Magic Find...beating a dead horse?

[Vash]

Hey...not sure if this topic has been discussed fully on the forum already, so sorry if I'm beating a dead horse...

I've read many sites stating that the quality of drops is unaffected by the number of consecutive runs one makes in a certain area. It's been said that this is just a figment of gamers' imaginations.

But that doesn't seem to be the case based on my own experience. I've played for a long time on B.net before I quit almost a year ago. Now I'm back playing on single player.

I certainly noticed a decreasing quality in drops during my B.net stint. After maybe about ten runs Meph would stop dropping sets and uniques and then eventually rares. When I go level or item-hunt in another area then come back to Meph, he'd drop a unique or two for the first few runs, then the quality would degrade rapidly after that.

I'm having the same experience now in single player. I've been doing Hell Meph runs with a modest amount of MF (around 150%...hey, I just started again =P ). Despite the low MF, I was consistently getting at least one unique or set for the first ten runs or so. But as the runs progressed, Meph dropped more and more blues...then eventually FEWER and FEWER blues (from 6 blues to 4 to 3...). Eventually in one run, Hell Meph dropped a small rejuv, a blue, and a QUIVER OF ARROWS.

Has anyone had the same experience? Am I just imagining this?

[Conner Macleod]

Hmmm

1) No
2) Yes


Quality of drops is purely roll of the dice. Some people believe that if you MF Baal, everytime you kill him your MF is degraded by some percentage againt him in the future. Not true. Same holds for Meph, Pindle, Dac, Snapchip, Frozenstein, and the other popular MF spots.

[Jarulf]

Game will not affect other future games, there is no such connections. Thus the effect you describe is not possible and it is not happening either. It is luck (or bad luck), imagination and whatever else you want to call it :)

[AtomicKitKat]

Because the MF is so high, you kind of expect the drops to be pretty good every time. I've been doing BFH runs in Normal for the past few days, gathering set items(finally completed Death's set today :D) You notice the first few drops are set/unique, then you start noticing only rares, and after like the 10th run, you start to notice the blues. It's also possible that because of lag, the bosses sometimes move into "null" zones, and if they're not absolutely ENORMOUS(I'm talking Coldworm size here), they probably won't be big enough to drop all the stuff they should.

Anyway, while I'm here, what's the best "set combination" you guys have(mentally)? I'm currently planning to combine Death's and Berserker's sets, together with the Angelic amulet/ring and something else(only slot left being the boots) Anybody else have a better combination? Possibly Iratha's set might be mixed into the combo.

[Vash]

Game will not affect other future games, there is no such connections. Thus the effect you describe is not possible and it is not happening either. It is luck (or bad luck), imagination and whatever else you want to call it :)

Game will not affect other future games, there is no such connections.

I guess you're right. A blue, rejuv, and arrows...I must have the best luck in the world =P

What's that you mentioned about null zones, Atomic?

[Sheep]

AtomicKitKat, I suggest Hsarus Belt and Boots for hundreds of AR and DR.

[kandrathe]

I tried Irathra's + Darkglow on one of my young paladin's and it worked quite well until Hell difficulty, and then with Salvation it was still quite alot of fun, especially in Act 4. I find Irathra's set is also nice with Sigons Armor, Boots, and Shield, or Angelic Armor and Ring. But, alas, my paladin out grew them and one day his perfect gem mule was overloaded, so he went shopping for a new wardrobe, which made that set obsolete.

[Albion Child]

Iratha + cathan or Death's plus Cathan, Works for most melee classes or bowazon (maybe java, but I never played one)

[AtomicKitKat]

Null=none, nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

In this case, think of it as a Portable Black Hole(D&D) The infamous "I killed Duriel and all I got was a lousy TP scroll!" bug is caused by this. These are places which exist/don't exist at the same time. They exist in so far as walking about is concerned, but when item drops are generated, they don't exist, so the item disappears if it's supposed to land in that spot. I'm not sure if it's related to the Arcane Sanctuary's "holes"(the ones you can teleport into, can leap into but not out of, etc) Either way, it's a flaw in the coding of the stages. Best I can suggest is that you kill Duriel in the corner(lure him there or find some way to force him back into it)

[whereagles]

Hey, I was the one who started that rumor!!

Man, it's great to see it has evolved into one of the Great Myths of b.net LOLOL :D :D :D :D

Seriously... there's no such thing as diminuishing drop quality. It's all luck. Or.. as Jarulf said, more like bad luck eheh :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Vash]

...I didn't get the idea from any rumor I heard...just from hours and hours of runs! =P

[dwa]

I've also experienced this in SP. In, fact, I can predict when it will happen; after the third drop for the boss in question, it becomes only blues for two drops, then 1-2 blues (almost invariably normal items) plus random stuff (gold, scrolls, keys) from there on out. I've done runs up to 35x on each individual boss, and this holds true each time I try it. Interestingly, if I exit out of the game completely, then fire it up again, I'm back to getting good drops (unique and sets being more common, not that they're ever good ones themselves).

Perhaps there is nothing in the item drop formulae that take into account # of attempts, but do you think that it is possible (perhaps some little bit of code Blizz put in to discourage runs and get people to try other areas of the game) for there to be a "counter" of sorts that would trigger after a certain number of runs are completed and screw with the item drop chances. I've witnessed this for a long time now (ever since LoD was released; I never did runs in D2C), and the frequency and consistancy causes me to be skeptical to claims of "blind luck"