Magic Find Gear Swapping
Blizzard has just posted a blog dealing with the issue of switching to high MF gear right before a kill. In the article five options are given and Blizzard will be looking for any and all feedback on the issue at hand. It should also be noted that with these they will also be looking at ways to add more MF bonuses to compensate for any changes.
- Set a Magic Find Cap
- Slowly Adjust Magic Find Over Time
- Use your average MF% or your lowest MF% of the last 5 minutes
- Zero-Out Your MF% for 3 Minutes After Swapping Gear
- Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Valor
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(Since release it has become an increasingly common practice to keep a Magic Find (MF) set in your inventory, and swap it in shortly before a kill. Philosophically we don't have a problem with the practice. While players getting more Magic Find for their kills isn't a game breaker for us, many players have said they don't enjoy doing it but feel the benefit is too large to ignore. Since the call for a solution really comes from all of you, we'd like to invite you to chime in with your opinion on what the solution could be.
It's worth keeping in mind that if we do implement a method to alleviate gear-swapping in combat, we'll simultaneously be looking at ways for players to get an added MF bonus to compensate.
Here are the solutions we're currently considering, and would appreciate your feedback and opinion on what seems the most reasonable for you, and why:
Option 1: Set a Magic Find Cap
We could set an MF cap between something like 100% and 200%. Nephalem Valor provides 75%, so you would need between 25% and 125% to reach the hard cap. Everyone could find ways to hit the cap for MF% on their gear and then stop.
Pros: Creates a gearing-game around trying to hit the "MF% cap" that some players enjoy. It also solves the swapping issue for people with enough gear to hit the cap. Players who want to min-max and gear swap can do so, and players who think it's stupid but feel "compelled" can try to hit the new cap instead.
Cons: Depending on where the cap is set, it may not actually alleviate gear swapping, and players who wish they didn't have to will feel compelled to do so. It also devalues a highly valuable stat, and desired stats mean desired gear, which helps diversify the item hunt.
Option 2: Slowly Adjust Magic Find Over Time
When you equip an item with Magic Find, we don't let your MF% change right away. Instead your Magic Find slowly "drifts" towards the target Magic Find -- potentially something like 1% every 3 seconds. If you open up your Character Details sheet, you can see the number change "8%... 9%... 10%." Even though you could in theory switch to Magic Find gear for the killing blow and get a few extra percent, it�s probably not worth it.
Pros: High degree of visibility as your stat sheet updates. Still allows you to swap your gear when you get an upgrade in the world without having to feel bad about putting the item on.
Cons: May not alleviate the problem for players who still feel compelled to get a few extra MF%. Depending on the rate, some players may just swap in an item during the last 20 seconds of a fight even though they don't want to.
Option 3: Use your average MF% or your lowest MF% of the last 5 minutes
We could sample your MF% every 30 seconds or so and create a moving average, or use the lowest MF% the game has seen on your character in the last few minutes.
Pros: A lot of the same benefits as Solution 2, but harder to game. Still allows you to switch gear when you get an upgrade, which is great.
Cons: Difficult to communicate. We'd have to communicate this on the Details page somehow, but during normal gameplay there could be the sense of not knowing what your "moving average" is and wanting to look at it. Magic Find is already a difficult number to feel at any point in time, so hidden rules that modify Magic Find feel that much worse.
Option 4: Zero-Out Your MF% for 3 Minutes After Swapping Gear
When you swap gear, your Magic Find is disabled for 3 minutes.
Pros: Absolutely effective at discouraging gear swaps. Still allows you to swap gear when you find an upgrade, and the 3 minute duration is probably short enough that if you kill an Elite pack and get an upgrade, you can put that upgrade on and have your Magic Find active again by the time you get to the next pack.
Cons: Players who are unfamiliar with the system may open up their details page and see their Magic Find as 0% and not understand why. We could mitigate this by making the 0% MF colored with a tooltip stating the countdown until your Magic Find would work again, as well as what your Magic Find will be when the time expires.
Option 5: Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Valor
There's a whole class of solutions that interact with Nephalem Valor. For example, we could remove a stack of Nephalem Valor when you swap a piece of gear.
Pros: Stops gear swapping just for the last kill, while still allowing the player the option to do so.
