The calculation for reload speed and heavy attack wind up feels awful.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Reload Time = Weapon Reload Time ÷ (1 + Mod Reload Bonus)

That's the formula used for reload mods, and upon testing is also the formula used for heavy attack wind up mods like Amalgam Organ Shatter and Killing Blow.

It feels absolutely awful due to the dramatically diminishing returns it has, and how lack luster it feels regardless of how much is used.  Reload mods aren't commonly used due to them not being enough of a DPS increase to justify replacing another mod, but also aren't exilus because they technically increase DPS, even though the majority of weapon exilus mods aren't worth the work to actually use them.  When people clamored for weapon exilus, reload is probably what the majority of them wanted to put in the slot, because reload in this game is usually horrible at base, relative to the rest of the weapon's stats.

With straight heavy attack only weapon builds entering the meta, people are speccing for wind up speed, but only because both wind up speed mods come with other worthwhile bonuses.  The issue, is that due to the calculation, using both mods is hardly worth it.  

Scythes have a wind up speed of 1.  With either mod for wind up (both are 60%) it takes it down to a 0.6.  Using both however (twice as much wind up speed) only gets you down to a 0.5.  Is a difference of 1/10th of a second WITH higher mod drain really worth 5% CD?

A rank 5 Quickdraw (for simple number comparison, it's 40% at R5.) VS a rank 9 Primed Quickdraw with double the speed at 80% doesn't have even close to double the effect.  A rank 5 QD on a weapon with a reload speed of 3 takes it down to a 2.1, difference of 0.9.  A R9 PQD takes it down by 1.3 to a reload speed of 1.7, a difference in the mod's efficacy of 0.4, which is less than half a second of reload time.  Less than half of the 40% mod's effect is gained by adding another 40%.  

I get they probably want it this way.  That the diminishing returns are done for "balance" or whatever they want to call it.  But it feels awful.  Especially because reload on some weapons, even with reload mods feels awful, and heavy attacks feel awful to use regardless if you're using them as the only attack or if you're mixing them in "as intended."  They do not feel good on any weapon type with a long wind up.  They are slow and clunky and this is the reason people weren't using charge attacks in melee 2.0.  They feel exactly like those did.

[taiiat]

• there's Mods for auto Reloading that fit in Exilus anyways, and those are even better than Reload Mods since you just don't need to Reload.
  • outside of that, the Weapons that would really need Reload reduction, ones with long Reloads, get the most effect out of Reload Mods anyways, so it seems to work acceptably.
• you wouldn't really have a situation of having more than two bonuses to Heavy speed anyways, eh? more than about 2 instances of this bonus would start costing you a lot of Damage since you'd have to eat into your Damage Mods.

by the way, in your case example for Heavies, one 60% Heavy speed bonus brings you to 0.625, while a second brings you to 0.454. this is obviously still significantly less than the first 60%, but to be clear it's an extra 170 Milliseconds, not just 100 Milliseconds. (170 Milliseconds vs 375 Milliseconds)

similarly, from 3 a second Reload, 40% is 2.1428, while 80% is 1.6666. again, the second segment is nowhere near as effective as the first, but it's still more than the game makes it seem like(476 Miliseconds, to be exact, vs 857 Milliseconds). 

 

in a way, is this even really a bad thing? if these Mods scaled linearly, you'd have a lot of cases where you stack as much of it as possible, as it would suddenly become one of the most important stats for most Weapons. creating a new type of 'Mandatory Mod'.

[Tiltskillet]

RE: reload mods.  I think the way reload reduction is calculated is fine.  But the mod  bonuses themselves could use an overall increase.  And there are some weapons with long base reloads that should be better compensated by other advantages or have those reloads reduced.

 

[v1ld_wf]

Thanks for posting this - was just coming here to ask what the formula is after stacking 2 +60% wind up "speed" mods on Reaper Prime and seeing the 0.5s listed value.  This isn't a very intuitive calculation when the mod says "+60% speed" which I interpreted to mean that 2x +60% would give you a +84% reduction in the value = 0.16, taking you to the cap of 0.2s.

Don't like it, but at least I now know why the numbers are what they are.  The description is outright misleading.

[.Unreality]

14 hours ago, taiiat said:

in a way, is this even really a bad thing? if these Mods scaled linearly, you'd have a lot of cases where you stack as much of it as possible, as it would suddenly become one of the most important stats for most Weapons. creating a new type of 'Mandatory Mod'.

