Gradual Reduction in MF Effectiveness

[Professor Frink]

I believe that the developers have added some sort of mechanism to the game which gradually reduces the effectiveness of your character's total magic find.

This reminds me of the impression a lot of people get from video poker machines--that when you first sit down, the machine pays well, and you get ahead, then it goes cold and takes all your money, either through some sort of internal logic or because the people watching the hidden cameras think you've been winning long enough and hit a button.

Even if you can't look at the code and don't believe it's the same as the single-player version, both can be checked on if you're careful; you just need to be sure to decide in advance what exactly you're going to measure (uniques per drop, what % of items are elite, how often you fill out an outside 4-straight, whatever) and write down what happened in a particular drop if you decide before the drop happens that you're going to write it down (and then always write it down). It's surprisingly easy to decieve yourself if you aren't careful.

And whatever it is you're trying to measure will need to happen at least a few dozen times, or it's just luck.

-- frink (contemplating a mod that keeps statistics for you)