Is Max Power Efficiency Too Good?

[DannieRay23]

I spent a few hours writing this other thread and doing some math about Power Efficiency, it can be read here.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/163503-why-power-efficiency-is-broken-and-fleeting-expertise-is-op/

 

 

Now that topic is long enough so if you want to go deep into the math just read that, I'm just going to drop numbers without much explanation so just take my word for it.

 

 

75% Power "Efficiency" allows you to use a skill 4 times for the price of one. So with the same energy you can deal 4 times as much damage or make an effect 4 times as long. The only extra cost for this is the time that you take for the skills animation (as you are casting 4 times instead of 1)

 

If you wanted to have your skill do 4 times as much damage you'd need 300% extra power strength, the most you can achieve with 2 mod slots and no helmets is 129% and you also needs 7 extra points and a lot more of fusion.

 

With the same amount of ranks, you'd only reach 79% way short of 300%

 

If you wanted your skill to last 4 times as long the numbers are just like damage, you'd need 300% and can only achieve 79% for the same fusion cost and 129% for the same mod slots, even if you invested into a helmet and and extra mod you'd only reach 167% on Volt and 182% on Trinity.

 

Now of course the animation time is important, it makes a lot of difference to have to stand still while casting and also the mechanics on certain skills don't translate literally to casting the skill extra times.

 

But does it justify the difference in numbers? 300% to 129% (or 79%)?

 

I think that having to cast extra times to achieve the same result and the fact that some powers don't really scale with multiple casts prove to be enough of a hindrance so that Efficiency is allowed to be numerically stronger than Damage or Duration but just maybe 300% over 129% is a little bit too much.

 

What do you all think?

 

DannieRay23.

 

 

 

 

[Mainabi]

euhm as far as I know fleeting expertise reduces the duration by 60%

so much to your x4 duration, and personally I don't think it's op, many skills need that (for example volts shock etc)

 

there's too much gunplay, the game should be balanced between skills, guns and melee, not 80% guns 19.992% skills and 0.008% melee

 

so therefore I think -75% energy efficiency is totally fine.

 

what might work is give fleeting expertise a flat energy decrease, making skill no 1 or maybe 2 spamable 

Edited January 14, 2014 by Seira-EGT-

[zerogear5]

If you are a skill user then its just a build you can do. other mods make your gunplay better with much less focus on skill damage. Basically you got options.

[latarzanla]

 the game should be balanced between skills, guns and melee, not 80% guns 19.992% skills and 0.008% melee

 

Totally agree with the quote, maybe that's in  the works inside the melee 2.0?

[DannieRay23]

euhm as far as I know fleeting expertise reduces the duration by 60%

so much to your x4 duration, and personally I don't think it's op, many skills need that (for example volts shock etc)

 

there's too much gunplay, the game should be balanced between skills, guns and melee, not 80% guns 19.992% skills and 0.008% melee

 

so therefore I think -75% energy efficiency is totally fine.

 

what might work is give fleeting expertise a flat energy decrease, making skill no 1 or maybe 2 spamable 

 

Fleeting Expertise reduces the cost of casting the ability, 50% FE coupled with  25% streamline you can reach the cap of 75% power cost reduction.

 

a 100 energy power would end up costing 25 power, so you can cast it 4 times with that 100 energy. That's the 4x.

 

Think of Loki Invisibility, that's 12 seconds for 50 power.

 

With 50% Fleeting and 25% Streamline, you would have 50% reduced duration that's at worst 6 seconds would for 12.5 power (could be argued that -100% power duration should be needed to cut time in half), if you cast it 4 times you get 24 seconds for 50 power.

 

 

75% efficiency just gave you the effect of 100% duration, and that's considering you had a 50% duration penalty.

 

But Consider this, you can use 3 mods (Constitution, Narrow Minded, Continuity )to max duration at 157%, that would give you

aproximattely 31 seconds for 50 power.