Cons: Some players will lose a stack by accident. We could put a confirmation box in to address accidental loss of a stack, but game-interrupting popups are potentially character-killing. It also causes co-op players to drop out of sync. One person may switch gear and lose a stack or two, and if it happens before a boss they'll want to clear two more packs before hitting the boss, but the other party members may not want to -- causing some tense social situations in co-op play. Finally, it tightly couples two systems together and generally tightly-coupled systems don't function over the long haul as well as loosely-coupled systems. In other words, future changes to the Nephalem Valor system or the Magic Find system (or systems related to those two systems) become harder to make as both systems would be impacted.
While we're having our own discussions and tests of how well these options could work, we�re interested to hear your thoughts. We'd mainly like to hear which approaches you like, if there are any specifics you like or don't like about it, and why. Having the context of how this affects you personally really helps us.
We're going to be locking down comments in this article to focus feedback to one location, so please head to the forum thread link below to discuss.
It's worth keeping in mind that if we do implement a method to alleviate gear-swapping in combat, we'll simultaneously be looking at ways for players to get an added MF bonus to compensate.
Here are the solutions we're currently considering, and would appreciate your feedback and opinion on what seems the most reasonable for you, and why:
Option 1: Set a Magic Find Cap
We could set an MF cap between something like 100% and 200%. Nephalem Valor provides 75%, so you would need between 25% and 125% to reach the hard cap. Everyone could find ways to hit the cap for MF% on their gear and then stop.
Pros: Creates a gearing-game around trying to hit the "MF% cap" that some players enjoy. It also solves the swapping issue for people with enough gear to hit the cap. Players who want to min-max and gear swap can do so, and players who think it's stupid but feel "compelled" can try to hit the new cap instead.
Cons: Depending on where the cap is set, it may not actually alleviate gear swapping, and players who wish they didn't have to will feel compelled to do so. It also devalues a highly valuable stat, and desired stats mean desired gear, which helps diversify the item hunt.
Option 2: Slowly Adjust Magic Find Over Time
When you equip an item with Magic Find, we don't let your MF% change right away. Instead your Magic Find slowly "drifts" towards the target Magic Find -- potentially something like 1% every 3 seconds. If you open up your Character Details sheet, you can see the number change "8%... 9%... 10%." Even though you could in theory switch to Magic Find gear for the killing blow and get a few extra percent, it�s probably not worth it.
Pros: High degree of visibility as your stat sheet updates. Still allows you to swap your gear when you get an upgrade in the world without having to feel bad about putting the item on.
Cons: May not alleviate the problem for players who still feel compelled to get a few extra MF%. Depending on the rate, some players may just swap in an item during the last 20 seconds of a fight even though they don't want to.
Option 3: Use your average MF% or your lowest MF% of the last 5 minutes
We could sample your MF% every 30 seconds or so and create a moving average, or use the lowest MF% the game has seen on your character in the last few minutes.
Pros: A lot of the same benefits as Solution 2, but harder to game. Still allows you to switch gear when you get an upgrade, which is great.
Cons: Difficult to communicate. We'd have to communicate this on the Details page somehow, but during normal gameplay there could be the sense of not knowing what your "moving average" is and wanting to look at it. Magic Find is already a difficult number to feel at any point in time, so hidden rules that modify Magic Find feel that much worse.
Option 4: Zero-Out Your MF% for 3 Minutes After Swapping Gear
When you swap gear, your Magic Find is disabled for 3 minutes.
Pros: Absolutely effective at discouraging gear swaps. Still allows you to swap gear when you find an upgrade, and the 3 minute duration is probably short enough that if you kill an Elite pack and get an upgrade, you can put that upgrade on and have your Magic Find active again by the time you get to the next pack.
Cons: Players who are unfamiliar with the system may open up their details page and see their Magic Find as 0% and not understand why. We could mitigate this by making the 0% MF colored with a tooltip stating the countdown until your Magic Find would work again, as well as what your Magic Find will be when the time expires.
Option 5: Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Valor
There's a whole class of solutions that interact with Nephalem Valor. For example, we could remove a stack of Nephalem Valor when you swap a piece of gear.
Pros: Stops gear swapping just for the last kill, while still allowing the player the option to do so.
Cons: Some players will lose a stack by accident. We could put a confirmation box in to address accidental loss of a stack, but game-interrupting popups are potentially character-killing. It also causes co-op players to drop out of sync. One person may switch gear and lose a stack or two, and if it happens before a boss they'll want to clear two more packs before hitting the boss, but the other party members may not want to -- causing some tense social situations in co-op play. Finally, it tightly couples two systems together and generally tightly-coupled systems don't function over the long haul as well as loosely-coupled systems. In other words, future changes to the Nephalem Valor system or the Magic Find system (or systems related to those two systems) become harder to make as both systems would be impacted.
