(edited by Strill.2591)
Magic Find Is Too Homogenizing
Unless your main goal isn’t actually to have fun, perhaps you’re optimizing for the wrong variables here? Ultimately, your choice of magic find over an alternative option means that you’ve chosen, whether consciously or subconsciously, to proritize getting loot over the many other aspects of this game.
If you want to make a reasonable comparison of dungeon clear rates, you’d have to compare the results for 5 magic-find geared characters vs 5 differently-geared characters. Magic find is obviously going to make more difference to you individually, because the benefits are concentrated on you, as opposed to other stats, which help your entire party.
Furthermore, there is more of a tradeoff than you might think. From a rough estimate on my character’s current stats, a Berserker’s Pearl Broadsword actually gives closer to 5% extra damage vs. an Explorer’s Pearl Broadsword, and that 5% damage does in fact make a difference. Perhaps that isn’t better than 3% magic find, but it’s still a tradeoff that’s worth considering.
While I’d be inclined to agree that the 60% bonus from runes could well be optimal if you only want to maximise your loot, you may not actually want to do this. If, for example, you just want to get dungeon tokens as quickly as possible to get some piece of armour, then magic find might not be the best option anymore. Also, that 60% bonus isn’t actually 60% if, say, you’re already at +100% magic find. Multiplicatively, 260% vs 200% is only a 30% increase.
Finally, while magic find may be “optimal” in PvE, you can’t really make that argument for WvW, which is also a significant portion of the game.
(edited by lackofcheese.5617)
My own stats are irrelevant to my dungeon completion rates since I am only 1/5th of my party. Heck, I can’t even get my party members to use the +9% damage potions when they only cost 11 copper and I offer them for free. There is absolutely no way my stats being maxed will make a significant difference to my clear rates when my teammates are probably using level 60 blue underwater weapons. (seriously. I really met someone who did this at level 80)
You say I might not want to maximize loot, but that’s just not true. The game’s whole end-game revolves around loot. All the fancy exotic skins require lots of valuable loot. Legendary weapons require tons and tons of loot. Dungeons are the only place where stats might have been important, but they’re trivially easy so I still don’t need anything.
For WvW I’d agree, but unfortunately with the increased population caps, my internet bandwidth can’t handle the number of people in any one spot and there’s no way to get the game to not load them, so that’s effectively off-limits to me.
(edited by Strill.2591)
My own stats are irrelevant to my dungeon completion rates since I am only 1/5th of my party. Heck, I can’t even get my party members to use the +9% damage potions when they only cost 11 copper and I offer them for free. There is absolutely no way my stats being maxed will make a significant difference to my clear rates when my teammates are probably using level 60 blue underwater weapons. (seriously. I really met someone who did this at level 80)
You’re missing the point I made above. If you choose items with higher damage, the benefits from that are spread across your entire group. Magic find, on the other hand, helps you and you alone.
Similarly, if your defensive stats are inadequate because you’ve chosen to pump everything into magic find, you’re hurting your entire group by doing so.
Let’s say that you going for 5% extra damage on your weapon instead of 3% magic find causes you to clear dungeons 0.6% faster, on average. If your entire party made that change, then that would add up to roughly 3% faster dungeon clearing, and so the overall efficiency would be roughly equal.
You can’t make a fair comparison of magic find vs. other stats without taking into account the above consideration. Yes, I’ll grant that if you’re completely selfish, what you should do is trick everyone into using stats that help the group (and pretend to do the same thing yourself), while in fact using magic find gear without telling anyone you’re doing this.
However, this isn’t a problem with the usefulness of stats vs. one another; it’s merely a matter of people failing to work together properly.
You say I might not want to maximize loot, but that’s just not true. The game’s whole end-game revolves around loot. All the fancy exotic skins require lots of valuable loot. Legendary weapons require tons and tons of loot. Dungeons are the only place where stats might have been important, but they’re trivially easy so I still don’t need anything.
Speak for yourself. Just because you might only want to maximise loot doesn’t mean that everyone else who plays this game does.