 

Now use these 3 mods Fleeting Exp 50%, Streamline 25% and Narrow Minded 99%.

 

You now get around 18 seconds 6.25 power, or a whooping 72 seconds for 50 power.

 

So apparently, Efficiency is better duration than actual duration.

Edited January 14, 2014 by DannieRay23

[Mainabi]

Fleeting Expertise reduces the cost of casting the ability, 50% FE coupled with  25% streamline you can reach the cap of 75% power cost reduction.

 

a 100 energy power would end up costing 25 power, so you can cast it 4 times with that 100 energy. That's the 4x.

 

Think of Loki Invisibility, that's 12 seconds for 50 power.

 

With 50% Fleeting and 25% Streamline, you would have 50% reduced duration that's at worst 6 seconds would for 12.5 power (could be argued that -100% power duration should be needed to cut time in half), if you cast it 4 times you get 24 seconds for 50 power.

 

 

75% efficiency just gave you the effect of 100% duration, and that's considering you had a 50% duration penalty.

 

But Consider this, you can use 3 mods (Constitution, Narrow Minded, Continuity )to max duration at 157%, that would give you

aproximattely 31 seconds for 50 power.

 

Now use these 3 mods Fleeting Exp 50%, Streamline 25% and Narrow Minded 99%.

 

You now get around 18 seconds 6.25 power, or a whooping 72 seconds for 50 power.

 

So apparently, Efficiency is better duration than actual duration.

the point is to use that much you have to waste extremly many mod slots, slots you can use for shield rage qt or whatever, also that's a very special kind loki is a special case, you can't just pick up 1 single frame to measure balancing

 

and btw the duration still kicks in, some frames don't care about it, but saryn for example can't afford to lower the duration too much, lower duration = less dmg

Edited January 14, 2014 by Seira-EGT-

[gnat6]

You are forgetting that every frame has at least 1 skill that is made useless by the duration reduction from fleeting expertise the only reason people use it all the time is because most of the warframe skills that are worth using do not depend on duration or people gimp their mod layout to work around the duration penalty

[CaveCricket48]

I would say buff the power strength mods. Almost every damage skill becomes useless later on in the game anyways.

 

Yeah, you'll be able to nuke lower levels easily, but you can already do that now. It wouldn't hurt to actually let damage skills be useful against higher level enemies

[Kripnex]

If you don't use power strength then you might need to cast the same skill twice instead of once.

 

And power efficiency does not equate to extra damage, but rather more uses, which means you can do more damage as a consequence, but if you think like this, then power range adds extra damage too.

 

Oh look, power range does more damage than power strength! Quick, nerf it!

...I would call you an idiot, but that would be rude.

[DannieRay23]

You are forgetting that every frame has at least 1 skill that is made useless by the duration reduction from fleeting expertise the only reason people use it all the time is because most of the warframe skills that are worth using do not depend on duration or people gimp their mod layout to work around the duration penalty

 

I'm not forgetting that, I'm aware of that and that is part of the problem.

 

Fleeting + Streamline + Continuity is worth those 3 mods slots in almost every frame, it's the same problem than Serration/Hornet Strike + Multishot being on every loadout. The only difference is that most people haven't smartened up enough to figure it out.

 

Fleeting + Streamline is absurdely op on frames that don't need duration that much.

 

 

 

If you don't use power strength then you might need to cast the same skill twice instead of once.

 

And power efficiency does not equate to extra damage, but rather more uses, which means you can do more damage as a consequence, but if you think like this, then power range adds extra damage too.

 

Oh look, power range does more damage than power strength! Quick, nerf it!

...I would call you an idiot, but that would be rude.

 

If you had read my post you would've noticed that I explicitly said that the time needed for the extra casts are a factor to be considered.

 

Also power range allows you to do more damage overall, but not more damage per target which makes a big difference. Also, power range doesn't allow to extend durations like efficiency does.

