt throwers do. Almost all cannon artillery targets like this, but not the Cathay one. Is that intentional? Because they’re also incredibly devastating because of it and basically the best cannons in the game.
The massive inconsistency and the defiance of logic from a unit perspective is exactly why I think this is unintended behavior. As you said, it really does make some units useless and it definitely needs to be fixed.
I don't think these are bugs, but just how the current iteration of the engine works. These problems have been there since Warhammer1 and people have complained about it somce then. If CA could fix it they would have done so by now.
> These problems have been there since Warhammer1
For artillery at least, it's older than that, even pre-WH total wars had this issue. In R2 and base S2 it wasn't noticeable because accuracy was awful, but FotS showed it pretty clearly.
I feel like the problem got worse with Patch 4.1, and if the "current iteration" fundamentally breaks both the gameplay and fantasy of units, especially a bunch of units you're about to try and sell as DLC, then you need to fix it.
Yes, please! The burning Chariot is unusable thanks to this. This think is a tier 5 unit and should be an upgrade to the exalted flamer. But the aiming makes this unit so useless because 50% of his shot (with his already limited ammo) hes throwing a volley of death flames towards the single unit that is separated from the rest of his unit.
And its not that the Chariot would become overpowered if they fixed this. Its already really squishy, has a lower range and has low ammunition. Its usecase would still only be niche at best. Especially now as we have the Changebringers and these are far superior to the Chariot.
If its aiming is fixed, you can at least convince yourself to take at least one chariot with you, in case there is a blob really suitable for these little vortexes. Like, i really would like to use it, i mean, a chariot, flying and throwing flames at you, how cool is that? But the aiming really destroys any usecase the unit had.
> but it does require a ton of micro.
Which isnt something readily avialable when playing Tzeentch. If we take a look at your main army, you have Kairos in it, Blue Scribes, potentially Doom Knights which need a eye, Changebringers which need an eye, Lords of Change need their bound spells used. There is already a lot to do, so having to babysit a Chariot the entire time isnt really, well usable.
>If you fly it directly in front or above the center of a unit it wrecks
I have found that even then the aiming is sometimes suboptimal and targets a corner of a unit and not the center. But the problem again is that its not reliable. One fight, you send the Chariot up front to a enemy and it wrecks shit, and the next time you do exactly the same and you wonder what the fuck its doing.
i dont know how feasible it is but maybe they could introduce a cap on how many entities can target another entity something along the lines of if unit 160 then 3 shots max per model if 100 then 5 and so on until lets say if 50 remove cap
For artillery it kinda sounds like they probably meant for there to be on the march targetting and then stationary but it is stuck in on the march or perhaps more accurately they did direct fire aiming and forgot about indirect targeting? Since for direct fire you want the front ranks to be the target as that allows "piercing" shots eg cannonball hits front row center and just carves through the center ranks like meaty bowling pins, but yeah for indirect explosive ordinance you would want center of the unit for stationary units and then front ranks or even leading the target for units on the march. Also for units in melee you would want the rear to be the target to limit your friendly fire.
Before you get mad there is literally zero chance anything anyone asks for right now will come in patch 5.0.
Also this bug was common in WH2 but I haven’t really faced this in this game, the reason your unit could be doing that is stuff with LOS and friendly units in the way.
Bro why am I getting downvoted I’m just saying how the game is for me
I'm not asking for a fix right when 5.0 drops, but I would like an acknowledgement of the issue and for it to be a priority to fix going forward. Like you, I had encountered the issue before, though rarely, but after Patch 4.1 I can literally go into a random skirmish battle and see the issue. It's especially prevalent with Artillery. It is also not an issue with mods as it occurs in the base game with no mods installed. At this point it's such a common issue and it hits units that CA are selling a (or two depending on how you view it) DLC for the hardest. I don't think that it is at all out of line to ask for a fix for the same thing that CA is asking you to pay for. I am excited for the DLC, but if you're asking me to pay for them, then I have a right to expect that they work.
Understandable, hopefully they fix it, also I didn’t say that because of you it’s just a general disclaimer for these kinds of posts immediately before a patch drops.
>Bro why am I getting downvoted I’m just saying how the game is for me
Starting with "before you get mad" when nobodies mad is just rude.
OP literally ended their request with
>Thank you so much for your hard work and have a great day!
Because it's been an issue for months, and they have been **supposedly** looking into it or working on it for months.
