Guild Wars 2

I have read every post in the recent magic find threads. Everyone agrees that magic find has some negative effect on damage output and some positive effect on loot, but no one understands what precisely those effects are, and what the cost-benefit analysis looks like. The discussion goes nowhere if we can’t quantify the impact.

And no, you’re not losing a full 40% of your effectiveness. These calculations ignore stat boosts from trait lines, time spent not in combat or waiting for cooldowns, the asymmetric relationship between power and critical damage, unintentional condition damage, etc.

I am recruiting 4 people to help me collect data. We will learn a dungeon really well (probably CoF), and run it a few times every day or many times over a weekend, with and without MF on a single player and the whole party. We are trying to find out:

1. To what degree are others “screwed” by a party member’s magic find?
2. Is it more or less profitable to run with magic find, and does it depend on your party’s gearing decisions?

The ideal candidate will:

1. Be genuinely curious and unbiased about the outcome.
2. Be flexible, dedicated and willing to find time to do many runs.
3. Be friendly and willing to contribute work (e.g. video recording, data entry, report writing) to the project.
4. Have a basic understanding of statistics, quantitative modeling, and economic game theory.

I know this is a big undertaking, but I think the community would love to see results from a project like this. Any takers?

P.S.- I’m mildly afraid this will turn into a flame war. If it does, just send me a direct message. I’m serious about doing this.

Even if you have stat boosts from trait lines, your stats would be significantly better if you have the stat boosts PLUS combat-centric gear.

The only thing someone accomplishes from wearing magic find gear in a party is perpetuating selfishness.

I think this won’t really give a realistic view. 1 person should have to kill 1000-5000 mobs with and without MF to able to give a realistic view on this. I’ll probably do this in the future. I’m kinda interested. 1 thing, even if MF gives more profit in a dungeon, IT SHOULDN’T. It would mean that dungeons are too easy.

I think this is a great idea, and I hope you can find some like minded folks to participate. I’d volunteer, but I’ve got a crisis brewing at work that prevents me from being able to make the time commitment something like this would require.

I have never run into a situation where what seems obvious in theory matched reality when you add team dynamics into the mix. I’m really interested in what your results might be.