Looking back at this when I linked someone here, it occurs to me that I didn't post an example.
Lets go with damage. I'll take what happens if you slot four damages in a power. Damages are Schedule A enhancements, so they're +33.3% each. That means four is +133.2%
Lets compare that to my four tax brackets. Since we exceeded 100%, we have crossed all four brackets.
B1 amount = 70% (we filled this bracket)
B2 amount = 20% (we filled this bracket)
B3 amount = 10% (we filled this bracket)
B4 amount = 33.2% (133.2% - 100%)
So, now we figure out the tax on each part.
B1: 0% (No tax here)
B2: 2% (20% * 10% tax)
B3: 3% (10% * 30% tax)
B4: 28.22% (33.2% * 85% tax)
So our total tax is 2%+3%+28.22% = 33.22%
Subtracting that out of our 133.2% leaves us with a final value of: 99.98%.
Next I'll post tables of the values for each bracket for each schedule. This has been done before, but I think it was entirely experimental, based on the enhancement display screen.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
[ QUOTE ]
B <40% 40-60% 60-80% >80%
[/ QUOTE ]
I think Schedule B uses brackets of
<40% 40-50% 50-60 >60%
Because 3 +2 resist SOs give an in-game resistance boost (both from the display and from testing actual resist values) of ~56.9%.
3 +2 resist SOs = 3*1.10*0.2 = 0.660 pre-ED buff
Using the quoted brackets:
0.4 + 0.9*0.2 + 0.7*0.06 = 0.6220 buff
Using the new brackets:
0.4 + 0.9*0.1 + 0.7*0.1 + 0.15*0.06 = 0.5690
ED. "Enhancement Diversity." This was the change introduced in Issue 6 (and at release for CoV) that introduces true diminishing returns on enhancements when you slot "too many" of one type of enhancement in a power.
This post is not about the merits or pitfalls of ED. It's about how ED works. While I've seen a few posts about this topic, and asked around about it on the forums a while back, I've never seen it actually described. So I set about determining it for myself. Presented here are my findings.
Something we known all along is that ED applies a "tax" on the value of enhancements. Most of the examples we've seen involve Schedule "A" enhancers. For those who don't know, there are four "schedules" of enhancements.
Schedule A: An SO is 33.3%
Schedule B: An SO is 20.0%
Schedule C: An SO is 40.0%
Schedule D: An SO is 60.0%
Schedules C and D are uncommon, with examples being Interrupt Reduction and Knockback Increase, respectively.
For each Schedule, ED assigns what I'll call "tax brackets". These are brackets against which the value for the sum of all enhancemets of a certain type in a power are compared.
For now, lets look just at Schedule A. Damage enhancers use Schedule A, so if you have three even-level Enhanced Damage SOs in a power, the sum of the enhancement is 99.9%. If you have four, the sum is 133.2%.
From what I can tell the game appears to do this:
1) Compare the "untaxed" value of your enhancements to the four tax brackets.
2) Find out how much falls into each bracket
3) Subtract out the amount of tax based on how much value was in each bracket.
When doing this, each type of enhancement is considered separately. If your power can be slotted for damage, accuracy, recharge and endurance, the "tax" on damage enhancements has nothing to do with the one on accuracy, and vice versa.
Here are the tax bracket boundaries by schedule. These are known to be exact, and were not determined experimentally.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Sch B1 B2 B3 B4
----------------------------------
A <70% 70-90% 90-100% >100%
B <40% 40-60% 60-80% >80%
C <80% 80-100% 100-120% >120%
D <120% 120-150% 150-180% >180%</pre><hr />
Here's the amount of "tax" taken out for each bracket:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Total in Tax
---------------
Bracket 1: 0%
Bracket 2: 10%
Bracket 3: 30%
Bracket 4: 85%</pre><hr />
By using this data and calculation model and comparing it to how various in-game combinations of enhancements display, I find I my values match to within about 0.5% of what the game shows when you hover over a power on the enhancement screen. I'm not sure if that difference is due to rounding differences on my side or the game's, or if there is a subtle difference between my math and the game's.
By the way, take a close look at the bracket table. Two Schedule A SOs is 66.6%, which is in the first Schedule A tax bracket. But two Schedule B SOs is 40%, which is exactly where the second Schedule B bracket starts. The same holds true for Schedules C and D.
This has a (very) small impact on greening up your SOs. It turns out you can have two +1 Schedule A SOs without incurring any tax, but greening up any other Schedule incurs a small tax. We're talking about very small amounts here, however (less than 1%), so the observation (like most of this thread) is mostly academic.
As a final comment, ED thoroughly limits the value of greening SOs when you have three (or more!) in a power. In the old days, three +3 Schedule A SOs would have been worth an extra 15% enhancement bonus. Under ED they are worth only 2.3%. I would think long and hard about greening up any Hamidon Enhancements you have if you've got three slotted already. If you insist on eking out more bonus, slot more than three instead of combining them.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA