Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

It might have been mentioned on these forums before, but the state-of-the-art search function didn’t yield any results, so here it goes..

Is it wrong to assume that, once you hit 100% Magic Find, that every item that drops for you should be like, you know, Magic?
Or is the MF implementation done on another way?

Checking, since at 150% MF I still get tons of whites (not magic at all)

Tribio.8531:

Hey all,

It might have been mentioned on these forums before, but the state-of-the-art search function didn’t yield any results, so here it goes..

Is it wrong to assume that, once you hit 100% Magic Find, that every item that drops for you should be like, you know, Magic?
Or is the MF implementation done on another way?

Checking, since at 150% MF I still get tons of whites (not magic at all)

150% of a small base percentage is still small.

Nope, Magic Find just increases the drop rate chance of rarer items dropping.

For example, if an Exotic has a 1% chance of dropping, having 100% MF would increase that chance to 2%.

For the record, I’m pretty sure that the MF cap is 700%.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find

With all bonus MF you can get +295%, on top of the 300% base you can build and +16% from AP’s your max MF currently ingame could be 611%, this doesn’t include zone wide MF like anet added with southsun cove came into the game, or MF from silverwastes, as they are only available in them zones.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Nope, Magic Find just increases the drop rate chance of rarer items dropping.

For example, if an Exotic has a 1% chance of dropping, having 100% MF would increase that chance to 2%.

Aaah.. My thanks for clarifying with this example.. :-)

It was described a bit better somewhere, around the time when it was introduced or when they where discussing the implementation.

Essentially i believe its a loot table of Junk,White,blue,green,rare,exotic. MF increases the base roll that picks from these table columns (however they also include not just gear). That said at the end of the day its RNG chances and you yes have more of a chance of getting the higher tiers but its still random and all it does is increase the margins ever so slightly. Even with the cap, your still likely to only get an exotic once in a blue moon its just more likely to overall. Your also still going to end up with a ton of greens and blues.

To visualize it:

Junk 1-20 Whites 21-30 Blue 31-55 Green 56-80 Rare 81- 95 Exotic 96-100

I would imagine something ridiculous like every 100% would only nudge those figures down one, but you still have to remember your still rolling between them all and can quite easily still get junk.

Of-course this is not how its implemented exactly but you get the idea?

Keep in mind that GW2 also has some pretty heavy handed and sneaky DR that can hit you at any time.

Basicly if you kill 100 mobs to get 1 yellow, the guy with 100% MF maybe gets it after 50 kills and then only get spikes, while the guy with 200% MF gets it after 30 kills and then just as many spikes.

I would say that your loot is based on pure RnG and MF is just a made up stat that anet uses as a gold sink,

I used to farm a lot in this game, and when MF was changed I pushed it to 300% base fairly fast, ( I do not regret this ) but a friend of mine who refuses to use MF seems to get way better general loot that me when out in the open world, even though his MF is over 200% lower than mine,

Given all that and now that Anet seem to be pushing rewards into boxes instead of drops ( IE silverwastes ) MF is nearly no use at all here, and Anet stay mute on this topic because as the stands people are still sinking gold into MF.

Ok I Did It.2854:

…Given all that and now that Anet seem to be pushing rewards into boxes instead of drops ( IE silverwastes ) MF is nearly no use at all here, and Anet stay mute on this topic because as the stands people are still sinking gold into MF.

Magic Find affects Bandit Chests.

Key problem with MF in my opinion is that the influence of increased MF doesn’t seem powerful enough to counter the general affects of the RNG. I’ve gone rampaging with high MF with the desire to see increased rare (and/or exotic) drops to only be really disappointed. Then when just doing general game play without boosting up MF I’ll get two exotic items in an hour. RNG is RNG and while MF probably works exactly as designed it is clear that the impact from RNG > MF.

Gaviston Hawkington.9647:

Key problem with MF in my opinion is that the influence of increased MF doesn’t seem powerful enough to counter the general affects of the RNG. I’ve gone rampaging with high MF with the desire to see increased rare (and/or exotic) drops to only be really disappointed. Then when just doing general game play without boosting up MF I’ll get two exotic items in an hour. RNG is RNG and while MF probably works exactly as designed it is clear that the impact from RNG > MF.

As with any type of random system, you need a LOT of samples to be able to detect an effect. While increasing your odds is still an improvement, going from 0.0001% to 0.0006% isn’t going to cause exotics to rain down upon you at every turn. You’re still better off than the guy at 0.0001% though.

Wolfheart.7483:

….
Magic Find affects Bandit Chests.

But very few (if any) other containers. You’d be surprised at the players that are ignorant of what MF actually does (or effects) in the game.

Dawdler.8521:

Keep in mind that GW2 also has some pretty heavy handed and sneaky DR that can hit you at any time..

