Guild Wars 2

Apparently there will be a diminishing returns system to the new Essences of Luck where the max permanent luck you can reach is 300% MF (not sure about the exact percentage), but it gets increasingly harder to progress as you get closer to the maximum percentage.

Certainly upon introduction, players’ MF will vary widely, depending on how much they play or how rich they are. But after a while, because of the diminishing returns, it seems most players will have more or less all have a similar amount of MF.

If everyone has the same amount of MF, the I see two issues essentially negate the effects of MF:

• Because my MF is more or less the same as yours, MF will provide no advantage when comparing between two players.

• The playerbase will have lots of MF, and will thus should be richer as a whole, with more good loot dropping — theoretically. However, that also means that Anet can more easily decide to uniformly nerf drop rates. MF does not have to be a factor in their decisions at all because everyone has the same amount of MF.

Of course, there will still be temporary MF boosters which will differentiate players, but it appears to me that the permanent MF could very likely end up being an illusion of a bonus.

Thoughts?

Thoughts – why should magic find give Person A an advantage of Person B? You seem to imply that you deserve more than other players.

As for the rest? It’s beyond our control so why worry about it? They’re going to change stuff (like drop rates) at a whim and unless they tell us we’ll never know. We might suspect, but we’ll never know.

Lord Kuru.3685:

• The playerbase will have lots of MF, and will thus should be richer as a whole, with more good loot dropping — theoretically. However, that also means that Anet can more easily decide to uniformly nerf drop rates. MF does not have to be a factor in their decisions at all because everyone has the same amount of MF.

Not necessarily. Markets are driven by supply and demand. If you cant move an item due to supply, you aren’t any richer for it. What is moving rares right now is due to item consumption for instance. To keep that going since it’s purely moving under speculation, there will need to be a huge treadmill for that consumption. But even that eventually ceases, just like the drop in food consumables for instance.

After all, the high tier equipment are not consumables, they are not damaged nor destroyed. Part in what helps drive exotics sales is due to many people buying them up to dump into the mystic toilet for a precursor. But for rares, eventually they will start to drop as they have before unless some treadmill is maintained or they introduce item decay.

I know i for one will only let ppl with 200% or higher mf into my pt! j/k i mean realty treadmill talk about NEEDING something to do something to get more of something to do something else. MF just more of a self buff that dose not effect your pt and it will not say be the different between wining a fight or losing a fight.

GW2 is a treadmill just like any other MMO, just with more time gates I guess. Legendaries and ascended gear is proof of that. If you say otherwise you are simply denying the truth like an ostrich with it’s head buried.

Well, they were wise and ensured that all big drops come from chests which aren’t affected by MF.

It won’t really be a treadmill. It would be if they kept increasing the cap and moving the goalposts though.

fellyn.5083:

Thoughts – why should magic find give Person A an advantage of Person B? You seem to imply that you deserve more than other players.

Risk vs. reward. At least as it stands now. If a group is all in MF gear, they are weaker and the risk is higher for failure but the rewards better on success (not speaking of chests). The new system takes away choice and risk to introduce account wide MF grind.

Eh, as implemented, it just looks like people are going to be salvaging greens and blues for a short time before ignoring them completely all over again. I don’t see it as a grind as much as a minor distraction. Seems like a bit of a waste, since it adds nothing to the game except for a little bit of busy work.

I wonder if low level gear will be dropping MF motes on salvage as well. If so, I wouldn’t be surprised to see new players capped before they even hit 80.

The gear treadmill is replaced with a gold treadmill.

Simple as that.

How is it a treadmill? Seems more like a long straight road with a barricade at the end saying 300%.

Comparing magic find between players seems a bit pointless. You won’t be able to get magic find on armor so there’s no point worrying about what might have been. You will be able to make the same decisions about magic find consumables as you have in the past for the same rewards. I doubt that many people will get high enough magic find to see it scaled down.

zenleto.6179:

How is it a treadmill? Seems more like a long straight road with a barricade at the end saying 300%.

What I mean about the treadmill is that you will be getting your MF up to (near) 300%, but once you (and everyone else) are close, you’ll basically be right where you started.

Everyone will be on more or less the same page just as they are now. Of course, everyone will have ~300% MF, but that just invites Anet to nerf drop rates across the board reducing drop rates until we’re getting good loot at the same rate we are right now!

Stooperdale.3560:

Comparing magic find between players seems a bit pointless. You won’t be able to get magic find on armor so there’s no point worrying about what might have been. You will be able to make the same decisions about magic find consumables as you have in the past for the same rewards. I doubt that many people will get high enough magic find to see it scaled down.

I’m comparing MF between players because if everyone has the same amount of MF, then in a way, no one is actually better off than before.

Sure, you may get a precursor to sell because of this MF but everyone’s chances are increased so it’s not like you’ll be make more profit than you do now. If you just want a precursor for your own person enjoyment, then you’re a bit better off. However, I would not be surprised if Anet just uniformly nerfed all drop rates once most people are close to 300% MF.

Of course, much of this is speculation, but what I personally see is that this permanent MF is part of Anet’s disturbing trend of making content that’s really just the illusion of content. Everyone’s excited to salvage blues and greens right now, but pretty soon, we’ll all be vendoring them again and we’ll be right back where we started with no real content having been added to the game.

MF really can’t be considered a true treadmill. They have taken the high road and removed it from gear. This was the right thing to do as MF fails hard in any game with the possibility of group play. Diablo 3 moved to a similar process (paragon levels) for transitioning away from MF on gear.

No, the true treadmill(s) remains vertical progression and the gear grind that began in November of last year. VP is currently driving the reward system in GW2. All you need to do to understand this is to consider the laurels place in the game. If you have any doubts, just visit a laurel merchant and take a look at what they are selling. VP drives the game and it’s all about treadmills, but it’s not around MF.