Remove MF completely from game

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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Bishop120 wrote:

I still post that MF ruins this game. As said by others.. it makes the game not about fighting monsters, but all about farming.

Also still and again - What else do you/they expect from a *grinding* game but farming? Thats what the whole game is about, to keep you grinding as long as possible for the one and only reason: to have more time for the monsters to try to kill you. ^^

It is logical to expect from the game more when you play more, but do we really need a stat that helps you play the game more efficiently?

If I play 3 hours a day, and you play 10 hours a day, it is very logical, that you will get more loot. If I now play 10 hours a day without MF, and you play only 3 hours fully equipped with MF - how it is even reasonable that you already get several times more (and better) loot? What happens when you also start playing 10 hours?

Directly answering your post I quoted, I am expecting me and other fellow players to be expected to "farm" as you put it or enjoy the game as I view it. But not botters/multiboxers/farmers squad made specifically for the reason to profit off of as much loot/currency as possible for selling and to it. It's not that I am against those types of people (though GGG currently views botting as unacceptable, and I personally will never opt to do it).

In total, any argument that has been made against removing MF for the latest 5-8 pages was revolved solely around on the sense of option it gives to players.

Exactly this option leads to new leagues' economy being nice and enjoyable, where common and accessible are cheap and rare and useful stuff is costly and permanent leagues' economy is broken, where common stuff is so cheap almost noone even has it (as it's better to vendor those), and rare stuff is so absurdly overpriced, so you can ever have it only via stockpiling. Softcore leagues suffer the worst, as possibility to prevent zone over-leveling via dieing allows for far more efficient MF farming techniques.

MF option is actually never an option. When you are participating in a race event, MF is out of the question, because it "eats" your character power, and pretty much in any other case MF is a must. The exception being Hardcore leagues, when you still need survivability up to a point. From my own experience, Hardcore economy is a bit better, but not by far, as there are builds with non-gear related survivability (totems and minions) that can allow use of MF gear.

Yes, Magic Find mechanics can be viewed as cool and viable, and removing it may be seen as if the game will suddenly loose exactly the thing that it's worth playing for - handing out loot. But current implementation of it severely affects build viability. It could help if IIQ and IIR affixes were not replacing other affixes. But it will mess with current item affixes, and implicitly boil up other unrelated question as for why high item level items can spawn low level affixes and so on. Magic Find causes troubles and is better off completely.

Compare it to other hot topic - desyncs. They could have been gone entirely if monster fight logic was processed exclusively by player, but it could open up possibilities for cheating. GGG chose to ban cheating, and it's great. So why encourage MF farming then?

P.s.: Scrotie beat me here in both answer speed and pithiness of an answer. I began typing before his post was here, but he expressed this more clear.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I expect farming, especially in Hardcore where prudent behavior is encouraged, but I also would like hunting to be viable. And that's the problem with MF; it encourages a more agricultural mindset, rather than going after the big game.

Farming should be done with high damage and high movespeed, usually at the cost of survivability due to the easier content; MF is not required to build for this, so farming would still be supported, it just wouldn't have the huge preference over hunting that it has now.

Its either dumb or ignorant... if the additional MF stat did not let you give up something other (offensive or survivability) then its probably too easy, a nobrainer but whats the problem with this? And if it HAS downsides, why not take it as balanced (probably not perfect, but who cares?)

Lets take a real farming comparision: you can sow on a larger ground, can use better technic like a tractor to act more effective, or you can add some fertiliser for better reaping... but, guess, BEST would be to combine all three options at once - but if this is not possible: make your decision. ^^

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Daefecator wrote:

Magic Find causes troubles

These "troubles" are (part of) what makes the game. To 'beat' the RNG is nearly the ONLY way to beat the game for people with low(er) time investment (where I also count me to) - they simply CANT compete with others who spend 8 hours per day, nor (even less) with fulltimers and grindshops... but did this deny their fun? Probably some people should start rethinking about what enjoys them, and also perhaps start to understand that not every piece of interesting timespending option HAS to enjoy THEM...

As I understand your view, to me it can be only "right" in one of two ways: either the drop amount is raised in general (to compensate the disabled influence from MF) or drops are (more or less) direct proportional to time spent (to reward "correctly" for playing more). Both would favour the highgrade traders and rmt'ers not less than it is now, so what would change? Nothing what really matters.

Maybe next time GGG should make a league with MF stats "turned off", like they did with Kaom's Heart and "anti-stun" amulet in Anarchy & Onslaught.

I hate MF mechanics, they just don't make any sense to me. Right now you basicly have to make a gimped and boring to play MF character (spork witch) to gear up your main (something that is actually enjoyable to play).

