 | A reminder on the differences of group and solo play(1) | Category: GeneralJune-1-2015 2:48 PM PDT (9 years ago)  |
| I thought I'd list a few of the things that are, in my view, wrong with the situation between multiplayer (specifically four man games) and solo play, and things that make the gap between the speed at which people playing four man multiplayer and people playing solo games gain experience and get drop chances widen at a very fast pace, especially during the start of a season. For most people, I'm sure these are obvious things, but it bears repeating obvious things, when they're what's wrong in a given situation, so that the people making the decisions finally decide to remedy those things. Number of enemies to kill in regards to experience and drop chances gained When you play in a four man game, the number of monsters you face is exactly the same as when playing alone, while you gain the exact same amount of drop chances (one chance to drop an item or items, per monster killed), and even more experience. There aren't more monsters in the zone. You don't need to kill four times as many monsters to get that same one chance to drop the items, or four times as many monsters to get that same, or rather, actually a higher amount of experience. A solo player kills a single monster and gets X amount of experience and Y amount of drops, while four people kill a single monster and get X * 1.3 amount of experience and Y amount of drops. Amount of health per monster The health of each monster isn't four times as high when there are four people in the game, and even if it was, typically people run at a difficulty level where they do enough overkill damage that if the health of a single monster was indeed four times as high, it would still go down as fast or faster than when playing solo. Although, when pushing very high greater rifts there's very little overkill. But, the monster health is not four times as high. IIRC it is something like 50% more health per additional person, so 100% health when solo, and 150%/200%/250% in multiplayer. So, in a four man game, a single monster has only 2.5x the health, but there are almost always three to four DPS characters taking down that monster. Four times the damage done, two and a half times the health of the monster. Damage done by the monsters ...is exactly the same. The monsters deal the same damage to a single player as it does to four people. Number of targets for the monsters While the throng of enemies is beating up on a single player with all their might (albeit, let's be fair, they might, once in a blue moon, hit the templar), in a four person game that same group of monsters has four targets to divide their attacks and damage between. This means the players will be taking a lot less damage from the same group of monsters than if any of them were playing solo, even though, fair enough, the templar does soak 50% through Unity. Overall though, damage taken by any single player is a lot less than while playing solo, and there are a lot less chances of dying. Group synergies and resurrection Of course group synergies is obvious, and compounds the issue of the speed at which monsters go down with four players. There are auras and shouts that benefit other players. On top of that, though, there's the ability to resurrect players. So, if a player takes one of those bad hits mentioned in the point before, there are three other players there to resurrect him or her. The templar can't do jack to help you if you die in a solo game. How about teaching him a resurrection spell? Gear trading In a four person game, there are four people getting drops, and all those drops can be traded between these four people. Admittedly this probably doesn't happen too often when playing with random people, but if you're playing with your clan or community buddies or friends, there's three extra chances of you getting an item you desire, especially if you play other classes as well; one of your friends gets a near perfect ancient of a set you're using on your current character or an alt, and he or she already has it, and suddenly you've gotten an item you didn't get as a drop. The templar doesn't get any drops. Maybe he should? Legendary gem upgrading The multiplayer groups will be running much higher greater rifts than the player would typically be doing solo, especially if he or she's been doing multiplayer from the beginning, as the gap between how he or she would've done solo and how he or she is doing in multiplayer has grown wider and wider faster and faster from the get go, and thus the player can upgrade their legendary gems several levels higher than is actually even possible solo. Split farming and warden searches While the solo player has to slog through all of the bounties to get to that juicy cache, in a split farm they typically do a single bounty and they get to roll for a RoRG or similar. Also, if doing keywardens, just split up and suddenly you do Dahlgur Oasis in five seconds flat, while the solo player does his run that takes for ages. ... I'm sure there are several other points that I'm just too stupid or tired to remember right now, that compound the issue even further, but this is at least a few of them to show what actually is wrong with the situation, and why solo players are so pissed off. | ||
 | A reminder on the differences of group and solo play(10) | June-3-2015 6:20 AM PDT (9 years ago) |
I don't think anyone disagrees with you that multiplayer is much more rewarding, but it's been said several times that the game is focused around multiplayer with the option to solo, so I don't think they will ever balance it. The developers have pretty much always considered Diablo III being primarily a multiplayer game, so the great emphasis on group gameplay is deliberate. The developers of course want solo gameplay to be fully viable as well, but playing in groups is intended to be the more fun and attractive option. That being said, finding a balance of rewards between solo and group play is key, and that is something that is being looked into—the gap between the two should be reasonable, leaning slightly in favour of group play. In order to find this balance though, solo gameplay rewards will have to be brought up in increments in order to avoid an opposite situation where people feel a greater incentive to play alone—a situation that would then have to be fixed again afterwards... basically, we want to avoid a knee-jerk reaction :-) | ||
