Diablo 2 and Magic Finding

General Discussion
1

I do not usually do this. Especially when there is a game that I absolutely love. Over and over again I have had the same issue repeatedly. It just doesn’t sit well and would like to enjoy the game at all times. I get to a point where I hit a wall with Diablo 2. I will explain.

I start off with 4 P topaz armor, 3 P topaz helmet. Do some Mephisto runs get me some chancies. Ultimately hitting around 350 magic find by the end of my grinding for gear. Now it’s just running an area or a boss over and over and over again. Slow grind to maybe boost another character that I’m interested in. I’m stuck grinding only certain areas due to resistance enemies.

So I decide I’m tired of doing 500 runs and finding okay gear. Maybe 4 or 5 quality drops. I have this urge to up my magic find to turn 500 runs in to 8-10 quality drops by doubling my current magic find. Now I’m sitting at 600 MF. I think I’m going to blow this out of the water. I have a significant chance at finding my Windforce that I have never ever found for the time I’ve spent throughout the decades Diablo’s 2 was available.

To no avail, I catch myself finding 100% more blue items and less and less rare and unique items. I do an online search for what am I doing wrong while magic finding. All I hear about is this sweet spot and a nice graph showing me that unique findings well pretty much level out and there is no purpose to grind for magic finding gear because there will be no reward for your time spent.

I do not wish Diablo 2 to turn out like the mess of Diablo 3 that is. Finding 15 legendary items on one run is a bit ridiculous. Can go from 1-70 in less than 8 hours and have a fully geared character doing tier 100 rifts writhing the same day. I simply would like to see a better increase in uniques and rates when I’m challenging myself to sacrifice gear so I can better find unique items to trade off or gear another character.

If for some lucky reason, I find a Shako at 350 MF. I’m stuck trying to make a decision. Hmm do I want to trade for that elusive Ber rune so I can make an enigma so I have a quality Fist of Heavens Paladin? Maybe I will keep it in hopes that I can find better items to be able to trade off for what I need. That is a big hope!!!

So I break up the monotony and join some players for Baal runs in hopes that I might be able to catch a random drop before someone else does. After all, there is no “players X” choice when playing online.

I would propose, to make “Players X” available for online play.

And/or

Make stacking magic find worth while. It is a function that is in the game that we players love.

Please for the love of whoever it is you love. Give us this. Make magic finding worth while.

Sincerely
Diablo Fan

P.S. I did not scrub for typos misspellings or wording so forgive me if there are any infractions.

2 Likes
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I remember a youtube video of guy who tested meph runs with 1000mf. The result was he mostly found Magic Items with that much of MF.

In general if you have too much mf you suffer killspeed, and because of the diminishing return after 250mf you change to get a unique for exmaple won’t increase much anymore. Killspeed > MF. Most people say the sweet spot is around 250 mf.

The chance to find Magic (Blue) items does not suffer from diminishing return so at some point you probs find more blue thatn everything else.

diablo2. diablowiki. net/images/9/97/Magic-find-diminishing-returns.jpg

2 Likes
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To give less reason to play together? If you play alone anyway you can just play single player ^^
Also increase player wont give you better loot per se. It reduces the chance that a enemy drops no items. Bosses for exmaple only 3 - 5 player ingame to get the best chance to drop maximum amount of items.

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It’s a loot grind ARPG, RNG is going to be a pain and a blessing at the same time, but mostly a pain… :stuck_out_tongue: Good items are supposed to be difficult to find.

I suggest running no more than 300 to 350 magic find, as anything more results in heavily diminished returns for the potential power/survivability (killing speed) that is sacrificed.

Me on the other hand, I’ve found at least one Windforce the majority of ladders that I’ve played… But when I actually WANT to run a Bowazon, Windforce doesn’t drop.

Weird how that works, eh? :crazy_face:

No, this setting does not belong in multiplayer… However, I would be open to a monster power type setting which only increases the health, damage and density of monsters… No increases in XP or item drop rate per monster. This way the number of players in the game would still work like it does now.

2 Likes
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The entire point of diablo 2 lod is to kill the strongest monsters over and over so you maybe get a drop so you can kill strongest monsters over and over a bit faster. That seems to be the point for most anyway.

