I’ve seen a topic in suggestions before that suggests removing Magic Find.
While I would’ve supported that idea in the initial development of a game (I don’t like the idea of Magic Find), the logistics of removing it from the game entirely right now are very messy. What to do with all the MF runes, sigils and gear already in the game? Is the code of MF already written into many parts of the game, i.e. the loot tables? It’s a considerably difficult issue.
The problem:
When I currently run any dungeons, I am still compelled to use my MF gear. A great deal of the monsters do have drops, and they occasionally drop very decent loot. This is especially true for Fractals. I do not feel like i’m the only one who thinks like this. You can see that this is not very good for a game: in general, this locks up ‘freedom’ to choose many gear builds to bring into a dungeon in favor of magic find.
Certainly, I am free to being my combat gear (I refer to it as WvW gear, because that’s the only place I use it). There is no physical limitation, but consider this: The overlying goal of running a dungeon is to acquire loot. Magic Find is the most direct way to this goal, and I find it tough to rationalize wearing anything else. With my full MF gear + boosts, I am around 200% MF. It is not a small difference.
Proposed adjustment:
I don’t call this a solution. Magic Find is in this game, and it’s messy to remove. I accept that.
What if we just removed it from the places that it would hinder the group the most to be wearing it? Namely: Make Magic Find not function, or function in an extremely reduced capacity, in dungeons. This would restrict Magic Find to primarily being a tool for Dynamic Events around the world, which is OK.
The drops from monsters in dungeons can be raised in quality a bit across the board to compensate. This forms a more equal distribution of the wealth, across all 5 players, rather than punishing the ones who wear stat gear (and theoretically contribute more) and rewarding those like me, who wear MF gear (and theoretically contribute less). Of course play skill is still paramount… a better, more experienced player with MF gear in a dungeon will be more effective than a less experienced player with more stat-based gear. We are talking theoretical contribution – assuming everything except the gear is equal.
As always, I like to include a few reasons I can think of against my own idea.
- This does seem to strongly encourage 2+ sets of gear, sets for dungeons and sets for overworld. Does anyone think this is a big problem? ArenaNet has shown a disinclination to allow for swapping (our current “can’t change in combat” system, and no real easy way to swap armor sets), but I don’t believe this goes against their philosophy entirely. This is swapping sets during the “preparing” stage of the dungeon.
I think encouraging more gear sets is also of some benefit. Compelling players to own more items is good for a healthy game economy. With another set of gear, players will want to craft it, find skins for it, find dyes of their liking, transmute, etc. It’s more usage, which in turn is flat out more game to be played.
- This would be a significant nerf to Magic Find. Many players may have only been able to afford one set of exotic gear to this point. They may have chosen Magic Find, and this is essentially a large nerf to their own gear-set. In many ways, this is not fair, no game changes ever are.
(edited by LFk.1408)