For the Sake of Fairness. Please GGG! Balance Party Drops
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I recently saw a thread regarding party play yields that reached over 100 replies. It contained some genuinely great discussions, but because the OP simply raged and threatened to quit if party play wasn't deleted, it was hard for many (including myself) to take the thread seriously at first.
However, reading through the replies, I found many valid points. To prevent those constructive voices from being buried, I decided to analyze the party play controversy from an objective standpoint and offer what I believe are reasonable solutions. First, the most critical issue: Botting and Multiboxing. I know GGG works hard to ban bots, and I appreciate their efforts. But we have to face reality: botters always find new ways to bypass detection, and they just come back after bans. Completely eradicating scripts is incredibly difficult; some even post videos bragging about their RMT profits. When players ask to nerf party loot, many are fundamentally just hoping to stop the "1 carry, 5 bots" setups from vacuuming up 6-player loot. Imagine a legitimate solo player drops 1 Divine Orb (1d) in a map, while a botter drops 6d doing the exact same thing with 5 AFK bots. In a trade league, no one thinks this is fair. This obviously isn't GGG's intention, but the reality is that party bonuses are heavily exploited by scripters. I think players calling for the removal of party drops are just expressing their sheer helplessness regarding this situation. Second, 6-Man MF (Magic Find) Parties. MF groups easily stack hundreds of rarity and quantity. Thanks to Aura-bots, a carry with a mediocre weapon can deal exponentially more DPS than a solo player wielding a mirror-tier weapon, not to mention having unkillable defenses. It is virtually impossible for a solo player to simultaneously achieve high MF, top-tier damage, and high survivability like a 6-man group can. Also, considering that probably 90% of the community plays solo or with just 1-2 friends, from a democratic perspective, nerfing the massive bonuses for large parties is entirely justified for the sake of the majority. Third, Map Investment Costs. Suppose there is a highly-juiced, difficult map that costs 6d to run. A 6-man party pays 1d per person, while a solo player burdens the entire 6d cost alone. Even before calculating the loot drops, the basic cost structure is already entirely unbalanced. My specific solution for this: Increase the base "uses" of Maps and entry Tablets to a multiple of 6, and consume them based on party size upon opening the map. For example, a solo player consumes 1 charge, while a 6-man party consumes 6 charges to open the exact same map. Fourth, Content Gating. I believe that a solo player should be able to run any content in the game and at least break even. However, due to party-scaling, the market prices for certain entry tablets are directly tied to 6-man party profitability. This creates a scenario where a solo player buying these tablets from the trade market will take a net loss running them, effectively locking solo players out of that specific content. This is unfair too. My Proposed Solutions: 1.Nerf ONLY high-player-count bonuses: As mentioned, 90% of players are solo or in small groups (1-4 players). nerfing the bonuses specifically for 5 or 6-man groups would achieve fairness for the vast majority. 2.Completely Independent/Instanced Drops: Loot drops only calculate your personal modifiers. For example, if the loot table of a map is determined upon creation, your drops remain exactly the same whether you run it solo or in a group. Everyone gets their own personal, unscaled loot. 3.Adapt a simplified Mercenary System: Allow solo players to bring 5 "low-tier mercenaries/followers" to simulate a full party. This way, a solo player can also enjoy max party buffs (MF, More Damage, defensive auras). These wouldn't need to be fully geared or have complex AI like in POE 1; they could simply be moving wooden dummies or totems that follow the player just to provide the buffs and headcount. "Mercenary" is just a rough concept here. Among these, I personally love Solution 3 the most. It sounds incredibly fun and might actually be the most creative way to achieve fairness. I believe my post is written with friendly intentions, and I sincerely hope we can keep the discussion in the replies friendly and constructive as well. Let me know what you guys think! Last edited by SublimeMoon#0159 on May 12, 2026, 11:12:31 PM Last bumped on May 12, 2026, 4:31:47 PM
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its like they punish team play, its abysmal, please make team play actually fun stop catering to the solo andies
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