Just to clarify something, the way most (but not all) modifiers work in the game is as linear stacking modifiers, not proportional modifiers.
Proportional modifiers would be what some people describe as "well, if it debuffs -100% that should be zero, because -100% means zero." That's not how linear modifiers work.
Most modifiers in most video games work by linear math, I suspect tracing their lineage all the way back to pen and paper RPGs and wargames. You know, +5 modifier to dice, or -3, or whatever. When you have +25% and -10% that is +15%. That is not Base x 1.25, and then x 0.9. It doesn't go up by 25 percent and then down by ten percent.
The correct mental model for this is to treat all modifiers as acting upon a volume knob. There's a volume knob for healing, say, and its starting position is 100%. +100% healing turns the knob from 100% to 200%. -100% healing turns the knob the other way from 200% to 100%. All modifiers act upon the modifier knob, not directly upon the base value. They all combine together, and then it is the volume knob itself that acts upon the base value, not any of the individual modifiers.
There are some modifiers that don't work this way. Some damage debuffs actually do work proportionally, and some AA synergies work proportionally. The game supports both game mechanisms. But the vast majority of modifiers - buffs and debuffs - work in the above way.
There's a bit of semantic problem here, and that is how to read "-100%." Most people read that as "minus one hundred percent." But percent of what? It doesn't say.
How do you read this: 40% - 25%? Most people read that as "forty percent minus twenty five percent." Which, of course, is thirty percent. Because twenty five percent of forty percent is ten percent, and forty percent minus ten percent is thirty percent. Except that's not how people interpret that. They see 40 - 25 = 15.
That's the problem. 40% - 25% is read "forty percent minus twenty five percent" and the "minus twenty five percent" is interpreted as minus twenty five percentage points. But when you drop the beginning, "minus twenty five percent" is interpreted as minus twenty five hundredths of whatever.
When the game says something reduces healing by 25%, they actually mean they reduce the healing modifier by twenty five percentage points. That's the semantically accurate way of describing that effect. However, most people don't understand the distinction and would be confused by that description, or find it excessively wordy without knowing the reason for it. So the game says "minus twenty five percent" and hopes people understand the intended meaning in context.
When people say "minus 100% should mean zero, because that's literally what that phrase means" they aren't actually correct. "Minus 100%" has ambiguous meaning, because that literally means "minus 100 out of 100." But it doesn't say of what. 100 out of 100 what? It could refer to the base value, or it could refer to the base modifier strength. Most people don't know that "base modifier strength" is a thing, so they don't realize there's two possibilities for what the percentage refers to, so they assume minus one hundred percent can only mean one thing.
Also, don't expect customer support to know anything about how the game works. Support is there to help players who have specific problems for which they have specific resolution options available for them to use. It would be nice if they understood all of the complexities of the game, but honestly that would be like expecting customer support at United Airlines to be able to help you with your physics homework and explain Bernoulli's equations for fluid dynamics in flight.
Also, don't expect customer support to know anything about how the game works. Support is there to help players who have specific problems for which they have specific resolution options available for them to use. It would be nice if they understood all of the complexities of the game, but honestly that would be like expecting customer support at United Airlines to be able to help you with your physics homework and explain Bernoulli's equations for fluid dynamics in flight.
I don’t expect support to know anything. I do expect support to know they don’t know anything and just say “thanks for this report, we’ll pass it on to the appropriate team” or “for potential bugs, please visit our forums and make a post in the appropriate format, here’s a link…”
Support giving out inaccurate responses about game mechanics should be easy for Kabam to stop. Support should be trained not to try to answer these kinds of questions and to focus on account related things that they can help with.
Comments
Proportional modifiers would be what some people describe as "well, if it debuffs -100% that should be zero, because -100% means zero." That's not how linear modifiers work.
Most modifiers in most video games work by linear math, I suspect tracing their lineage all the way back to pen and paper RPGs and wargames. You know, +5 modifier to dice, or -3, or whatever. When you have +25% and -10% that is +15%. That is not Base x 1.25, and then x 0.9. It doesn't go up by 25 percent and then down by ten percent.
The correct mental model for this is to treat all modifiers as acting upon a volume knob. There's a volume knob for healing, say, and its starting position is 100%. +100% healing turns the knob from 100% to 200%. -100% healing turns the knob the other way from 200% to 100%. All modifiers act upon the modifier knob, not directly upon the base value. They all combine together, and then it is the volume knob itself that acts upon the base value, not any of the individual modifiers.
There are some modifiers that don't work this way. Some damage debuffs actually do work proportionally, and some AA synergies work proportionally. The game supports both game mechanisms. But the vast majority of modifiers - buffs and debuffs - work in the above way.
There's a bit of semantic problem here, and that is how to read "-100%." Most people read that as "minus one hundred percent." But percent of what? It doesn't say.
How do you read this: 40% - 25%? Most people read that as "forty percent minus twenty five percent." Which, of course, is thirty percent. Because twenty five percent of forty percent is ten percent, and forty percent minus ten percent is thirty percent. Except that's not how people interpret that. They see 40 - 25 = 15.
That's the problem. 40% - 25% is read "forty percent minus twenty five percent" and the "minus twenty five percent" is interpreted as minus twenty five percentage points. But when you drop the beginning, "minus twenty five percent" is interpreted as minus twenty five hundredths of whatever.
When the game says something reduces healing by 25%, they actually mean they reduce the healing modifier by twenty five percentage points. That's the semantically accurate way of describing that effect. However, most people don't understand the distinction and would be confused by that description, or find it excessively wordy without knowing the reason for it. So the game says "minus twenty five percent" and hopes people understand the intended meaning in context.
When people say "minus 100% should mean zero, because that's literally what that phrase means" they aren't actually correct. "Minus 100%" has ambiguous meaning, because that literally means "minus 100 out of 100." But it doesn't say of what. 100 out of 100 what? It could refer to the base value, or it could refer to the base modifier strength. Most people don't know that "base modifier strength" is a thing, so they don't realize there's two possibilities for what the percentage refers to, so they assume minus one hundred percent can only mean one thing.
Support giving out inaccurate responses about game mechanics should be easy for Kabam to stop. Support should be trained not to try to answer these kinds of questions and to focus on account related things that they can help with.