Serration/Heavy Caliber & Hornet Strike/Magnum Force. Why don't the mods match up?

[Black_Cat_Jinx]

Just curious.

Serration and HC have matching damage increase though obviously one reduces accuracy.

Hornet Strike max damage is 220% where as MF caps at 165 like Serration and HC. 

I guess I just don't understand why. This seems like a bug that they just didn't bother to fix. given that you cannot use both. Well you can, you *should* not use both.

I just don't get why, the two mods are intended to fill the same slot. 

("Why would you use it anyway" trick I was taught with Fulmin when it released, sometimes too much accuracy is a bad thing, the reduced accuracy made it over all easier to use, this is true on some pistols as well)

[MaxTunnerX]

3 reasons why its like this:

1. bug

2. balance (trying to buff pistols more than primaries)

3. outdated content

[Tiltskillet]

3 minutes ago, Black_Cat_Jinx said:

I guess I just don't understand why. This seems like a bug that they just didn't bother to fix.

Maybe an oversight, although it was much pointed out at the time, in matching it to Heavy Caliber instead of Hornet Strike.    It's not plausibly a bug, since it used to be much weaker than HC.   For five years after it and Heavy Caliber were introduced,  Magnum Force only gave 66% damage. :P

_{Funny thing though, if it was raised to 220%, it would stir commentary about how it and HC are still worthless without much higher bonuses than their vanilla base damage equivalents.   And if they were higher, you still have a lot of comments about them being worthless as long as arcanes and Galvanized mods exist.}

[trst]

Because at one point DE thought it appropriate for Magnum Force to offer far less damage than Hornet Strike. For what I assume to be a balance/design concern in either wanting Secondaries to be inherently weaker or Secondaries were already more used than Primaries at the time (since DE likes to look at user data for a lot of decisions) and didn't want them stacking more damage than Primaries.

Beyond that I'd also assume it has remained the way it is simply because the mod, just like Heavy Caliber, is so outdated and players get power so quickly that this mod being trash doesn't matter. But it does have the potential to be something better if DE ever wants to incentivize different builds/branches of content again by reworking the mod.

[UnstarPrime]

The one thing that I think we can say with confidence is that given how many other nerfs and buffs and tweaks the game has had over its 11 years of play, the likelihood of this being an accident or problem that DE simply hasn't bothered to do anything about seems infinitesimally unlikely.  It's far more likely that these mods possess the numeric disparity they do quite intentionally for balance purposes, and that if DE ever feels that's a problem they will respond with adjustments.

  

41 minutes ago, Black_Cat_Jinx said:

I just don't get why, the two mods are intended to fill the same slot. 

The reason you're confused about this is because you've assumed that these mods were intended to fill the same slot, when they absolutely were not.  The design of Corrupted mods is that they give you a benefit and a drawback.  The lack of accuracy was designed as a drawback.  It is emergent — rather than intentional — gameplay to treat what was designed to be a drawback as a benefit.

Especially given that the original damage boost for Magnum Force was 66%, it was clearly never intended to compete with Hornet Strike's 220%.  Rather, it was intended to be supplemental for players who wanted even more base damage increase.  It was a rare use case, but it was one that players sometimes used.

It's fine and even interesting that you're choosing to use this mod in ways it wasn't intended to be used, but hopefully the fact that your use case doesn't conform to the intended design makes you better understand what you're seeing as a discrepancy.

Edited March 31 by UnstarPrime