My own stats are irrelevant to my dungeon completion rates since I am only 1/5th of my party. Heck, I can’t even get my party members to use the +9% damage potions when they only cost 11 copper and I offer them for free. There is absolutely no way my stats being maxed will make a significant difference to my clear rates when my teammates are probably using level 60 blue underwater weapons. (seriously. I really met someone who did this at level 80)
You’re missing the point I made above. If you choose items with higher damage, the benefits from that are spread across your entire group. Magic find, on the other hand, helps you and you alone.
Why is this even a consideration? Dungeons are trivial already. I’ve never been in a dungeon group that’s even come anywhere close to failing even though I can’t even get my group to spend 11 copper on some incredibly useful potions. If dungeons require so little teamwork already, yet are still successful, why should I sacrifice anything? What does anyone get in return? I’d say not much at all.
Similarly, if your defensive stats are inadequate because you’ve chosen to pump everything into magic find, you’re hurting your entire group by doing so.
There’s no such thing as insufficient defensive stats. I’ve done all my runs without a single point in defensive stats as a Mesmer and never had any problems.
Let’s say that you going for 5% extra damage on your weapon instead of 3% magic find causes you to clear dungeons 0.6% faster, on average. If your entire party made that change, then that would add up to roughly 3% faster dungeon clearing, and so the overall efficiency would be roughly equal.
You can’t make a fair comparison of magic find vs. other stats without taking into account the above consideration. Yes, I’ll grant that if you’re completely selfish, what you should do is trick everyone into using stats that help the group (and pretend to do the same thing yourself), while in fact using magic find gear without telling anyone you’re doing this.
However, this isn’t a problem with the usefulness of stats vs. one another; it’s merely a matter of people failing to work together properly.
Look at it this way: Offensive stats are only useful in one specific context while magic find is useful everywhere. If they’re both equally effective it’s much cheaper for everyone to have one set of gear with magic find than to have two sets they switch between. Considering I can’t even get my groupmates to spend 11 copper, I would never expect them to actually have a second set of gear, so I don’t bother with it myself. Even so, I’ve never had any problems completing dungeons with the magic find gear I have, so that makes the other stats obsolete.
You say I might not want to maximize loot, but that’s just not true. The game’s whole end-game revolves around loot. All the fancy exotic skins require lots of valuable loot. Legendary weapons require tons and tons of loot. Dungeons are the only place where stats might have been important, but they’re trivially easy so I still don’t need anything.
Speak for yourself. Just because you might only want to maximise loot doesn’t mean that everyone else who plays this game does.
And what do you get out of not maximizing loot?
(edited by Strill.2591)
My own stats are irrelevant to my dungeon completion rates since I am only 1/5th of my party. Heck, I can’t even get my party members to use the +9% damage potions when they only cost 11 copper and I offer them for free. There is absolutely no way my stats being maxed will make a significant difference to my clear rates when my teammates are probably using level 60 blue underwater weapons. (seriously. I really met someone who did this at level 80)
You’re missing the point I made above. If you choose items with higher damage, the benefits from that are spread across your entire group. Magic find, on the other hand, helps you and you alone.
Why is this even a consideration? Dungeons are trivial already. I’ve never been in a dungeon group that’s even come anywhere close to failing even though I can’t even get my group to spend 11 copper on some incredibly useful potions. If dungeons require so little teamwork already, yet are still successful, why should I sacrifice anything? What does anyone get in return? I’d say not much at all.
It doesn’t have to be the difference between success or failure for it to be a justifiable difference. Clearing the dungeon faster also increases loot per unit time, and even if this increase is very small, you still have to consider that it’s helping 5 people rather than just one.
You say I might not want to maximize loot, but that’s just not true. The game’s whole end-game revolves around loot. All the fancy exotic skins require lots of valuable loot. Legendary weapons require tons and tons of loot. Dungeons are the only place where stats might have been important, but they’re trivially easy so I still don’t need anything.
Speak for yourself. Just because you might only want to maximise loot doesn’t mean that everyone else who plays this game does.
And what do you get out of not maximizing loot?
