Unintended nerf to headshot gas/electric procs?

[Tiltskillet]

tl;dr: Gas / Electric headshot procs are significantly weaker than they were before Veilbreaker.  DE, did you intend this result?

Ok, so before this last update when the headshot multiplier was 2x, gas and electric procs did some odd stuff, and I think have done so for years.  These procs work similarly to each other.  For my purposes here, the only important difference is that electric procs benefit from electric damage and gas procs do not.  This doesn't affect the magnitude of what changed for either proc, so for simplicity's sake, I'll leave that out of all that follows, or you can just pretend I'm talking about gas.

First off, gas and electric, unlike other status effects, can score headshots and activate headshot conditions.  Which I suspect many people won't know, since these elements aren't much used compared to corrosive, heat, toxin, slash, and especially viral.  99% or so of the time, if you score a headshot hit with a projectile, a resulting gas/electrc proc will get headshot damage.  Here's how it works:

(And thanks to ArbitraryMary at the wiki for explaining the math to follow in terms I could finally understand. Mostly. :P )

[ weapon damage * 0.5 * 2 * 2 + 1  ]  The 0.5 is the base status damage, the x2s are the normal headshot multipliers, and the +1 is just something Warframe throws on to dots to confuse us. :P  Note that there are -two- headshot multipliers there.  More about that later.

So I'll use as an example a test I did before the update:  Hikou Prime modded for gas damage and status, no other relevant mods.   Base damage is 36, and I used it on an Overguard target, so no vulnerabilities applied.

Bodyshot gas proc damage: 36 * 0.5 +1 = 19.  Confirmed in game last month.

Headshot gas proc damage: 36 * 0.5 * 2 * 2 + 1 = 73.  Confirmed in game last month.

But if you have headshot damage bonuses in addition to the inherent x2, those are added together into another, separate multiplier, and again factoring twice.  Let's say Deadhead on that Hikou Prime...

Headshot gas proc damage:    36 * 0.5 * 2 * 2 * 1.3 * 1.3 + 1  = 122.68, rounded up to 123.  Confirmed in game last month.

Now, I was pretty excited to hear the headshot multiplier was going up to 3x.  I love making headshots, and I love abusing Sonar which has the same mechanics.   After the double-dipping that was  happening, 3x3 was going to be a huge increase from 2x2.   Honestly, I thought the results would be just ridiculous with gas/electric.  I'm still super-excited about this change for headshots in general.  But what happened with gas and electric specifically was a big letdown.  Same gas Hikou Prime test now:

Bodyshot gas proc damage:  19.  Unchanged, as expected.

Headshot gas proc damage:  55.  Was 73.  Hmmm.

Headshot with Deadhead:   92.  Was 123.   :/

What's happened is the headshot multiplier has been increased to 3x, but the double factoring has been taken out. 

Formula for the Hikou P is now: 36 * 0.5 * 3  + 1 = 55. 

With Deadhead it's 36 * 0.5 * 3 * 1.3 * 1.3 + 1 = 92.26.

Since 3 is only 75% of 2 * 2, this is  a 25% decrease in headshot proc damage in all cases.

 *   *   *

Now, the double factoring of headshot multipliers seems like it's probably a bug to me.  I can easily regard this as a partial bugfix, even though it's taken years to implement.  However I'm not sure what DE intended.  And even as a conscious bug fix, I think these procs were already underperforming in all but very carefully set up situations.  In addition, if this was a bugfix, I'd expect the other headshot multipliers (like Deadhead) to get fixed at some point as well.  Which would be another substantial nerf.

So DE, I'd just like you to take a look at this.  If it's intentional, ask yourself "Did gas and electric need to be weaker than they were before headshots were made stronger?" Maybe your answer is "Yes!", in a post Veilbreaker world, where armor stripping is easier than it's ever been.  But if it's  "No, not really" or "Wait...gas electric what???" can you look at reverting this change in some way?   I do think a 9x multiplier is probably too crazy, but perhaps something between that and the current 3x would be just fine.

Thanks to anybody who read this long-arsed thread.  If I made any errors you noticed or overlooked anything important, please let me know.

 

 

 

 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

26 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

(And thanks to ArbitraryMary at the wiki for explaining the math to follow in terms I could finally understand. Mostly. :P )

Hello there.

28 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

However I'm not sure what DE intended.  And even as a conscious bug fix, I think these procs were already underperforming in all but very carefully set up situations.

Gonna say that gas/electric likely just caught caught by the blanket "no headshot multiplier on AoE" as they can still proc "on headshot" conditions, while other procs still can't.
So likely unintended.

[Tyreaus]

26 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Formula for the Hikou P is now: 36 * 0.5 * 3 * 1  + 1 = 55. 

With Deadhead it's 36 * 0.5 * 3 * 1 * 1.3 * 1.3 + 1 = 92.26.

Small correction to demonstrate what's likely happening. For Gas and Electric, there's two damage sources: the direct hit and the proc. It double-dips on headshots because the initial hit lands on the head, getting multiplied by 2, and the AoE portion "hits the head", also getting multiplied by 2.

