Guild Wars 2

Alternative idea: both in dungeons and dynamic events, average out the magic find across all players present, and let that average value affect everyone. This way people can’t selfishly stack up on magic find for their personal loot over stats that help make the group become stronger in total.

@Mephane – but then the MFers are not going to welcome other people turning up to events in which they are participating. One can imagine teams of magic finders making themselves rather more unpleasant than usual. In dungeons – “looking for guardian must have > 100% magic find”.

I’d like to mention my thoughts (though it seems I find the threads that get locked). I ran MF in BW2 from the store and I ran a total of 12. I also ran MF in bw3 and stresses, so I can say it was changed before live.
I think overall Anet didn’t expect the bulk majority of players to run MF. Actually I tested the boosters so much as I was concerned (in Bw2) that this would ruin certain game aspects. My initial concern was that people would end up spending gold for gems to perma MF boosts. However, I did not feel that the MF was rewarded enough (using boosts with $$), so I was with Anet; that it wouldn’t be a big issue, after testing.

If we flash to now, a large amount of players run MF; however this is out of a thought to gain money as fast as possible. As opposed to MF actually gaining an advantage / known advantages. There are still many postings about whether MF even works, or what it effects. I myself have been on this boat since BW2 in terms of “what it does”.

I highly doubt we will ever get a proper explanation for MF, but I do have some ideas to what it does NOT do. From my own testing (so opinion here) I don’t feel MF applies to; Dungeons, Chests, Gathering, Forge, Exotic Drops, ecto chance and possibly (now) even rares. E.G- mostly you seem to get a higher percentage of useable items; specifically white armors / blues / greens and mats with less “junk”. For backing here, I am at 500 hours live and had nearly 100 hours before pre-release toon wipe; all of this with MF and I have never got a rare in dungeon, rare from chest (post bw) or any exotics looted period. I consider it a little bit of something and that’s about it, I mainly run as I have poor luck in RL lol.
Maybe if they were to officially state that MF doesn’t apply to dungeons, that would help some as I agree; good stats are better than MF in a dungeon. In regards to pricing of runes and stats, if MF is removed, there is again; only one stat all will use (for the most part). This stat / rune is power / precision / crit and is already, in general, equal to; or higher than MF components. I guess at least now I feel I have 2 choices, MF or P/P.
Sorry to ramble and give my useless thoughts

@roqoco, I still don’t buy it.

Not everyone is a high roller yet. A majority haven’t fully decked themselves out in exotic armor. And of those that have, a good portion still don’t have two sets of exotic weapons and full set of exotic accessories.

So what your saying is basically, anyone with yellow, a mixture of yellow and orange, or mixture of orange and green is screwing the party because they cant contribute the max stats available for their class. What about people who bought gold just to min-max there gear but are average if not below average players? You would rather have them than a good player and team-mate because the latter might be using magic find?

That attribution you are making is that out of five people, the one that takes MF is selfish and inconsiderate. That only works if the five people involved are equal in every single way. And that is very near impossible. Even if you gave people the same gear, they would have different play styles; if they had the same style, they would have different skill levels; if they had the same skill level, they would have different understandings of the dungeon…see where this is going?

As easily as there could be a leech in MF that is marginally affecting the progress, there could just as easily be one that is picking up the slack for less experienced, lesser equipped, or fully equipped dimwits in the party.

You cant judge a player based on the gear.

Agreed. I am fully against Magic find and was shocked they added it. It doesn’t help that people running dungeons at 80 for the first time trounce around in Magic Find gear (Because you HAVE to get those lewtz!) then complain when they die.

Lets look at the impact here.

MF gear gives more of the cake to

Gold Farmers
Skilled Players
Greedy Players
Rich Players

The only arguable advantage, and I hope the reason for its existence, is to let players set their own difficulty to some degree in exchange for more loot. If you are finding your own missions too easy then drop the advantage from your gear to get more mf. A less skilled player attempting this will lose money from the increase in repair costs.

While I don’t particularly like it as a mechanic the thing that gets me is the numbers involved. +3.5% life or +30% mf… is that supposed to be a choice? I mean I realise that mf find gear has to get more magic than it itself costs but the amount of mf keeps going up as you level as if anet don’t realise it scales intrinsically. Why do you get more magic find as you level?

I completely agree. Instead of becoming lvl 80 and thinking up a build and implementing it. It is quite literally all about MF. I have just focused on general MF gear and consumables for the past few weeks. Really takes away from things when I stop to think about it. Instead of gearing up for dungeons, which are supposed to be challenging, I just use my MF!

As someone that has spent a ton of resources maxing out this stat. I could not care less if it was effectively taken out as a mechanic. I might actually be pretty happy. It’s kind of frustrating wondering how well it even works when I’m not getting any good drops.

What is there to be jealous and angry of those who have more? I sure am jealous of those who accumulated 100g just to get commanders getting help with funds from their guildies. Did I complain? No. I used MF to help me get commanders MYSELF because not one person in my guild was willing to help, so I had to do it myself.

How will people ever have ‘fun’ and somehow accumulate 120g for Tier 3? That would take eons of “Fun”.

ArenaNet said they will let people play they want, either “Fun”, “Relaxed” or “Farming” (Legit, not botting), and they will keep it that way. I’m sorry but in order to have “Fun” I must spend money due to all the gold sinks in this game, and to have money, you must “Farm” and getting lots of money from this Magic Find is helpful so you can have “Fun” in the longterm.

Joshewwah.2956:

ArenaNet said they will let people play they want, either “Fun”, “Relaxed” or “Farming” (Legit, not botting), and they will keep it that way. I’m sorry but in order to have “Fun” I must spend money due to all the gold sinks in this game, and to have money, you must “Farm” and getting lots of money from this Magic Find is helpful so you can have “Fun” in the longterm.