Fun. Isn’t that what this topic was about in the first place?
Ultimately, it is guaranteed to be the case that only a tiny subset of possible builds is “optimal” with respect to a given utility function. This doesn’t just apply to gear; it also applies to the skills you choose, the profession you choose, and every single action you take in-game.
(edited by lackofcheese.5617)
You know, if magic find was made less effective or removed, it’d be exactly like if you just stopped using it. Are you some kind of addict?
Like lackofcheese have said, it’s most likely because the four other members in your party are carrying the bit of weight that your MF stats is putting on them. Most dungeons are easy as range/casters, but melees will definitely not get away with wearing MF gear, especially with no points in any defensive stats. However, if you do try with 5 members in MF gear I can guarantee you’ll see a very noticeable difference in your party’s survivability almost instantly.
Like lackofcheese have said, it’s most likely because the four other members in your party are carrying the bit of weight that your MF stats is putting on them. Most dungeons are easy as range/casters, but melees will definitely not get away with wearing MF gear, especially with no points in any defensive stats. However, if you do try with 5 members in MF gear I can guarantee you’ll see a very noticeable difference in your party’s survivability almost instantly.
I’m telling you I haven’t had a single dungeon where we were in any danger whatsoever of failing. Most of the time we complete it without anyone getting defeated. How am I supposed to see any increase in survivability?
Whatever, this thread has gotten completely derailed.
You know, if magic find was made less effective or removed, it’d be exactly like if you just stopped using it. Are you some kind of addict?
Opportunity Cost. Economics 101.
My own stats are irrelevant to my dungeon completion rates since I am only 1/5th of my party. Heck, I can’t even get my party members to use the +9% damage potions when they only cost 11 copper and I offer them for free. There is absolutely no way my stats being maxed will make a significant difference to my clear rates when my teammates are probably using level 60 blue underwater weapons. (seriously. I really met someone who did this at level 80)
You’re missing the point I made above. If you choose items with higher damage, the benefits from that are spread across your entire group. Magic find, on the other hand, helps you and you alone.
Why is this even a consideration? Dungeons are trivial already. I’ve never been in a dungeon group that’s even come anywhere close to failing even though I can’t even get my group to spend 11 copper on some incredibly useful potions. If dungeons require so little teamwork already, yet are still successful, why should I sacrifice anything? What does anyone get in return? I’d say not much at all.
It doesn’t have to be the difference between success or failure for it to be a justifiable difference. Clearing the dungeon faster also increases loot per unit time, and even if this increase is very small, you still have to consider that it’s helping 5 people rather than just one.
Getting my team to use potions is a far bigger priority than me switching to non-MF gear, yet I can’t even accomplish that goal. Furthermore, we still beat the dungeons with no difficulty. Why should I be sweating my stats when they are so insignificant in comparison?
Consider that by using magic find I get +158% more loot, while if I were to switch to stat gear I would perhaps clear the dungeon five minutes faster in the absolute best case. It’s far better for the entire team to use magic find than to use anything else.
You say I might not want to maximize loot, but that’s just not true. The game’s whole end-game revolves around loot. All the fancy exotic skins require lots of valuable loot. Legendary weapons require tons and tons of loot. Dungeons are the only place where stats might have been important, but they’re trivially easy so I still don’t need anything.
Speak for yourself. Just because you might only want to maximise loot doesn’t mean that everyone else who plays this game does.
And what do you get out of not maximizing loot?
Fun. Isn’t that what this topic was about in the first place?[/quote]And you find spending extra hours and days having to farm because you weren’t using magic find fun? Did you forget that all the best Mystic Forge gear requires tons and tons of grinding?
Ultimately, it is guaranteed to be the case that only a tiny subset of possible builds is “optimal” with respect to a given utility function. This doesn’t just apply to gear; it also applies to the skills you choose, the profession you choose, and every single action you take in-game.
Bull. Too much of it depends on your opponent, which you can’t predict. Sigil of Strength and Runes of Strength give a good damage bonus, but not if your opponent has consistent boon removal. You’re just making your point as vague as possible so you can sound smart without actually connecting any of your arguments to mine.
