[MECHANICS] Attack Speed, Recovery Time, Reload Time

[MaxQuest]

With the game being released now, I have updated the speed calculator for the current v1.0 version. You can access it here:

 

 

 

Attack Speed Calculator

version 1.0.3, compliant with Deadfire v1.1.0

Additionally here's the aggregated info on this topic:

 

---

PART 1: History. And what has changed since PoE1:

 

 

 

Q1. What has changed in attack-speed system from PoE1 to PoE2-beta3?

A:

- Recovery time of almost all weapons was doubled if not tripled.

- Firearms have lost the recovery phase, and now go into reload immediately after firing.

- Weapons started to deal damage at the end of attack phase (not in the middle). This was was relevant to Quick Switching.

- Majority of "+% attack speed" effects have been converted into "+% action speed". And now they affect not only recovery but all 3 phases: attack, recovery and reload.

- Dual-wielding was nerfed from -50% recovery time to -30% recovery time.

- The system itself and stacking formula was heavily rewritten. In PoE1 you could achieve zero-recovery. In PoE2 you can't. On the other hand: in PoE1 you could achieve a x2.5-x3 faster rate of attack compared to the base values, while in Deadfire this can go up to x4.

- The new system uses double inversion in order to deal with negative numbers from maluses. This results in negative effects having a higher impact than positive ones of the same displayed value.

- Deleterious Alacrity of Motion potion was substituted with Potion of Deftness (+25% plus 5% per 1 alchemy point) and Potion of Relentless Striking (+50% plus 1% per 1 alchemy point)

- PoE1 Attack Speed mechanics: link

- Speed calculator for PoE2-beta3: link

 

 

Q2. What has changed in attack-speed system from PoE2-beta3 to PoE2-beta4?

A:

- All effects that were influencing only recovery phase, now do affect reload phase as well. This includes armor penalties.

- Action speed penalties for Arbalest and Crossbow modals were reduced from -50% Action Speed to -25% Action Speed

- Recovery time penalties for Battle Axe, Quarterstaff, Rapier, Sabre, Warbow and Warhammer modals were reduced from +100% Recovery Time to +50% Recovery Time

- Speed calculator for PoE2-beta4: link

 

 

Q3. What has changed in attack-speed system from PoE2-beta4 to PoE2-v1.0?

A:

- Two-Weapon Style was nerfed from -20% recovery/reload time to -15%

- Potion of Deftness base value was nerfed from +25% action speed to +15%

- Potion of Deftness scalling with alchemy was nerfed from +0.05 per point to +0.005. Meaning that at 20 alchemy it will provide only +25% action speed

- Potion of Delentless Striking base value was nerfed from +50% action speed to +15%

 

 

---

PART 2: Formula. Or how the speed/time values for attack, recovery and reload phases are actually computed:

 

 

 

The new system works in the following manner:

- for each phase it gets a list of non-suppressed effects that affect that phase

- it iterates through each effect, takes it's coefficient and converts it (via a special rule) into step_coefficient

- after that it adds all step_coefficients together and gets step_sum

- this step_sum is after that converted (via a specific rule) into the final coefficient and your base attack/recovery/reload time is divided by it.

 

The actual formulas are the following:

phase_duration = base_phase_duration / speed_coefficient

where:

speed_coefficient = steps_sum >= 0 ? steps_sum + 1 : 1 / (1 - steps_sum)

where:

steps_sum = step_1 + step_2 + ... + step_n

where:

step_n = coef_n >= 1 ? coef_n - 1 : 1 - 1 / coef_n

 

---

PART 3: Weapon base values:

 

For v1.1.1:

 

 

For v2.0.1:

 

 

---

PART 4: Action cycle, and phases:

 

For usual weapons action cycle goes like this:

 

 

For firearms, crossbows and arbalests, recovery phase is substituted with reload phase like this:

 

 

Reloading is almost the same as recovery. The difference is:

- recovery phase is affected by ActionSpeed and RecoveryTime effects.

- reload phase is affected by everything that affects recovery; and in addition to that by all effects that specify reloading.

- you can start a new action at any time, and reloading will resume when the character has time. While with recovery - you have to recover from previous action first.

 

---

PART 5: Types of attacks:

 

Weapon attacks can be of 3 types:

- Normal (auto-attack) - the character alternates hits with main and off hands.

- Primary Attack - the character makes a hit with his main-hand.

- Full Attack - if you wield a single weapon, it's the same as Primary Attack; but if you dual-wield you hit with both weapons, in the following succession:

 

 

The great thing about Full Attacks is that if you dual-wield you can effectively skip the recovery/reload phase of your mainhand completely.

And yeap you can chain Full Attacks with something like two pistols, and your mainhand pistol won't require reload.