Actually these mods do scale linearly. They scale linearly in the increase of heavy attack wind up speed. It's just that heavy attack wind up time is the inverse of heavy attack wind up speed. Same with reload time to reload speed. It's like saying that if instead of getting fire rate as a stat, you got the time between shots as a stat.

It's the fact that they scale linearly that makes them not a mandatory mod. It's the same reason why Augur Pact is not a mandatory mod alongside Hornet Strike even though base damage is the best stat to mod.

13 hours ago, v1ld_wf said:

Thanks for posting this - was just coming here to ask what the formula is after stacking 2 +60% wind up "speed" mods on Reaper Prime and seeing the 0.5s listed value.  This isn't a very intuitive calculation when the mod says "+60% speed" which I interpreted to mean that 2x +60% would give you a +84% reduction in the value = 0.16, taking you to the cap of 0.2s.

Don't like it, but at least I now know why the numbers are what they are.  The description is outright misleading.

There is no cap, it's just that the stats only show 1 decimal point and rounding will always bring it up to 0.2.

Edited December 10, 2019 by .Unreality

[taiiat]

7 hours ago, .Unreality said:

Actually these mods do scale linearly. They scale linearly in the increase of heavy attack wind up speed. It's just that heavy attack wind up time is the inverse of heavy attack wind up speed. Same with reload time to reload speed. It's like saying that if instead of getting fire rate as a stat, you got the time between shots as a stat.

It's the fact that they scale linearly that makes them not a mandatory mod. It's the same reason why Augur Pact is not a mandatory mod alongside Hornet Strike even though base damage is the best stat to mod.

erm. things are pretty much always rated based on what their actual effect is, not the make believe numbers that the Mod works by, people care about what it actually does. 
and soo.... it's not Linear, because the trend for the actual result isn't Linear. 

not Linear.

[.Unreality]

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

erm. things are pretty much always rated based on what their actual effect is, not the make believe numbers that the Mod works by, people care about what it actually does. 
and soo.... it's not Linear, because the trend for the actual result isn't Linear. 

not Linear.

Again, it's the same if instead of fire rate you got time between shots. It's like saying fire rate is not linear because the decrease in time between shots is not linear. I can make a graph comparing increases to fire rate bonus and the time between shots and it would look exactly the same.

Also the fact that it's linear is what actually causes diminishing returns. It's basically the difference between 100 and 200 versus the difference between 1000 and 1100. The difference is still 100 but it's clear that 100 to 200 is much better.

If you want it to linearly decrease the reload time then it would actually have increasing returns. There's a reason why the linear decrease of power efficiency has a cap, think about the difference between 50, 75 and 100.

Edited December 11, 2019 by .Unreality

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Imagine being so adamant about defending DE that you make spread sheets and graphs.

The very simple fact of the matter is that using both of the wind up speed mods on a weapon creates no discernible difference in the wind up speed during actual use over just using 1 of them, for the vast majority of weapon types.  You're literally doubling the amount of wind up speed that you're modding for and it's doing nothing for the actual speed of the weapon, due entirely to diminishing returns.

The fact that you point out that reload speed works best on weapons with long reload speed only solidifies my point.  Since they use the same calculation, weapons with long wind up times would be the only ones to benefit from modding for it, but the longest wind up times we have are ones that are on par with the decent reload times, meaning by your own statements, modding for wind up won't be very effective.  And it's not.  Heavy attacks feel incredibly clunky and awkward regardless of if you mod for them or not.  This would be entirely mitigated by increasing the effectiveness of these mods by changing their calculation.  Slow and clunky if you don't mod for it, less clunky if you do.  Just like taking a DPS hit on a gun by modding for reload speed wouldn't feel anywhere near as bad if you could effectively mod for it and actually get the sort of fast reload you need in a game that plays at this pace on more than just a handful of weapons.

Edited December 11, 2019 by (XB1)TehChubbyDugan

[VentiGlondi]

Threads like these is why efficiency stat isn't actually efficiency.

[taiiat]

2 hours ago, .Unreality said:

Again, it's the same if instead of fire rate you got time between shots. It's like saying fire rate is not linear because the decrease in time between shots is not linear. I can make a graph comparing increases to fire rate bonus and the time between shots and it would look exactly the same.

Also the fact that it's linear is what actually causes diminishing returns. It's basically the difference between 100 and 200 versus the difference between 1000 and 1100. The difference is still 100 but it's clear that 100 to 200 is much better.

yes, increasing Fire Rate is also not Linear. the actual result from what you're modifying is what you rate things by. almost all Stats are Additive to themselves, almost all of them are not linearly modified.
except when you go negative, negative values for Additive Bonuses are Linear.

you're looking at the wrong part of this - the Stat itself is Linear, but we don't care about the Stat, we care about the actual result in the game.

