How About This Change For Party Play?

# How About This Change For Party Play?
## 1. Core Mechanic
This plan does not change the game’s existing core gameplay, drop system or item properties.
Only one simple new item mark is added: **Party-Tagged**.

### Party-Tagged Rules
- All items dropped while in a party, including currency, equipment, fragments, maps and skill gems, will be Party-Tagged.
- Using Party-Tagged currency to craft or modify any item will also make that item Party-Tagged.
- Items dropped from bosses opened with party maps or party fragments are also Party-Tagged.
- Items dropped in solo play will never have the Party-Tagged mark.
Using normal currency to craft items will not change an item’s tag status.

### Rules for Party-Tagged Items
Party-Tagged items can be freely traded, sold on the marketplace, moved between characters and crafted normally.
They are **not character-locked, not party-locked, and not restricted from trading**.
The only difference is the activation rule between solo and party play.

### Activation Logic
- When playing solo without a party:
Equipped Party-Tagged items will be disabled and turn red, exactly like items that do not meet level or attribute requirements.
- When in a party of 2–6 players:
Party-Tagged items work perfectly with full modifiers, no different from normal items.

### Marketplace QoL Update
Add a simple toggle in the marketplace: **Show / Hide Party-Tagged**.
Players can turn it off directly if they do not want to see these items, without changing existing gameplay habits.

### Currency Exchange System
We can adjust the existing Faust NPC interface:
1. Add two-way exchange between normal Divine Orb and Party-Tagged Divine Orb.
2. Exchange rates float automatically with market supply and demand, following the same rule as current Faust currency.
3. Add a new separate tab in Faust: **Party Currency Exchange**.
The layout and operation are exactly the same as the regular exchange, only all currency inside is Party-Tagged.

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## 2. Main Benefits
### For Solo Players
- It prevents massive loot from party farmers and bots from flooding the market, fixing the huge imbalance between solo farming and party farming efficiency.
- Solo gameplay and drop mechanics stay exactly the same.
Players can hide Party-Tagged items in the marketplace with zero extra learning cost.
- Party drops have higher supply and lower prices.
Solo players can buy good items at a low cost, and join a party anytime to unlock full power.
It encourages social play without forcing anyone to party.
- One unified marketplace with free trading for both normal and Party-Tagged items, no division of the player base.

### For Party Players
- No nerfs to party drop quantity or rarity bonuses.
6-player farming efficiency and loot experience are fully preserved.
- Both normal items and Party-Tagged items work perfectly inside parties.
There are no restrictions on build crafting, farming or gameplay.
- Party-Tagged items can still be traded, gifted to party members, moved to alts or stocked freely, without changing current gameplay.

### For The Game Economy
- Existing crafting and modification systems remain untouched.
Only the type of currency used decides the item tag, so crafters, farmers and traders are not affected.
- Only one shared marketplace for all players.
Party-Tagged is just a filter tag, it will not split the economy into two separate markets.
- It stabilizes league pricing in the early stage, avoiding huge currency devaluation right after league start, and protects the time value of all regular players.
- The overall changes are very minor: only a new item tag, one activation rule and one marketplace filter.
It reuses the existing “red item” logic and UI, no large underlying code changes required.
- This design reduces bot profitability fundamentally.
Bot drops can only be used inside parties and cannot disrupt the solo market, also reducing the burden of constant bans from developers.

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## 3. Conclusion
With only small adjustments to the game, this proposal solves three long-term problems:
The imbalance between solo and party loot, league inflation caused by bots, and low party play activity.

The exchange between normal and Party-Tagged currency runs smoothly,
without breaking the existing economy, splitting the player base, or forcing anyone into a fixed playstyle.

The rules are simple and fit perfectly with the game’s current logic.
It is a friendly and easy-to-implement change that can greatly improve the overall game environment.

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I am a player from the Chinese server. I got this idea inspired by the account-binding mechanism used in the Chinese client.
This entire suggestion is polished and translated with the help of AI Doubao.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my proposal.
Hope the new PoE 2 league will be more fun for all players.

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Its been a hallmark of the design for path of exile and path of exile 2 to have as little, preferably no, account or character binding as is possible. The account binding thing you're talking about is not something I'm familiar with due to, as you stated, it being an artefact on the Chinese server.

So on top of it being, as you described it, an actual waking nightmare to program, there is also a huge overlap with the private league sale item. If you want your play/market limited to just what you and your friends can generate then the thing to do would be a private league.

So you want any equipment found by someone in a party or modified with currency found while in a party to only ever be usable by people in a party?

"Sure, you can play with your friends but then if they're not available your gear won't work if you try to go solo. And no one will ever buy any of it because it won't work for them playing solo either."

That might be the worst idea I've ever heard. It's an online only multiplayer game.

As someone who basically only plays solo, this sounds like a nightmare. And a massive pain to create and implenent that would take a lot of hours to try and get working right to solve what I don't see as an issue.