Heh, maybe it would be more ‘fun’ if they just took it out and boosted overall mf rates a little bit. Don’t know if I see this happening anywhere in the near future though.

Personally, I think we should use the loot system that was used in Valkyrie Profile and Dragon’s Dogma. If you break the tusk off of your target, you get the tusk!!!! If you overkill the body, omg, bones! I never did like the fact that I can loot an uncommon (fine) greatsword from the corpse of a wolf (Much less the fact that said wolf can parry your attacks, but I digress.)

MF is a bad idea because you wear MF to find gear that makes you tougher. This is a natural inclination. The problem is that wearing the gear that makes you tougher doesn’t offer better MF than your MF gear. The way this mechanic has been implemented in games has me wondering if the movie “Idiocracy” wasn’t a genuine prophecy.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/69427-unbeatables-legendary-guide/

Check out that guide. Third sentence. Hell the first three paragraphs.

I’m telling you, I’m a look at history and learn from it type of person. This has all already been seen before in other games. Most notably Diablo 3 which is even very recent. I played it. I know the first thing I did there to was set up my Wizard with Magic and Gold Find. They eventually changed it to where the group shared Magic Find. So if someone had full Magic Find gear it would be split between everyone else in the party. Most didn’t like this, and you know what it encouraged? Players avoiding grouping.

Eventually they introduced Nepahelm Valor.

“Nephalem Valor is one of the major new systems in Diablo III and it kicks in at level 60. The philosophy stated by Blizzard is as follows: Rare and Champion packs already have great loot on them. By killing a Rare or Champion pack, not only do you get their loot, but you’ll also receive a buff granting you increased magic find and gold find. However, if you change a skill, skill rune, passive, or leave the game, the buff disappears. As an extra reward, if you kill a boss while this buff is active, you’ll receive extra loot drops from that boss.

The exact amount of magic find and gold find provided by the buff is 15%. It can stack up to 5 times (to a total of 75%) and will last 30 minutes. The duration can be refreshed by killing additional elite packs, but the buff will not grow to more than 5 stacks.

This system was implemented to encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for elite and champion packs on their way to a boss (the buff is not refreshed when killing a rare – violet – enemy), finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing. If you wanted a shorter play session you could be done at that point, but if you have more time, the path of least resistance would ideally be to stay in the same game and make your way towards the next boss."

A system similar to this would work well here I believe. It might also encourage people to complete events rather than event hopping which is actually more profitable now. As is I often bypass Veteran or higher mobs as their is less incentive to waste time killing them than just farming easier mobs for more loot. Also this would discourage botters whom wait around farming an event as the buff would simply wear off or at least let players “catch up” by normally playing and not just farming in the same spot forever getting loot.

I just don’t understand when there is a problem, a poorly designed system, that has already had a solution somewhere else that has solved it, and it could be implemented here with a variety of benefits why not explore it. Magic Find is a terrible system, that is why it was decried for being put in Diablo 3, changed and reiterated many times, and being decried here. Ok, I"m done.

While I do understand some arguments against magic find I still feel, that some views here are not consistent enough.

The argument about MF reducing one’s equipment choices: in my opinion valid. There are only two kinds of sets, that also provide MF.

The argument about MF hurting Dungeon progress: Someone has stressed the fact, that dungeon are actually too easy anyway. Our group (often with one or two randoms that were not in TS) has done ALL explorer ways we did in the first try! Don’t forget that those explorer eays are ENDGAME (meaning they equal raids in other mmos). So dungeons are too easy anyway and also I believe (like someone posted above), that MF does NOT contribute to your chance to get magic drops in dungeons and chests. Also someone posted a very reasonable argument pointing out, that many variables (e.g. player skill, trait build etc) influence your progress in dungeons and that MF is only one of many.

The argument about MF limiting yout playstyle choices, since it influences the economy: this argument is in my opinion not valid at all. Why? Because:
In any game that is labeled interactive, the choices someone takes influence the choices you take, GIVEN that both players share the same goal and that this goal can only be achieved by one (competitive). Taking a pvp example: shared goal = kill other and survive. Someone goes condition dmg, you need to take some utility to remove it or stack vit over toughness (since condition damage ignores toughness). This just shows, how the decision someone makes, affects the decision someone else needs to make. This is the core of any interactive game. It is the essence of interactive gaming itself.
Now: by the logic used in this thread (Using MF forcing others to use MF aswell) one could also argue, that spending more time in a game will force others to spend more time in a game aswell (see how this needs to have a shared goal to be valid in the first place?). This conclusion seems weird but actually uses the same logic used by many arguments against MF in this thread.

As for the empirically arguing people: 100% MF will double your droprate and therefore halfing your time to receive the same amount of drops. Using random numbers (like 1%) to show that the impact is low makes no sense at all. Like any game you play the statistics for the long run.

Also: in Guild Wars 2 (if you dont count legendaries) you get your end-game gear so super fast anyway (and in different ways: crafting, karma, dungeons), that I don’t understand why people argue about MF anyway. If you have 2 or 3 sets of exotic gear what else do you want and for what do you still need MF?

The argument about MF hurting Dungeon progress: Someone has stressed the fact, that dungeon are actually too easy anyway. Our group (often with one or two randoms that were not in TS) has done ALL explorer ways we did in the first try! Don’t forget that those explorer eays are ENDGAME (meaning they equal raids in other mmos). So dungeons are too easy anyway and also I believe (like someone posted above), that MF does NOT contribute to your chance to get magic drops in dungeons and chests. Also someone posted a very reasonable argument pointing out, that many variables (e.g. player skill, trait build etc) influence your progress in dungeons and that MF is only one of many.

Progress in dungeons and drop rates in dungeons are two completely different things. You’re making a non-sequitor by trying to equate the two.

