They done that because it’s easier to do that. As default group will be easier(considering that in the group eveybody has the ability to clear that level at sub 2-3 minutes). Speeds 80-100 if you have some folks who can’t do nothing the 2-3 dps route it’s faster, til gear them up to speed or z.
When everybody can play solo speeds sub 2-3. The same group can run as the same builds, even unorganized, the same gr with a variance of 1-5 more. That means it’s easier, because they already receive more xp could do higher level content also.
If you consider organized group this gap can reach around 10-20 easily. Several friends of mine could run gr 100-110 with me while they couldn’t do 80-90s. I play both group and solo. It’s easy to see what underperforms and the issue in the group, sometimes another dps solves, sometimes just need a z, either way most of these scenarios are about folks that can’t do the content in the party.
I have a bit more share of the time playing solo than group, they clear gr around 5-10 below me and level up faster spending almost the same time as me, sometimes even more when I take a day without a group.
When I play with then, most of the time I do the same time as my speeds while most of the time one of them are afk. Folks only can’t do speed if they don’t want to do speed, any gear who can clear solo speed will do fine in a group at same tier or around 1-3 gr above, some will need to split in pairs, some will need to go all together some will skip some mobs for the next one kill and so on. It’s not organized it’s just optimal. Like the meta which can increase the potential by 5-10 levels easily. The group buffs like 25-50% more damage from barb, around 1.5 times from dh, when you stack the damage become bizarre on group play that makes the game become easy. My issue about hp and damage was about that, they have more combinations to increase damage, survival and exploit weakness on monsters, why not make them less braindead and more challenging? We got those astronomical numbers and server side issues and most of the time folks don’t care or can’t see the numbers in the screen. The sever already breaks the int 32bit limit with LoD, if continues the same route the gr 150 will become a joke. That’s why I said to increase the hp and damage, while they could try out the solution they made to WoW, which was reduce those crazy numbers.
I play both modes, but by far group content it’s easier to do and more rewarding by far than solo. The only 3 things great about solo against group are: “increased blood shars cap”, “ability to pause the game”(best feature), “try out some weird combinations”. This new patch add the 4th feature, that means emanate system improving the usefulness of followers about nemesis, flavor and some grind stuff. It helped to close a bit the gap of power potential, but don’t solve the xp gap from groups. Maybe the group xp could be removed, maybe making harder to keep the group buff a reward for the challenge or just use other concept about it. Either way, it’s clear that are some imbalance in there, if a group can clear a gr 140 at 800-1500 gons and a single folk can’t do that solo means that content became easier enough to show the issue.
The devs considered gr 130 with 5000 gons. I done frenzy barb last season 129 with 2300. A pt done gr 150 at 1300 gons. I done a group 137 with the same barb with 1k less gons. It’s clear there is a issue in there that needs to be sorted out. Either their goal or be realistic that builds are broken and group content needs to be harder. The broken builds can be solved with leaderboards, gauging the set performance on top 1000. The group content also needs to be addressed in some way. At least to remove several group comps from gr 150 and not do speeds in there