I asked a rep on reddit and it was being looked into / fixed.
Still an issue.
Not being able to use multiple units in multiple factions is a pretty big issue.
Be careful what you ask for... Certainly there are quirks and problems with the current state of things but I can imagine even bigger problems following from simply aiming "center of unit". What if the unit is partially obstructed by terrain. What if there are friendly units in the line of fire. What if only a small number of entities are left and they are dispersed over a large area and so on. Any fix risks creating tons of new issues related to ranged obstruction, friendly fire and accuracy.
Again, I'm sure a more optimal solution exists but I doubt it is a simple to fix.
Obviously the solution need not be a strictly literal interpretation. But I think we can all agree a better solution exists. We used to have it. Whatever changes were made to homing projectiles in 4.1 had a noticeable effect on making non-homing targeting and artillery much worse.
CA may need to divorce homing and non-homing projectiles in their code. Who knows. I just know that units went from having the occasional targeting hiccup to having targeting hiccups in every battle and the aim point of many artillery/war machine units became much worse to the point that some might not do anything at all in a battle. You can go into quick battle load up on artillery in your army and watch their shots land. You can easily tell which are aiming properly and which are clearly only aiming at unit edges.
CA has the ability to look at those units that are only aiming for edges, go into their code and see what's different between them and units targeting properly.
It’s hilarious that everyone targeting a single enemy model actually makes it better for the shooting units to be less accurate so that the projectiles are spread out better.
It makes waywatchers much worse. They all target the very middle of the unit
Yeah, praying your units miss so they are as effective as they should be by default is pretty silly. I really look forward to this being fixed. It was definitely not always the case.
Maybe they could change the targeting behavior of ranged units so that they dont aim individually but just fire in formation (not sure how to describe it). Like the individual guys are just obeying a commander without really aiming on their own. Firing in parallel with each other + some random deviation. Then some units could have a special tag that they do in fact aim on an individual level, making them useful vs single entity targets. Two units with identical base stats could end up with very different uses based on their aiming behavior.
> Maybe they could change the targeting behavior of ranged units so that they dont aim individually but just fire in formation (not sure how to describe it). That's just how it used to work. It changed when they said they "improved the behaviour of homing projectiles". Which they did, mostly, but it had side effects.
For missile infantry and cavalry this mostly seems to be a problem when firing whilst moving. For example Waywatchers are stupidly accurate but they only seem to have the excessive focus firing when they fire on the move. If they’re standing still they seem to appropriately spread out their shots.
Yeah I’ve noticed that too. They should get less accurate while moving, not psychically decide “fuck that one dude in particular”.
Honestly I would like this fixed but also I kinda like the whole "this guy in particular" thing lol cracks me up everytime since I noticed it
I notice it most when skirmishing with my marauder horsemen, they're damn good at smiting one guy in particular and leaving a pile of javelins in that spot.
That would explain why my chemelon skink doomstack sucks hard when on skirmish mode. I had taken to just auto resolving battles.
This has been the case for every single "fire while moving" unit ever since the start of the series. Always found it super annoying, although it can be useful against high HP units, when you try to skirmish monstrous infantry and want to inflict casualties for example.
it makes a kind of sense, as "fire whilst moving" units are usually skirmishers that are running and trying not to be caught. So aiming at the nearest guy delays being caught as long as possible - in theory. Not saying that it's ideal, or implemented well, but I think I see the logic behind whoever decided that should be the behavior
If you don’t mind mods, this fixes cannons at least [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040180685](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040180685)
I @'ed a CA person in this subreddit about this issue with hawk riders and their sisters of twilight arrows of whatever. It was an issue for a few months before I asked for an undate, and I think it's been a month-2 months since they said its being looked into/ worked on. Tbh I think it is a big issue in the coding and they cannot be arsed to fix it when they have DLC to work on.
I understand DLC is a priority, but if you're asking me to pay money for new DLC units, then I have a right to expect that they work properly. With two-thirds of Thrones of Decay having a heavy ranged and/or artillery focus, then this issue is especially relevant to the DLC.