 

---

PART 6: Mini FAQ on various related stuff:

Q1. How does the math behind Armored Grace work? I don't get how the -25% armor recovery penalty from the tooltip factors in.

A: It is a bit convoluted but works in the following way:

- the game doesn't operate that much with [recovery_time] penalties for armors; Instead it stores and uses their speed coefficients.

- for heavy armors it is: 0.645 (= 1/1.55)

- for medium armors it is: 0.741 (= 1/1.35)

- for light armors it is: 0.833 (= 1/1.20)

 

Now, Armored Grace increases the armor speed coefficient by +0.1, which becomes:

- for heavy armors: 0.745 coef => (1/0.745 = 1.342) => +34% displayed recovery time penalty

- for medium armors: 0.841 => (1/0.841 = 1.189) => +19% displayed recovery time penalty

- for light armors: 0.933 => (1/0.933 = 1.071) => +7% displayed recovery time penalty

P.S. Yeap, tooltip lies. The actual value is 0.1, not 0.25. And it reduces recovery speed penalty, not recovery time penalty.

 

Q2. Is Sure-Handed Ila working as intended for reloading weapons?

A: Sure-Handed Ila chant has two components. One that lowers recovery time. And another that lowers reload time.

In beta4 all effects that affected recovery now started to affect reload as well. This resulted in both components of Sure-Handed Ila chant to affect reloading time, basically granting you -20% reload_time x2; or in other words +50% reload_speed. [(1/0.8 - 1) + (1/0. - 1) = 0.5

 

Q3. Feel free to ask.

Q4. ...

 

P.S. If you find any bugs or inaccuracies feel free to PM me or post them in this thread.

Edited August 25, 2018 by MaxQuest

[AndreaColombo]

This should be a sticky.

[Boeroer]

Yes MaxQuest, send Amentep a PM so this gets pinned! Please.

[Pidesco]

This should be a sticky.

 

Yep! Get on it mods!

[hippofant]

MaxQuest, I have a question about +action speed that I'm unsure of that I thought maybe you'd know. If I'm dual-wielding weapons, and one of them has +action speed% on it, does it only apply to that weapon? My initial assumption was that a +action speed% bonus on an item would affect the character, but then when I looked at the attack/recovery times on my 2nd weapon, the +action speed% bonus from my 1st weapon wouldn't be considered and vice-versa. BUT I'm also aware of some display bugs when dual-wielding weapons, wherein some character-wide bonuses are applied to just one and not the other on the character screen, so I'm unsure. (I guess this could be a result of their renaming all weapon recovery bonuses to action speed bonuses without changing how it was applied under the hood.)

 

If so, this would make +action speed% a lot less valuable when dual-wielding (in addition to the diminishing returns from the talent too) compared to wielding one weapon.

Edited May 12, 2018 by hippofant

[aweigh0101]

Can someone explain to me what the double inversion on negative numbers and maluses means in game terms?

[M4xw0lf]

Hmm... what about Modwyr's 'eager lover' stacking bonus? Whispers of the endless paths has a similar enchantment available as upgrade.

[Sotnik]

Looks like the calculator is outdated. At least Swift Strikes and Two-weapon with ranged seem to give wrong calculations.

 

Upd: sorry for inconvenience, I apparently clicked a wrong link.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Sotnik

[Kaylon]

The recovery bonus from items like Devil of Caroc's breastplate are additive with the rest or they work like Armored Grace?

[Yosharian]

I see, so Firearms reload times are subject to armor speed penalties now?  That's a shame, I thought it was rather interesting that they weren't, before this change.

 

Thanks for the post, MaxQuest.  It's very helpful.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Yosharian

[Ciphys]

The recovery bonus from items like Devil of Caroc's breastplate are additive with the rest or they work like Armored Grace?

Yes, they are additive. You can see all the recovery effects by mouseovering the weapon recovery on your equipment.

 

Just a question: Where do you acquire her breastplate? In my initial playthrough I sacrificed her in the blood pool(she wanted to die anyway lol) so this item was not available for me I guess... but I consoled it in just to check stats and oh wow that armor is amazing. Definitely want that for future playthroughs ^^

[LazyLiam]

I am a little confused when it comes to dual wielding pistols, how can it be faster to reload them when your other hand is occupied, but when I have a lovely moisturised sweat free open hand just eager to reload, I am penalised with having to wait a little longer ?

[AndreaColombo]

DoC’s breastplate is sold in Neketaka if you had her bad ending (I. E. She let Harmke go.)

[Kaylon]

Depending how it stacks I think DoC breastplate bonus + Armored Grace = no recovery penalty from it... 

[AndreaColombo]

If it helps, DoC breastplate + Armored Grace + Swift Flurry + helm that reduces recovery with 2H = about 2s recovery with Whispers. It’s pretty powerful.

