POE2's Broken Team Looting: 46x Rewards, and GGG Risks Following Amazon Games' Fate

No, I admit I had a logic error in that. I posed the wrong question and got a wrong answer. My bad.

Right,so exactly like I said. Glad we're getting on the same page, I was starting to worry I'd had a stroke and forgotten how words worked. 🤣

You are comparing the drops of 1,000 monsters to the drops of 6,000 monsters, and in your results you are framing the loot bonus as a per monster loot multiplier. Which is incorrect. I don't assume ill intent here or anything. Probability is a fuzzy thing and language fuzzier still.

So, we agree with my math then? That on a strictly per monster per player basis (and assuming a lot of 0% multipliers everywhere else to keep the baseline simple) a six man party gets less loot per monster per player than a solo player? If we're aligned there we can usefully (or at least entertainingly) continue the conversation.

Since you've been implying a time scaling vector with your previous math, we can start there. You're implying an axiom that a six person party kills monsters 6x as fast as a solo player. I don't buy that as axiomatic myself. There are various factors we could consider to support or refute your implied axiom:


Monster Health:
Because monster health scales with party size, all other factors being equal, a single player will take longer to kill a single moner in a party than solo. Between 3.5x as long and 6x as long based on monster rarity.
Now if we assume 6x damage because all party members have the same damage and target the same monster, they are only killing at 1.71x/1.5x/1.2x/1x for normal/magic/etc. (3.5x Mob HP / 6x Damage, etc)
An efficiently designed pay with aura bots or similar can push that higher, but trying to estimate that is beyond me currently. I would be surprised if it was over 3x as much damage comparing an efficient team comp to 6 dudes doing their own damage.

Party Bonus Radius:
Party bonus only applies if the other players are within ~1 screen away. This means that gigachad one button clear builds, can't just run off on different directions to 6x their clear speed without sacrificing that party bonus.
Similar range logic applies to MF Cullers/Gravebind MF bots. Including these also reduces the overall damage of the party, which affects the calcs in the monster HP section downward.

Pack Size:
Because pack size does not scale by party size, a solo player and a party would have the opportunity to kill the exact same number of monsters if they ran the exact same map. Both solo players and parties just walk forward pressing one button to clear the entire screen at the end game. The speed of clearing a map is functionally equal to the characters movement speed at this point. Being in a party does not provide a 6x movement speed bonus. In fact, being in a party means you're only a fast as your slowest character, which is likely somewhat slower than a solo grinder build comparing high ends.

Human Factor:
6x players means 6x bathroom breaks that pause everyone. More difficulty coordinating play time, convincing scrubs not to go to bed early, etc. But for this conversation I'm assuming we're comparing efficient play time hours between solo and party.


Without trying to prove some exhaustive math, I lean towards kills/hr of a party being almost the same or maybe 2x that of a solo player. Intuitively I'd find it hard to grok a larger gap, but of people have taken measurements Of could be confined by some data. Sounds like something they do over in the Prohibited Library discord.

Curious your thoughts on those factors, and if you've got other factors I haven't considered that push those numbers higher. Rarity is obviously a factor, but I can't any directly relate it to quantity so that was just a whole can of worms. It does make a difference here though of course, especially given it affects currency, and sources from differently layers stack multiplicatively.


P.S. I'm just stalling so hard right now lmao

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

No, I admit I had a logic error in that. I posed the wrong question and got a wrong answer. My bad.

*Fist Bump*

I respect that. Though you could have just struck through your posts or something so I didn't look like a crazy person telling at myself! 🤣

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KaosuRyoko#1633 wrote:

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

No, I admit I had a logic error in that. I posed the wrong question and got a wrong answer. My bad.

*Fist Bump*

I respect that. Though you could have just struck through your posts or something so I didn't look like a crazy person telling at myself! 🤣

Well, I was wrong, but I'm still asking myself what I'm missing here. It was in Affliction league, I think, where Empy and his group dropped multiple Magebloods and Headhunters in a single map or something along those lines. I have yet to see a solo do that outside of the lucky mirror dupes.

Like, yeah, when you account for the same mob kills evenly divided, the solo player comes out on top on average, yet even in my limited personal experience I was getting better loot when I partied up with people. Something doesn't quite add up for me here.

Maybe it's their dedicated sellers, maybe it's inflation, I'm not sure, but my scarabs and shit seem to get bought out by groups mainly, not solos. Sure, they have to juice more to break even, yet I can't even remotely get close to their level even when running meta strats.

For sure, it's a complex topic. To be clear, I do think that on average parties aren't as efficient as solo, but that there can be circumstances that push efficient party players into an advantage. I argue against this topic often because I believe the real issue these players are feeling is the disparity of time investment and efficiency between themselves and those on top of the pack, and that party bonus is not often much of a factor in that difference.

Now for Affliction and T0 unique there are a few factors at play.
One is that Affliction was before IIQ was removed from most gear in PoE1 (and has not been added in 2).
Another factor is that parties in PoE1 add an IIQ bonus (in 2 it does not).
Another is that Vivid Wisps added a pretty insane amount of Monster IIQ.
Momster IIQ get multiplied by area IIQ and then by the MF Bots player IIQ, and then by the party IIQ bonus. Because each layers is multiplied by the other, if one layer has an absurdly high value, the value is the other players becomes proportionally higher, which makes a significant difference. Then because the monster layer value was high, pushing the player IIQ layer high was more valuable, which in turn made the party bonus even more valuable yet again.