Even if you were just saying that MF has a small impact on your overall success then that’s all the more reason that MF is a bad stat. If using MF is only a small loss, but gives you twice as many drops without you even needing to bother with a second set of gear, then MF is the best stat.

The argument about MF limiting yout playstyle choices, since it influences the economy: this argument is in my opinion not valid at all. Why? Because:
In any game that is labeled interactive, the choices someone takes influence the choices you take, GIVEN that both players share the same goal and that this goal can only be achieved by one (competitive). Taking a pvp example: shared goal = kill other and survive. Someone goes condition dmg, you need to take some utility to remove it or stack vit over toughness (since condition damage ignores toughness). This just shows, how the decision someone makes, affects the decision someone else needs to make. This is the core of any interactive game. It is the essence of interactive gaming itself.
Now: by the logic used in this thread (Using MF forcing others to use MF aswell) one could also argue, that spending more time in a game will force others to spend more time in a game aswell (see how this needs to have a shared goal to be valid in the first place?). This conclusion seems weird but actually uses the same logic used by many arguments against MF in this thread.

MF forcing others to use MF as well is an economic argument. It has nothing to do with “shared goals”. If the majority of players are using magic find, they are valuing items and gold based on their item and gold income with magic find. If a new player without MF enters the economy, they will find items far more expensive than other players because their income is much lower due to no MF. They will thus need to use magic find themselves in order to remain on par with the economy.

Also: in Guild Wars 2 (if you dont count legendaries) you get your end-game gear so super fast anyway (and in different ways: crafting, karma, dungeons), that I don’t understand why people argue about MF anyway. If you have 2 or 3 sets of exotic gear what else do you want and for what do you still need MF?

If you think everything except legendaries is easy to get then you haven’t done even an iota of research into what’s available.

Strill.2591:

MF forcing others to use MF as well is an economic argument. It has nothing to do with “shared goals”. If the majority of players are using magic find, they are valuing items and gold based on their item and gold income with magic find. If a new player without MF enters the economy, they will find items far more expensive than other players because their income is much lower due to no MF. They will thus need to use magic find themselves in order to remain on par with the economy.

If you think everything except legendaries is easy to get then you haven’t done even an iota of research into what’s available.

You complain about higher prices, while in fact it’s the opposite. More magic items entering the economy means prices dropping overall. Only top tier items will remain expensive, but basically MF has the net effect of dropping prices on trivial items. A full set of exotic Lv80 gear with arbitrary stats costs no more than 15g when you shop around. OK you may not have the best skin but you can more than get by. More magic items entering the economy means easier gambling which directly forces the price of precursors downwards.

We’re currently in the start of a new game, with a completely unstable economy. Don’t pull any conclusions out of current price points. If I could, I would short sell every precursor at half the price in 6 months. Fairly sure it’d make me the richest player in the game overnight.

First of all: I am not setting progress and loot equal, im just listing different arguments, that weaken the NO MF arguments and concerning the same “field” (in this case: dungeons)

MF forcing others to use MF as well is an economic argument. It has nothing to do with “shared goals”. If the majority of players are using magic find, they are valuing items and gold based on their item and gold income with magic find. If a new player without MF enters the economy, they will find items far more expensive than other players because their income is much lower due to no MF. They will thus need to use magic find themselves in order to remain on par with the economy.

As the poster below you stated correctly you get the basic economic principles wrong here! The price for exotic gear decreases as supply increases while demand (which can be represented by the population playing this game (simplyfied ofc)) stays the same (or even decreases, since peopel obtain the same exotic gear for their character only once). New players have easier access to exotic gear when prices decrease (especially if you consider that certain sources of income give fixed amounts of gold e.g. events, questhubs).

Anyway. I think you got my argument wrong. In your argument there is an IMPLICIT shared goal noone wants to admit: LOOKING GREAT (skins etc) while others dont (This is only one example of such an implicit goal, that is also inherent in your argument). If others use MF to obtain better looks (or whatever) fast than you do, you are in no way “forced” to use MF (unless you want to have the same looks (or whatever) asap aswell). And therefore (whether the argument is concerning competition in an economical sense or in any other) the logic of: you should not be able to play this game as much as you do because you obtain more (whatever it is) than I do is the same logic used by many arguments against MF in this thread. Therefore: not valid because the consequences when using this logic to the end are not bearable for any interactive activity!

@Bedortiker says: “As the poster below you stated correctly you get the basic economic principles wrong here!”

No it’s not Strill that’s getting the basic economic arguments wrong. It would be great if economies worked the way you think, because then we could all be rich! But, what you are forgetting is that if you hold drop rates constant you aren’t increasing the overall supply, what you are doing is tilting the contribution so that those with MF supply more and those without it supply less. Then the limited amount of things you get without MF are also worth dramatically less. Economies work a bit like a see saw, when it’s balanced every one gets there share of the pie, but when you push one end up, by giving one side more pie than the other, the other end must get less pie.

So why don’t they just increase the drop rates (size of the pie)? Ultimately, why don’t games just give everyone everything for no effort? The answer is, of course, that the value of rewards is largely in the motivation that they provide for playing the game. That’s why drops and resource nodes are limited in the first place. But when supply is limited then you are always going to get the see saw effect mentioned above.

Note that you are going to get the see-saw effect anyway to some extent by rewarding farming, more time invested equates to more supply from a particular segment of the players. But, why magic find is so corrosive is because it massively amplifies the see-saw effect and makes a farming playstyle even more effective in achieving rewards quickly that it was previously, at the expense of those players who don’t want to play like that.

However none of that is relevant to me. In GW1 a mini Vizu costed thousands of armbraces, yet I never even bothered with it. I simply didn’t care in the slightest. In this game, if you don’t care about appearances, guess what, 20 gold will last you a lifetime. If you care about appearance but are content with being pretty instead of showing off, a few hours of dungeon running will give you your fix.