 

...I would call you an idiot, but that would be rude. Also it would make me kind of a smartass.

Edited January 14, 2014 by DannieRay23

[Falufa]

Increasing/decreasing power strength affects some abilities, but not others.

 

Increasing/decreasing power duration affects some abilities, but not others.

 

Increasing/decreasing power range affects some abilities, but not others.

 

But increasing/decreasing power efficiency affects ALL abilities, without exception. If you use an ability that is unaffected by power duration, then there are zero drawbacks to using Fleeting Expertise. Even if it is affected by power duration, Continuity and Constitution combined almost completely offset the -60% duration on a maxed Fleeting Expertise. That is why Fleeting Expertise is so powerful.

[Mainabi]

nerf overextended because overextended has no drawbacks against a real nyx...

 

 If you use an ability that is unaffected by power duration, then there are zero drawbacks to using Fleeting Expertise. Even if it is affected by power duration, Continuity and Constitution combined almost completely offset the -60% duration on a maxed Fleeting Expertise. That is why Fleeting Expertise is so powerful.

 

nerf overextended because it doesn't affect a loki at all (well decoy but decoy is 1hit anyway on high lvl)

nerf shields nerf hp because it affects every frame

[Killerdude8]

It's Hard Capped at 75% what more do you want from us? Allow us to Sacrifice the 3 or so mod spaces to maxmize efficiency.

[DannieRay23]

It's Hard Capped at 75% what more do you want from us? Allow us to Sacrifice the 3 or so mod spaces to maxmize efficiency.

 

The problem si that sacrificing 2 or 3 mods to maximize efficiency is often better then using those same slots to maximize power.

 

The whole point of this topic is about discussion about how valuable should Efficiency be compared to Power or Duration.

 

How much of a problem is having to recast the ability and how much stronger can we justify Efficiency being considering that to get full effect you need more actual casts.

[Psroij]

DannieRay23, on 14 Jan 2014 - 06:36 AM, said:

[snip]

 

But Consider this, you can use 3 mods (Constitution, Narrow Minded, Continuity )to max duration at 157%, that would give you

aproximattely 31 seconds for 50 power.

 

Now use these 3 mods Fleeting Exp 50%, Streamline 25% and Narrow Minded 99%.

 

You now get around 18 seconds 6.25 power, or a whooping 72 seconds for 50 power.

 

So apparently, Efficiency is better duration than actual duration.

Your math is wrong. Fleeting Expertise at 50% combined with a Streamline of 25%, and Narrow Minded of 99% only yields 11.94 seconds, or ~12 seconds, for 12.5 energy. 25% of 50 is 12.5, not 6.25, and 199% of 12 is 23.88, or ~24 seconds. No clue where you got that 6.25 energy cost (which would be impossible with the cap) and 18 seconds invisibility (which would be possible only with other duration mods besides Narrow Minded if also maximizing efficiency). This is doubly bizarre since you are using correct values in the rest of your post. Or are you calculating with the Essence Loki Helm and forgetting to mention the change in duration, which still would not get a duration of 18 seconds even if lowering Fleeting Expertise to compensate?

 

That means, with the mods and values you mentioned, for 50 energy you get ~48 seconds. While that is still better than Maximized Power duration, but it is no where near the bizarre inflated number of 72 seconds you got. And in practice it is much more handy to be invisible for ~31 seconds at a time than it is for ~12. With the Essence Loki helm and the numbers you mentioned (putting the Streamline to 30%, and the Fleeting Expertise at 30%) still only yields 66.864 seconds, so ~67 seconds over 50 energy, which is still 5 seconds less than 72, so, again, not sure where you got that number from.

 

Loki is somewhat of a special case, as he is one of the Frames with a power efficiency helmet. Nyx and Banshee being the other two Frames with efficiency helmets.

