Magic find - current state and improvements?

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

So – Magic Find – I am finding myself conflicted and wondering whether or not I should invest more into it or just let it go and ignore it altogether.

At this current point in time MF is a very old system – a system that has shipped with the core game and aside from the transfer of MF from gear to our account stats a while ago it has not seen many changes.

A good question is – “is it still useful?”. Another question would be “will it become more useful in the future or even less than it is now?”.

The problem I feel with MF at the moment is that it influences mob drops – but the new direction Anet is taking in map and enemy design is that they don’t really have many drops anymore.

New maps like SW, and the expansion maps offer opponents that don’t drop as much loot as mobs in other high-level core tyria maps did by a large margin( take Orr for example) – so your magic find has a much lower amount of utility in this new type of content.
The new expansion maps reward you through pop-up chests, map-wide metas and map currency – and MF has no bearing on any of these.

So my question is – should MF be reworked? So that on top of its usual functionality it should also somehow improve new map rewards( more map currency? more map meta rewards?) or do you guys feel it’s in a good place? And if so – what will be the future of MF?

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: FogLeg.9354

FogLeg.9354

These claims about what MF affects and what it does not are very difficult to prove. It mostly goes with whatever way you believe it works.

So before asking question about its usefulness, you first need to provide proper test results. Are pop-up chests, map-wide metas and map currency not affected by MF? Prove it.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Hannelore.8153

Hannelore.8153

These claims about what MF affects and what it does not are very difficult to prove. It mostly goes with whatever way you believe it works.

So before asking question about its usefulness, you first need to provide proper test results. Are pop-up chests, map-wide metas and map currency not affected by MF? Prove it.

Back during the MF and champ bag overhauls I’m pretty sure ArenaNet directly stated that chests and champion bags are not affected by MF.

It is for loot drops only, which does not count containers of any sort. The only exception to this I know of is when opening Lost Bandit Chests in Silverwastes, but those aren’t technically containers. They instead work more like champions that you uh, kill with a shovel. Something like that.

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Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: FlamingFoxx.1305

FlamingFoxx.1305

These claims about what MF affects and what it does not are very difficult to prove. It mostly goes with whatever way you believe it works.

So before asking question about its usefulness, you first need to provide proper test results. Are pop-up chests, map-wide metas and map currency not affected by MF? Prove it.

Actually it’s not difficult to prove given it was outright stated by a dev.
This is a direct quote from Isaiah Cartwright:
“They only work on creature kills, chests however have a better table then normal kills. We wanted to avoid the game play of killing a boss and then having to equip your whole Magic Find set before opening the chest.
Also magic find is calculated from when the creature is killed so it’s also not viable to use your normal gear set kill a boss then switch to magic find.”

Of course it could have changed since then, however there’s no reason to believe that it has when all indications suggest otherwise.

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Posted by: FogLeg.9354

FogLeg.9354

Yes I have read that 3 years old comment. It proves that was how it was suppose to work many years ago. The game has however changed a lot since that ancient times, HoT for example could of changed whole RNG system or how the map meta rewards work. Not to mention frequent bugs in the game that could make something work in completely different way.

I was hoping someone actually has done real tests about this in current game.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

These claims about what MF affects and what it does not are very difficult to prove. It mostly goes with whatever way you believe it works.

So before asking question about its usefulness, you first need to provide proper test results. Are pop-up chests, map-wide metas and map currency not affected by MF? Prove it.

The only insight into how it works is from here:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find

A Q&A session with Isiah Cartwright revealed the way Magic Find works: “Everytime you kill a monster you roll on a number of tables, inside these tables are different rarity categories. Magic find increases the chances you will get higher categories. For example if there is a 1 in 10 category, and you have 200% magic find you will have 3/10 chances to get that category. This improves not just the rarity of the items you get but can also improve your chances at getting trophies and rare crafting materials like lodestones.”

Also:

They only work on creature kills, chests however have a better table then normal kills. We wanted to avoid the game play of killing a boss and then having to equip your whole Magic Find set before opening the chest.
Also magic find is calculated from when the creature is killed so it’s also not viable to use your normal gear set kill a boss then switch to magic find.

So from all this – we can discern that magic find has no effect on chests and meta map rewards.
The only known exceptions are SW chests and PvP rewards. But those aren’t the focus here – the whole of general PVE moving forward with GW2 is the focus here.

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

Yes I have read that 3 years old comment. It proves that was how it was suppose to work many years ago. The game has however changed a lot since that ancient times, HoT for example could of changed whole RNG system or how the map meta rewards work. Not to mention frequent bugs in the game that could make something work in completely different way.

I was hoping someone actually has done real tests about this in current game.

As far as my tests have gone – MF does not influence champion bags or meta rewards. The ammount I have on doesn’t influece my rewards when the map-wide meta ends – i get the exact same number of things.