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Mr_Cee wrote:

Its either dumb or ignorant... if the additional MF stat did not let you give up something other (offensive or survivability) then its probably too easy, a nobrainer but whats the problem with this? And if it HAS downsides, why not take it as balanced (probably not perfect, but who cares?)

Lets take a real farming comparision: you can sow on a larger ground, can use better technic like a tractor to act more effective, or you can add some fertiliser for better reaping... but, guess, BEST would be to combine all three options at once - but if this is not possible: make your decision. ^^

Why even try dismissing anything as "dumb or ignorant"? Are you really sure you are offering better feedback, or are you accepting the possibility of treating your own post in a similar way?

Anyways, in this case the more correct example to the one you made with actual farming will be "or to use radiation to overgrow mutated plants", as radiation actually forces plants to grow disproportionally big. Not that the grown results will be safe to eat, but nevertheless. You can read about Chernobyl aftermath. So will you choose to use radiation for farming purposes, speaking solely about farming?

No, it doesn't makes sense. I want an item hunting game with actual hunting based on my character performance, I want to make choices that have meaning, not the ones that already have a predefined answer.

Survivability to Damage is a meaningful choice, as it is based on player skill - the more skilled I am, the more survivability I can exchange to Damage and still stay alive. Magic Find is not about skill at all. It's not even an option.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

As I understand your view, to me it can be only "right" in one of two ways: either the drop amount is raised in general (to compensate the disabled influence from MF) or drops are (more or less) direct proportional to time spent (to reward "correctly" for playing more). Both would favour the highgrade traders and rmt'ers not less than it is now, so what would change? Nothing what really matters.

I think in general you got me almost correctly. The drops should get reevaluated, and if you totally remove builds and gear options the game will reward time played. In reality, your drops will heavily depend on how fast you kill stuff, how much time it takes you to the next kill target, how much downtime you have between kills, how much you die (being HC player by heart, this makes me shrug a bit) and how much time you loose to continue "farming". I see other people saying that Magic Find is all right, I am asking for buffs, etc. Possibly they just want to grief, or may be they play Magic Find characters they are so addicted to, when effectively magic find just limits their own options to choose what build they want to play.

In order to try to better understand people viewing this problem in a different way, I tried to make an analogy to any other stat shown on your character list. I actually wrote about these analogies in several previous pages. But all I see is the very same reaction - MF is fine, I like it. A habit may be a hard thing to break, but in reality setting MF aside will help you win significantly.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

Its either dumb or ignorant... if the additional MF stat did not let you give up something other (offensive or survivability) then its probably too easy, a nobrainer but whats the problem with this? And if it HAS downsides, why not take it as balanced (probably not perfect, but who cares?)

The only way to make a boring, pure-loot-output mod usable is to make it overpowered. If they balanced MF down to being equal to extra damage or extra movespeed, no one would use it. I mean, if you really wanted to keep it in the game as a deliberately weak affix, kind of like light radius, then I guess maybe.

Don't see much problems with IIR and IIQ stats - you sacrifice dmg/survivability for it, top IIQ/IIR sets cost like 60ex (Shavrones to support low life mod for 100 IIR boots, hybrid overpriced IIR/IIQ amulets, Advariuses etc. and so on). Problem is that one of the most efficient builds (dual spark) can run on it without much problems and another problem is that you want a guy with such set and culling strike in every group, unless you're ok with missing 770% of loot.

Imo devs should simply remove currency from IIR (if it's affected by it), IIQ is already provided by map mod and party buff in abudance. Being honest i've found like 50+ uniques on my 220% IIR character in past week and none of them is worth anything, none of rares were sold either whille couple of weeks ago my alt found Void Battery that went for 7ex. RNG is RNG i guess.

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Crizisrf wrote:

Don't see much problems with IIR and IIQ stats - you sacrifice dmg/survivability for it, top IIQ/IIR sets cost like 60ex (Shavrones to support low life mod for 100 IIR boots, hybrid overpriced IIR/IIQ amulets, Advariuses etc. and so on). Problem is that one of the most efficient builds (dual spark) can run on it without much problems and another problem is that you want a guy with such set and culling strike in every group, unless you're ok with missing 770% of loot.

Imo devs should simply remove currency from IIR (if it's affected by it), IIQ is already provided by map mod and party buff in abudance. Being honest i've found like 50+ uniques on my 220% IIR character in past week and none of them is worth anything, none of rares were sold either whille couple of weeks ago my alt found Void Battery that went for 7ex. RNG is RNG i guess.

Only way to affect currency is quantity as it only gives you MORE drop = bigger chance for orbs to drop.

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Daefecator wrote:

Why even try dismissing anything as "dumb or ignorant"?

