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Enhanced Perception and Magic Find general thread


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Well, time to make an old topic condensed into a new global thread is it not? :)

Enhanced Perception (named Magic Find in D2F Mod, not sure if it has a different name in Addendum) is the general skill that allows you to increase your chances to find better loot, and much like any other skill in the game it can have its proficiency increased and eventually mastered to grant better results. If you're developing a new toon and want to use the skill make sure to have it as a primary mastery, since this is essentially your best friend from the start. More gold and better loot, which again results in more gold, will be a lending hand in a game so gear-focused as this one is. You'll have to sacrifice a primary mastery and a skill slot, but hey these are general skills and the point about them is that they're supposed to make a big difference in your gameplay at the expense of not being directly related to combat (apart from Riding and Alchemy which due to lesser regen penalties and consumable trophies have a direct emphasis on it).

Now with that introduction to the skill out of the way I'd like to discuss in depth some of its mechanics, and if possible its coding. I've played with and mastered EP before and the good thing about it is that your loot drops eventually turn mostly into yellow, which in terms of RNG loot is the best tier. Great right? No more junk items and no more need to apply loot filters from the game menu which sometimes make it hard to not get miscellaneous items with a different rarity. I know I've missed a ton of decent relics because though I've had the loot filter well configured sometimes the game just has a mind of its own in terms of it. It's probably due to the coding part so I won't get ahead of myself here. Point being, the loot filter isn't perfect and if you can have most loot be of its highest possible calibre then there should be no need to bother with a semi-broken item filter anyway. My main point of interest is just how specifically EP makes it easier for higher tier items to drop when it's present. I'm looking at unique, set and legendary items, so basically anything past tier 11 (please correct me if I'm wrong here). Tiers are displayed in the game's internal files by the presence of "zdrop" lines in a table that has the percentual chances for each rarity tier to drop, so the higher ones correspond to the better ones (unique, set, legendary). Of course the game's difficulty ladder also presents an added challenge in drops, since many items are only available past a certain char or difficulty level, plus there are drop lists from which specific mobs have their drops. Think of all of that as minimum requirements for items to drop.

With that being said let's assume we have a level 100 toon in Niobium and access to all regions, which should make us assume every piece of gear is fair game in terms of being eligible for a drop. That toon has EP mastered, so 75 hard points in it. How exactly does the skill relate to the drop quality and frequency in general terms? Does it increase the percentages on the "zdrop" lists by a ratio, and if so just how much? What is exactly the mechanics behind it and how high should it be for optimal results in terms of hunting down the highest tier items? On top of that there's the choice to furthermore increase the magic find percentage by gearing up with items that have a percentual bonus unlocked by the skill. How and how much can both stats stack to make high tier drops even more optimal? How does the skill boost to magic find relates to the gear boost to magic find, and what's the breaking point for both? In addition, I'd like to realise if any of the developed mods have made any coding changes to the vanilla behaviour of both stats, and if so how they where changed. So @Flix and @dimitrius154, if you guys want to pitch in by all means do so. Anyone else with interest and/or knowledge on this matter please do so as well.

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A couple things I know the skill does NOT do:

1) Make it so you can target cloaked/invisible enemies (like Garema Ghost Warriors) - this whole dynamic was disabled in Ice & Blood.  However I suspect it still works for enemies trying to detect an invisible player.  At least I've seen enemies with the Enhanced Perception skill "see" my cloaked Assassin in D2F.

2) Increase the chances of finding Magical Hiding Places (those little glittering spots in the terrain that spawn items).

The skill claims to do both but does neither, this is why I changed the name and description so much in D2F, perception has nothing to do with the skill anymore (also everyone called it "Magic Find" in original D2).

As far I can tell there are still 2 components granted by Enhanced Perception: quality of drops and quantity of drops.  At least I know there are two separate bonuses in blueprint.txt that control these things.  I believe the latter is the mastery bonus, so when the skill claims to allow to "see" hidden compartments in chests, etc. is actually just increasing number of items dropped.

46 minutes ago, Androdion said:

With that being said let's assume we have a level 100 toon in Niobium and access to all regions, which should make us assume every piece of gear is fair game in terms of being eligible for a drop.

Androdion, there's something regarding drops you're not considering though, and that is different enemies draw on different drop lists, based on their dangerclass (assigned in creatures.txt) and init_type (defined in the code I guess).   Dmitriy could explain better.

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I think in the old german sacred forum a dev once said best place to hunt for rings and amulets for my smith would be a place with lots of high level ghosts.

So you have to make sure that you hunt not only in different places but also different enemy types to cover all equipment types.

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So, what we can see in s2logic.dll:

1) This bonus is invoked by a function, that rolls the dice for the current droplist, upping the result within the droplist limitations. Pretty much the same mechanics, as in Diablo II.

2) The percentage of the map discovered is directly added to this bonus.

And that's all there is to it. 