1 hour ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Imagine being so adamant about defending DE that you make spread sheets and graphs.

The fact that you point out that reload speed works best on weapons with long reload speed only solidifies my point.

imagine.... being so whatever you are that you think anyone is defending anything.

it's sort've a perfect situation, that the Mods are most effective in the situations that you'd need it most. the worth of modifying a Stat, any Stat, is based on the result that you'll get from it. adding Damage to your Weapon isn't Linear either, which is why we (or we should, maybe not everyone does it) compare A vs B and find what gives us the most Damage.

Edited December 11, 2019 by taiiat

[.Unreality]

6 minutes ago, taiiat said:

yes, increasing Fire Rate is also not Linear. the actual result from what you're modifying is what you rate things by. almost all Stats are Additive to themselves, almost all of them are not linearly modified.
except when you go negative, negative values for Additive Bonuses are Linear.

To argue semantics, linear is to imply that every point of effect is the same as the last. In that sense, all stats except for Power Efficiency does this since all stats increase by a percentage of the base. Adding 100 to 100 is the same as adding 100 to 1000 in that they both add 100 but adding to 1000 is less effective because it is 1.1x more compared to 2x more when adding to 100. This is diminishing returns but the effect is linear, basically linear scaling has diminishing returns and that's just how it is.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

19 hours ago, taiiat said:

imagine.... being so whatever you are that you think anyone is defending anything.

The act of making a counter argument at all is to defend the design choice that I am currently attacking.  That you would go so far as to produce actual friggin graphs just to refute someone's opinion that there should be a beneficial change in favor of the players is pretty funny.

[taiiat]

27 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

The act of making a counter argument at all is to defend the design choice that I am currently attacking.  That you would go so far as to produce actual friggin graphs just to refute someone's opinion that there should be a beneficial change in favor of the players is pretty funny.

sounds more like talking about math, to me. to understand the exact way things works allows finding where __ may excel or fail.

i don't know why you would get offended by a Graph. it's the simplest way to display the information to show the meaning of said information. the only thing i can think of is you're simply unhappy because someone doesn't agree with the higher Stats that you want, irregardless of why.

 

you might - or perhaps not based on the limited if any discussion incoming back to me - have noticed that my first statements were quite  casual discussion in nature.

Edited December 11, 2019 by taiiat

[Tiltskillet]

10 hours ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

That you would go so far as to produce actual friggin graphs just to refute someone's opinion that there should be a beneficial change in favor of the players is pretty funny.

Yeah, it takes some nerve using actual evidence on these forums.

..

[Teridax68]

On 2019-12-10 at 2:02 AM, Tiltskillet said:

RE: reload mods.  I think the way reload reduction is calculated is fine.  But the mod  bonuses themselves could use an overall increase.  And there are some weapons with long base reloads that should be better compensated by other advantages or have those reloads reduced.

 

This is my opinion on the matter. I don't think it's a case of "diminishing returns", because reducing those times by some fixed percentage in fact creates increasing relative returns: just as an example, melee weapon with an attack delay of 1 second leads to some finite amount of DPS, but a melee weapon with an attack delay of 0 will have infinite DPS, by dint of performing a theoretically infinite number of attacks within the same instant. However, the mod bonuses we're getting are exceedingly low, such that they provide incredibly little benefit even when one does specifically build for faster reloads or heavy attacks. As such, the current numbers we have could easily be multiplied and not harm balance.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

On 2019-12-11 at 6:36 PM, taiiat said:

sounds more like talking about math, to me. to understand the exact way things works allows finding where __ may excel or fail.

i don't know why you would get offended by a Graph. it's the simplest way to display the information to show the meaning of said information. the only thing i can think of is you're simply unhappy because someone doesn't agree with the higher Stats that you want, irregardless of why.

 

you might - or perhaps not based on the limited if any discussion incoming back to me - have noticed that my first statements were quite  casual discussion in nature.

I'm not discussing it with you much because you think the fact that you made a graph makes you right.  The fact that I've already stated multiple times, that even doubling the amount of speed you're modding for can have no discernible effect in actual gameplay over a single mod's base increase, is the only thing I'm trying to discuss.  The numbers I provided, which are the numbers shown in-game and close enough to your non-rounded numbers for it to not matter, were provided for illustration of diminishing returns and a lack of effect, NOT for nit-picking hundredths of a second or argue the definition of the word linear.

