Multiplayer has problems.

I searched for a similar thread, but couldn't find one that I could post in so I am making a new one here.

Dear GGG,

I remember playing diablo 2 for years and partying with people. For many people who really liked that game, that party play is missing to a large extent now. I understand that the game is called path of EXILE, which hints at solo play decisions, but having the option to play smoothly in a team like diablo 2 is gone for many players who want to engage in as much expansion content as possible.

This may not be the case for people who play the game all the time and have all the ins and outs covered, but I am talking about joining some random players together who don't know each other.

I think that some leagues tend to be a big downside to what is happening. I will focus on the leagues that have caused challenges to multiplayer in various ways for me.


Party Leader Problems

I have hosted random players before on end game maps. There are a lot of things I do before even making the party to save as much time as possible. I get maps, scarabs, ready in 1 tab and watchstones juiced. I have a dump tab for gear so I can sort it later. This doesn't bother me too much, I just bring it up because, the flow of the game is so hard to keep going from other things in a party like expansion content, that I go out of my way to have map starts take up as little time as possible. Anything I can do to keep the flow of the party going helps keep multiplayer play alive.

I do enforce certain rules. Players must either follow me or not get more than 1-2 screens ahead of me. I am pretty flexible on this, cause there are some mayhem like moments with explosions you need to avoid, legion requires you to spread out during first phase. But some people just zoom ahead and kill my map on their own which defeats fun of group play for me. I will tell them to stay with group or leave when they start soloing the map on their own ahead of everyone. I don't think there is a way to actually fix this, because having the option to zoom zoom is good for players who like it, so I wouldn't want you to take the option away, I am just pointing out the speed difference between certain players can isolate players and when not many people want to multiplayer anyway it becomes an even bigger problem to find parties. I think expansion content is definitely the biggest problem though, cause this option can't be taken away to zoom, so it can't be fixed.

Heist

Because different people may have different strategies for getting maximum loot or favorite types from chests, multiplayer was not as good for random new players to join your heist. New players can cause the lockdown too soon and make you lose loot. New players could raise enemy life too much without having enough offense to keep up with the spawn rate and you can no longer get out safely if you kill from distance.

A large group of players could get more loot from a grand heist or regular heist by timing the lockdowns and spreading out around valuable loot to get it all, but that requires playing with people you already know or teaching players how to play. Having stuff that requires teaching others to play before you can successfully complete and get the best / most important loot causes problems for multiplayer players who just want to have a bunch of people keep going with a flow of action. It would be safe to teach 1 person at a time, because nobody else is waiting on you to teach a player, but large parties fall apart fast when you start giving a 5-10 minute speech on stuff to new players. For close friends or a 2 person party things would still work, but I like big parties with randoms and I never did them in heists personally.

Harvest League

Nobody could get the seeds or the seed growth except the leader. The options were awesome but I would spend 10 minutes or more looking at what I needed to craft. Party members wouldn't get anything extraordinary from drops and I would get most of the benefits. I realized this and I never went into the grove, just piled up seeds if I was in group.


The new system looks better, but if only leader gets the rewards, then I am dragging strangers to fight for my crafts and wait for me to pick crafts. Even if I store my favorite crafts, could take some time for me too look for the best ones to save. Time other players are standing there watching me do it, because the league content doesn't give same reward options for all individuals outside of drops on the ground. Not sure if this is a coding problem or GGG thinks it could be exploited, but I see no problem with giving everyone the same rewards from league content. Even if map leader got less rewards cause everyone gets them now, that would still be better than having 5 other players stand around waiting for the leader to get benefits that don't affect them. I don't plan on tipping the players who must wait, so multiplayer for me will probably mean skipping the garden, unless all other players are gung ho about killing monsters to help me get crafts, then and only then would I take my party members into the garden.

Delirium League

This content was pretty good for group play if you killed fast. If you did low tier maps, the difficulty gain would not mess with new players as much. The push to move faster did mess with slower players, but the new expansion slows fog with skill points on the atlas which I like. Anything that makes content playable for people who don't zoom zoom makes it more multiplayer friendly. The option to not go in the mirror is nice for people who didn't have the offense/defense to make content harder. And the option was also their to push your build to the max. Loot rewards were drops for everyone and didn't take up time. Great league.

Metamorph League

I liked to pick organs in solo for best drops, but on Group play I would spam the left side and spawn it. Mostly same drops anyway, but might lost a little currency to keep the flow of the party going by not wasting time. People didn't want to kill it anymore after I made one with too much life regeneration that was unkillable cause nobody could stop life regen. Nobody wanted to do any metamorphs in that group and many others cause I didn't know which mods would wreck you or not, so people just wanted to skip it.

Overall not the best league cause it would do insane damage with certain skills / abilities from organs. Life regen was nuts on it. Waiting to spawn correct organs ruins flow time cause your scared of life regen mod, but spamming overpowered organs can wreck group on weaker group. Overally not best group league simply cause they are so strong for new players to handle, but a good league for stronger builds to test their power against something stronger than the map boss you just killed.

Blight League

This was a good league for party play. Solo players can cover it just fine, but it was more relaxed when you only had to defend one side. They do take some time to finish, but I think you started fixing that problem by speeding up blights with atlas passives. Anything that helps party play is appreciated.

Legion League

Great league for party play. I will say my computer screen freezes a few seconds when the monolith spawns, but having everyone spread out and hitting generals rather than running around is nice for spawning the entire legion. The legion duration passive increase is also nice for new players since these things can be hard to spawn everything, even in a group.