99% of the players will never feel any negative effects from MF farming by others, quite the opposite. Lower tier items with full stats will become dirt cheap in the long run which is good for new players.

marnick.4305:

Strill.2591:

MF forcing others to use MF as well is an economic argument. It has nothing to do with “shared goals”. If the majority of players are using magic find, they are valuing items and gold based on their item and gold income with magic find. If a new player without MF enters the economy, they will find items far more expensive than other players because their income is much lower due to no MF. They will thus need to use magic find themselves in order to remain on par with the economy.

If you think everything except legendaries is easy to get then you haven’t done even an iota of research into what’s available.

You complain about higher prices, while in fact it’s the opposite. More magic items entering the economy means prices dropping overall. Only top tier items will remain expensive, but basically MF has the net effect of dropping prices on trivial items. A full set of exotic Lv80 gear with arbitrary stats costs no more than 15g when you shop around. OK you may not have the best skin but you can more than get by. More magic items entering the economy means easier gambling which directly forces the price of precursors downwards.

We’re currently in the start of a new game, with a completely unstable economy. Don’t pull any conclusions out of current price points. If I could, I would short sell every precursor at half the price in 6 months. Fairly sure it’d make me the richest player in the game overnight.

So then with only top-tier items being expensive, new players will have no way to get a foothold into the market since all their drops are worthless. Furthermore, with the increased number of masterwork items from magic find pumping gold into the market, inflation ensues and new players’ vendor trash is worthless as well. The only way new players would stand a chance of competing in the market is buying magic find gear to get the top-tier drops.

roqoco.4053:

@Bedortiker says: “As the poster below you stated correctly you get the basic economic principles wrong here!”

No it’s not Strill that’s getting the basic economic arguments wrong. It would be great if economies worked the way you think, because then we could all be rich! But, what you are forgetting is that if you hold drop rates constant you aren’t increasing the overall supply, what you are doing is tilting the contribution so that those with MF supply more and those without it supply less. Then the limited amount of things you get without MF are also worth dramatically less. Economies work a bit like a see saw, when it’s balanced every one gets there share of the pie, but when you push one end up, by giving one side more pie than the other, the other end must get less pie.

Some thoughts on this paragraph:

The supply-demand scheme is of course very simplyfied, but so is your model:

- if you hold droprates constant and the amount of players does not increase, also your VARIETY of items does not increase you are in fact increasing the supply overall, regardless of who is supllying (since in an mmo you normally don’t have to deal with market failures such as monopolies, unless a special item drops in a dungeon that only very few players can clear – which is obviously not the caser here)
- The economy of this game is NO ZERO-SUM Game: your example of the pie does not work at all (if you observed the prices of important crafting mats, you would have seen that they drop drop drop….)
- the dimensions of the economy in GW 2 are very limited (the end game gear (legendaries excluded) can be fairly easily be crafted) and inflation is also very limited by the possibilities of letting gold “leave” the economy through various ways (trading gold for gems, npc items, porting, repairing, etc etc)

Now, the logic I have a problem with is that most people say they are “forced” to use MF because it exsists. They do not have to use MF because it exsists, but because of a shared goal, that links their decision making to others having MF – that is: competition in gear, wealth, style or whatever it is that gets them running.

Now since everyone is able to get MF (quite easily aswell – think of MF as the economic means of production) the choice is given to everyone whether to use it or not. Only if you join the competition about gear, wealth and style you are “forced” to use MF to get what others get in the same amount of time.

If you do not want to join this competition, you dont need to join the competition. As I said already: If someone plays this game a lot more then you do and therefore gets more gear, styles and wealth as you are, in this logic used here you would also be “forced” to play this game a lot more. And of course you are not forced. You have to live with the fact, that others spend more time playing the game. And you have no problem with it.

The argument with the higher prices of top tier equipment and lower players not getting their foot in is also not working well here:

- As said obove the variety of endgame gear is low and the variety of ways earning it is high: the price for your endgame gear will either stay the same (if purchaised through karma or dungeon tokens) or DROP (if purchaised via TP or crafted)
- When high players have earned their end game gear, their need (demand) for even the highest tier crafting mats declines

But, why magic find is so corrosive is because it massively amplifies the see-saw effect and makes a farming playstyle even more effective in achieving rewards quickly that it was previously, at the expense of those players who don’t want to play like that.

This is my argument: Those players dont have to play like this! Exactly! And: the see-saw effect also occurs like you say if someone spends more time playing: Exactly! So what is the difference? MF just changes the timespan it takes to obtain what you like to obtain. Everyone is free to choose this way OR NOT!

And btw. in GW2 you get your endgame gear thrown at you anyway (even without mf), so actually this discussion is pointless

I dont like MF (did I mention this?) but I don’t like the way some people ague against it neither ^^

@Bendortiker says: “The supply-demand scheme is of course very simplyfied, but so is your model”

I’m not trying to write an economics text book (tl;dr). However, the principles are uncontroversial when you understand them.

In the subsequent paragraphs you appear to be suggesting that unbalanced increases in supply are good!? They aren’t, they are very bad, in fact ruinous for the economy: Why do you think Arenanet reduced the node respawn rate for resources? Why do you think the Diminishing Returns (DR) system was introduced in the first place? Why do you think everyone complains about bots? The fact is that a game has an optimum pie size and an optimum way of allocating pie to players and that balance is the one that motivates enjoyable gameplay for the greatest number of players. And in fact the game already has a massive oversupply problem for most armor/weapon items, which is why crafting is pointless and most items sell for no more than their trash value, but that’s another story…

These later arguments that because some rewards are cosmetic they should be massively easier to obtain only for people who are prepared to farm/grind the same locations intensively, whilst wearing MF armor, just seems plain idiotic to any rational appreciation – and goes against the stated intention that one form of gameplay should not be so much more rewarding than others (to paraphrase Jon Peters). In the light of that the MF system, which greatly exacerbates this problem is less than optimal, to put it mildly.