Cause its a 'fair' comparision? There are only two options: either equipping MF has a drawback, or not. If it has, it is (at least somewhat) balanced, and then denying this is ignoring facts. With no drawback, its kind of a "free choice" to add for everyone, a no-brainer like renting the tractor. But there IS a decision to make, there IS the "chance" that this stat occupies another affix slot you otherwise could "use" (quoted for the fact that you cant create mods by free will) for survivability or attack power. The only difference here is, that instead of decide between attack (for more killspeed) and defense (for better survivability) you have take in count "the" 3rd stat that can improve your earnings in a different, additional way.

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Are you really sure you are offering better feedback, or are you accepting the possibility of treating your own post in a similar way?

Would not decide if its "better" but I think it needs to be looked at from more than "your" single side of view. And I can take a lot of contrary wind, as long as its fair and founded... ^^

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the more correct example to the one you made with actual farming will be "or to use radiation to overgrow mutated plants", as radiation actually forces plants to grow disproportionally big. Not that the grown results will be safe to eat, but nevertheless.

What exactly did MF to the loot that makes it "self-radiating" or less/different consumable than before/without? Nothing - comparision failed.

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I want an item hunting game with actual hunting based on my character performance, I want to make choices that have meaning, not the ones that already have a predefined answer.

It would only be predefined if there were no drawback (at all),whats not the case - see above. In theory, you could also go that much for offense that you'd need no defense at all - it would be the best possible option of course, but should we really remove defensive stats from the game for this?
I know (or better: sometimes have to remember) that your view is based on standard leagues, while mine is based on HC - but I dont expect both leagues will ever have differing rules and think that standard should not be the "master" for hc.

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Survivability to Damage is a meaningful choice, as it is based on player skill - the more skilled I am, the more survivability I can exchange to Damage and still stay alive. Magic Find is not about skill at all. It's not even an option.

Why not? MF is like "the mother of skill": you probably have to sacrifice Survivability AND Damage to increase your chances. The better you do, the farther you can go.

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but in reality setting MF aside will help you win significantly.

I'd like to see a (slightly) better sustainability of (especially) crafting ingredients, to make them really useful for their inherent possibilities; but I still dont see a need to take out that bit of chance improvement from MF. These games are designed around randomness, and they already cut down the MF ranged possible on generic (non-unique) gear.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

I know (or better: sometimes have to remember) that your view is based on standard leagues, while mine is based on HC - but I dont expect both leagues will ever have differing rules and think that standard should not be the "master" for hc.

Actually, if you've been here for a while (or was clever enough to use poestatistics.com before jumping into conclusions), you would have known, that I play exclusively hardcore. And I can tell You the game is heavily biased onto having as much magic find as you can get. And while we are on this topic, level 50 onslaught duelist probably didn't even start playing the hardcore game! All talent choices are pretty much ignored until after merciless ledge, which is around level 60-61, and really start to shine (or stink) when you start doing maps (but second option usually kicks in even earlier). There are so many cool things in this game that affect your passive skill choices. After you get pretty used (and built around) desync, you already progressed far enough. But when you consider reflect combined with limited surroundings visibility (possibly worked around via use of non traditional screen resolution) is when you really start thinking several times about your build before you even start playing. But when you add Magic Find (effectively eliminating loot from you when you don't have enough of it) on top of that - you have almost a single viable answer - it's dual sporker or summoner. Really, all you need is a build having maximum potential to use MF gear and, when it comes to playing hardcore, with high innate survivability. How does that give you any meaningful choices to make?!

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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Daefecator wrote:

Survivability to Damage is a meaningful choice, as it is based on player skill - the more skilled I am, the more survivability I can exchange to Damage and still stay alive. Magic Find is not about skill at all. It's not even an option.

Why not? MF is like "the mother of skill": you probably have to sacrifice Survivability AND Damage to increase your chances. The better you do, the farther you can go.

It is exactly what kills builds diversity that you wrote down here. You would never prefer kill speed and movement speed after you spend some time farming maps that you actively spent your currency upon and that yield you close to no returns without magic find gear. 72+ maps are hardly sustain themselves unless you pour significant amount of currency into them, thus forcing you to go MF.

It is never efficient to go pure damage because you can die (reflect guarantees this), and may be not so efficient to go full survivability, as you will be very slow, but this route actually helped me rank 23 (I thought it was 24) in one-month party race. But it is never efficient not to go full MF for permanent leagues or when you know you will be carried by a party in a rather long-term race.

While magic find does have drawbacks, it heavily favors some builds (dual totems, minions), forcing you to either play those builds, or farm with them for the builds you actually want to play. For me this is unacceptable and frankly insulting. But I highly respect GGG and would try my best to help them nail it better.