I play solo as much as groups… because of real life circumstances, lack of clan mates online or simply put I just really want to do my own thing.
I see many posts in the forums about the disparity between group and solo play so I figured I would share my thoughts to beef up the solo experience.
Now I don’t think the answer is to penalize group play. Leave it as is.
Rather I think something can be done with followers.
Some ideas
- Change their stats so they are similar to a player
- Allow players to fully gear them. Then players can outfit them with more DPS, CC, XP or whatever
- Allow generic legendary/set bonuses to apply to followers (non-class specific items)
- Allow players to hire ALL THREE OF THEM at once but adjust monster strength just like group play to compensate.
- Rework Ashera’s set or Blackthorns for followers only
- Allow Unity but only on your first hireling
- Add some Follower-Only items beyond just their relics.
- Allow them to use Leg Gems
So net result would be like playing in a group but it is really 3 AIs that are helping you. Plus think of all the builds, extra stash and fun to farm for all your followers.
Cheers
TL:DR – Explore using followers to bridge the gap between group and solo play. They are a way under used mechanic already in the game.
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From your title “Possible solution to solo play”
Answer: Make Elites and RG’s immune to an Elemental damage type.
Solo play problem solved 
Followers really need some adjusting, but I don’t see Blizzard doing anything about them.
I mean, each of them have three Legendaries, but only one is usuable because followers already die way too easily in early Torment levels.
On top of reworking the followers, remove the XP nerf on gear and gems if a player is solo in a game.
Much like how the follower leaves if we group, have the xp bonus drop to 10% if someone joins our game.
Pointless anyway since outside of very few builds you’re not going to use the gems and XP sets together with regular farming sets, and the loss of farming speed from giving up dps gems/ parts of sets will greatly outweight the XP gain from those small bonuses.
I disagree, as the best way to get solo xp is to speed farm GR’s that you clear easily in 2 minutes.
This can easily be done with at least 1 build in each class that could utilize Leoric’s signet ring as well as wearing a Ruby in the Helm slot. Plus, the new Cain set has XP built in, but now also has the GR key drop benefit. So maybe on top of this, XP in regular rifts should be reworked to match the equivalent GR? Really not sure why it doesn’t to begin with!
OP -
I like your thinking, but I could see this being too easily abused if followers are as powerful as players.
Cool idea though if it could be tweaked a bit.
why unity only for one? if you and all three mercs use it you get 75% dmg reduction, some classes have better rings for that (dh, sorc at least) monks do not and i have no knowledge about other classes.
i like the ideas but i would not go so far, lets keep them relatively simple but do not rise their hp.
True… 75% DR is not OP when compared to some of the other rings. I would be ok with that too.
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Ironically, if this adjusted the loot and xp as well it would satisfy pretty much every player that mainly solos for whatever reasons
Personally I also like the idea of expanding their equipment list, maybe perhaps there could even be follower set items? That’d be nifty
Yes that is the idea. You get ALL the benefits of a 4 player group (albeit 3 somewhat dumb AIs) but on the flip-side you get all the difficulty of harder/tougher monsters.
Groups of real players will always be more efficient but at least this offers group benefits if you can handle the harder monsters.
If the followers at least can do some respectable damage then it at the very least closes the gap.