While the weapon calculation formulas are known within the game I am not sure if I agree to how it is being applied. There are 5 main number of factors on how effective (damaging) a weapon is against any general object. Some armors protect better against different damage types but that is not the point of this discussion. Here are the main things that should be considered when weapon damages are calculated.
1. Design
- The ultimate design of a weapon determines how effectively the force applied from a person is applied to the point, edge, or surface being used as an attack point. So compare a short sword to a two handed sword and you can see that the design (weight disbursement and effective area to force ratio for the edge) is heavily weighted for the two handed sword to do more damage.
2. Material
- The race for arms was heavily dependent upon materials. Hence when bronze short swords were met with iron swords the bronze ones shattered and many battles were won by superior materials.
3. Skill
- Compare the amount of damage a student swordsman can do compared to a master swordsman with the same weapon, it is a night and day comparison.
4. Strength
- Once all factors above are equal strength can be applied to add additional damage if enough strength to effectively wield a weapon are already met.
5. Magic
- This is the only one that doesn't exist in the real world but could almost be applied to the materials bonus as it just further enhances the base weapon not the external factors applied to the weapon except there are also external magical buffs that can boost weapon damages.
This is not a comparison of weapon speeds or the effect of speed within the game but simply a quick look into weapon damages and things to consider when calculating them.