Long reloads and slow clunky attacks feel bad.  Huge drain on mod capacity and multiple mod slots being used and the issues still not being resolved with long reloads and slow clunky attacks is the point I was making, and is NOT the point you were discussing.

[taiiat]

28 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

I'm not discussing it with you much because you think the fact that you made a graph makes you right.

so then should nobody discuss the subject with you because you think that wanting something makes you right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

 

Secondary Class Weapons already have Reload Mods that are sufficient. Fast Hands/Primed leaves something to be desired, but that's an easy number adjustment.
and then for Heavies, one of the most relevant points was ignored.

Quote

you wouldn't really have a situation of having more than two bonuses to Heavy speed anyways, eh? more than about 2 instances of this bonus would start costing you a lot of Damage since you'd have to eat into your Damage Mods.

 

37 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

The fact that I've already stated multiple times, that even doubling the amount of speed you're modding for can have no discernible effect in actual gameplay over a single mod's base increase, is the only thing I'm trying to discuss.

but it isn't, when it actually matters.

a Charge Attack already starting at 1 second means it gets less of an improvement, but it was already faster to begin with, so that's..... really affecting the most important parts, as has expressed already. multiple instances of any of these Positive Modifier Bonuses are quite effective when you would really want/need them to be anyways. 
you're exclusively harping about not getting the same benefit each time you add a Bonus - but is the Bonus a significant difference in actual play, which is the other half of the equation.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

so then should nobody discuss the subject with you because you think that wanting something makes you right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

 

Secondary Class Weapons already have Reload Mods that are sufficient. Fast Hands/Primed leaves something to be desired, but that's an easy number adjustment.
and then for Heavies, one of the most relevant points was ignored.

 

but it isn't, when it actually matters.

a Charge Attack already starting at 1 second means it gets less of an improvement, but it was already faster to begin with, so that's..... really affecting the most important parts, as has expressed already. multiple instances of any of these Positive Modifier Bonuses are quite effective when you would really want/need them to be anyways. 
you're exclusively harping about not getting the same benefit each time you add a Bonus - but is the Bonus a significant difference in actual play, which is the other half of the equation.

Except heavy attacks at a 1 second wind up are miserably slow and adding a second mod doesn't do jack S#&$.

#*!% off with your condescension.

[OvisCaedo]

The calculation for reload speed and heavy attack wind up makes sense, and is actually much more in line with how most stats in the game work. The only big exception is efficiency, which is both misnamed and hilariously has ESCALATING returns instead of diminishing, which is why it also has to have a hard cap. I think these stats should stay as they are in terms of formula, but maybe some of the values (both of base time taken and mod values) could stand to be looked at.

But I see people not understand what reload speed means really often. Not sure what's best to do about that one.

Edited December 14, 2019 by OvisCaedo

[v1ld_wf]

On 2019-12-11 at 6:10 PM, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

The act of making a counter argument at all is to defend the design choice that I am currently attacking.  That you would go so far as to produce actual friggin graphs just to refute someone's opinion that there should be a beneficial change in favor of the players is pretty funny.

This is the silliest argument yet: that putting in the few mins of effort it takes to make a graph that shows their thoughts more clearly than a 1000 words is somehow laughable and funny.

Edited December 14, 2019 by v1ld_wf

[Andele3025]

9 hours ago, OvisCaedo said:

The calculation for reload speed and heavy attack wind up makes sense, and is actually much more in line with how most stats in the game work.

Not true, it are the only 2 calculation where you modify just the denominator instead of the stats value (or both).

9 hours ago, OvisCaedo said:

The only big exception is efficiency, which is both misnamed and hilariously has ESCALATING returns instead of diminishing which is why it also has to have a hard cap.

No, its just a linear calc. It works the same as strength, duration, range, health, energy and even technically armor even if armors DR efficiency has diminishing returns.


As for the topic, the actual issue is the implementation of heavy attacks because they dont flow naturally into combos which themselves are ontop plagued with animation locks making any windups/pauses even more notable.

[OvisCaedo]

1 hour ago, Andele3025 said:

Not true, it are the only 2 calculation where you modify just the denominator instead of the stats value (or both).

No, its just a linear calc. It works the same as strength, duration, range, health, energy and even technically armor even if armors DR efficiency has diminishing returns.

