Guild Wars 2

Hi. There is a lot of speculation about the impact MF has on drops. I want to start this thread in hopes to validate a few pieces of the MF puzzle.

I know there are a lot of advanced stats folks here so we have the talent for that. We also have a lot of skeptics that will provide the objections needed to improve the test. Most importantly we have the pool of volunteers needed to gather the numbers.

Here are the conditions for the test.

1. Any amount of MF is acceptable for the test. Just state hoe much you have.
2. The location is Pent/Shelt/Jofast area is Orr.
3. Farm events and the time waiting between events.
4. Any duration of time is acceptable
5. Any build is acceptable just state your main DPS weapon.
6. Party size.
7. Record on the hour the total # of drops, drops by rarity, mats, unidentified dyes.
8. Server and if peak time or not

I will be starting this evening. I hope to get good participation.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but I don’t think there’s much intelligent debate about the effects of Magic Find. It appears to work exactly as advertised, and the naysayers are mostly people who refuse to understand that a 200% increase in a 1 in 10000 chance is still just a 3 in 10000 chance.

For me it was clear as day counting the amount of grey and blue items I got from mobs that Magic Find was working…. unless you think it recently “broke”?

I would recommend you take a look at the wiki’s talk page on the Magic Find topic:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talk:Magic_find

Specifically, check out the very last entry: “Data on drops with and without Magic Find”. There’s already a decent study there which spanned 38 hours of farming over a two week period that produced over 18,000 items (roughly half with, half without). Though some statistics folks will probably say that even that sample size is too small, and there’s still issues with it being a single person and in a single area.

Unless you see a flaw in the conditions for this existing study, you may want to consider setting up similar conditions for your own experiment and posting your results along side it.

I’ve farmed those wps for about 3 hours (half today, half yesterday) with… ~200% MF or so and it’s definitely had an effect. Got four rares and an exotic yesterday, got some more today and got 3 piles of crystalline dust literally within seconds of each other.

The only problem I have is that basically every other stat you have sucks if you go MF, not whether it has a relevant effect.

@OP when gathering data like this the person gathering the results needs to not count past results.

For example, I didn’t get a rare yesterday with 200+MF is invalid, but saying
“I’m going to empty my inventory then go to those camps and farm for an hour, THEN record exactly what I get” is valid.

Geared a ‘mothballed’ character I hadn’t played in a while with MF of 99%. Did these three events (and two Plinx Runs) over the course of about three hours. Only had a full party maybe 45 minutes, mostly 3-4 people the rest of the time. Also, was definitely not server peak time (Midnight to about 3 am on TC)

Results:
Seven rares, two named exotics.
Five Unids.

This is versus a character I farm Orr all the time with, about the same test conditions and duration, with which I got a total of two rares, two dyes.

I’d say diminishing returns plays a huge factor, aside from outright luck.

I’d have more thorough notes and exacting drop data if I had been keeping track at the time – just stumbled on this thread.

Edit: Actually my MF was closer to 129-139, not 99. Forgot about the Omnom bars and occasional MF banner.

colesy.8490:

I’ve farmed those wps for about 3 hours (half today, half yesterday) with… ~200% MF or so and it’s definitely had an effect. Got four rares and an exotic yesterday, got some more today and got 3 piles of crystalline dust literally within seconds of each other.

The only problem I have is that basically every other stat you have sucks if you go MF, not whether it has a relevant effect.

That’s a separate argument…almost everybody thinks Magic Find, as a concept, kind of sucks. Vast majority of players would prefer not to have to worry about carrying a set of ‘farming gear’.

Also, most players don’t think it’s fair that my support Guardian can switch to that gear with little downside (I give up healing power and toughness and gain precision and magic find, which is not a huge deal in most Orr events).. but that a glass cannon has to give up some power to use a farming set.

Nor do most people think it’s really a good idea that in a game based on teamwork, somebody can decide to handicap their effectiveness to get more loot…

But here we are, it’s in the game and we’re probably stuck with it. I’d LOVE for somebody to find that Magic Find didn’t work at all and we can all retire our farming sets and never swap again…. but the fact is that even if that was found, ArenaNet would just fix it.

Your proposed experiment is extremely uncontrolled and full of variables with unknown effects on the results. Also, all the results are hearsay.

Someone geared in all Magic Find can go out and coast leisurely, auto-attacking any mobs they happen to get within melee-range of. Or, a non-MF character can zoom around throwing AoEs and tagging every single mob in the area, maximizing their potential farming time.

You even allow for any amount of play time, any profession and build, and any party size — all of which are factors which can have a huge impact on the results. The number of other random players coming in and out of the zerg also has its role to play. And did any of these players take a break during their farming? Did they get up and go to the bathroom? Did they ever die? Did the waypoint, or just run everywhere?

I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but this cannot possibly provide useful data.

@ frye.

The many variables are indeed controls to the experiment. The more data we will be able establish outliers. The outliers will acount for data that is either extremely lucky or unlucky or false reports. We will also be able to establish an approximate DR threshold. Remember, MF does not effect the quantity of drops it effects the quality. So time is only a measure for DR. Going to the bathroom will not effect the drops data only DR data which is fine.

The reason I ask for party size, type of DPS if single or aoe, and time spent is to establish different upper and lower limit values. Our stats guys on the forum would have a blast.

An experiment is just what it is. And what I want to determine is what is luck, what is typical, and what is unlucky for specific ranges of MF. Such as 0 to 50, 51 to 100, 101 to 150, 151 to 200, and 201 to 250.

I will post the format of posting the data this evening. So we can standardize the process.

Remember let’s keep this civil, on topic, and full of subjective and objective discussion.