With the nerf of chantodo, I see a lot of people talking about the lack of diversity for speed runs. We all know Rats are a strong staple of the speed meta.
Personally, S18 is the first season I did Rat runs as a necro and I found the whole process very boring. So much so, that I don’t think I even hit 1000 paragon this season when I usually solo farm 1200+ paragon.
I’d say close to 70% of my playtime this season was in a group. I don’t think I added anyone to my friends list. I didn’t join discord with anyone during these runs and there wasn’t much talking to each other. It makes me think “why is blizzard even pushing group play?”
If people truly cared about diversity for speed runs, they would argue for an exp buff for solo play. Running solo is harder and slower in many aspects, yet less rewarding. I feel it’s very typical that the more difficult something is the greater the reward.
When I play solo, I find it much more enjoyable because I’m going at my pace. Many times I stop and talk to others in chat, or answer questions that people post in chat. I’m much more inclined to participate with the community when i’m able to stop for a second and actually engage people. When three other people in my group are running ahead, there’s no time to say anything.
I understand that vyr’s created more diversity because you could have a monk support, which thus created two more classes that could participate in speed runs. Still, that only allows four out of the seven classes to do group speed runs.
True diversity would allow for each class to be able to gain paragon at an “equal” rate with the variables being player skill, time, efficiency and build diversity.
They way to accomplish that in my opinion is by buffing solo player exp rate.
I think a 4 man party is 25-30% exp gain? Not exactly sure.
Even if solo play was buffed to 20%, I would bet more people would not only play the game, but enjoy the game more-so. A big part of why people first fell in love with Diablo is because you could play offline at your own pace and the way you want.
Solo and up to a party of 3 should be set so that each person gain 20-25% more exp with a full party having that extra 5% because I understand the incentive of a full group and why it’s there, I just don’t believe it should be the only way.