Modifying the denominator isn't really an important difference here, I think. Compare reload speed to fire rate. 100% fire rate means you fire twice as fast, and take half as much time to fire a given number of shots. 100% reload speed means you reload twice as fast, and take half as much time to reload a weapon. Adding another 100% to either will make it faster, but at a relatively diminished rate compared to the first increase. The only real difference is the number that's presented to you; with something like fire rate, you're presented with how many incidents per second you get. With reload, you're presented with how many seconds it takes to complete the incident. If you imagine it as reloading X ammo per second (though obviously for most weapons you only get it when the full process is completed), it's easy to see that they function the same way. Only the presentation is inverse.

and efficiency isn't a linear calculation. Every point of it is MORE effective relatively than the previous one. Going from 100% efficiency to 150% efficiency doubles the number of times you can cast abilities. Going from 150% to 175% doubles it AGAIN, for half the stat investment the first jump took. That's why it's got a hard cap, and why DR abilities have a hard cap. Straight "reduction" stats have escalating returns, which is why they're always capped or used rarely.

[Andele3025]

18 minutes ago, OvisCaedo said:

Modifying the denominator isn't really an important difference here, I think. Compare reload speed to fire rate. 100% fire rate means you fire twice as fast, and take half as much time to fire a given number of shots. 100% reload speed means you reload twice as fast, and take half as much time to reload a weapon.

1) Something happening 2x times in the same period and something happening 1.5x the times is not the same.
2) It is important because it changes the math (and breaks even at 100%) 130% reload speed isnt reloading in 0.7 the time, 1.8 reload with 30% reload speed isnt 1.26 which it would be if it increased the speed of the actual reload (as in reload time x (1-reload mod value) or in this example 1.8x(1-0.3)), but 1.38 because it increases the time the reload is scaled from. Unlike a gun which if it gets +30% fire rate shoots 1.3 times instead of 1.43 times which it would if it used the reload calulation.

Quote

and efficiency isn't a linear calculation. Every point of it is MORE effective relatively than the previous one.

No its not. Every 1% of efficiency is 1 energy less of a 100 energy ability, doesnt matter if the current efficiency is at -55 or +70 it will always be 1 point of energy/1% of base. You do get that the stats are linear and simple. Not compound stats.

Quote

 Straight "reduction" stats have escalating returns,

No they dont, they have flat instead of diminishing returns, thats why its called diminishing returns.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Andele3025

[Tiltskillet]

On 2019-12-12 at 7:40 AM, Teridax68 said:

This is my opinion on the matter. I don't think it's a case of "diminishing returns", because reducing those times by some fixed percentage in fact creates increasing relative returns: just as an example, melee weapon with an attack delay of 1 second leads to some finite amount of DPS, but a melee weapon with an attack delay of 0 will have infinite DPS, by dint of performing a theoretically infinite number of attacks within the same instant. However, the mod bonuses we're getting are exceedingly low, such that they provide incredibly little benefit even when one does specifically build for faster reloads or heavy attacks. As such, the current numbers we have could easily be multiplied and not harm balance.

Do you have any ballpark numbers in mind?  Just as an experiment, I briefly  looked at what bonuses would be necessary to get in the vicinity of the sustained damage output of V. Armaments, and the numbers are...large.  Not that that should be inherently scary.  We've gotten used to big damage bonus numbers, after all.  (Which is really where the problem is coming from in the first place.)

Although it wouldn't have to compete that closely with a damage mod in order for me to start using them... but that's just me.  

Edited December 14, 2019 by Tiltskillet

[Teridax68]

On 2019-12-14 at 5:18 PM, Tiltskillet said:

Do you have any ballpark numbers in mind?  Just as an experiment, I briefly  looked at what bonuses would be necessary to get in the vicinity of the sustained damage output of V. Armaments, and the numbers are...large.  Not that that should be inherently scary.  We've gotten used to big damage bonus numbers, after all.  (Which is really where the problem is coming from in the first place.)

Although it wouldn't have to compete that closely with a damage mod in order for me to start using them... but that's just me.  

In some cases it would actually be impossible to exceed the bonus given by Vigilante Armaments even if reload time were reduced to zero. Ignoring crit and status, gun DPS is calculated along the following formula:

DPS = Damage per Shot x Magazine Size / (Reload Time + Magazine Size / Fire Rate)

If you remove reloading entirely, the formula simplifies to the following:

DPS_{No Reload} = Damage per Shot x Fire Rate

If we're separating multishot from the rest of the shot's damage, a gun with Split Chamber + V. Armaments will deal 2.5 times more damage, whereas one with just Split Chamber will deal 1.9 times more damage. There will thus be instances where 1.9 x Damage per Shot x Fire Rate will still not be enough compared to an extra 0.6 to the shot damage modifier. With this in mind, you could probably double, or even triple or quadruple reload speed, and still have the bonus be relatively weak enough to fit in an Exilus slot, as other convenience mods would exist to compete with it.