And to address your final point MF isn’t just bad because it creates a disparity in the rates people get their endgame armor, it has a negative effect on the reward system throughout the whole game, (particularly when combined with a levelling system that scales rewards to level):- When you do challenging content you should be rewarded for that, not for how much MF you have on your armor. That’s pretty fundamental, I would have thought and one of the reasons why the limited challenging content currently available in the open world is largely ignored.

I haven’t found any magic aswell. I’m an ele with over 150% magic find, but I have to yet encounter a new magic skill for my weapon (I’m still stuck with the stock skills). Does anyone know how to use magic find? Do you need to kill the mob and then you have a chance to obtain it’s magic or what? I’m kinda lost here…

Humposaurus.5764:

I haven’t found any magic aswell. I’m an ele with over 150% magic find, but I have to yet encounter a new magic skill for my weapon (I’m still stuck with the stock skills). Does anyone know how to use magic find? Do you need to kill the mob and then you have a chance to obtain it’s magic or what? I’m kinda lost here…

LOL – if only that’s magic find did do.

If, by any chance, you were not having a laugh?! see: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_find

roqoco.4053:

These later arguments that because some rewards are cosmetic they should be massively easier to obtain only for people who are prepared to farm/grind the same locations intensively, whilst wearing MF armor, just seems plain idiotic to any rational appreciation – and goes against the stated intention that one form of gameplay should not be so much more rewarding than others (to paraphrase Jon Peters). In the light of that the MF system, which greatly exacerbates this problem is less than optimal, to put it mildly.

And to address your final point MF isn’t just bad because it creates a disparity in the rates people get their endgame armor, it has a negative effect on the reward system throughout the whole game, (particularly when combined a the levelling system that scales rewards to level):- When you do challenging content you should be rewarded for that, not for how much MF you have on your armor. That’s pretty fundamental, I would have thought and one of the reasons why the limited challenging content currently available in the open world is largely ignored.

I agree with you that hard content does not give the best rewards. I also agree with you (if i read between the lines correctly) that this should be the case.

Calling my argument “idiotic” after not reading it correctly strikes me though
I am not saying that because something is cosmetic it should be easier to obtain by people using MF gear and who are grinding. The cosmetics were just representing “endgame equipment”. If you spend more time farming you obtain everything sooner. This cannot be changed since it is in the nature of this genre (mmo). People will allways use edges over other people in games and in fact, that is what competitive gaming is all about. And you are thinking competitive, otherwise you would not care a single bit about other people getting rewards faster by using MF-gear.
To let every form of gameplay be equally rewarding is an illusion! Every dungeon for example would need to look exactly the same and be exactly as hard and give equal rewards (also statwise). If this was not the case, I could argue (the same way people argue against MF in this thread): Why can some people do dungeon A and get the stats they need while i have to do ugly looking dungeon B? You see where this is going?

Another example to finally make this point clear:

PVP-match. A “segment of the players” 1 (as you call them) decides to play with condition damage. NOW: in order to win the match (shared goal – competitive) the other segment (2) of the players is best off, if they choose vitality over toughness. The decision of segment 1 has an impact on the VIABLE choices of segment 2. Now segment 2 does not like to play with toughness and open up a thread on the forum in order to argue against condition damage and how it limits their choices. Can you now see where this is going? This is the general problem of any balancing and “equally rewarding” gameplays – people interact in a competitive environment and influence the viable choices of others.

This will allways be the case and that logic leads nowhere (but is used in this thread).

I agree with you though, that MF is a useless stat. Your argument though will also lead to segments of players (that have the time, skill and networks) who will be able to “beat” hard content and get better rewards (old raid grind system in small scale).

Fact is: there will allways be a factor that will seperate the playerbase into segments and those segments will allways blame some factor to be the cause. Giving you ways to be an individual and creating equality (measured in mmos by the gear and styles – excluding pvp achievments from this argument) at the same time is just impossible.

If you remove MF, nothing will change. You reduce the timespan for obtaining your gear. This actually hurts the casual more than the one who plays 10 hours a day.

The reason that the economy goes down the hill is because everything is so easily obtained, and not only from MF or gold but from karma and dungeon tokens aswell. As the GW2 developers stated: This game is not about the gear-spiral at all. Try this AND getting a stable economy where items are actually worth something…. hm.

@Bedortiker says: “And you are thinking competitive, otherwise you would not care a single bit about other people getting rewards faster by using MF-gear.”

Absolutely not! This completely misses the point. In fact it’s sort of ironic that people who play the game in this competitive way are actually the ones who are the losers, because they are the very same people who get bored when the progression ends – you can see that theme in the “exit posts” that appear on this forum. And even if you don’t necessarily have a tendency to play this way in the first place, the game motivates it (MF being a part of that) and you need to make a conscious, firm decision to play in a different way (why so many people farming stuff in Orr in the first place?). So in that context it’s pretty crazy to exacerbate the problem by mechanisms such as MF that act to end the progression faster and amplify the yield of farmers.

The people who are going to play Guild Wars 2 long term (I reckon) are the ones who enjoy playing the content, especially together, in the way that GW2 allows people to group up on the fly. That’s not a competition it’s cooperation. And that’s what the reward system should be designed to motivate. MF is totally anti productive for that, for the reasons that I and others have already mentioned. In fact, from a motivational POV, the whole reward system is totally borked at the moment, since it motivates selfish play rather than cooperation, and MF is just a part of that.

And finally: If you want a child to be good, you don’t give them sweeties for being naughty. But if a child is naturally good, despite that, that doesn’t imply that they don’t like sweets too! If Guild Wars 2 was designed as a mincing machine to get people in and out as quickly as possible, then the reward system (and MF) would be totally appropriate, but I for one hope that wasn’t the intention.