While we're having our own discussions and tests of how well these options could work, we�re interested to hear your thoughts. We'd mainly like to hear which approaches you like, if there are any specifics you like or don't like about it, and why. Having the context of how this affects you personally really helps us.
We're going to be locking down comments in this article to focus feedback to one location, so please head to the forum thread link below to discuss.
RMAH Commodities Coming Soon, Gold Not Included Initially
The RMAH Commodities will soon go live. However gold will not be one of the features going live at first .
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(The following commodities will be available soon for trading in the real-money auction house:
- Gems
- Dyes
- Crafting Materials
- Blacksmithing Plans and Jeweler Designs
- Pages of Training
How much money/time/gold has been spent in search of MF gear? For many, maxing MF is END game.
They most likely felt (in the beginning) that a full on combat system a-la WOW, was not needed for Diablo 3. They most likely have the wear-and-tear trigger off of weapon landing damage / character taking damage, which is a form of combat state, but not the full on combat system that would be reliable enough (more so in groups!!!) that would prevent swapping.
I really am confused why they never did to begin with, would make a lot of these issues go away quick with a simple hotfix.....
They would be penalized though because all the gear they spent gold on is now worthless.
Also, some people really like MF as a stat and the idea of balancing it with damage/defense. This would negatively affect these people in a big way.
It lasts indefinitely though so it triggers at the very first sign of damage either direction. You can kite and kite and kite and take or deal no damage after the initial "pull" and you will continue to take durability damage. For all intents and purposes they can somehow detect when you are engaged even if it's not the same tech as WoW.
Some say people complaining about this must not have the skills to swap gear. Kiting out for a second, hitting "I" and clicking on an icon is not a skill. It is however, tedious, cheesy, and breaks the intended gear balance. People complaining about magic find swapping are mostly just people who like a game that feels refined and balanced, with good mechanics.
If anyone steps back and looks at this objectively, I can't imagine arriving at the conclusion that the current gear swappign situation is good design.
Oh I agree, I like it better than any of the suggestions from Blizzard. The people that like the concept of MF on gear would be pretty letdown by that solution though.
You add in a MF button. It has just enough room for MF gear, you can even make it look like the current gear screen when you look at your current gear. This button will automatically change all your current gear to the gear that has been put into this tab/button.
This does all the desired things looked for with 0 drawbacks.
#1. Its makes room in our current inventory bag. WIN
#2. We keep all the MF gear we have farmed, spent gold on, or spent REAL money on. WIN
#3. We can still MF swap, for the people that like/dont mind doing it, PLUS makes it super easy for the scrubs/idiots who are to retarded/lazy/dumb to do it. WIN
I understand that this means you will have to make UI changes and it would take time to do this, but thats your job. If you just up and change the way MF works because some people dont like thats fucked up. You listening to the one side of people that dont like to MF swap hurts the side that like/doesnt mind it. While listening to the side that likes/doesnt mind it DOES NOT hurt the other side play style. They can always choose not to MF swap, while the people that dont mind would be FORCED into playing a way they dont like.
No one is too retared or dumb to do it. It's a few button clicks. No ones too lazy to do it either.
The problem is that its an action game, and you shouldn't have to do tedious, clunky, menu driven stuff in middle of action based combat to play effectively.
Maybe people who can't understand that argument are the "retarded" ones. Or... maybe people like that hope throwing insults arround will cloud the issue and keep people from noticing that the current MF swap mechanics feel cheesy, sloppy, and a bit stupid.
Leave it as is or make a new tab with a full set of new armor so it's 1 hot key away from your mf gear. Maybe a 5 second CD between switching sets to avoid exploiting it with resource regen gear or anything similar.
1. Nerf + Caps on stats that do not increase your character's power are rediculous.
2. Nerf + "Afk 10+ minutes while I wait for my MF to return to normal."
3. Nerf + "Afk 5 minutes while I wait for my MF to return to normal."
4. Nerf + "Afk 3 minutes while I wait for my MF to return to normal."
5. Nerf + Worst idea ever. No skill-swapping is already a pain in the ass.
Is there not a potential option that is neither a buff or nerf?
