Buff how reload speed mods work

[birdobash]

Currently almost no reload speed mod is actually worth the mod slot, and that's due to their generally low effect because of the way they function.

If you add +50% reload speed, you are turning the speed of your reload to 1.5x the normal rate, that is only a 25% decrease in reload time, and only the primed reload mods are capable of getting above 50% with every other reload mod in the game giving less than this, even chilling reload for shotguns gives less.

Instead of the mod adding reload "speed", it should instead decrease reload "time", cutting down on the duration of the reload instead of pumping up the speed of the reload. This would make that earlier +50% reload speed into -50% reload time, essentially cutting reload time in half, which is twice as much effectiveness as increasing reload speed by 50%, as -50% reload time is equivalent to +100% reload speed, and would also mean pumping more reload speed does not have a diminishing return effect due to reload speed being linear in effect.

Edited July 20, 2019 by birdobash

[DeMonkey]

24 minutes ago, birdobash said:

Instead of the mod adding reload "speed", it should instead decrease reload "time"

This. Set a cap and change the values of our current mods if needed so that we don't break the system by making reload's instant, just make leveling them worth it.

Every time I've ever brought this up I've been told I don't know how they work, how the return isn't actually diminishing because it increases the speed by the same amount every time. The argument was wrong, and remains wrong to this day. The speed is only relevant in determining the time taken to reload the weapon, and it reduces the time taken to reload the weapon by less and less with each rank whilst expecting more and more resources to be pumped into it.

I've never bothered leveling my reload speed mods beyond rank 8, because beyond that you're getting time reduction in the range of a tenth to less than a tenth of a second. I'll live, thanks.

Edited July 20, 2019 by DeMonkey

[Katinka]

I actually prefer it working this way as it prevents the need for an artificial cap.  I would be in favour of Power Efficiency going back to working this way too (as it used to a long time ago) instead of having the artificial cap of -75% cost.  I'd be in favour of more mods having diminishing returns as it would work towards naturally limiting power creep and encourage a balanced build over a min/max build.

[birdobash]

On 2019-07-20 at 5:10 PM, Katinka said:

I actually prefer it working this way as it prevents the need for an artificial cap.  I would be in favour of Power Efficiency going back to working this way too (as it used to a long time ago) instead of having the artificial cap of -75% cost.  I'd be in favour of more mods having diminishing returns as it would work towards naturally limiting power creep and encourage a balanced build over a min/max build.

You have to understand that this would not be the case at ALL, power efficiency and reload speed have completely different math and modifiers going on in the background.

Currently the max efficiency on castable ability cost is 175% (I'm ignoring channeling for simplicity sake), at 175% a 25 energy cost ability instead costs 7 (or was it 6?) energy, that's about 1/4th of the energy rounded upwards, ok, cool. However, this is NOT how reload speed works, this would be how it works if reload TIME was a thing. Reload SPEED at 175% (or +75%) only cuts down the time to about 1/0.57 of the time, or slightly under 2/3rds. The difference between 2/3rds and 1/4th is absolutely huge.

Another example would be if you had 200% power efficiency and 200% reload speed, at 200% power efficiency everything would cost 0 energy to cast (in theory), however, at 200% reload speed, your reload time is 50% the normal time. This makes a VAST difference. 

Imagine if power efficiency followed the same rules as reload speed, where 200% efficiency meant half the cost. Literally all builds would effectively be screwed for energy, and things like zenurik and arcane energize would become even MORE important than before.

Just like how barely anybody uses reload speed mods, if efficiency was changed to how reload speed works then nobody would use efficiency mods anymore as they wouldn't be worth the mod slot, since they just scale upwards so badly.

[Katinka]

Did you miss the part where I said "going back to working this way" and "as it used too"?  I KNOW that is not how Power Efficiency currently works, but it is how it USED TO work. 

Currently the term Power Efficiency and how it is presented in the UI doesn't even make sense.  If anything it should be rebranded Power Cost with all the positive value mods changed to negative.  The current Power Efficiency of 130% with Streamline gives 70% power cost, because it is actually -30% from the Power Cost and not efficiency at all.  Power Efficiency of +30% should mean that each point of Power spent would be worth 1.3 points instead, giving an inverse relationship between your Efficiency and your Cost but at least then 130% would make sense mathematically.  It used to work like that but people got confused by 30% Efficiency giving them about 23% reduction in cost and it was changed. 

I don't need to imagine it being like that, I lived with it like that.  Admittedly we didn't have Zenurik or Arcanes to make cost irrelevant, but we also didn't have as many enemies that made powers irrelevant either.  Powers were used in a pinch because they cost more, but when you used them they actually did something.  I'd rather that than being able to spam a power all day long but have it ignored by the enemies.