I willend this discussion now. I can understand your points but your philosophy of pure cooperation is hard to realize. Especially that market economies (which a TP will allways represent) are based on competition and that PVP (which this game was advertised mostly with) is the essence of competition. Of course I play cooperative with friends and guildies and we share mats etc. but still: I believe that for your philosophy this genre of games does not fit. Even if it does, you should have no reason to argue against MF, since it does not keep you from playing purely cooperative. If other ways of playing a game are “more efficient” than yours, and you do not feel like competing against anyone at all, you have no reason to be (at least emotionally) involved in this buisiness at all.

Your candy metaphor sounds great but misses the point since we could not clarify what “naughty” actually is other than relativ perspectives.

It was surely not designed to get poeple in and out quickly, but to not having to farm your gear a long time. You get your gear quickly (even without MF). The “carrot” aspect is a completely different point and we should not lead to far away from the topic.

Have a nice time ingame and out of it aswell

“Your candy metaphor sounds great but misses the point since we could not clarify what “naughty” actually is other than relativ perspectives.”

Being naughty in a cooperative PvE environment is acting with selfish motives, being greedy to obtain more than your fair share of pie and not cooperating with others to play the content as it is designed… Do you reckon that the mob tagging competitions that take place in Orr events are the height of cooperative gameplay? Surely Not, but that’s the kind of behaviour that the current reward systems are motivating.

Your point about PvP is a complete non sequitur, since MF doesn’t apply in sPvP and the competition in WvW is between servers – you are meant to cooperate with your own side you know.

Your second to last paragraph makes no sense – if you don’t want people to spend some time playing the game to get their gear then just give it to them as a reward for getting to level 80 or something. The intention surely is that you should work towards your max gear by playing the game, not by playing zerg tag and running around resource nodes on a clock timer.

Yeah so my post in this thread was deleted for some reason. Apparently you can’t agree with somone saying that MF is bad.. Nice way to alienate your customer base there Anet. In any case, I’m not going to let the mods push me down so I’m writing a new post just to show that I also think that MF is a horrible mechanic. It basically forces people to use it since acceptable loot doesn’t exist in this game and all other armor stats becomes useless in end game PvE. It would be nice to use the exotics I want to use that works best with my spec. Not to mention if you run a condition build…

I agree. MF is fine in a farming game like diablo but just bad in a game like gw2. Whatever possessed them to think it is a good idea to include it.

Magic find is a terrible idea and should be removed…. to many dungeon runs now with people dropping like flies only to find out they are in straight up magic find gear that is not beneficial or helpful to the team towards completion of the dungeon at all.

They sit there and gripe cause they are dying yet we only come to find out what they are geared in and then end up kicking them cause having to rez them every 2 minutes is tiresome.

It makes things harder then they should be.

Magic find should just straight up be removed. Its a gimmicky feature that causes more harm then good especially in a team environment cause people are more concerned with drops then actually helping the team.

FateOmega.9601:

I agree. MF is fine in a farming game like diablo but just bad in a game like gw2. Whatever possessed them to think it is a good idea to include it.

Simple, yet I completely agree. It is exciting to get a few percentiles of MF in Torchlight II. A gear based game where it does not rely on balance or a system. Whereas in GW2 gear is based on a level to rarity system, so it’s not hard at all to max out your stats in no time. The rest of the stuff is just pure junk. Besides that million dollar lottery chance you pick up an exotic precurser…

There was no Magic Find in Guild Wars 1 and the game was awesome without it. Everybody had the same drop rates and it was fair. Now we have Magic Find in Guild Wars 2 but Anet doesn’t even bother to say how it is working exactly and what does it affect…
So you have those +50% mf in gem shop and in theory you pay real cash for gems to next buy the boost…but you are paying for something that you don’t really know how is it actually working. Seriously Anet…wtf? This is not serious. If you are selling something then at least explain us how Magic Find really works.

If I’m right…actually Anet could be sued in the EU for selling a product without any description of how it works.

@Andypandy – It’s probably best to avoid posting links to suspect external sites, you may wish to edit your post to make the point without that link.

If it was true that MF has little to no effect (reports that I’ve seen are contradictory, mostly anecdotal and not rigorous) then that would seem to be a pretty cast iron argument for removing the mechanism entirely. But, it would be surprising if a system that had no effects was included in the game, unless it has been altered recently.

TBH I can’t really tell. When I use magic find food I do perceive some increase in drop quality, but without rigorous testing that may not be statistically significant. Who knows might just have been luckier those times. However, the guy I play with a lot most certainly does get better drops than I do over a large sample size and he attributes that to his use of magic find.

Can anyone clarify what the situation actually is?

There is also a discussion about this on the Guru

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/71606-magic-find-proscons-its-impact-on-gw2/

Interesting perspectives on both sides

First, my “main” has full Exotics times two and I don’t run with Magic Find to get it. Making money in this game (and just about any other MMO) is easy enough.

All in all, even if someone full on Magic Find is getting more “better” loot, all they’re gaining is a tad more money than the next guy. So what? Honestly, why do you care so much that there are people out there making more than you… in a game even? What’s going to happen to that player once they’ve used all this wealth to get all they can in the game? They’re going to “burn out” and leave. Is that bad for the game? Debatable, but it’s not the game’s fault. It’s the players’ fault for ignoring that ArenaNet has stated over and over that this game isn’t about the grind to get the best of the best and that there is no rush to “end game”. It’s those players that think they still must have the most/“best” first that should have just realized that this game isn’t that. And who are we to tell them they’re doing it wrong? Guild Wars 2 is about playing what you like whenever you like. If people like making mass amounts of gold, let them. There is no real advantage to having everything first, but to each their own.

Again, I’ve made more than enough (currently about 1/4 way to a Legendary at that) without Magic Find. And by how cheap one can get to over 200% Magic Find, I don’t think it’s as big a “problem” as you are making it out to be.

roqoco.4053:

@Andypandy – It’s probably best to avoid posting links to suspect external sites, you may wish to edit your post to make the point without that link.

