06-15-2004, 04:07 AM
It's already been beaten to death in that thread.
Jarulf himself already said:
What more do you want?
If someone had posted detailed results of 1,000+ trials of a controlled experiment and it showed a statistically signifant downwards trend, we could have something to work with. No one has done that. All we have are samples of a dozen or so (completely insignificant from a statistical standpoint) and vague rumours of "well, it seems to be getting worse," which can easily be attributed to psychology. For example, if you've MF'd a lot already, you'll have more items and there will thus be less items that will be considered good. And if you've MF'd in the past and found good loot, you might be inclined to forget how many empty runs preceeded it (e.g. if you get a perfect dream item after 100 runs, you'll still count the 99 empty runs as worthwhile to get that, while if you just now did 50 runs and got nothing, it'll seem like a complete waste of time). There hasn't been any solid evidence of anything out of the ordinary yet. And the rumours don't match up. Others were saying that less of the items they found were unique (that is, that the overall quality was decreasing). You're saying that less of the uniques and set items were elite (that is, that the average TC was decreasing).
Neither of these has any basis on reality. They don't match up with how item drops work. And since they don't match up with each other, they become that much less credible.
(And I'm left wondering just what a "normal elite/set item" is).
If you come up with a claim that contradicts the current well-established knowledge of how things work, which contradict the words of Jarulf, and which doesn't make any sense, the burden of proof is on you.
The argument "server side patch!" doesn't work as proof. It can work as explanation once you have proved something, but just calling "server side patch!" doesn't allow you to make any otherwise unjustifiable statement.
Let me give you a silly made-up example:
"There was a server side patch yesterday that made it impossible to find any rune higher than Lo. I know this because I haven't found any rune higher than Lo today. You can't use the MPQs or any program derived from this to disprove this since it's a server-side patch. Unless you actually find a rune higher than Lo, I'll stand by my statement. Finding one would mean they must have made another server-side patch to reverse the change."
Surely you realize that this statement would be thoroughly ridiculous. There wasn't anywhere near a significant sample size to show that the runes could no longer drop. And it doesn't make any sense that they'd make that change. And the burden of proof should be on the one making the claim. You can't just make a ridiculous statement and make others disprove it for you.
Or how about this one:
"Blizzard is sexist. Somehow, D2 figures out if it's a woman or a man that's playing. It then uses this information to scale down the TCs and the quality of items. Women will find about 20% less uniques as well as 20% less elites. I know this because I see more men than women in trades."
The problem with this should be obvious. Blizzard really doesn't know who's playing a given character. Nor does it have the knowledge of how often you've killed a boss (see Jarulf's quote).
Really, if you want us to take that claim as anything other than an unfounded rumour, prove it.
Jarulf himself already said:
Quote:So no, there are no such run âcountersâ, nor any special MF dimishing effects in the game, not in single player, not on realms.
What more do you want?
If someone had posted detailed results of 1,000+ trials of a controlled experiment and it showed a statistically signifant downwards trend, we could have something to work with. No one has done that. All we have are samples of a dozen or so (completely insignificant from a statistical standpoint) and vague rumours of "well, it seems to be getting worse," which can easily be attributed to psychology. For example, if you've MF'd a lot already, you'll have more items and there will thus be less items that will be considered good. And if you've MF'd in the past and found good loot, you might be inclined to forget how many empty runs preceeded it (e.g. if you get a perfect dream item after 100 runs, you'll still count the 99 empty runs as worthwhile to get that, while if you just now did 50 runs and got nothing, it'll seem like a complete waste of time). There hasn't been any solid evidence of anything out of the ordinary yet. And the rumours don't match up. Others were saying that less of the items they found were unique (that is, that the overall quality was decreasing). You're saying that less of the uniques and set items were elite (that is, that the average TC was decreasing).
Neither of these has any basis on reality. They don't match up with how item drops work. And since they don't match up with each other, they become that much less credible.
(And I'm left wondering just what a "normal elite/set item" is).
If you come up with a claim that contradicts the current well-established knowledge of how things work, which contradict the words of Jarulf, and which doesn't make any sense, the burden of proof is on you.
The argument "server side patch!" doesn't work as proof. It can work as explanation once you have proved something, but just calling "server side patch!" doesn't allow you to make any otherwise unjustifiable statement.
Let me give you a silly made-up example:
"There was a server side patch yesterday that made it impossible to find any rune higher than Lo. I know this because I haven't found any rune higher than Lo today. You can't use the MPQs or any program derived from this to disprove this since it's a server-side patch. Unless you actually find a rune higher than Lo, I'll stand by my statement. Finding one would mean they must have made another server-side patch to reverse the change."
Surely you realize that this statement would be thoroughly ridiculous. There wasn't anywhere near a significant sample size to show that the runes could no longer drop. And it doesn't make any sense that they'd make that change. And the burden of proof should be on the one making the claim. You can't just make a ridiculous statement and make others disprove it for you.
Or how about this one:
"Blizzard is sexist. Somehow, D2 figures out if it's a woman or a man that's playing. It then uses this information to scale down the TCs and the quality of items. Women will find about 20% less uniques as well as 20% less elites. I know this because I see more men than women in trades."
The problem with this should be obvious. Blizzard really doesn't know who's playing a given character. Nor does it have the knowledge of how often you've killed a boss (see Jarulf's quote).
Really, if you want us to take that claim as anything other than an unfounded rumour, prove it.