I haven’t experienced DR during even the heaviest of my farming during the LS Scarlet Invasion or 1st Queen Jubilee. Where are you getting this that DR is heavy handed and sneaky? Because it is as heavy handed as you say it should be clearly visible to all of us when we are hit by it.

Tribio.8531:

Hey all,

It might have been mentioned on these forums before, but the state-of-the-art search function didn’t yield any results, so here it goes..

Is it wrong to assume that, once you hit 100% Magic Find, that every item that drops for you should be like, you know, Magic?
Or is the MF implementation done on another way?

Checking, since at 150% MF I still get tons of whites (not magic at all)

whites?

gear?

stats?

class?

Most people should rarely get white unless they are hitting low numbers on the loot table.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I would say that your loot is based on pure RnG and MF is just a made up stat that anet uses as a gold sink,

I used to farm a lot in this game, and when MF was changed I pushed it to 300% base fairly fast, ( I do not regret this ) but a friend of mine who refuses to use MF seems to get way better general loot that me when out in the open world, even though his MF is over 200% lower than mine,

Given all that and now that Anet seem to be pushing rewards into boxes instead of drops ( IE silverwastes ) MF is nearly no use at all here, and Anet stay mute on this topic because as the stands people are still sinking gold into MF.

how are you using gold to get MF buying random items to salvage? i don’t think it was intended as a gold sink since there is no direct way to get if for gold

Brother Grimm.5176:

Wolfheart.7483:

….
Magic Find affects Bandit Chests.

But very few (if any) other containers. You’d be surprised at the players that are ignorant of what MF actually does (or effects) in the game.

No, it wouldn’t, and doesn’t, surprise me.

My only point is that: yes, Silverwastes is more geared to rewards being in containers, moreso than anywhere else in the game. But when they added this area, they ensured that the most abundant loot containers in the area (bandit chests) are affected by Magic Find. So if they continued the trend of putting loot in containers, one could assume they would continue a trend of having those containers be affected by magic find.

tfcgeneralkmk.9508:

Ok I Did It.2854:

I would say that your loot is based on pure RnG and MF is just a made up stat that anet uses as a gold sink,

I used to farm a lot in this game, and when MF was changed I pushed it to 300% base fairly fast, ( I do not regret this ) but a friend of mine who refuses to use MF seems to get way better general loot that me when out in the open world, even though his MF is over 200% lower than mine,

Given all that and now that Anet seem to be pushing rewards into boxes instead of drops ( IE silverwastes ) MF is nearly no use at all here, and Anet stay mute on this topic because as the stands people are still sinking gold into MF.

how are you using gold to get MF buying random items to salvage? i don’t think it was intended as a gold sink since there is no direct way to get if for gold

If you buy Globs of Ectoplasm you can salvage them for a large amount of Luck Essence. You can then sell the resulting T6 dust to buy more Ecto, however you will take a gold loss on the transaction.

mtpelion.4562:

tfcgeneralkmk.9508:

Ok I Did It.2854:

I would say that your loot is based on pure RnG and MF is just a made up stat that anet uses as a gold sink,

I used to farm a lot in this game, and when MF was changed I pushed it to 300% base fairly fast, ( I do not regret this ) but a friend of mine who refuses to use MF seems to get way better general loot that me when out in the open world, even though his MF is over 200% lower than mine,

Given all that and now that Anet seem to be pushing rewards into boxes instead of drops ( IE silverwastes ) MF is nearly no use at all here, and Anet stay mute on this topic because as the stands people are still sinking gold into MF.

how are you using gold to get MF buying random items to salvage? i don’t think it was intended as a gold sink since there is no direct way to get if for gold

If you buy Globs of Ectoplasm you can salvage them for a large amount of Luck Essence. You can then sell the resulting T6 dust to buy more Ecto, however you will take a gold loss on the transaction.

ah thanks, saw they were salvagable but didn’t want to lose 30+s if what resulted wasn’t worth it

mtpelion.4562:

Gaviston Hawkington.9647:

Key problem with MF in my opinion is that the influence of increased MF doesn’t seem powerful enough to counter the general affects of the RNG. I’ve gone rampaging with high MF with the desire to see increased rare (and/or exotic) drops to only be really disappointed. Then when just doing general game play without boosting up MF I’ll get two exotic items in an hour. RNG is RNG and while MF probably works exactly as designed it is clear that the impact from RNG > MF.