[DannieRay23]

Your math is wrong. Fleeting Expertise at 50% combined with a Streamline of 25%, and Narrow Minded of 99% only yields 11.94 seconds, or ~12 seconds, for 12.5 energy. 25% of 50 is 12.5, not 6.25, and 199% of 12 is 23.88, or ~24 seconds. No clue where you got that 6.25 energy cost (which would be impossible with the cap) and 18 seconds invisibility (which would be possible only with other duration mods besides Narrow Minded if also maximizing efficiency). This is doubly bizarre since you are using correct values in the rest of your post. Or are you calculating with the Essence Loki Helm and forgetting to mention the change in duration, which still would not get a duration of 18 seconds even if lowering Fleeting Expertise to compensate?

 

 

Yeah, the 6.25 bit was wrong and I even edited it out at somepoint, But if you double check, when I translated the number back to 50 power I only multiplied by 4. So I was mistaken twice and the two wrongs did make a right.

 

Now, I said  25 Streamline, 50 Fleeting Expertise, and 99 Narrow Minded.

 

That's a total of 75% "Efficiency" and +99-50 = +49% power duration.

 

So the base 50 power gets cut to 12.5, and the power duration gets bumped to  18 seconds (12*1.49 is actually 17.88 but i rounded up)

 

So you can use the power 4 times for 50 energy and end up getting 4*18 seconds of invisibility, which does add up to 72 seconds per 50 energy.

 

How was the math wrong?

[[DE]Momaw]

You're paying in mod slots and mod points.  You can hit the efficiency cap with level 4 Fleeting Expertise (10 points) level 4 Streamline (8 points).  Now you expend 1/4 the enery for 1/2 the duration. Cool.  Too short? You can add back in Continuity to make up a little over half the loss. Now you're paying 3 mod slots and 27 points to expend 1/4 the energy for 4/5ths of the duration. That's pretty nice for "caster frames" that get good mileage out of their abilities. But my question is, what did you have to GIVE UP to achieve that? 27 points is nearly half your frame's mod allowance, and 3 slots is hardly inconsequentual when you only get 10 in total and some of those are reserved for these abilities that you're hoping to min-max. Did you sacrifice shields, hitpoints, power range, personal mobility, or some kind of utility power to get to this suppopsedly OP state?

 

Personally I don't see that there's a problem.  Maximizing efficiency is good, but it doesn't work for every frame and you have to make compromises in other areas to usefully achieve it.

[HurpadurpusRex]

I don't find power efficiency to be out of sorts.

[HAYABU5A]

no its fine - because having a really short duration on some skills is a massive penalty 

 

the ones that dont suffer duration penalty suit the frame perfectly 

[Monolake]

Yes Fleeting is unbalanced and too good especially with skills that take absolutely no penalty from lowered duration and same time it makes the others skills, that need duration, worthless. This makes some frames boring 1-trick ponies. Saryn as probably the worst case.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Monolake

[DannieRay23]

You're paying in mod slots and mod points.  You can hit the efficiency cap with level 4 Fleeting Expertise (10 points) level 4 Streamline (8 points).  Now you expend 1/4 the enery for 1/2 the duration. Cool.  Too short? You can add back in Continuity to make up a little over half the loss. Now you're paying 3 mod slots and 27 points to expend 1/4 the energy for 4/5ths of the duration. That's pretty nice for "caster frames" that get good mileage out of their abilities. But my question is, what did you have to GIVE UP to achieve that? 27 points is nearly half your frame's mod allowance, and 3 slots is hardly inconsequentual when you only get 10 in total and some of those are reserved for these abilities that you're hoping to min-max. Did you sacrifice shields, hitpoints, power range, personal mobility, or some kind of utility power to get to this suppopsedly OP state?

 

Personally I don't see that there's a problem.  Maximizing efficiency is good, but it doesn't work for every frame and you have to make compromises in other areas to usefully achieve it.

 

 

The problem is that you could spend the same resources maximizing either Power, Duration or Range and get likely inferior results.

[AttackNitro]

Using Loki's invisibility is a bad example.