For me personally no, its a decent game i come to play every few years to chill and kill, maybe experiment here and there but only so much of that in the game that is also viable in hell. Tons viable in NM though.

If loot grind isnt your thing, much like it isnt mine. Then enjoy the game while you can then move on to another game or no game.

Diablo 2 has a special something that i get the urge for here and there.
Diablo 3 is a joke. More like some copy/paste android game.

Tz will add a bit of spice into the game which is good for most part.

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200-350% is the absolute max MF anyone should go with, anything above is just unnecessarily nerfing the killing speed.

1 Like
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Idk your right I mean that is just how d2 works. Lots of farming and that super rare insane GG find. If you found a shako every 10 runs why does anyone care about shako anymore

No matter the mf uniques won’t rain from the sky it’s just the game. Also with tz farming the same boss is less a thing now although still an option

Magic finding works as stated and it’s fine. Farming long term is the end game

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One thing worth noting about item drops and magic find, when the game drops an item base, it first tries rolling for unique, then set, then rare, then magic, then normal/superior/socketed, then low quality.

Just because you’re seeing more blue items when you crank the magic find sky high doesn’t mean you’re getting less uniques.

Also there are failed uniques, which drop as a triple durability rare item. Failed sets drop as a double durability magic item. This happens when the item base successfully rolls as unique or set, but there is no unique or set version for that base item.

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I agree. I like to run with 300, but 200 is just fine.

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tl;dr
another scrub asking to make the game easier
no

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I agree with you OP, it is also what the majority wants. I hope they improve drop rates, allow for /player x command and ploot soon.

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D2 and D3 both have extreme stupid drop rates.

You play D3 for a week and quit cause you’re finished.

You play D2 for a week and quit cause you’re frustrated.

D2 really needs to increase drop rates to give an motivating drop every now and then.

And the problem with the drops is not the MF, it’s the base item calculation, you could have 1000 effective MF, you would still only find green breastplates, because MF doesn’t affect the baseitem, and breastplate is trash, regardless of the color…

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13

True, both on the other end of the spectrum. D2R could definitely use better drop rates.

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its a slot machine what do you expect…

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Perhaps what’s needed isn’t more a “Players X” option but an “Increased Item Quantity %” or “Chance of Finding Unique Items %”. It wouldn’t need to be a high percentage but enough for some slight improvement.

I agree that this shouldn’t be a D3 thing of finding unique items every 5 seconds but there are D2 players (myself included) that just don’t have as much time anymore for these 500 runs of item grinding. At most some get only that few hours of gaming with friends/family before needing to go offline.

Bots would probably exploit this but if everyone has a better chance of getting what they need (however small) wouldn’t it deter people from giving money to these bots?

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There’s a big difference between D2 and D3 when it comes to drop rates.

D2, you can play the hardest difficulty with crap gear with all classes, summon necro can play it naked. It’s slow, but it can still be done. So the drop rates should be low.

D3, you can’t play the hardest difficulties with crap gear. You won’t make a dent in any monster you encounter, and you’d get one-shotted. The drop rates are high simply because they are needed to reach higher difficulties, however there’s still the RNG factor when it comes to the stats that roll, as well as ancient and primal versions.

The drop rates in D2 are fine as they are. As far as the highest level items that can normally only be found from killing Baal, they are now accessible from high level Terror Zones… So D2 has received a slight bump just from the addition of Terror Zones.

Yes D3 is too fast progression wise IMO, but that’s the direction they took the game. It’s still fun, but the game is over in a week for me. But I’ve been playing D3 since release, so I know the ins and the outs of the game.

17

lol its not what the majority wants. Shortening farm time is literally shortening the season/games life’s span.
The main end game for those that want it IS the farming and gambling. Every 3 pulls cant be a win.
Its been carefully crafted and honed over 20+ years changing drop rates would be pure stupid

1 Like
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I feel you there lol

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Carefully crafted? Like how the paladin can just FoH everything now? How hammerdins can get a bonus via concentration to hammer damage but any other magic damage can’t get the boost too? How it took a charm to make necromancer poision damage viable to ubers after these 20+ years? Bowazon? The list of problems goes on for this “carefully crafted game”

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I was referring to drop rates, not class/build balance. D2 is not perfectly balanced but what game is or ever was? None because its impossible.