Edit: Just thought about this - That idea I once saw about trading a stat on a piece of gear for another (reforging, but at 100% instead of 40%) would come in handy right about now. Or even the ability to add another stat to your gear (enchanting), at an increasing cost based on how much is already on the given piece. For all it matters, both ideas could result in only giving you a random stat instead of you choosing what you want.
The fun of Diablo is balancing high MF with enough DPS. It's an item farming game; or you play hardcore to show your skill (used to mean more with a ladder system, different subject).
If you cap MF you remove the essence of what Diablo is all about. The fact that they want to make the game challenging in Inferno makes it obvious the best solution is to remove gear switching of any kind in combat. If you need to switch gear to kill a certain pack, then your build or item set needs tweaking. The idea is that it takes months to build the best itemization for a toon. Gear switching eliminates this and creates a boring mechanic that shouldn't even be an option.
If you remove this gimmick gear switching it will have a positive effect on the AH gold/item inflation issue.
My perspective: I farm Act 1 and 2 with 305 MF, my MF set is beastly! I've spent millions of gold on the set and would quit game if they capped or removed that essence of Diablo.
And people like you will be the FIRST ones complaining on how this loot based game is not dropping good loot anymore. People that MF swap were unhappy about the bad loot drops before, but we kept farming and MF swapping, because this is a FARMING GAME.
its the people like you who dont put on the MF gear and dont put in the effort of farming that QQ the hardest. you expect to find 10 million gold items every half hour. the game doesnt work like that.
A logical argument; how did that find it's way to a diablo3 forum?
Actually, I completely understand that inferno is supposed to take ages to farm gear to complete. It was the purpose of it's existence. No matter what they do with magic find, they are going to keep tuning drop rates to set gear availability the way they want it.
What I am telling you, is that this is a sloppy system. For the last time, it is an action game, and action games do not feel right if you have to take up half yoru screen with a menu during combat to be effective. I can't make it more simple for you.
First of all, I DO USE GEAR SWAP for the last hit. And I don't like it. Even if it makes the game easier for me.
Gear swap is actually making the life span of the game shorter, removing choice of itemization and inflating the economy.
Has any of you tought that without gear swap, they effectively create more "endgame"?
Now we're farming for the best survival/dps BOTH in one item.(Some just focus on DPS, but whatever), and you have your MF set on inventory to swap when you need.
If you disable gear swap in any way, you'll need dps/survival/MF all in one item, that makes it WAY more difficult to get "top" gear. It makes the perfect item way harder to find.
It also enables "choice" on this game.
Now you just kill as fast as you can and swap your MF gear in for the last hit.
But let's say you can't, will it be worth killing faster or having a better chance at loot?
Is 20% MF better than 10% crit? For those of you who will say "we will just get both", yeah, you will, but it will be harder to find. Extending the farm needed to get the perfect gear.
Also, in some cases, you won't be able to get both. Get a barbarian now, his perfect gloves have: STR/VIT/AR/CritChance/CritDmg/IAS ... that's 6 stats. If he wants MF, he will need to "opt-out" on one of those. That's CHOICE!
To end this, do you complain that the AH is flooded, that the game is all about the AH and that you can't sell a worthy mid-level item for much more than 50k?
Gear swap causes part of this. With MF gear swap, it's like everyone that uses it, has high MF.
It increases the average MF of players, increasing drop rates of good items(and bad items, increasing materials for crafts).
Theres lots of people with ZERO MF on "normal" gear, that effectively have 200+ on the last hit, just because of gear swap.
Can you imagine the amount of "extra" items this creates everyday? I doubt we would be seeing 50k for 1000 DPS 2 handed weapons so soon without these loads of drops. (The nerfs on inferno also did help on this).
Truth now is we have way too much offer, and way too much mid-level items. There's no demand for that much.
So you can't sell that 2 hand even for 50k, because theres too many others; can't buy better gear because you have no gold, and can't progress on the game. Well, unless you get that lucky drop that will sell for 5M, and spend it on an item that will REALLY help you.
tl,dr: Stop looking at your own nose and try to see the whole. You want the game to last, you want goals to achieve, you want choice on this game. But you also want it easier to farm. That's not possible, sorry.
Credibility instantly goes to zero when, in an attempt to insult people who are apparently "retarded," you fail to utilize the correct "too."
You must be too retarded/lazy/dumb to learn English.
GTFO