Simple compromises for solo play

General Discussion
127

Ofc, they got awesome Rifts, but that’s not all. Since you don’t know how these 5-Minute-Runs were possible past Bazooka, you shouldn’t argue with that. Not sure if you’re interessted in a short explaination.

Gem-wise, yes, b/c groups might run way higher than GR150 but there is a cap and also the gems are capped at 150.

You cannot do a long term analysis in a short duration of time.
And ofc, you cannot analyse something relevant for context A (Live Servers) in context B (PTR).

It doesn’t matter how many Paragon he currently has. In some way he is just right, b/c most of the people complaining about the group vs. solo issue aren’t playing the game in a way that this issue became an issue at all.

Most of them never played solo intensively nor they did this within a grouping context. They just don’t know how the game, the META, the community works. They just get their “informations” from the rankings or repeating others.

The rankings just show some results but almost no information about the way that was gone to reach this specified point. Same goes for repeating others. Never ever they did in-depth analysis on the stuff some cry-babies shouting out.

Oh, yes, there are insane solo clears and ofc, there are those 150 clears with a 4 man group within 5 minutes. Wait - I can’t do this by myself - so this means there is a huge issue!
This is the same level as judging P3k+ players seasonal as botters by default… Just BS caused by a lack of information.

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128

Most of the people claiming botters are not going off of the 3k paragon as much as people who have been playing the game for 23 hours per day for a month…this is pretty solid evidence of botting… or superhumans.

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129

It took him at least 500+ hours to reach P5000.

Well said. Most solo players that complaining group play in this forum has like what? 1k+ paragon at best while those players that competing for the leaderboard have 4k~5k in the end of every season. It was laughable (and an insult those dedicated players) that they think an extra 30% EXP from the group can catapult those players to 4k~5k paragon.

These kinds of players completely denying and undermine all the efforts and determine that those high-level players put into the game. Complaining at the forum is what they do the best under the mentality “If I can’t beat him in the race, better break his leg so I can beat him next time”.

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PTR can potentially last for months.
Of course you can analyse live server performance on PTR.
It is the same game. Fewer players means a little higher uncertainty, but absolutely nothing prevents us from getting useful data on the changes.

I completely agree. But then, I was not the one trying to act like I was playing a lot vs. others. For some silly reason.

The issue is quite apparent if you play for like 5 hours in a season.

This is not just about the “1%” at the top.
The solo/group imbalance exists all the way through the playerbase, from #1 on the leaderboards, to a fresh lvl 1 character (well, lvl 2 I guess, need some XP for it to become apparent).

Is it really that hard to grasp?

Obviously someone playing 5 hours a week should not get as far as if playing 150 hours a week.
It is apples to apples.
Someone soloing 150 hours a week should have the potential to get as far as if they were playing 4man 150 hours a week. (With same effort, skill etc. We dont even need to compare people. Make it the very same person in both cases, as Tallaron did with the case he presented)
Someone soloing 5 hours a week should have the potential to get as far as if they were playing 4man 5 hours a week.

The ‘paragon 200 char want to compete with paragon 5000 char’ is a strawman, as you are likely aware.

Fixes:

  1. Same XP buff for everyone. Heck, make it 20% for 1man, 30% for 2-4 man, that is a good start too.
  2. Bounty adjustment for 1/2/3 players.
  3. Reduce monster HP for 1/2/3 players
  4. Buff follower with new/better items. Make them immortal as default.
    Patch 2.7 re-balancing mega wish-list - some ideas for follower items/buffs in this thread

This would address the imbalance for the 1%. As well as for the 50th percentile, the 75th and the 99th.

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131

I was going to reference this exact thing and him as well.

The other thing that I wanted to add is that it is silly to think someone who streams constantly will be able to bot to get XP. If he streamed for 8 hours and then stops at X paragon and starts the next day with a significantly higher level regularly it would be obvious. Sure he can say he played extra groups etc off stream and I am sure it happens but you can only do so much.

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132

or solo player will get 2 bounty cache instead of one

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Yes, thats true. But you won’t find the same kind of players there, even it would run for a year. But than - it yould just turn into a live-server without officially support.

If you want useful long term analyses from live servers, you have to do them there. The PTR is completely useless to monitor social interactions in a significant way.

I tell you a secret: The seasons last way longer than 5 hours. :wink:

Well, I know what you want to say. But it doesn’t really matter. If you believe that you can’t play/compete w/o using those group bonuses, than just play together with others. Easy solution for 95%+ of focussed target group - those who believe in this mad mad world. :smiley:

The group won’t play these 150 hours straight. You will have a tremendous effort for forming a group and the need to stick to a META. This takes a sh1t lot of time - in average.
Yes, there are those unbelievable groups, grinding stuf 16h+ a day. But that is by far not the average. If you cut them down to lets say half of the advantages they gain from grouping, you will do the same to everyone else, playing in groups.

Lets take this guy playing only 5h a week. Well, he will spend a lot of these 5 h to find a group. But what he will find? A META-Group granting him a ridiculous amount of XP? Or maybe something fitting to his habits? Is he allowed to enjoy the game as a DD or does he have to play support roles?

I think, he won’t play in a efficient group. This means he won’t be able to get benefits from all these called group bonuses. At the end sticking to a dump “best class in season x”-guide would lead him to way more progress he ever did with a group.

Same might count for a longer period of time, e.g. a season. If the people would play more focussed on their strength spots than complaining about their weak ones, should show the real differences between group and solo.

To conclude that: The gap isn’t that large many people believe to see if they take a look at the leaderboards.

That’s exactly the same then nerfing the 30% to 8.3%.

Signed.

I am fine with the idea to utilize the followers more than just an Oculus bot. But together with the lessen of the HP of the mobs you will reach the mentioned 8.3% as fast as you can’t believe …
In this case solo play become more efficient than group play. Hopefully you start to see, how difficult it is, to balance the game in this manner.