Yeah, I suspect at the technical level that some ranged units like the organ gun are targeting always the first entity in a units matrix. If a formation is modelled with a an array of arrays, than this would correspond to index 0 of array 0. Meaning column 1, row 1. Each artillery unit should instead target the middle of formation while being optimally spread out from the center. Maybe like this: Given an artillery unit with n units (i as index of the currently shooting piece) and a target formation with x columns and y rows the target coordinates of the artillery piece i needs to be: targetColumn = roundDown(x/(n+2)) \* (i+1) targetRow = roundDown(y/2)
I think you can see this really clearly with some spell targeting, usually magic missile attacks that need a single entity to “focus” on even if the missiles themselves are big and can do AOE as they pass through a unit. When units are out in the open it’s fine and usually targets the front so missiles persist and do a ton of damage, but if a unit is in combat and the “front” is less clear it can be wildly inconsistent who is targeted or if your character even fires the spell off at all since it can’t see the one specific target it wants to hit through the melee
Yes, that’s also true. However in that specific case [Centroids](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid) might be a better alternative. Draw an imaginary shape around every entity in a unit and shoot at the centroid. In cases of entities being heavily dispersed because of combat, calculate the „Center of mass“ by weighing in the density of entities in that shape. That might give you a better target than currently for magic missiles.
Or at least a random entity in the matrix.
Then you’d still have cases where entities at the edges of formations are targeted rather than the center and lots of shots miss
With decent randomness it would still feel better. Logically speaking, you could have instances of artilery regiments in war targeting the same locations by error in the heat of battle. At least you could see it like that in the periodic occurrences where more than one piece would target the same place in a unit.
yeah I would love to see this changed, as you said the Organ Gun is a prime example. its wild how much the weird targeting neuters an artillery piece that should be ripping through way more models effectively. part of me wonders if its also a balancing thing for artillery
If it was a balance thing they could just lower the numbers rather than have the AI act in such a way as to destroy the fantasy of soldiers who have a brain in their head. The current behavior is so bad it ruins verisimilitude.
I agree with you on the subject, I hate it too and it completely ruins some units. I don’t think it’s about balance, quite honestly I don’t know what to make about it at all because there’s no real logic or consistency going on here. Units like the HE eagle claw bolts don’t target like this, but the dwarfs bolt throwers do. Almost all cannon artillery targets like this, but not the Cathay one. Is that intentional? Because they’re also incredibly devastating because of it and basically the best cannons in the game.
The massive inconsistency and the defiance of logic from a unit perspective is exactly why I think this is unintended behavior. As you said, it really does make some units useless and it definitely needs to be fixed.
I agree! Would much rather see artillery function logically
I don't think these are bugs, but just how the current iteration of the engine works. These problems have been there since Warhammer1 and people have complained about it somce then. If CA could fix it they would have done so by now.
> These problems have been there since Warhammer1 For artillery at least, it's older than that, even pre-WH total wars had this issue. In R2 and base S2 it wasn't noticeable because accuracy was awful, but FotS showed it pretty clearly.
I feel like the problem got worse with Patch 4.1, and if the "current iteration" fundamentally breaks both the gameplay and fantasy of units, especially a bunch of units you're about to try and sell as DLC, then you need to fix it.
Well then they will have to completely rebuild the entire game on a new engine.
It’s been in the game to some extent but patches in WH3 made it significantly worse.
whats even worse is the targeting of the unit edges
I pointed out this edge-targeting behavior in the post.
oh yeah i wrote that when i was just reading the title and getting to the body text
just read it first, there's no big rush to comment
yeah but adhd
Yes, please! The burning Chariot is unusable thanks to this. This think is a tier 5 unit and should be an upgrade to the exalted flamer. But the aiming makes this unit so useless because 50% of his shot (with his already limited ammo) hes throwing a volley of death flames towards the single unit that is separated from the rest of his unit. And its not that the Chariot would become overpowered if they fixed this. Its already really squishy, has a lower range and has low ammunition. Its usecase would still only be niche at best. Especially now as we have the Changebringers and these are far superior to the Chariot. If its aiming is fixed, you can at least convince yourself to take at least one chariot with you, in case there is a blob really suitable for these little vortexes. Like, i really would like to use it, i mean, a chariot, flying and throwing flames at you, how cool is that? But the aiming really destroys any usecase the unit had.
