14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard wants to change the way the magic find mechanic works in Diablo 3, but it can’t really decide on what course of action it needs to take, so the studio has now asked fans to choose it.
Diablo 3 has been continuously tweaked by Blizzard ever since its release back in May and, while many improved the game, fans were quite upset with some changes.
Now, after deciding that it wants to modify the magic find mechanic, which affects the player’s chance of finding magic equipment, Blizzard has shared its propositions with players and asked them to vote on their favorite.
“Since release it has become an increasingly common practice to keep a Magic Find (MF) set in your inventory, and swap it in shortly before a kill. Philosophically we don't have a problem with the practice. While players getting more Magic Find for their kills isn't a game breaker for us, many players have said they don't enjoy doing it but feel the benefit is too large to ignore,” Blizzard’s Wyatt Cheng said.
“Since the call for a solution really comes from all of you, we'd like to invite you to chime in with your opinion on what the solution could be.”
Five courses of action have been proposed by Blizzard and each deals with the Magic Find problem in various ways.
The first is to set a magic find cap, meaning players will have a limit on their chances of finding magical equipment.
Another option will make the magic find chances modify over a certain period of time, not immediately, which should prevent players from changing gear right before landing the killing blow on a boss.
The third option entails making an average of the player’s magic find chances over a certain period of time, meaning gear swapping won’t drastically increase their likelihood of getting great gear.
The fourth option is a bit more drastic, as it penalizes players with a 0% magic find rate for 3 minutes after swapping gear, which should drastically discourage this practice.
Last but not least, the fifth option will tie the gear swapping system with the Nephalem Valor one, meaning players will lose stacks of Valor when changing gear.
In case you want to chime on the issue, check out Blizzard’s dedicated forum thread here.