My own stats are irrelevant to my dungeon completion rates since I am only 1/5th of my party. Heck, I can’t even get my party members to use the +9% damage potions when they only cost 11 copper and I offer them for free. There is absolutely no way my stats being maxed will make a significant difference to my clear rates when my teammates are probably using level 60 blue underwater weapons. (seriously. I really met someone who did this at level 80)
You’re missing the point I made above. If you choose items with higher damage, the benefits from that are spread across your entire group. Magic find, on the other hand, helps you and you alone.
Why is this even a consideration? Dungeons are trivial already. I’ve never been in a dungeon group that’s even come anywhere close to failing even though I can’t even get my group to spend 11 copper on some incredibly useful potions. If dungeons require so little teamwork already, yet are still successful, why should I sacrifice anything? What does anyone get in return? I’d say not much at all.
It doesn’t have to be the difference between success or failure for it to be a justifiable difference. Clearing the dungeon faster also increases loot per unit time, and even if this increase is very small, you still have to consider that it’s helping 5 people rather than just one.
Getting my team to use potions is a far bigger priority than me switching to non-MF gear, yet I can’t even accomplish that goal. Furthermore, we still beat the dungeons with no difficulty. Why should I be sweating my stats when they are so insignificant in comparison?
Consider that by using magic find I get +158% more loot, while if I were to switch to stat gear I would perhaps clear the dungeon five minutes faster in the absolute best case. It’s far better for the entire team to use magic find than to use anything else.
5 minutes out of how many? 30? That’s +20% more loot per unit time, but considering that benefit spreads to 5 players, it’s worth as much as +100% individually.
Yes, with those numbers I’d still take +158% over +100% if I was optimizing only loot, but with those numbers the difference between the two is hardly as massive as you seem to suggest it is, and they are only rough estimates anyway.
Also, even if going full magic find were to be more effective than full damage, it could easily be the case that the sweet spot lies somewhere in between.
Another important point is that some aspects of running dungeons do not benefit from the magic find, but do benefit from a faster clear time – in particular, experience and tokens. These are also useful, and moreover they can be used to earn additional gold.
And what do you get out of not maximizing loot?
Fun. Isn’t that what this topic was about in the first place?
And you find spending extra hours and days having to farm because you weren’t using magic find fun?
Why wouldn’t they be fun? If I didn’t enjoy the time I spent, I wouldn’t play the game.
Ultimately, it is guaranteed to be the case that only a tiny subset of possible builds is “optimal” with respect to a given utility function. This doesn’t just apply to gear; it also applies to the skills you choose, the profession you choose, and every single action you take in-game.
Bull. Too much of it depends on your opponent, which you can’t predict. Sigil of Strength and Runes of Strength give a good damage bonus, but not if your opponent has consistent boon removal.
If you were talking about PvP I’d see your point, but this discussion is focused on PvE, and dungeons in particular. Dungeons are very predictable indeed – you do, in fact, know which opponents you’re up against and what skills they use.
60% magic find doesnt mean you get 60% more loot. Even with 200%+ magic find its not even 50% more loot.
1st person worldwide to reach 35,000 achievement points.
Like lackofcheese have said, it’s most likely because the four other members in your party are carrying the bit of weight that your MF stats is putting on them. Most dungeons are easy as range/casters, but melees will definitely not get away with wearing MF gear, especially with no points in any defensive stats. However, if you do try with 5 members in MF gear I can guarantee you’ll see a very noticeable difference in your party’s survivability almost instantly.
I’m telling you I haven’t had a single dungeon where we were in any danger whatsoever of failing. Most of the time we complete it without anyone getting defeated. How am I supposed to see any increase in survivability?
Whatever, this thread has gotten completely derailed.
Okay, I want you to do Arah Explore, then come back to this thread.
The thread has not been derailed, you are saying that MF gear is imperative to maximize loot, it is, but only works to a point. Only you alone is getting away with having full MF gear in dungeon runs because like I said, the other 4 members—most likely not in MF gear—in your group are picking up some of your slacks. You will not see a difference in survivability unless you run with 4 other members in magic find gear.