Betrayal League

Due to the limits of such an advanced league, I understand why the safehouses could only give rewards to 1 individual. So I will not complain about that, since I really loved this league and how advanced it was overall.

That being said, the decision making process was too much to get the best rewards and do the content at the same time for me. I ended up either taking deal, executing or releasing in that order, cause if I had to lookup who has the best rewards it would ruin the flow of the party. Due to the weak drops from jun encounters not making party like content and my speedy decisions ruining my investigation to speed up the party, I prefer to run jun alone or I might miss the best rewards, which is why I run Jun in first place.

I don't think there is a solution for this one, but I don't see Jun much or ever if I am not doing her mission, so this one isn't a problem much anyway. I just avoid her in multiplayer if she did ever come, cause I don't want to stop or speed through and screw it up.

Delve League

The delves were better for solo gameplay, cause expensive stuff was in the dark and it was narrow and cramped. It didn't look like a party was meant to run in their.

Incursion League

This was the last league I remember partying a lot. I am getting older so I prefer a more relaxed solo gameplay lately. I had to force people to go inside the incursions or get booted, cause some players didn't like it. I thought the rewards were decent, even though it took some time to complete. I prefer to run these alone now, cause it can ruin your temple and missing something powerful like a corruption chamber.

Not the best group play stuff cause it is hard to get people to understand simple directions and commit to it. Rewards are worth it if you get people who will actually do incursions. I would say because she is a master and you can do alva solo the group play problem is not a huge deal, since you rarely see her in multiplayer and can skip her if you have new players or people who won't enjoy it in group.

Bestiary League

Other than nets or Einhar taking forever to capture enemies, this was great group play league. This tends to be the master I pick when hosting maps, cause I do others on solo and beasts are shared to everyone, so everyone gets something from the content not just me.

This should be standard for any league that is not super advanced like betrayal. Everyone gets loot or chance for loot depending on loot settings. Everyone participates in the hunt. There is no waiting for one person or explanations to make things work.

Other Leagues

I wasn't around for synthesis and missed most other older leagues, but none of them seem to be messing with multiplayer flow so I did not mention them here.

The ritual loot should just be given to everyone having their own screen of loot to choose from. Otherwise I will be skipping them in party play, cause I will not make everyone watch me look through 30 items 3-4 times a map. It could be fun for everyone to have their own screen and a 1-2 minute break from mapping to browse for a chance at cool gear, but having everyone watch me or them move on without me is not how I like to play.

Or better yet just drop loot on ground so loot filter skips stuff I don't need for me on ritual.

"

killodoggy wrote:

The ritual loot should just be given to everyone having their own screen of loot to choose from. Otherwise I will be skipping them in party play, cause I will not make everyone watch me look through 30 items 3-4 times a map. It could be fun for everyone to have their own screen and a 1-2 minute break from mapping to browse for a chance at cool gear, but having everyone watch me or them move on without me is not how I like to play.

This.

"

kanzaki01 wrote:

"

killodoggy wrote:

The ritual loot should just be given to everyone having their own screen of loot to choose from. Otherwise I will be skipping them in party play, cause I will not make everyone watch me look through 30 items 3-4 times a map. It could be fun for everyone to have their own screen and a 1-2 minute break from mapping to browse for a chance at cool gear, but having everyone watch me or them move on without me is not how I like to play.

This.

Lol, no. What are you thinking? Parties were really strong before. Bring back the old parties and let people farm 3 mirrors in a week again? This game is mainly a solo hack and slash. I see parties as just extra additions and nothing more. If you can utilize them go ahead, if you cant dont let it ruin my solo game.

Who write this ?

"

killodoggy wrote:

I do enforce certain rules. Players must either follow me or not get more than 1-2 screens ahead of me. I am pretty flexible on this, cause there are some mayhem like moments with explosions you need to avoid, legion requires you to spread out during first phase. But some people just zoom ahead and kill my map on their own which defeats fun of group play for me. I will tell them to stay with group or leave when they start soloing the map on their own ahead of everyone. I don't think there is a way to actually fix this

It is : set party as Permanent and the problem is solved
SimpleFilter

Ultimatum league came out after I originally wrote this critique.

I want to thank GGG for bending over backwards to make ultimatum party friendly. The voting and the ability for individuals to leave safely were both very important. Even if most players don't use that, for strangers in relaxed party it helps a lot.

Also changing old content, like having alva temples and conquerers as maps for later helps multiplayer, so thanks for that.

Having harvests drop as their own maps rather than going into a garden on another map would really help multiplayer in the future.

overall I am happy about multiplayer changes. Keep it up.

I've already pre-purchased D2 Resurrected and will be joining the open beta this August. That game was fun and rewarding while not being punishing or overly complicated.

POE is just punishing, over the top punishing. Every time there is any fun associated with a build, GGG nukes it into complete shit. I'm done with it, it's way past old, and only leaves a taste of frustration and annoyance in my mouth.

D2 has a great multiplayer aspect to it that kept regulars coming back for Baal runs (and a few chaos runs). Yes, they were routine, but the everyone had fun. PVP in D2 is awesome. Friends made in the game will often just sit in game and BS. Not so in POE.

D2R will hold me over until D4 comes out. Only reason I play POE is because there isn't anything else atm, but that's going to change in August.

I doubt I'll be the only one.