Yes, groups will still be able to run higher difficulties. But this advantage will be lost for the most players b/c of the efforts to form efficient groups that are superior about solo play.

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this is already a thing but you recieve something like 1/5 of the experience

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The goal wouldnt be to monitor social interactions. The goal would be to see how far solo builds could get in GRifts.

Exactly. Everyone will have time to see the problem.

Not a solution. That would merely be ignoring the problem.

Which of course should be taken into account. 150 hours in game in this example for the solo and the 4 player group, including time spent standing in town doing your tremendously hard coordination work.

Just remember that solo players will also have such downtime to some degree.

Sure he would. Not to the degree of a more optimized group, but the Group benefit is still there. And it really doesnt take that much effort to get a group going. In this season , as a DH, played with a support barb and another DH, who shifted between dps and support to see what worked best for him. Could hardly be called optimized meta. Sometimes we also had a crusader with us.
It took much less effort to run GRifts in the group than solo. With better XP rewards…

No it isn’t. The gap is the same, but the GRift and paragon potential is obviously higher with 30% than 8.3%. That is not debatable.

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Better than ignoring the possibilities … :wink:

Ofc, they have. But there’s only in player affects the “group”. With a “normal” 4 man group you will have a lot more downtime.

If you say “we” - are there everytime the same two players around you? :wink:

How this can be, if you alter only one parameter affecting this gap? :wink:

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137

Yes.
Well, since it was 3 people besides me, it was sometimes just 1 one of them, sometimes 2 or all 3.

Monster gives 100 xp

0% bonus = 100 xp
8,3% bonus = 108,3 xp
Difference = 8,3%

20% bonus = 120 xp
30% bonus = 130 xp
Difference = 8,3%

=> Same gap.
But 20% faster lvling speed with the latter values, for both solo and group.
Same gap, different paragon/GRift potential.

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So just asking for the bounties to be increased if you do them solo what exactly does this mean?
Do we mean if there is only 1 player in the game when you collect the caches you gain more or is it only if you did all acts as 1 person ?
So what happens if someone joins you by mistake do you lose the solo bonus?
Or what if i have a friend that comes online when i am nearly done with my bounties is he allowed to collect the bounties with me and i still get the solo bonus but he doesnt (or will i even lose the bonus)?
This could also lead to a more efficent way of farming bounties in groups where you 4 people do a full run solo and then join each other for collecting the bounties which would result in bounties than just playing normal 4 man bounties.

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If there is 2 players in the game for even a second, then your bounty rewards should be lowered to the amount 2 players get. Etc.
Just dont accept other players in during a bounty game if you want to be certain.

To make sure it cant be exploited.

I guess you could also make it more complex. Check how many and who is around whenever a bounty is completed.
For each bounty you were around for, you get 1/5 of the total reward when the bounty chest is opened.
So if one person do all 5 bounties and 3 others log in to get the chest, the first player get the full solo reward, the other 3 get nothing. If they joined in before the last bounty is done, the first player would get 4/5 solo reward and 1/5 4 player reward, while the other players would get 1/5 4 player reward. Anyone can see a way to exploit that?

140

I’d imagine that bounties to be completed in a game should be determined by the number of players in a party at the creation of the game.

1 player = 2 bounties per act
2 players = 3 bounties per act
3 players = 4 bounties per act
4 players = 5 bounties per act

Now if someone joins a game while bounties are going on or bounties have been completed and the reward hasn’t yet been claimed, then the game should add additional bounties, 1 for each act, that would need to be completed before allowing the reward to be claimed.

For example:

A 2-person party creates a game together would have to clear 15 bounties (3 for each act); if a 3rd person joins, then 5 more bounties (1 for each act) would be added to the game, with another 5 added if a 4th person joins. The number of bounties wouldn’t decrease however, if a person leaves the game. So if you have a 4-person party, they would need to complete 25 bounties; even if two of the members leave the game later; the party would still need to complete 25 bounties instead of 15.

Now it may be complicated to implement bounties like this, however I don’t think it’s impossible, that said I’m certainly not holding my breath for it to be changed like this (not this late in the game).

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I corrected it a bit. So 30% became 8.3%. This is not the same value … :wink:

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142

You didn’t correct it… you changed it to something different :smiley:

Remember this was what you started out saying.

120%–>130% vs. 100%–>108.3% is the same gap in efficiency.
But in absolute terms, 30% is more than 8.3%, leading to higher paragon lvls.

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Yes, it is. But you have to compere 100%->130% vs. 120%->130%. Please note, these 20% came from you.

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Yeah, as the new better balance point.

120% vs 130% is a smaller gap than 100% vs 130%. That is the goal.
And it wont make group XPing any slower. Which is a goal for some people.

One again, point is, increasing solo to 120% and nerfing groups to 108.3% is not the same.
Increasing solo XP/MF buff to 20% would be a decent start for rebalancing solo and grouping.
2 and 3 players should be increased to 30% buff however. No reason they should be worse off than 4man groups.

And of course, this change should not stand alone. It doesn’t make enough of a difference alone.
Just one part of a larger balance patch.

  1. Same XP buff for everyone. Heck, make it 20% for 1man, 30% for 2-4 man, that is a good start too, as described above.
  2. Bounty adjustment for 1/2/3 players.
  3. Reduce monster HP for 1/2/3 players
  4. Buff follower with new/better items. Make them immortal as default.
    Patch 2.7 re-balancing mega wish-list - some ideas for follower items/buffs in this thread
145

It would affect the community way more than you expect … :wink:

146

In the sense that it would make players happier and more interested in playing the game, sure.

But only giving everyone the group buff would not close the gap. Not even close.

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