[MaxQuest]

MaxQuest, I have a question about +action speed that I'm unsure of that I thought maybe you'd know. If I'm dual-wielding weapons, and one of them has +action speed% on it, does it only apply to that weapon? My initial assumption was that a +action speed% bonus on an item would affect the character, but then when I looked at the attack/recovery times on my 2nd weapon, the +action speed% bonus from my 1st weapon wouldn't be considered and vice-versa. BUT I'm also aware of some display bugs when dual-wielding weapons, wherein some character-wide bonuses are applied to just one and not the other on the character screen, so I'm unsure. (I guess this could be a result of their renaming all weapon recovery bonuses to action speed bonuses without changing how it was applied under the hood.)

 

If so, this would make +action speed% a lot less valuable when dual-wielding (in addition to the diminishing returns from the talent too) compared to wielding one weapon.

Depending on how it is implemented.

If the weapon has "+% action speed" property - then it will apply only to that hand/weapon. (think of Speed property from PoE1)

If the weapon has some proccing effect that grants a character buff - then it could be implemented as a character-wide effect that affects everything. (think of Spelltongue from PoE1)

 

At the same time there is Modwyr that is somewhere in the middle. It places a buff, but speeds-up only it's own hand. At least if we check tooltips; as I wasn't frapsing [modwyr+offhand_weapon] setup. 

 

The recovery bonus from items like Devil of Caroc's breastplate are additive with the rest or they work like Armored Grace?

Confirming what Ciphys has already mentioned: Articulated from DoC's breastplate does stack additively.

 

Depending how it stacks I think DoC breastplate bonus + Armored Grace = no recovery penalty from it...

A character (with Armored Grace) attacks slightly faster while in DoC breastplate than when naked

 

Btw, I have added Articulated to the calculator. But a small note: at the moment it's placed in the effects block on the right, so don't forget to also select the breastplate armor type.

[MaxQuest]

Can someone explain to me what the double inversion on negative numbers and maluses means in game terms?

The game adds all coefficients together. Bonuses, maluses, doesn't matter.

In PoE1 it worked fine, since there weren't enough big maluses.

While in Deadfire a similar approach would lead to negative damage on under-penetrating graze.

 

A lazy workaround could be to limit the damage at 0, or 20% of original value.

A better way would be to divide sum_of_bonuses by sum_of_maluses (all numbers being positive, so the result will be positive as well, plus it ends up with meaningful result).

But Deadfire went on the path of double-inversion. Which personally I see as math shenanigans, as they use different sub-formulas for bonuses and maluses, and do not cancel-out nicely if they have same absolute values. Specifically, imagine that you have:

+25% action speed from Frenzy, which translates into 1.25 speed coefficient; and

-25% action speed from Arbalest's modal, which translates into 0.75 speed coefficient

 

The game takes 1.25 and transforms it into +0.25 (step_value) via [coef - 1] formula

The game takes 0.75 and transforms it into -0.(3) (step_value) via [1 - 1/coef] formula

Now it adds them together: step_sum = 0.25 - 0.333333 = -0.083333

 

And after that computes the final coefficient:

- if step_sum is greater than 0: final_coef = step_sum + 1

- if step_sum is less than 0: final_coef = 1 / (1 - step_sum)

 

In our case it's the later, thus final_coef = 1 / (1 - -0.083333) = 0.92

And finnaly: phase_time = base_phase_time / final_coef

 

So if you had 6s reload; with Frenzy and Arbalest's modal you will have 6.52s, even if one effect was giving you +25% action speed, and another -25% action speed.

 

P.S. We call it double inversion because:

- individual malus coefficients are inverted when computing their individual step values

- if step_sum is below zero, it is inverted in order to get final coefficient

 

I am a little confused when it comes to dual wielding pistols, how can it be faster to reload them when your other hand is occupied, but when I have a lovely moisturised sweat free open hand just eager to reload, I am penalised with having to wait a little longer ?

It for sure feels strange.

But from another point of view:

- single-wielding a pistol inherently grants +12 acc.

- what should dual-wielding pistols inherently grant instead? (full-attack profit aside). Also we should take into account that there is a cost attached. If you are a quick-switching black jacket focused on 4 quick full-attacks, you would want 8 unique 1h-firearms, and also would have to enchant all of them.

Edited May 13, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Zzz]

About dual-wielding firearm - in my opinion BJ have no sense here (if bug fixed ofc), bcs we can reach ~1 shot/sec. So no need 4 pairs of wep, only 1-2.

[Vastus]

If it helps, DoC breastplate + Armored Grace + Swift Flurry + helm that reduces recovery with 2H = about 2s recovery with Whispers. It’s pretty powerful.

What helm is this and where can you get it?

[AndreaColombo]

What helm is this and where can you get it?

 

No idea where to get it; I used the console to see all unique items and it was one of them.

 

Here's a screenshot:

 

[Kaylon]

@MaxQuest Can you explain how the 25% recovery reduction from Armored Grace becomes 0.1 in your formula?

[MaxQuest]

@MaxQuest Can you explain how the 25% recovery reduction from Armored Grace becomes 0.1 in your formula?

Easy)

Tooltip writes 25% just because.

While the actual baseValue contained in statuseffects.bundle is 0.1

[Ciphys]

 

@MaxQuest Can you explain how the 25% recovery reduction from Armored Grace becomes 0.1 in your formula?

Easy)

Tooltip writes 25% just because.

While the actual baseValue contained in statuseffects.bundle is 0.1

 

Hah, was about to answer "becuase the devs thought it would be a good idea" but stopped myself because I thought that maybe there was a formula that concluded with the 0.1.  

 

Sometimes there are no reasonable answers... :/

[Madscientist]

Than you very much MaxQuest.

 

It would be very good if we have the damage formula too.

I already explained to somebody in the bug forum that it is not a bug if +25% damage and -25% damage do not result in base damage and I am sure there are many other confused players as well.

I have tried to make a thread about such thing but it got lost in the huge amount of new threads that come permanently.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98616-game-mechanics/

 

There will be tons of other things that many players will not understand, but damage and speed are the most importent ones because

- everybody wants to attack as fast as possible

- everybody wants to do as much damage as possible

- in both formulas +X% bonus and -X% penalty do not add up to zero

 

Another thing that would be interesting to know is stacking: What stacks and what not?

I have heared that all passive effects stack but active effects do not stack.

But then we have the question which effect is active and which effect is passive.

I think Boeroer said that weapon modals are active so the +2 pen does not stack with buffs ( I am not sure ).

This will also confuse many players, at least I failed the will save agains mind effecting mechanics

Edited May 13, 2018 by Madscientist

[aweigh0101]

 

Can someone explain to me what the double inversion on negative numbers and maluses means in game terms?

The game adds all coefficients together. Bonuses, maluses, doesn't matter.

In PoE1 it worked fine, since there weren't enough big maluses.

While in Deadfire a similar approach would lead to negative damage on under-penetrating graze.

 

A lazy workaround could be to limit the damage at 0, or 20% of original value.

A better way would be to divide sum_of_bonuses by sum_of_maluses (all numbers being positive, so the result will be positive as well, plus it ends up with meaningful result).

But Deadfire went on the path of double-inversion. Which personally I see as math shenanigans, as they use different sub-formulas for bonuses and maluses, and do not cancel-out nicely if they have same absolute values. Specifically, imagine that you have:

+25% action speed from Frenzy, which translates into 1.25 speed coefficient; and

-25% action speed from Arbalest's modal, which translates into 0.75 speed coefficient

 

The game takes 1.25 and transforms it into +0.25 (step_value) via [coef - 1] formula

The game takes 0.75 and transforms it into -0.(3) (step_value) via [1 - 1/coef] formula

Now it adds them together: step_sum = 0.25 - 0.333333 = -0.083333

 

And after that computes the final coefficient:

- if step_sum is greater than 0: final_coef = step_sum + 1

- if step_sum is less than 0: final_coef = 1 / (1 - step_sum)

 

In our case it's the later, thus final_coef = 1 / (1 - -0.083333) = 0.92

And finnaly: phase_time = base_phase_time / final_coef

 

So if you had 6s reload; with Frenzy and Arbalest's modal you will have 6.52s, even if one effect was giving you +25% action speed, and another -25% action speed.

 

P.S. We call it double inversion because:

- individual malus coefficients are inverted when computing their individual step values

- if step_sum is below zero, it is inverted in order to get final coefficient

 

I am a little confused when it comes to dual wielding pistols, how can it be faster to reload them when your other hand is occupied, but when I have a lovely moisturised sweat free open hand just eager to reload, I am penalised with having to wait a little longer ?

It for sure feels strange.

But from another point of view:

- single-wielding a pistol inherently grants +12 acc.

- what should dual-wielding pistols inherently grant instead? (full-attack profit aside). Also we should take into account that there is a cost attached. If you are a quick-switching black jacket focused on 4 quick full-attacks, you would want 8 unique 1h-firearms, and also would have to enchant all of them.

 

thanks bruh : )

 

btw, from poster Tygrendes in RPGCodex:

 

 

 

Trash Player said: ↑

Blunted Crits likely reduces the Crit Modifier by 25%, instead of being a -25% damage.

Nope.

 

 

 

Crit only got a total of 39.6666666% bonus damage , regular hit got 48%.

 

****ing hell Obsidian