"In the most recent patch (v1.09) Blizzard implemented a Diminishing returns formula for items that added a % chance to find magic items (magic find). A full explanation of magic find is here at Blizzard's official strategy site. [battle.net] Items can drop normal (white colored), magical (blue), rare (yellow), part of an item set (green) or unique (gold). The diminishing returns formula is not posted on that site, but basically diminishing returns kick in bigtime for unique items around 200% increased MF, kick in later for set items and even later for rare items. If you're wearing items that give you a 400% increased chance to find a magical item, you only get like, a 220-230% increased chance of getting a unique."
Correct. Before this "fix", the higher your MF bonus, the "better" (item hunters consider unique and set items good, since magical items only have two attributes and rare items suck since the expansion pack is around) the drops, especially from the boss monsters, which always drop loads of stuff. With this new fix, the MF attribute, when applied massively, does what is advertised - it increases your chance to find magic (blue) items. Until 100%-150%, the chance to find nonmagical stuff is reduced by upping the chances of finding magical/set/unique/rare items. Later on, basically only the magical (blue) items still get higher chances, reducing the chance of finding set or unique items to a percentage lower than what they would have been with a lower MF bonus. The "sweet spot" is somewhere around 150%-200% if you want set or unique items.
"And they 'balanced' telekenesis so that you can only pick up minor items (like potions). This is very annoying in single player mode, where there is no one to steal drops from..."
Since Telekinesis is the only way for the sorceress to grab dropped items in a multiplayer game with other players competing for the drops, she has gone from "uber" (grabbing every item via telekinesis before other players can pick them up) to nothingness. Now she has to walk over to the item and click on them, which is nearly impossible to do - the sorceress is the "stand back and fire spells" character, while most of the other ones are "walk up to the monster and clobber it" characters. And when the monster dies, the items drop where it falls down. Now guess who will be first to grab the items, considering the egoistical "me first" behaviour of most gamers...
Slashdot Mirror
"In the most recent patch (v1.09) Blizzard implemented a Diminishing returns formula for items that added a % chance to find magic items (magic find). A full explanation of magic find is here at Blizzard's official strategy site. [battle.net] Items can drop normal (white colored), magical (blue), rare (yellow), part of an item set (green) or unique (gold). The diminishing returns formula is not posted on that site, but basically diminishing returns kick in bigtime for unique items around 200% increased MF, kick in later for set items and even later for rare items. If you're wearing items that give you a 400% increased chance to find a magical item, you only get like, a 220-230% increased chance of getting a unique."
...
Correct. Before this "fix", the higher your MF bonus, the "better" (item hunters consider unique and set items good, since magical items only have two attributes and rare items suck since the expansion pack is around) the drops, especially from the boss monsters, which always drop loads of stuff. With this new fix, the MF attribute, when applied massively, does what is advertised - it increases your chance to find magic (blue) items. Until 100%-150%, the chance to find nonmagical stuff is reduced by upping the chances of finding magical/set/unique/rare items. Later on, basically only the magical (blue) items still get higher chances, reducing the chance of finding set or unique items to a percentage lower than what they would have been with a lower MF bonus. The "sweet spot" is somewhere around 150%-200% if you want set or unique items.
"And they 'balanced' telekenesis so that you can only pick up minor items (like potions). This is very annoying in single player mode, where there is no one to steal drops from..."
Since Telekinesis is the only way for the sorceress to grab dropped items in a multiplayer game with other players competing for the drops, she has gone from "uber" (grabbing every item via telekinesis before other players can pick them up) to nothingness. Now she has to walk over to the item and click on them, which is nearly impossible to do - the sorceress is the "stand back and fire spells" character, while most of the other ones are "walk up to the monster and clobber it" characters. And when the monster dies, the items drop where it falls down. Now guess who will be first to grab the items, considering the egoistical "me first" behaviour of most gamers