Edited by dimitrius154
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@dimitrius154While we're hovering around the subject, can you confirm that the following bonus works to increase drop quantity?

  type = "BONUS_DROPCHANCE",
  spez = "DRPC_ITEMS",

I "activated" this one in D2F and it seems like it's working.  At least the LOKA ID is being called.  There are similar ones for potions, gold, and runes but these seem to be broken.

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I did mention drop lists slightly, but I didn't want to go overboard and say something wrong as to not confound new players. :)

So the hunt for higher tiered items depends on drop lists as much as say, trying to find the different elemental damage modifiers to socket in weapons from their respective mobs. As in, different types of enemies different types of drops. I guess it's a gross generalisation but it seems accurate right? The same as saying that you'll have better chances of high tiered items with veteran, bosses and mutants of different mob types because of them having a higher dangerclass.

One thing then, each and every piece of gear adding to %magic find will be added to the skill bonus and the map discovery bonus? So the more the merrier? In that case how much is enough to hunt for, say, legendaries in Niob? Also, and I know this is probably too much, but has anyone ever gone to the length of compiling a list on what drop lists relate to what enemies? Some things we know by heart and intuition, like the elemental modifiers on specific enemies and the mini-sets on bosses, but how about knowing in detail which types of enemies correspond to which drop lists? That would make hunting for specific items a more, ahm, specific task. At least players would know which areas to tread when hunting for this and that. Is this even possible to do?

On a side note, I miss the email notifications.

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1 hour ago, Flix said:

While we're hovering around the subject, can you confirm that the following bonus works to increase drop quantity?

I don't readily detect it's application in the code. However, I do remember it working for potions. I think, it's droplist dependent.

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13 minutes ago, Androdion said:

One thing then, each and every piece of gear adding to %magic find will be added to the skill bonus and the map discovery bonus? So the more the merrier? In that case how much is enough to hunt for, say, legendaries in Niob?

The magic find bonus is cumulative from the gear and the map discovery bonus. However the value it shows is misleading, the end result is non-linear. It's like in the probabilities theory: 50% success * 2 does not mean a 100% success, but rather 75%.

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Kind of like diminishing returns? I guess that in the future I might do some field testing just for fun, to see if there's any significant difference in using a "seaker suit" with %magic find socketed (as an analogy for buff/trading suits). I'm still glued to DS2, though I'm finishing my Elite run so that's bound to end. :D

I know you've answered already, but to clarify, the magic find bonus acts as a multiplier for the values in each "zdrop" tier within the drop lists of the mob killed, right? So in reality if you only have a 2% chance to get a legendary drop a 100% magic find bonus will, at most, make that probability increase to 4% (more like 3,5% like you say)? I guess that now we'd only need 200 boss runs per legendary drop instead of 400, ha ha. Point being, the drop ratio will still be low. 

Anyway, about the drops lists. Is there a way to compile a table with mob->corresponding drop list(s)?

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1 hour ago, dimitrius154 said:

However, I do remember it working for potions. I think, it's droplist dependent.

Hmm interesting, so maybe they all work and I just didn't check thoroughly enough.  It might be worthwhile, from a balance perspective, to make these bonuses available in various places, and in turn make runes, potions, and gold harder to get for the player, in order to incentivize the use of said bonuses.  What do you think?

14 minutes ago, Androdion said:

Anyway, about the drops lists. Is there a way to compile a table with mob->corresponding drop list(s)?

I would adore this, it would be very useful from a modding perspective.  We will have to bribe Dmitriy with something, I think.  Even if I just had the "inittype" list for creatures I could compile what enemies call on what drop patterns (it's actually drop patterns, not lists which are assigned the dangerclass and initype, oops).  Think of drop patterns as collections of drop lists.  For example, a Blacksmith has a single drop pattern that contains a few different drop lists (armor, damage converters, and in EE, shields).

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41 minutes ago, Androdion said:

the magic find bonus acts as a multiplier for the values in each "zdrop" tier within the drop lists of the mob killed, right?

That's correct, but not just mobs. Chests and hiding spots are affected as well.

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42 minutes ago, Androdion said:

Is there a way to compile a table with mob->corresponding drop list(s)?

This enterprise is more about patience, than intellect. Takes one with what we call "iron arse". 

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3 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

That's correct, but not just mobs. Chests and hiding spots are affected as well.

Thanks mate!

29 minutes ago, Flix said:

I would adore this, it would be very useful from a modding perspective.  We will have to bribe Dmitriy with something, I think.  Even if I just had the "inittype" list for creatures I could compile what enemies call on what drop patterns (it's actually drop patterns, not lists which are assigned the dangerclass and initype, oops).  Think of drop patterns as collections of drop lists.  For example, a Blacksmith has a single drop pattern that contains a few different drop lists (armor, damage converters, and in EE, shields).

This would be nice indeed, but I have no idea about the work involved to do it. Is there any decoding involved or is it related to the game's TXT files?

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