However, AoE now has no ability to headshot. Under the hood, Gas and Electric procs may be considered AoE, and so have had their headshot multipliers set to 1. That means you go from a multiplier of:

2 (direct hit) * 2 (AoE hit)

To a multiplier of:

3 (direct hit) * 1 (AoE hit)

Note how it's still "double-dipping", it's just that the multiplier on the second "dip" has been set to 1. This is why Deadhead still adds the way it does, because it used to take:

2 (direct hit) * 2 (AoE hit)

And add 30% to each, giving:

(2 + 0.3) (direct hit) * (2 + 0.3) (AoE hit)

Which, with the modified multipliers, instead becomes:

(3 + 0.3) (direct hit) * (1 + 0.3) (AoE hit)

In short:

1. It's probably not an intentional change
2. It's probably really hard to undo (since it involves decoupling different AoEs)
3. It may be more worth revising the damage calculations themselves in some other way (like the 0.5 part, or making gas damage scale with mods)

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

8 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

It's probably really hard to undo (since it involves decoupling different AoEs)

I mean they've had weapon specific headshot multipliers (such as Nataruk, has a headshot multiplier on quick shot, but none on charged), why not make the "no headshot multiplier" weapon specific instead of global. That also "solves" the issue of small AoE weapons being unfairly penalized for Bramma/Zarr sins.

[Tiltskillet]

25 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Hello there.

Hah, I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

19 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Small correction to demonstrate what's likely happening. For Gas and Electric, there's two damage sources: the direct hit and the proc. . . .

Yeah, now that you've spelled it out, that's obviously it. 👍

Quote

It may be more worth revising the damage calculations themselves in some other way (like the 0.5 part, or making gas damage scale with mods)

Exactly what I had in mind.

[taiiat]

intentional or not it's still terrible. nerfing Game Mechanics across the entire game that have no direct relation to even the thing they were trying to nerf.

 

11 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

I mean they've had weapon specific headshot multipliers (such as Nataruk, has a headshot multiplier on quick shot, but none on charged), why not make the "no headshot multiplier" weapon specific instead of global. That also "solves" the issue of small AoE weapons being unfairly penalized for Bramma/Zarr sins.

slightly better but then AoE Weapons are still literally prevented from being able to be precise, meaning we're more encouraged to blindly shoot now than we were before. before you could manipulate the Enemies/Terrain to let you get Headshots, which i'd pretty strongly say is the exact opposite of the thing they're supposedly "fixing".

 

[Tyreaus]

29 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

why not make the "no headshot multiplier" weapon specific instead of global. That also "solves" the issue of small AoE weapons being unfairly penalized for Bramma/Zarr sins.

"What if"-isms. Things like, "what if it's not enough?" or "what if x weapon takes over?" or "what if people think it's not fair because it's just these AoE weapons?" Seems to be what fueled the change to battery weapons that just got reverted, and what fueled the change to AoE headshots in the first place (because maybe the Bramma could hit headshots if you knew about its unspoken mechanic). And, thinking about it, the first version probably explains a lot of their over-compensating changes, like the old Corrosive to Viral shift.

In that context, it'd be adjusting all AoE weapons. So of course they wouldn't do it individually. Then, whoops, Gas and Electric also share the same code we tweaked for other AoEs.

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Tyreaus said:

It's probably really hard to undo (since it involves decoupling different AoEs)

It's interesting that headshot multipliers from abilities, weapon bonuses, and mods still apply twice though.   And they do so even when inflicted by AoEs

The fearsome Gas Stug with Deadhead:

Bodyshot non crit explosion: 38

Headshot non crit explosion: 64

edit:  Actually Stug  is benefiting (once) from Deadhead even on the initial damage of the explosion.

I don't have time to test now, but I'd guess radial damage in general is still benefiting from these modifiers.

 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

28 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

edit:  Actually Stug  is benefiting (once) from Deadhead even on the initial damage of the explosion.

I don't have time to test now, but I'd guess radial damage in general is still benefiting from these modifiers.

Yes, because it's not "AoE can't get headshots period", it's that their headshot multiplier is set to 1x instead of the typical 3x multiplier (Moas still have a 1x headshot modifier for all weapons, #JusticeForMoas when.) So Deadhead is gonna buff that 1x multiplier to 1.3x.

Weapons with a 1x headshot multiplier also don't get the doubled crit bonus on headshot (except Corpus humanoids, they don't have the doubled CD on crit headshot. Side note this is why it's a pain talking about WF mechanics stuff. You need this sizable library of info to pull from, and you never know if the other person has the same collection as you)

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

On the bright side. Gas wasn’t good beforehand so no real loss there.

[Tiltskillet]

7 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Yes, because it's not "AoE can't get headshots period", it's that their headshot multiplier is set to 1x instead of the typical 3x multiplier (Moas still have a 1x headshot modifier for all weapons, #JusticeForMoas when.) So Deadhead is gonna buff that 1x multiplier to 1.3x.

Sure, I know that now. :P  It was probably a forgone conclusion to you.  But I would have felt foolish proclaiming before the update that  AoE was definitely going to work the same way with headshots as Nataruk, Plasmor, etc.

[Monolake]

Lame, gas was a thing that helped single target to keep up with ridiculous kills per minute requirement in SP survival. nerfing it only enforces AOE usage (and explosives can still be spammed freely in survival where ammo is never a problem)

[taiiat]

8 hours ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Yes, because it's not "AoE can't get headshots period", it's that their headshot multiplier is set to 1x instead of the typical 3x multiplier (Moas still have a 1x headshot modifier for all weapons, #JusticeForMoas when.) So Deadhead is gonna buff that 1x multiplier to 1.3x.

Weapons with a 1x headshot multiplier also don't get the doubled crit bonus on headshot (except Corpus humanoids, they don't have the doubled CD on crit headshot. Side note this is why it's a pain talking about WF mechanics stuff. You need this sizable library of info to pull from, and you never know if the other person has the same collection as you)

idunno if that really covers things, Headshot based triggers not triggering with radial type attacks at all suggests that there's more to it than just having a 1x Multiplier. as they'd still be hitting the Head then, so activating those triggers should still be working if that were the case, but....