Why Punish Solo Players I think thats Horses**t

Group play has to split the loot 6 ways also (or however many are in the group).

If there is no loot bonus then 6 players will have to split the loot for one player 6 ways and then the people that want to play with friends will feel like they need to play solo so you have the opposite problem.

With the current atlas and scarabs there is plenty of loot to go around for solo players so I think they have a happy enough medium right now.

So in a PvE game without any form of ladders, highscores or other competitive stuff you loose against groups because they get slightly more loot and go the extra mile of engaging with other people and maybe even specialize builds for grouped play...

Some people really need a reality check.

Guess what. Depending on the group you are most likely more efficient solo as well.

- no waiting times because mate x needs a toilet break, aggroed the wife and so on
- no sharing of loot
- no waiting times because somebody needs to redo his build because an item with 1% better stats dropped and he cant make a decision

and so on

But yeah not being able to "compete" with well oiled farm machines that run maps in record times is the problem. For sure it is not your fault that you wont do the extra steps needed and basically just shout "but i deserve the same even when I am not doing what is needed"...

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Druktar#0359 wrote:

Some people really need a reality check.

Indeed. And here it is:

This take really shows a surface-level understanding of PoE. You talk as if group play only means “slightly more loot” and a few bathroom breaks, but that’s incredibly naive. In reality, organized parties completely outclass solo efficiency in almost every way: aura stacking, curse effects, dedicated magic-find cullers and resource pooling. Instead of needing 6 maps and sets of consumables for each person, you share 1 map with 6 people. The gap isn’t a few percent, it’s exponential. Pretending that “not sharing loot” somehow makes solo better just ignores the fact that groups generate way more loot in the first place.

And let’s be honest: the examples you’re leaning on aren’t just irrelevant, it's imaginary. People who farm PoE like a job aren’t sitting around waiting for bathroom breaks or arguing with their spouses in the middle of a map. In fact, it’s very unlikely that the kind of players min-maxing group efficiency even have those domestic interruptions, and if you know a team of married, diaper-changing, bathroom-afk farmers consistently outpacing the economy, by all means cite them. Until then, that whole “aggroed the wife” point isn’t a reality check, it’s just a made-up excuse. Meanwhile the in-game advantages of group play are structural, designed into how scaling and loot systems work. Reducing the whole discussion to toilet breaks is like saying solo players can out farm groups because they don’t have to wait for someone to tie their shoelaces, while ignoring that the group is riding motorcycles.

And the claim that “there’s no competition” in PoE is just flat wrong. There are ladders, boss kill races, and above all the league economy itself. Group players dominate the economy because they can push faster, farm harder, and reach endgame content far earlier. Solo players inevitably hit progression walls that groups bypass through specialization and shared resources. Also there's this thing called "mirror shops", in which the whole point is to craft the best gear possible before anyone else can, being able to control certain niche (or otherwise) markets faster than the competition you claim doesn't exist, can.

So no, the people pointing out the imbalance aren’t crying “I deserve the same without effort.” They’re recognizing what’s obvious to anyone who’s dug into the game: group play is objectively more efficient, by design. Dismissing that with anecdotes about bathroom breaks just makes it clear you don’t really understand how PoE works.

It’s also funny how RMT never gets mentioned in these discussions, even though it’s the ultimate reason some of these hyper-efficient groups play together in the first place. A good chunk of organized party play isn’t about “friends having fun,” it’s about turning PoE into a side hustle. Those MF culler groups funnel gear and currency not just for efficiency, but because there’s a real-world incentive to push the economy and sell off the results, but i guess you're not ready to have a grown up discussion about that topic.

The game is balanced around solo play so no you are not punished as a solo player.
The quant/rarity you find solo is the intended one, groups just get bonusses and thanks to aurabots can play more and harder content on avarage(often also have dedicated traders depending on how sweaty you wanna get), but you are not being "punsihed" for playing solo
This whole thread is based on a false premise and just reeks of jealousy.

nothing is nerfed in solo play hts super profitable to play in solo

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gladiatorpie#3317 wrote:

Group play has to split the loot 6 ways also (or however many are in the group).

If there is no loot bonus then 6 players will have to split the loot for one player 6 ways and then the people that want to play with friends will feel like they need to play solo so you have the opposite problem.

With the current atlas and scarabs there is plenty of loot to go around for solo players so I think they have a happy enough medium right now.

If the issue was that it was just 6x the same loot, it would be fine. But that isn't how it works. Its a multiplier to the attempts at the RNG engine, not the final drop.

Example:

solo player: 1 currency item drops. rng roll determines it is a chaos.
group play: 6 currency items drop. rng roll determines 5 are chaos, 1 is a divine.


