First of a short overview about the D2 drop system.
We got base items in D2, like Breastplate or Short Sword. We also got exceptional and elite versions of them, like Gladius and Falcata.
These can come in different versions, like chipped, normal, socket, ethereal, magical, rare, set, unique.
So the first part of the drop calculation is which base item you get. This is done by the TC, and it’s NOT affected by the MF.
An TC’s got base items and the TC below assigned. An monster has an given TC.
If we got a drop, everything assigned to the monsters TC gets rolled.
The highest chance is always the TC below, if that happens, it’s gonna get rolled again, with the content of the new TC.
So if you kill an TC85 monster, most likely gonna get something like TC85>TC84>…>TC19>TC18>Breastplate.
Thats a bit simplified, but you get the idea.
Next step is rolling the magic, here comes the MF, the more MF you got, the better the chances for rare, set, unique are.
Bosses have bonuses on that, so they most likely drop a unique or two.
So with a bit of MF, you got some good chances at an green Breastplate. Which is totally worthless, except your a lvl 8.
The chances of falling down an TC are incredible high in high TC’s, leading to tons of normal items and few exceptional and elites dropping, even on Hell.
On the other side it’s fairly easy to get MF high enough to always get unique / set drops out of e.g. Mephisto.
That leads to:
- Few magical and rare item that are exceptional or elite.
- Few uniques and set items that are exceptional or elite.
- Lot of normal unique and set item, which are basically trash.
Why mention magical and rare? Because they have to potential to be best in slot for some builds.
But after theyr slim drop chance, they need to get rolled again, for actual useful magical properties!
This makes magical elite armor with +life and 4 sockets basically non existend, leading to everyone focus on uniques and runewords.
So if i’m running Mephisto and got an crap drop, i’d prefer an magical Gladius or an rare Falcata everytime over an green Breastplate.
So i’m asking (again) - lower the chance for falling TC’s, maybe even a tiny little bit.
To keep balance, reduce boss bonus for set and unique a bit.
Results in: Less set and unique trash, better chances for useful magical and rares.
So if you read this, please repress your “Changes gonna make D2 D3!!!” reflex. It’s going to the opposite.
And yes, release should be 1.14, but there can be balance patches afterwards.
Edit: And it would make the requests for this stupid loot filter obsolete. If there’s a problem, tackle it, don’t tinker around it, just going to be a mess.