Lol, did not noticed this. The same post was in this forum, but i could not find it again, so i googled it and put the first link down, sorry

Here is the org. post, found it again!
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Magic-Find-No-Significant-Benefits/first#post437694

The point was, that i have reviewed 4 larger “actual” done test’s, rather than anecdotal evidence, hearsay or placebo and neither of those could convince me that MF has a “significant” meaning for me. All those test had problems in its setup and data analysis and the conclusions they came too.
Some of them suffer from heavy confirmation bias, since they want MF to “work”, even if the actual data is “fishy” at best. I wish they would double blind there tests+analysis, to remove this bias.

Just wanted to throw in a “negative” test, to show that its still not 100% clear how and if MF works, as it is often overstated as “100% fact”.

I think that Magic find could use some tweaking, its perfect to get back hardmode we had in Gw1.

The idea is Risk vs Reward but right now just decrease a bit a few stats just doesnt provide much of a risk at all. Personally I would see MF runes & food downlevel you say by 3 – 5 levels depending how much MF you put on.

That being said MF can simply be made none operative in WvW and Dungeon so you would not be able to effect anyone other then yourself! Or another option might be MF bonuses get spread to the whole party (highest MF applies) ! That way the whole party would get a harder dungeon but everyone would equally enjoy the benefits!

Removing MF from the game will not really provide benefits, the game is just too easy! but the system can be tweaked so that players who want greater risks could get greater rewards! perhaps even increase in gold and karma!

Thats my idea on the subject!

Pennry.9215:

Again, I’ve made more than enough (currently about 1/4 way to a Legendary at that) without Magic Find. And by how cheap one can get to over 200% Magic Find, I don’t think it’s as big a “problem” as you are making it out to be.

I would urge posters to read the economic arguments in the thread before posting, along with Strill & Threat Level Zero’s posts, otherwise we will just continue to go round in circles. All the arguments made here have been answered previously in the thread and miss the important points, which are to do with the effectiveness of the reward system and the health of the economy – not one person’s anecdotes about obtaining legendary weapons.

roqoco.4053:

All the arguments made here have been answered previously in the thread and miss the important points, which are to do with the effectiveness of the reward system and the health of the economy – not one person’s anecdotes about obtaining legendary weapons.

Since some of us don’t even agree on the base statement that MF actually impacts drops “significantly”, he has a point. If we don’t first agree that MF works by formula XY, any conclusion or discussion based on it, is meaningless and hypothetically.

As example, there could be a cap for MF effectiveness? Maybe 50%?
MF store booster could work differently than ingame %.
As shown by some tests MF could also not work at all or it could be extremely effective.

U have no conclusive basis for this discussion anyway. The best we can do is to discuss the concept of MF in a general way and observe/study its effects in other games.

roqoco.4053:

Pennry.9215:

Again, I’ve made more than enough (currently about 1/4 way to a Legendary at that) without Magic Find. And by how cheap one can get to over 200% Magic Find, I don’t think it’s as big a “problem” as you are making it out to be.

I would urge posters to read the economic arguments in the thread before posting, along with Strill & Threat Level Zero’s posts, otherwise we will just continue to go round in circles. All the arguments made here have been answered previously in the thread and miss the important points, which are to do with the effectiveness of the reward system and the health of the economy – not one person’s anecdotes about obtaining legendary weapons.

I bolded the part you must have missed. That’s not an “anecdote”, that’s fact. Go check the Trading Post right now. Magic Find gear is neither more expensive nor cheaper than the other stated gear (day to day fluctuations taken in to account). If Magic Find was the end-all be-all game ruiner that it’s claimed to be, then there would be a huge demand for such a spec and that demand would be met with higher prices.

Another economic point you clearly missed: More people with Magic Find, the more the market gets flooded, the cheaper things get, the less people without Magic Find have to spend. I see no problem with not having to spend money on Magic Find to spend less, and save more over time.

There is supposed to be no competition for gearing (stated by devs, not just my opinion). So, again, what real advantage does the Magic Finder with triple (or more!) your gold got on you? You might just have to spend a little more time playing the game the grind way. OR you could play another way and laugh (as I do) at all the grinders.

Pennry.9215:

Another economic point you clearly missed: More people with Magic Find, the more the market gets flooded, the cheaper things get, the less people without Magic Find have to spend. I see no problem with not having to spend money on Magic Find to spend less, and save more over time.

I’ve actually answered that (very naive) argument twice already in this thread as have others. Hence, I can only repeat – read the previous posts in a thread or you are doomed to repeat them.

AndyPandy.3471

Since some of us don’t even agree on the base statement that MF actually impacts drops “significantly”, he has a point. If we don’t first agree that MF works by formula XY, any conclusion or discussion based on it, is meaningless and hypothetically.

As example, there could be a cap for MF effectiveness? Maybe 50%?
MF store booster could work differently than ingame %.
As shown by some tests MF could also not work at all or it could be extremely effective.

U have no conclusive basis for this discussion anyway. The best we can do is to discuss the concept of MF in a general way and observe/study its effects in other games.

Well we don’t all agree on the existence of the devil. But I think we can agree that if he/she does exist then the world would be a better place if he/she didn’t.

In the unlikely circumstance that MF has no effect and has never had any effect, then what is it doing in the game in the first place? It surely should be removed. And if it does actually do what it says on the tin, then the arguments made in this thread apply and it should be removed. That sounds like a pretty open and shut case to me.

None of the arguments against MF depend on how effective it is, sure, like poison, the more MF you have the worse the results, but that doesn’t mean that a little poison is somehow a good thing, does it?

“None of the arguments against MF depend on how effective it is, sure, like poison, the more MF you have the worse the results, but that doesn’t mean that a little poison is somehow a good thing, does it?”

