Guild Wars 2

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

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.

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 ^^

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!

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?