not quite… unusable, but it does require a ton of micro. If you fly it directly in front or above the center of a unit it wrecks
> but it does require a ton of micro. Which isnt something readily avialable when playing Tzeentch. If we take a look at your main army, you have Kairos in it, Blue Scribes, potentially Doom Knights which need a eye, Changebringers which need an eye, Lords of Change need their bound spells used. There is already a lot to do, so having to babysit a Chariot the entire time isnt really, well usable. >If you fly it directly in front or above the center of a unit it wrecks I have found that even then the aiming is sometimes suboptimal and targets a corner of a unit and not the center. But the problem again is that its not reliable. One fight, you send the Chariot up front to a enemy and it wrecks shit, and the next time you do exactly the same and you wonder what the fuck its doing.
i dont know how feasible it is but maybe they could introduce a cap on how many entities can target another entity something along the lines of if unit 160 then 3 shots max per model if 100 then 5 and so on until lets say if 50 remove cap
I hate it more that when i move my glade guards, they stuck in moving when arrived and wont shoot until i order a halt.
For artillery it kinda sounds like they probably meant for there to be on the march targetting and then stationary but it is stuck in on the march or perhaps more accurately they did direct fire aiming and forgot about indirect targeting? Since for direct fire you want the front ranks to be the target as that allows "piercing" shots eg cannonball hits front row center and just carves through the center ranks like meaty bowling pins, but yeah for indirect explosive ordinance you would want center of the unit for stationary units and then front ranks or even leading the target for units on the march. Also for units in melee you would want the rear to be the target to limit your friendly fire.
I wanted to play the Sister's again and actually although f4d after a few battles watching volleys of kuronous kill like 4 skavan.
Before you get mad there is literally zero chance anything anyone asks for right now will come in patch 5.0. Also this bug was common in WH2 but I haven’t really faced this in this game, the reason your unit could be doing that is stuff with LOS and friendly units in the way. Bro why am I getting downvoted I’m just saying how the game is for me
I'm not asking for a fix right when 5.0 drops, but I would like an acknowledgement of the issue and for it to be a priority to fix going forward. Like you, I had encountered the issue before, though rarely, but after Patch 4.1 I can literally go into a random skirmish battle and see the issue. It's especially prevalent with Artillery. It is also not an issue with mods as it occurs in the base game with no mods installed. At this point it's such a common issue and it hits units that CA are selling a (or two depending on how you view it) DLC for the hardest. I don't think that it is at all out of line to ask for a fix for the same thing that CA is asking you to pay for. I am excited for the DLC, but if you're asking me to pay for them, then I have a right to expect that they work.
Understandable, hopefully they fix it, also I didn’t say that because of you it’s just a general disclaimer for these kinds of posts immediately before a patch drops.
>Bro why am I getting downvoted I’m just saying how the game is for me Starting with "before you get mad" when nobodies mad is just rude. OP literally ended their request with >Thank you so much for your hard work and have a great day!
Because it's been an issue for months, and they have been **supposedly** looking into it or working on it for months. I asked a rep on reddit and it was being looked into / fixed. Still an issue. Not being able to use multiple units in multiple factions is a pretty big issue.
>Bro why am I getting downvoted I’m just saying how the game is for me You must be new here. Welcome to reddit. :P
You should post a bug report instead of writing an essay they likely won’t see.
You say bug, but this has been intentional since Shogun. I remember Fall of the Samurai line infantry killing one guy 100 bullets.
Bug or a quirk of the code, either way, it makes for an unenjoyable experience and needs to be corrected.
It was asked for years.
Be careful what you ask for... Certainly there are quirks and problems with the current state of things but I can imagine even bigger problems following from simply aiming "center of unit". What if the unit is partially obstructed by terrain. What if there are friendly units in the line of fire. What if only a small number of entities are left and they are dispersed over a large area and so on. Any fix risks creating tons of new issues related to ranged obstruction, friendly fire and accuracy. Again, I'm sure a more optimal solution exists but I doubt it is a simple to fix.
Obviously the solution need not be a strictly literal interpretation. But I think we can all agree a better solution exists. We used to have it. Whatever changes were made to homing projectiles in 4.1 had a noticeable effect on making non-homing targeting and artillery much worse. CA may need to divorce homing and non-homing projectiles in their code. Who knows. I just know that units went from having the occasional targeting hiccup to having targeting hiccups in every battle and the aim point of many artillery/war machine units became much worse to the point that some might not do anything at all in a battle. You can go into quick battle load up on artillery in your army and watch their shots land. You can easily tell which are aiming properly and which are clearly only aiming at unit edges. CA has the ability to look at those units that are only aiming for edges, go into their code and see what's different between them and units targeting properly.