 

As a fan of loki, i'd rather not use fleeting expertise for invisibility because having it run out while i am trying to stealth past enemies is a massive inconvenience.

 

It also is rather pointless to max efficiency for a 50 energy skill when loki has 450 energy (max).

 

 

A good example of 75% efficiency being good is Radial Disarm.

 

Duration has no effect on this skill at all, as the disarm is permanent.

 

So fleeting expertise for a disarm build then has no downsides.

Edited January 15, 2014 by AttackNitro

[[DE]Momaw]

Yes Fleeting is unbalanced and too good especially with skills that take absolutely no penalty from lowered duration and same time it makes the others skills, that need duration, worthless. This makes some frames boring 1-trick ponies. Saryn as probably the worst case.

 

* Many abilities also have no negative effects from reducing their Strength.  Does that mean the mod Overextended is overpowered since it greatly improves Range at the cost of Strength?

 

* Many frames are 1 trick ponies, even before you start min-maxing. That's simply a fact. Go look in the Warframes and Abilities section of feedback and you will find every single frame mentioned by its fans as needing improvements to make them more versatile or more enjoyable.

 

* I literally do not even know why you brought up Saryn. People I have talked to that play her do not advocate using Fleeting Expertise because so many of her abilities are reliant on Duration to function properly.

[Monolake]

 

* Many abilities also have no negative effects from reducing their Strength.  Does that mean the mod Overextended is overpowered since it greatly improves Range at the cost of Strength?

 

* Many frames are 1 trick ponies, even before you start min-maxing. That's simply a fact. Go look in the Warframes and Abilities section of feedback and you will find every single frame mentioned by its fans as needing improvements to make them more versatile or more enjoyable.

 

* I literally do not even know why you brought up Saryn. People I have talked to that play her do not advocate using Fleeting Expertise because so many of her abilities are reliant on Duration to function properly.

Overextended doesn't let you spam ultimates and, if you care to read the first post, the Fleeting is unbalanced relative to other ways of increasing  abilities DPS.  Overextended is its own thing.

 

Yes, and Fleeting only makes this problem worse

 

Because the way Miasma works now, it does more damage with less duration, its not just cheaper, its more powerfull with Fleeting. But that leaves other abilities completely useless. 

[Davoodoo]

the point is to use that much you have to waste extremly many mod slots, slots you can use for shield rage qt or whatever, also that's a very special kind loki is a special case, you can't just pick up 1 single frame to measure balancing

 

and btw the duration still kicks in, some frames don't care about it, but saryn for example can't afford to lower the duration too much, lower duration = less dmg

fleeting expertise, narrow minded, focus, stretch. + 39% duration +30% strength +60% efficiency -21% range and 2 mod slots free. You can do alot with these mods. But really it isnt problem with fleeting expertise but rather with energy costs. Just get rid of them all together and make some mechanics that will prevent infinite spamming.

 

I can suggest dynamic cooldown:

The powers we use are in fact our powers not warframe itself. So single use shouldnt put much pressure on us. But spamming our ultimate all day long should exhaust us. That being said. Each power can be used without any costs and each succesive use will increase cooldown on it. Of course weaker powers like shock would have no cooldown at beginning and very little increase to it.

like 5 uses 0 cooldown, 10 1s cd, 20 2s cd, 40 3s cd and so on. While powers like overload blessing or even iron skin would have moderate cooldown at first and then dramatic increase as you use it many times in short intervals.

1st cast 0 2nd 3s 5th 20 10th 60 and so on. 

Ofc cooldown increase would decay if power havent been used for some time.

Old efficiency mods could increase cooldown decay or just lower cooldown increase making them still powerful but not mandatory.

This system would both decrease spamming, increase difficulty by a little bit(no more blessing. iron skin, snow globe 100% uptime) and introduce some more creativity into builds.

 

Edit: im gonna do separate topic.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Davoodoo