=.= what maledikuts said. what is basically said, what is happening here is thsoe higher % is being multipied to your base magic find which is unknown. for all you know it could be a really tiny as number, lets say your base magic find is 5% so .05, and you have idk 150% mf all that means is (.05 × 1.5)+.05= 12.5% mf.
You know, if magic find was made less effective or removed, it’d be exactly like if you just stopped using it. Are you some kind of addict?
Opportunity Cost. Economics 101.
Does getting someone else to stop you not have the opportunity cost that stopping yourself has? You’re basically saying you don’t want to use magic find gear, but you can’t stop yourself from using it unless somebody removes the incentive. If they did, and you switched to other gear, you would be getting exactly as much loot as you would right now if you just exercised self control and switched to more ‘fun’ gear.
=.= what maledikuts said. what is basically said, what is happening here is thsoe higher % is being multipied to your base magic find which is unknown. for all you know it could be a really tiny as number, lets say your base magic find is 5% so .05, and you have idk 150% mf all that means is (.05 × 1.5)+.05= 12.5% mf.
How is that any different to what I assumed it was?
Does getting someone else to stop you not have the opportunity cost that stopping yourself has? You’re basically saying you don’t want to use magic find gear, but you can’t stop yourself from using it unless somebody removes the incentive. If they did, and you switched to other gear, you would be getting exactly as much loot as you would right now if you just exercised self control and switched to more ‘fun’ gear.
Right now using gear other than magic find presents the opportunity cost of all the loot I’m not getting because I didn’t use magic find. That’s a very large cost. If magic find gear did not exist, then that cost would not exist and I would be able to use whichever stats I wanted without incurring that penalty.
Right now using gear other than magic find presents the opportunity cost of all the loot I’m not getting because I didn’t use magic find. That’s a very large cost. If magic find gear did not exist, then that cost would not exist and I would be able to use whichever stats I wanted without incurring that penalty.
But it does exist right now, so efforts you make toward having it removed, if successful, would also cost you that.
It appears that Strill is only willing to stop using magic find if everyone is forced to stop using magic find.
A very community-minded view, that.
Right now using gear other than magic find presents the opportunity cost of all the loot I’m not getting because I didn’t use magic find. That’s a very large cost. If magic find gear did not exist, then that cost would not exist and I would be able to use whichever stats I wanted without incurring that penalty.
But it does exist right now, so efforts you make toward having it removed, if successful, would also cost you that.
Possibly, but not necessarily. It could be that they’ll just increase drop rates across the board.
It appears that Strill is only willing to stop using magic find if everyone is forced to stop using magic find.
A very community-minded view, that.
I make personal decisions to maximize my rewards. I make developer suggestions to maximize my fun.
As I’ve said elsewhere, MF doesn’t do much to begin with. You’ll probably never make back the money you spent outfitting yourself with MF gear, so you’re better off not bothering. The increase in drop rate is far too low for that sort of investment – as it should be. Imagine if it was effective; everyone would have to use it to “normalize” drop rates.
Things like magic find should never be added to games. Ever. I was surprised to even see it in GW2. Adding gold bonus items of any kind just make the game a mess, as people question the worth of not using it vs actually being able to use the rest of the options in the game. Is it detrimental to NOT wear it? Yes. Is it really that beneficial? Maybe not. You end up wearing other gear only “to have fun,” yet since it’s just an invisible number with barely any visible consequences, you find it’s just unsatisfying enough to go back to boosting gold rates. Very poor decision on ANet’s part. One of many in this game. It’s not a big deal, but it was still not a good move.
If MF must be in the game, it should be limited to either consumables (although I hate having to carry stacks of magical Kit Kats in my bag) or a single accessory item that does something unrelated to combat, and is related only to increasing drop rates, either with increased rare discovery, increased gold drops, increased xp gain, minor karma gain from killed enemies, and so on. But again, it’s too late for that.