Difference between revisions of "Magic find"
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Magic Find was hugely popular in [[Diablo II]], and {{iw|Magic_Find the MF page in the D2 wiki}} goes into exhaustive detail in discussing this complicated item property. | Magic Find was hugely popular in [[Diablo II]], and {{iw|Magic_Find the MF page in the D2 wiki}} goes into exhaustive detail in discussing this complicated item property. | ||
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| + | ==Controversy== | ||
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| + | Many fans disliked Magic Find in Diablo 2, and object to its proposed presence in Diablo 3. The typical argument is that Magic Find only encouraged more use of Magic Find. Players had to wear gear with MF to find more good items, and since many of the best items had Magic Find, they just increased their MF further, in a self-perpetuating cycle. Magic Find was also unbalanced, since spell-casting characters and ranged attackers could load up on it without suffering any real drawbacks, while melee fighters had to devote their gear to boosting their damage, defense, resistance, hit points, and other survival bonuses, and thus were at a disadvantage when it came to finding better gear. | ||
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| + | On the other hand, many players loved Magic Find since it made finding better items possible, and those players enjoyed the challenge of balancing survival with higher Magic Find. For many builds in the late game, survival was fairly easy, and having MF to factor into the item game added a lot of fun. It also increased game difficulty, since Diablo 2 was too easy with all a character's equipment geared towards killing power. The temptation to add in MF gear and remove survival-boosting equipment was a nice trade off. | ||
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| + | ==Diablo 3's MF Philosophy== | ||
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| + | The [[D3 Team]] has talked about how they'll balance Magic Find with other modifiers, and how they'll keep things fair, or at least fairer, for all the characters. A typical quote came from [[Bashiok]] in December 2009.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/bashiok-on-magic-find/] | ||
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| + | ::I think the trick with magic find, or any sort of tertiary stat that doesn't directly relate to player power, is to make sure that it's an actual trade off. A lot of times and specifically for certain classes in Diablo II you could stack magic find and still be perfectly able to fight and kill. So what it really comes down to is properly weighting stats on items and ensuring that if you do want to stack something like magic find, that it's clearly going to limit your power in downing enemies. Auto-stats to a degree also help out in this regard as you can't effectively stack stats as easily to offset the loss of stats coming from items that might otherwise help keep you alive or kill at an acceptable pace. | ||
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| + | ::That said magic find isn't fully drawn up yet, there's not a complete pool of itemization where we can begin tweaking balance to a degree where we can ensure MF doesn't get out of hand. It could turn out that we need to take an alternate approach, but, if I had to guess simply weighting the stat properly would be enough. | ||
| + | |||
| + | To summarize, here's why players won't be able to just load up on MF on characters in D3: | ||
| + | * Auto-stat allocation means a character can't put every point into vitality to make up for not wearing any +hit point gear. | ||
| + | * Item bonuses to stats like defense, resistance, damage reduction, and more, will be (more) necessary to survive than they were in D3. | ||
| + | * D3 adds +%spell damage mods to numerous items, and Mage characters will need to boost that stat in the same way combat characters require +%damage weapons and other gear. If MF and +spell damage seldom appear on the same items, as was the case with +%damage and +MF in D2, then mages won't have any inherent advantage to loading up on MF gear. | ||
| + | |||
| + | It's not yet clear how D3 will prevent MF leeching: what's to stop a character from wearing nothing but MF gear and tagging along, safely behind the action? Since all characters within some close proximity to the kill get their own, unstealable drops in D3, an MF leech wouldn't even need to risk diving into the fray to grab item drops. | ||
| + | |||
| + | To address this, some players have suggested that MF only be calculated for the players who deals the most damage, makes the kill, or deals some significant % of damage. Blizzard has not yet shared their design theory on this matter. | ||
| + | |||
Revision as of 09:05, 16 December 2009
Magic Find, or MF, is a very popular magical property found on many types of items. Magic Find has been confirmed to return in Diablo III, and it was seen on numerous items in the Blizzcon demo, as of November 2008.
Exactly how Magic Find will work in Diablo III isn't yet known, but it's assumed that it will work much as it did in Diablo II. In that game Magic Find increased the odds for found items (from monsters or objects) to be "higher quality." Higher quality items were more likely to be unique, set, rare, or magical, with different odds for each type of item depending on the level and type of monster dropping the item, the player's equipment, the level of the area the item was found in, and much more.
Magic Find was hugely popular in Diablo II, and the MF page in the D2 wiki goes into exhaustive detail in discussing this complicated item property.
Controversy
Many fans disliked Magic Find in Diablo 2, and object to its proposed presence in Diablo 3. The typical argument is that Magic Find only encouraged more use of Magic Find. Players had to wear gear with MF to find more good items, and since many of the best items had Magic Find, they just increased their MF further, in a self-perpetuating cycle. Magic Find was also unbalanced, since spell-casting characters and ranged attackers could load up on it without suffering any real drawbacks, while melee fighters had to devote their gear to boosting their damage, defense, resistance, hit points, and other survival bonuses, and thus were at a disadvantage when it came to finding better gear.
On the other hand, many players loved Magic Find since it made finding better items possible, and those players enjoyed the challenge of balancing survival with higher Magic Find. For many builds in the late game, survival was fairly easy, and having MF to factor into the item game added a lot of fun. It also increased game difficulty, since Diablo 2 was too easy with all a character's equipment geared towards killing power. The temptation to add in MF gear and remove survival-boosting equipment was a nice trade off.
Diablo 3's MF Philosophy
The D3 Team has talked about how they'll balance Magic Find with other modifiers, and how they'll keep things fair, or at least fairer, for all the characters. A typical quote came from Bashiok in December 2009.[1]
- I think the trick with magic find, or any sort of tertiary stat that doesn't directly relate to player power, is to make sure that it's an actual trade off. A lot of times and specifically for certain classes in Diablo II you could stack magic find and still be perfectly able to fight and kill. So what it really comes down to is properly weighting stats on items and ensuring that if you do want to stack something like magic find, that it's clearly going to limit your power in downing enemies. Auto-stats to a degree also help out in this regard as you can't effectively stack stats as easily to offset the loss of stats coming from items that might otherwise help keep you alive or kill at an acceptable pace.
- That said magic find isn't fully drawn up yet, there's not a complete pool of itemization where we can begin tweaking balance to a degree where we can ensure MF doesn't get out of hand. It could turn out that we need to take an alternate approach, but, if I had to guess simply weighting the stat properly would be enough.
To summarize, here's why players won't be able to just load up on MF on characters in D3:
- Auto-stat allocation means a character can't put every point into vitality to make up for not wearing any +hit point gear.
- Item bonuses to stats like defense, resistance, damage reduction, and more, will be (more) necessary to survive than they were in D3.
- D3 adds +%spell damage mods to numerous items, and Mage characters will need to boost that stat in the same way combat characters require +%damage weapons and other gear. If MF and +spell damage seldom appear on the same items, as was the case with +%damage and +MF in D2, then mages won't have any inherent advantage to loading up on MF gear.
It's not yet clear how D3 will prevent MF leeching: what's to stop a character from wearing nothing but MF gear and tagging along, safely behind the action? Since all characters within some close proximity to the kill get their own, unstealable drops in D3, an MF leech wouldn't even need to risk diving into the fray to grab item drops.
To address this, some players have suggested that MF only be calculated for the players who deals the most damage, makes the kill, or deals some significant % of damage. Blizzard has not yet shared their design theory on this matter.
