Solo = better loot

You kidding? There's more than enough advantage to playing in a group. Just cause it isn't twice as many items with one extra person doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other benefits to grouping.

Maps especially, as a map group can pool together their maps and currency to roll better maps. That alone is a gigantic advantage, one that makes mapping solo pretty crappy.

In groups, XP is not divided (as loot is), but simply granted to all players within a certain range of the monster on death. So I'd say the only way you'd get less XP per unit time grouping than solo is if you have a group of much lower skill level than you, or if your teacher was right and you really don't play well with others.

As far as loot per unit time goes, however, I fully agree. The shame, however, is that this does not mean more loot in general; as play progresses towards the highest-level maps, loot per unit time matters less and less, and loot per map matters more and more. This final metric is one at which groups excel and solo has great difficulty, because although groups still have to split the loot, they also get to split the map cost.

I see the advantage of group play, but loot is more important before you reach the very endgame (77+ maps).

From my experience I can sustain maps solo quite well, which is a good thing. I always run out of chisels but if you alch maps, they already have rather high quantity.

In terms of loot I get a lot more if I play solo. This is not only my personal impression. A lot of streamers also do maps solo (or 'magic find runs') from time 2 time, just for the loot.

Group play is ultimately for experience, solo play for wealth. Before you reach really hard endgame maps there are not that many incentives to group. I like to play with friends for the social part but doing that I always realize it doesn't grant as much wealth.
For example, I did maps with 2 friends for 2 hours. I got very few curreny. Sometimes only 1 chaos per map dropped, none to me. Then I did maps alone, I always get that single chaos drop. See the difference?

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In the end I will still play mostly in groups, because I am a social being. My poit was that it is not that efficient and I'd like to see more of an incentive. As that is only my impression, I asked for your thoughts. I never said that what I wrote would be a fact.

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Mr_Mustasch wrote:

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tinko92 wrote:

Except there is a bonus IIQ in a party on top of IIQ of the each player.

Solo is the way to go?
Probably, until ~75th level, then it's party all the way, given experience gain or the loot.

Each player in a party after the first gives a +10% item quantity modifier and a +40% item rarity modifier on drops

Quantity of drops for a solo player = X
Quantity of drops for a player in a 6 player party = X*1,5/6 = 0,25X

Increased rarity has no effect on currency drops, 6 sockets, or 3-linked 3 colored items. This is where the bulk of farmed wealth comes from.

Lets factor in rarity.

Rarity for a solo player = X
Rarity for a player in a 6 player party = 0,25X * 3 = 0,75X

To sum it up:

A solo player gets 4 times as much currency drops and 33% more rares and uniques than a player in a 6-player group gets.

This is the math behind my impression ;)

There is nothing wrong with getting less wealth from a map while grouping, because you split the cost of the map while doing so.
You pay less = you get less wealth ( but as much xp and much safer, plus it's much quicker to grind map levels when you split the map cost ).

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Mr_Mustasch wrote:

Spoiler

Each player in a party after the first gives a +10% item quantity modifier and a +40% item rarity modifier on drops

Quantity of drops for a solo player = X
Quantity of drops for a player in a 6 player party = X*1,5/6 = 0,25X

Increased rarity has no effect on currency drops, 6 sockets, or 3-linked 3 colored items. This is where the bulk of farmed wealth comes from.

Lets factor in rarity.

Rarity for a solo player = X
Rarity for a player in a 6 player party = 0,25X * 3 = 0,75X

To sum it up:

A solo player gets 4 times as much currency drops and 33% more rares and uniques than a player in a 6-player group gets.

Forgot about that, but the IIQ is 50% per player on gems and currency, not 10%.

Since MF players are in majority of the parties more and more, and since MF players only make a very small part of total players, especially in the melee area (that's the most degenerate part of MF in PoE).

Practical example is quite different than the theoretical, in practice, majority of players get more IIQ and IIR while in parties.

As a MF character, you would get less loot when partying.

And since experience is money in this game, getting 1 chaos more on a map that is worth 5+ chaos is nothing.

Party play is OP in this state, at least some benefits should be for solo play.

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Fruz wrote:

There is nothing wrong with getting less wealth from a map while grouping, because you split the cost of the map while doing so.
You pay less = you get less wealth ( but as much xp and much safer, plus it's much quicker to grind map levels when you split the map cost ).

And it works, as long as the party doesn't have a dedicated culler.

If it does you probably get the loot of solo and map cost splitting and safety of parties.

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raics wrote:

"

Fruz wrote:

There is nothing wrong with getting less wealth from a map while grouping, because you split the cost of the map while doing so.
You pay less = you get less wealth ( but as much xp and much safer, plus it's much quicker to grind map levels when you split the map cost ).

And it works, as long as the party doesn't have a dedicated culler.

If it does you probably get the loot of solo and map cost splitting and safety of parties.

This is true. I dont see how to fix it though without removing culling which has other legitimate uses besides MFing. One example I can think of is a solo player who is a total tank with poor DPS fighting a boss. In that case culling is absolutely the best dps increase available.

Still, this does allow the meaningful choice to be removed entirely from the equation.

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Wooser69 wrote:

You kidding? There's more than enough advantage to playing in a group. Just cause it isn't twice as many items with one extra person doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other benefits to grouping.

Maps especially, as a map group can pool together their maps and currency to roll better maps. That alone is a gigantic advantage, one that makes mapping solo pretty crappy.

I find it interesting that you would point out that particular attribute as a + for grouping.

Strictly speaking that only holds true if an only if each member of you party spent a good amount of time building individual map pools. Ie soloing alot of maps


If you were all to map together 100% of the time then this point would be invalid since group count has no effect on map drops.

currency on the other hand is a slightly more valid argument but again a much larger portion of the currency spent mapping will not come from mapping . this is true even in solo play.

I spend 3 hours farming bosses for every 1 hour of high level map content.

in groups you get even less currency per play as a combination of having less portals per person to carry stuff back to the vendor and the simple fact that your group quantity wont measure up unless you use a culler to kill everything with iiq above 100%