Then after all the quantity calculations are done, it is multiplied yet again by IIR on the same stacking layers when you're considering the outcome of T0 unique drops. Wild Wisps could push this number pretty high at the monster IIQ layer, multiplying like IIQ did above.


So Affliction is a perfect example of when I think that the party bonus does have an outsized impact. But the root problem was actually just letting other layer values get too high, the stacking party bonuses are pretty fine when the values in each of the other layers are fairly constrained.


PoE2 has less stacking layers of multipliers by design. But Temple is an outlier example of essentially the same principle. The bonuses at the area layer were allowed to get so massive, coupled with IIR affecting currency upgrades in 2, pushed the party bonus to have an outsized value. Again here, the real issue was that one of the values at a different layer was allowed to get too high. (Temple also feels like an outlier because of the leeching meta, so the loot doesn't end up getting split 6 ways. This is an outlier situation too imo.)

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KaosuRyoko#1633 wrote:

Another factor is that parties in PoE1 add an IIQ bonus (in 2 it does not).

I'm seeing conflicting information about this. The only difference I can see is that PoE 2 doesn't have increased IIQ/IIR per player for unique items specifically. Everything else appears to be largely identical. Then again, the PoE 2 wiki has less information on the page.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Partying

https://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/Partying

That one's on me here. :)

PoE2 party bonus is IIQ, but not IIR. I got it backwards there. Complex topic and I'm not always right. Hah! Similar effects, main overall point is I believe party scaling is pretty much fine as long as one of the other players doesn't get out of whack.

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KaosuRyoko#1633 wrote:

Where is your proof that that currency purchasable so early is from group farmers and not hideout warriors?

Like if anyone could show any math to prove this, I'd be on board with finding a solution. But every time I see anyone do the math, it's just not the difference people claim. The same people are taking 10+ hours on the campaign while other solo players are in T15 maps in 6 hours, nerfing group play won't change the fact that grinders will always be way ahead of you.

IMO, The only real valid consideration around the team play balance is the entry token cost for things. In certain cases some things like Scarabs and Tablets can be priced around the return a full stack group would make. But there's plenty of other mechanics that can be farmed roughly as efficiently solo (Temple in 0.4 being an obvious extreme outlier). Hideout warrior strats are always the best return on your time, and that doesn't require a full stack party.

In either case, the 46x number is completely imaginary and arbitrary and destroys any credibility that any of your points might have had.

Hideout warriors themselves do not generate any raw currency at all. Fundamentally speaking, players who only craft items and flip goods cannot cause inflation whatsoever — this is basic economic common sense.
Even the most dedicated casual grinders are just normal players. By contrast, farming groups don’t even need to rush into T16 right away. From what I know, they only farm currency on T10 maps in the early stage, and this alone drastically shortens the league lifespan. Once they move into T16 content, they will control and fix the price of all entry tokens. Under normal circumstances, solo players doing the exact same content will always be running at a loss. Furthermore, I have already provided the source of my data, but the moderators apparently deemed it inappropriate to be shown publicly.

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uaena#6049 wrote:

Fundamentally speaking, players who only craft items and flip goods cannot cause inflation whatsoever — this is basic economic common sense.

Man, I'm felling a lot of a dump person here...

I always tought that if I flip something, I'm inflating it.
Because, If I bought low, and sold it high... the currency used was devalueted. (it was needed more, to have the same purchasing power)

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KaosuRyoko#1633 wrote:

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Mizenkailash#2794 wrote:

Just because the guy is overreacting and coming up with some imaginary figure doesn't mean he doesn't have a point.

Do you honestly think a handful of hideout warriors are going to earn enough to sell thousands of divs within the first 24 hours of a new season? I honestly don't understand why so many people act intentionally dense about this subject. Nearly every game that has any form of trade has an industry of farmers behind it. Online farmers abhor a vacuum, and any game that isn't being farmed soon will be. Or do you seriously believe that the dozens/hundreds of websites that sell countless amounts of POE currency are manned by a handful of trolls living in their mothers' basements?

Seriously. People need to stop asking for "direct proof" and engage in some pretty lukewarm critical thinking. Or do atoms not exist because you can't see them with the naked eye?

If the number was once in a random line I would agree more, but it's repeated and emphasized and even preemptively dismisses any obligation to provide evidence. This does not read like any sort of level assessment at any point.

Did I ever claim it was a handful of hideout warriors? You put it perfectly yourself it's "an industry of farmers."

I do feel this is conflating the claim made in this post that team play is 46x more rewarding than solo play, with your point which is basically that the farming industry exists.

To your point, that farming industry explains it. There are at least thousands of people who do this as a job. They have planned efficient routes and strategies to maximize returns, which absolutely includes a combination of team farmers, solo farmers, crafters, and flippers. They also use secret information the public might not have found out yet when they can and exploit those for advantages. My ultimate point being that the disparity between average players and career farmers is similar to the difference between casuals and streamers - one group just has way more hours invested than the other. Even changing parties to add exactly 0 bonuses would not change that in any way.


To the other point, yeah if someone is gonna claim and repeat a specific number on a topic that consistently fails to provide evidence, yeah it's fair to be extra critical. This topic is very clouded by the perception of being behind simply because you can't invest as much as other groups of people, and trying to blame the system rather than your investment.

In this law-of-the-jungle environment, the dominant group already holds plenty of advantages.
If extra buffs are added through party bonuses on top of that, it is just like putting firearms into the hands of the strong. Casual solo players will fundamentally lose the room to catch up and compete, leaving them with no real reason even to try to keep up.