1 divine=140 chaos.

This is a very conservative example. extrapolate that over hours of play, tens of thousands of rng rolls, adding mirrors, hinekoras locks, Tier0s to the results.

I dont have a huge issue with group play, but if you were going to fix it, it should be that all the drops are determined off a single RNG roll, and multiple copies of that roll drop for the party.

Labeling everyone else jealous and misrepresenting their points. Funny because it smells like projection from here, but insecurity and prejudice often have that same smell...

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Druktar#0359 wrote:

So in a PvE game without any form of ladders, highscores or other competitive stuff you loose against groups because they get slightly more loot and go the extra mile of engaging with other people and maybe even specialize builds for grouped play...

What are you on about? They are directly competing in the same economy.

Group play is not separate to solo play in trade league. If it is unbalanced in either direction, it makes the game relatively harder for whoever is not receiving benefiting. This is not an MMO. There is no intrinsic reason why grouping should be balanced as stronger than solo. The development of the game should be attempting to evenly balance it. 4 players in a group should farm relatively the same speed as 4 players playing solo.

Is it slightly more loot, or is magnitudes more loot? The group farming footage I saw of T17 maps a few seasons back looked pretty broken. I don't think people are worried about a slight 30% bonus to loot. It is mechanics on top of mechanics that multiply and cause magnitudes of difference that becomes a problem. As you say, at the base of the game, it is a PVE game. If players feel they are getting left behind in the economy, simply by not grouping, that is a bad design. There are enough other imbalances in the game without needing to add to the pile.

It goes further than just loot as well. How much faster is it to get power levelled through the game versus solo levelling. These factors are multiplicative and often exponential, not additive.

Merc league has shown just how busted grouping, even with a non-intelligent gimped character is. Needing to split loot is not a hurdle relative to this. Particularly if the loot being generated is being multiplied anyway. Add in the ability to use other mechanics like magic find characters or aura bots, or feeding one particular player in the group, that are not feasible in solo play. If it is vaguely balanced at the bottom end that is fine. It does not appear to be balanced at all at the top end.

The logic that someone is playing solo so they shouldn't care about these factors is absurd. If they wanted to not participate in an economy, they would play SSF. People are upset because they just want to play in economy with some parity at the starting line, beyond needing to cultivate a group, or be involved in the right discord trade server or any other nonsense that is in the realm of aspects beyond just turning the game on and playing.

By your own logic, that solo players should not care how others are playing, a group player should not care if solo play was given bonuses to catch up to group play level. You cant argue that it is both irrelevant and important to not be changed at the same time. The logic does not hold up.

The game should be balanced for all as a starting point. As far as I know, that is GGG's intention, and not to insentivise group play. If I'm wrong, and they intend for grouping to be imbalanced, like some are saying is their intention, I disagree with it. I have not heard that directly from them, I've only heard a bunch of people in this thread claiming being in a group entitles some sort of bonus, because they have grouped. No comment whether it is actually balanced or not, or what the acceptable level of difference is.

If you think there should be an imbalance, then what is the acceptable level? 1.3x, 3x, 10x? Eventually you will get to a point where it is absurd. They run balance changes in the game for a reason. It takes all the variety and replay-ability and choice out of the game if things become unbalanced. It then just becomes a choice of playing efficiently or not.

Not every group is a farm machine.

There are plenty of examples of groups that are far more casual then that and not running maps in record times. Thats what i meant talking about the "breaks" and stuff you will encounter there which make them NOT efficient. None of that is judging those people since i have plenty of those around and i dont want to sweat it actually. I prefer a more relaxed approach and it was my decision in the end to play with them and not join a hardcore farm guild.

Yes if you have a well oiled farm machine, go for specialized setups and group up you always will be faster then a solo and that alone will make you earn more. But that is not a problem thats actually the reward those people get for walking the extra mile a solo is not walking.

Can we argue that they earn to much?
maybe they do, but thats different from saying "they should not earn even a bit more then a solo".

Is a solo getting punished for not doing all that?
No it is his decision to play solo and miss out on rewards for grouping.

Are Chinafarmers a problem?
Yes they are and always will be. As long as people are buying stuff for real money they will be around. Sad but true, but if you take them as a measurement for drops you will go back some patches on PoE 2 and see everybody crying that they dont get drops at all. Groups were fine back then and the RM Sellers far happier because they could charge more.

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AdRonZh3Ro#4713 wrote:

Labeling everyone else jealous and misrepresenting their points. Funny because it smells like projection from here, but insecurity and prejudice often have that same smell...

A lot of the posts here actually sound "jealous".