As with any type of random system, you need a LOT of samples to be able to detect an effect. While increasing your odds is still an improvement, going from 0.0001% to 0.0006% isn’t going to cause exotics to rain down upon you at every turn. You’re still better off than the guy at 0.0001% though.

that’s my point exactly. The affects of MF are truly imperceptible because the sample time necessary to see the impact (largely due to RNG) is meaningless. No one is going to play with maxed MF long enough to make it matter. Which begs the question as to why we have this mechanism called MF that leads us to believe it will produce some meaningful short term gain in loot drops. Could it? Yes. However, when players have better drops in spans when they have lower MF it shows the irrelevance of the loot boosting mechanic.

Gaviston Hawkington.9647:

mtpelion.4562:

Gaviston Hawkington.9647:

Key problem with MF in my opinion is that the influence of increased MF doesn’t seem powerful enough to counter the general affects of the RNG. I’ve gone rampaging with high MF with the desire to see increased rare (and/or exotic) drops to only be really disappointed. Then when just doing general game play without boosting up MF I’ll get two exotic items in an hour. RNG is RNG and while MF probably works exactly as designed it is clear that the impact from RNG > MF.

As with any type of random system, you need a LOT of samples to be able to detect an effect. While increasing your odds is still an improvement, going from 0.0001% to 0.0006% isn’t going to cause exotics to rain down upon you at every turn. You’re still better off than the guy at 0.0001% though.

that’s my point exactly. The affects of MF are truly imperceptible because the sample time necessary to see the impact (largely due to RNG) is meaningless. No one is going to play with maxed MF long enough to make it matter. Which begs the question as to why we have this mechanism called MF that leads us to believe it will produce some meaningful short term gain in loot drops. Could it? Yes. However, when players have better drops in spans when they have lower MF it shows the irrelevance of the loot boosting mechanic.

Well, it obviously has a larger impact on the lower tier items, moving you up from white to blue or blue to green, for example, so there is some value in it, but yes, overall the top tier items will be largely unimpacted for the majority of players.

I’ve noticed a very considerable drop in the white items I’ve gotten dropped, and recently as my MF has increased, even a significant drop in blues compared to greens. I now get more green drops than blues or whites combined.

I would say Magic Find does work, though I admit Rares and Exotics have not seen a noticeable change in drop rates.

The Wiki article includes quotes from the developers confirming that more MF only increases the likelihood of getting somewhat more of the better loot that might drop, generally from foe deaths only.

A number of people did substantive testing when MF was armor-bound instead of account-bound. They compared near-identical runs (same area, same number of killed foes) between characters with e.g. 0% MF and 200% MF.

The qualitative results were very consistent across all the published reports I saw, where there were 100+ kills per test. In particular, more MF meant:

• More gear, less ‘trophies’ (i.e. stuff that can only be sold to vendors).
• Substantially lower fraction of gear was blue/white; more was green.
• Minor increases in rares.
• In L80 zones, slightly higher fraction of T6 compared to T5 mats.
• In sub-80 zones (for which there was significantly less testing), more noticeable higher fraction of Tx+1 mats compared to Tx (e.g. more T4 vs less T3).

tl;dr when player testing was easy, players observed exactly what the devs said: MF improves the odds of getting slightly better loot.

All things equal, it’s better to have more MF. If you mostly do dungeons or chase world bosses, you won’t see significantly better loot — the kill counts are too low. In contrast, if you farm Orr temples, the Ulgoth-chain (whether he appears or not), or the Silverwastes, you can expect better drops after hours and hours and hours of play — those activities involve tons of kills and benefit the most from MF.

Well considering I run around with about 450% MF and I still get mostly garbage, I’m gonna have to say just ignore your MF as it is pretty much meaningless in the reality of an awful loot system.

If you really want to earn some gold/loot, you pretty much have to farm big events, like Vine Wrath, or do the Frostgorge Sound train, Teq, Triple Wurm, world boss train, etc. Just running around killing mobs is going to net you 99% junk with the infintisimal chance of something interesting/rewarding, regardless if you have 100% or 500% MF.

Sounds like the OP has been answered, but I have to chime in, since MF doesn’t affect bag drops, unless you kill huge swaths of mobs all the time, it’s not worth much. I hit 175% base and gave up. Not enough of a difference to be worth it.

I benefit immensely from MF as an openworld farmer. Perhaps it’s not that great for events, LS, but for general openworld stuff, it has a large impact. It’s been proven.

I don’t think there’s a set pattern…although there may be a fixed algorithm in place. My brother and I have both been playing identical Guardian builds since the GW2 release date. We have the same MF stats and have both played for the same duration (pretty much always team up)…. and yet… when I look at drop rates for exotics, my brother seems to get up to 4 or 5 a night from Champion chest drops whereas I have only had 1 in the whole time I’ve been playing…and we’re fighting the same bosses together!!! It seems like there’s another, unlisted stat behind the account that maybe acts as a multiplier under certain circumstances??? I have read other posts that seem to mirror our experiences on other boards as well…. Any thoughts?