Really? So a 50% MF cap, with very little effect would make u draw the same conclusions than no cap with extreme effectiveness?

If u just want to have a discussion as intellectual training, than this is fine, but to use your devil example until we agree that the devil actually exists and is responsible for XY, any discussion on that subject is meaningless.

Your poisen example is also fishy, compare MF to alcohol, cigarettes or cars. We know those are “bad” or even “poisen”, but strangely they are still present and not banned. If MF would be ultimately “bad” per definition, putting it in the game would also be considered “bad”, so is Anet simply a “bad” company?

It’s not naive to be okay with a flooded market. I didn’t say it was a healthy market, just that I don’t care if it’s flooded. It’s a game. roqoco.4053, you’ve posted so much BS it’s hard to find WTF you’re referring to. You type about tagging mobs in events when it has no reward that Magic Find would effect. People tag for Karma, not loots. You type about being naughty. Using something we’re all given access to isn’t being naughty. Magic Finders are not demanding more pie, non Magic Finders are being stubborn and refusing to adapt. Want more pie? Use a bigger plate. “But I don’t want to sacrifice ease of carrying the smaller plate, everyone should be forced to use smaller plates!” Then make more trips. As I see it, I’ve made my dollars elsewhere and I’m okay with paying Magic Finders to lug them larger plates of pie to me.

In conclusion (and I’ll be off the thread for good /goodriddancetome), there is no game-breaking going on by people using Magic Find, only people who think it’s “unfair”, “greedy”, or “naughty”. Either suck it up and realize that it all evens out in the end anyway or.. not, I don’t really care any more. I’m off to eat some pie off the biggest plate I can find!

EDIT: Sorry couldn’t resist, but when I read: “Well we don’t all agree on the existence of the devil. But I think we can agree that if he/she does exist then the world would be a better place if he/she didn’t.” I couldn’t help but edit this post. How many book/movies prove this false? Mmmm PIE!

@AndyPandy

Not sure what you are getting, but probably we are starting to split hairs rather than adding anything much. Do you yourself think that a magic find mechanism is a good idea in MMOs, such as Guild Wars 2? Would other MMOs be better if they implemented this feature?

@roqoco Sorry got of topic, without adding much to this topic.

I think MF (assuming it works as advertised) in GW2 simply don’t adds anything important, since its just a plain passive/indirect gold increase stat. So removing/replacing it would be not a big problem.
I think a MF or similar system can improve a item/loot system, similar to what achievements do with other mechanics. I still would make the MF “effect” rare and desirable, without competing with other rune/armor/buff slots. Like a potion or special “lucky charm” slot, that enabled/enhance the effect. The main idea would be to make the item and “rare” loot hunting more rewarding.
I don’t see it adding much as passive gold increase stat/mechanic, it must add more than this. So maybe like a “discover” or “event” system, designed around the loot/gather/chest mechanic.
A good example would be the dog/pet u could send to find rare items. (forgot what game it was) So rather than a passive stat it should be coupled to a event, similar to what runes do on crits. So as example having 5% more passive dmg is oki, but summoning a cool pet is way cooler, rewarding from a gameplay perspective.

@AndyPandy

Yes MF isn’t such a problem if it doesn’t compete with armor stats, although I can’t see that separate MF items really add much to gameplay either and would need balancing for.

I like the dog/pet idea (suggested something like that on Guru a few months ago in beta – as in pigs finding truffles etc), but that’s a very different sort of idea that would require quite a lot of development.

I quite like the idea mentioned by Threat Level Zero of a temporary buff that you get from say killing a champion mob. OTOH, why not just have champion mobs drop some decent stuff in the first place?

The problem is GW2 has no rewarding loot system, since there is no rewarding or “cool” loot. Even if u find a exotic item, its not rewarding, since most of the time u either cant use it, the stat combo don’t matches your play-style or u already have bought a exotic. This is true with all loot/items in GW2, so most simply sell those at the TP. This is not rewarding at all. As example if u would get a legendary-weapon matching your build/class this would be considered “rewarding”, simply because legendary’s are so hard to get.

So yes i agree with u, improving a already boring and unrewarding loot-system is meaningless, better spend time on the base system or other areas (WvW hint hint).

roqoco.4053:

But in the presence of magic find that implies balancing loot drops around the average magic find % a player will have. Consequently, if you build with no magic find you will get much less valuable loot than you would have done in a game where there was no such mechanism.

This sums up precisely why I am against magic find bonuses of any kind. If you don’t use it, your accumulated loot will always be below average. This places an “indirect” requirement to use magic find consumables and supplants combat and tactical consumables. This takes all the fun out of exploring and reduces every outing to “just another zergfest farming run”.

roqoco.4053:

if you wear magic find gear in dungeons you are kittening your party for the sake of personal gain

A+ all the way… I personally do not use any magic find gear or consumables in dungeons. Sure, the dungeon loot can be nice, but I go in there ready for BATTLE, not for farming. I have plenty of omnomberry cookies on hand for dungeons.

roqoco.4053:

Magic find makes botters more productive and consequently fuels gold selling

Another good point. We need to make their job more difficult, not easier. I would love to see the end to all magic find bonuses in GW2 and replace the stats on magic find gear with tactical and combat stats. Then, adjust all the drop tables accordingly to reflect that no one has magic find bonuses. Of course, this will not happen since that ship has already left the dock and there’s no bringing it back…

I agree,

in theory sacrificing stats for more loot sounds like a reasonable trade-off.

But considering the nature of the game, the fact that farming PvE events is virtually no challenge etc. it really doesn’t work out that way.

In effect, Magic Find creates a huge gap between those that farm Orr with MF gear for a while and those who don’t.

We’re already getting to the point where you can’t compete in the market without farming your way through Orr with MF gear. It’s just poor design.