Just because the game worked a certain way many years ago doesn’t mean it’s changed – most likely it has not – which is why I made this thread. I think MF needs to keep up with the times.

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Metherlance.9204

Metherlance.9204

Considering that MF is easily obtained via normal gameplay and has no cap (That I know of?), it would be gamebreaking to have MF affect meta rewards, chests, etc. As it stands, meta rewards already throw stuff at you like candy, and with the way MF currently works newer players would stand no chance of catching up to veteran players in terms of sheer efficiency. It would require a full rework of event/chest reward rates and rebalancing of how MF scales.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

MF should, as it was designed, be a background mechanic. You should not “aim” for it. It should not “drastically effect” you. It’s an over-time thing specifically because economies are sensitive to perks and advantages.

That whole “1%” problem in real life is a by-product of just small perks like tax breaks for giving to charities … even if you owned the charity.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

@Metherlance – MF caps out at 300% – your account-bound MF that is.
The issue of “catching up” is not really that relevant – considering MF is not like log-in reward the longer you play the more you have. If you want to focus on MF you can get your MF up really quickly.

It seems normal that a person with 30 hours won’t have as much MF as a person with 300 hours or a person with 3000 hours played.

@Dgraves – are you sure you understand the topic of this thread?

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Zenith.6403

Zenith.6403

So – Magic Find – I am finding myself conflicted and wondering whether or not I should invest more into it or just let it go and ignore it altogether.

Ignore it altogether. We don’t know how it works and what the base values are. It could be coded wrong and not work like many of the other stuff in this game.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Vieux P.1238

Vieux P.1238

Woodenpatatoe has a recent vid on it where he maxed out magic Find.. results are interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj8w8kA2RDs
Not the results you would think.. & makes you think twice before spending gems for magic buff.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Kalarchis.8635

Kalarchis.8635

Meta event containers from HoT are affected by magic find. This will probably be the trend moving forward.

I run an effective 250% MF these days. I didn’t really start seeing drop improvements until 120+, but now it’s very noticeable. Rares and exotics are more common. Mats particularly: on lvl 80 maps the T6 mats are steady, and the T5 mats are plentiful. In general I get a lot more junk/common drops where before I would have gotten nothing.

It’s a slow and steady gain so it’s easy to overlook the benefits, but over time it does add up substantially. That said I wouldn’t go sinking lots of gold into maxing it out. I salvage ten or twenty ectos now and then but for the most part I’ve built my MF by salvaging blues/greens I get naturally and that’s worked fine.

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

These claims about what MF affects and what it does not are very difficult to prove. It mostly goes with whatever way you believe it works.

So before asking question about its usefulness, you first need to provide proper test results. Are pop-up chests, map-wide metas and map currency not affected by MF? Prove it.

No, the claims are not “difficult to prove” — they have been demonstrated time & again. It’s harder now to compare 0% to 100% or 200%, but not harder to compare x% to x+100%.

In controlled tests, increased magic find always results in fewer blues & whites in favor of more greens, more rares, and more of the tier n+1 mats (compared to tier n mats). The differences are small enough that the patterns are hard to spot unless one keeps track — people tend to remember all bad streaks, ignore average and decent streaks, and so have underwhelming memories about the overall results.

The OP’s critique of the system, however, has at least one strong point:

  • The system only affects drops from kills and lots of foes don’t drop any loot, especially in instances and many of the meta events.

However, the trends aren’t all negative: shatterer revamp added loot-bearing foes and there are lots of non-meta foes in all the maps (even DS). Still, there are still a lot of situations in which higher MF won’t matter.

And maybe that’s as it should be: MF should make some difference, but it probably shouldn’t permanently disadvantage those who just started playing, relative to veterans.

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

Magic find - current state and improvements?

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

Thank you Na. That was the entire point of the post – if MF is worth getting with the new systems they’re using.

With the old system the fact that MF was and is worth it is not something I am contesting. Hell – I farmed CS events back near release with full MF gear and saw the difference in drops myself.

The problem is that in these new maps in HoT – the rewards don’t drop from mobs – so your MF – while effective in theory is less effective in practice – because even if it improves your odds of better loot on a roll when a mob drops something for you – the fact that so few mobs drop loot for you means you do very few rolls.

My suggestion would be to increase map currency gain and perhaps improve chest rewards with different levels of MF.

Also I don’t see the argument of the MF “disadvantaging” new players.
Does the fact that they don’t have full 80 characters not disadvantage them as well?
Does the fact that they don’t have full ascended, access to Elite specs and other benefits not disadvantage them as well?

MF – like ascended, like legendary weapons – is a long term goal. I’ve played around 3300 hours and haven’t maxed it yet – why should new players feel disadvantaged?

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”