The Solo VS Party Issue: How to resolve it? NPC?

Time and time again Party play is under attack by Solo players who feel they can not compete without having a highly optimized party and when you look at some of the organized farming efforts out there it sure can seem so far above and beyond what a single person would be capable of and in many cases its true.

What can really be done to quell this unrest though? Nerfing party play seems like taking things too far and i could never get behind that but offering an alternative to party play which would give the player some measure of control over what is being introduced to their visual clutter could be possible.

In Heist a system to equip NPC with gear that the player could craft on was added and this system could be expanded to a more generic npc system where various npc from the storyline or a specialized set of new npc from a future expansion could be equipped and setup as a party for solo players to benefit from a party-like experience.

These NPC could have very generic gear slots like Heist or even allow genuine equipment to be slotted via an interface and each of these npc would consume 1 portal if active when the host enters the map, a host could only bring npc up to the number of empty slots in their party so if they had a friend they could bring 4 npc along as well.. etc

It would be a lot of work, would it help the situation at all? would it just become another unappreciated feature? Ultimately i'm not sure how it would go but its at least some food for thought in a direction that isnt "nerf everything"

some additional thoughts:
-unlockable npc similar to hideouts
-progression for npc at league start resetting(not unlocks)
-actual player characters as npc's
-using your own characters as npc's that are leveled within the current mode
-hearing cassia sing all of the time(ALL OF IT)

There is no issue anymore. Partyplay is nerfed so hard that the egonomically best or at least most prominent group started this season with 6 people single-heisting. If people still think partyplay is so much above what duos or even single players could do the best answer would be to point to their failures as players.

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Vennto wrote:

There is no issue anymore. Partyplay is nerfed so hard that the egonomically best or at least most prominent group started this season with 6 people single-heisting. If people still think partyplay is so much above what duos or even single players could do the best answer would be to point to their failures as players.

Just to clarify i don't think there's an issue, This is in response to the large amount of posts that keep popping up claiming there is an issue.

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Vennto wrote:

There is no issue anymore. Partyplay is nerfed so hard that the egonomically best or at least most prominent group started this season with 6 people single-heisting. If people still think partyplay is so much above what duos or even single players could do the best answer would be to point to their failures as players.

For generic farming I can believe that 6 separate supply lines become better than 6-party (and yet it is still not "solo", because they still pool their resources together and share build-enabling items with each other).

But there is still an issue with the rarest uniques for example. You simply cannot "reach" them without massive MF investment, and that is much easier for party. Maybe I am mistaken, but when target farming these items, doubt those veteran players would waste time doing it solo.

There is no way to fix it without nerfing MF culler practice, make MF in party play to be an average from all party members, since loot is shared anyway. I agree that usually nerfs should be last resort, and when balancing skills there is usually a way to do it without heavy nerfs removing all viability of the skill and its derivatives. (I do design Arpg skills myself, so speaking from experience here).

But in this case, it is either upgrade solo to party or nerf (average) party MF, I don't see other options. Nerf is the way to go here, but it won't happen because we all know GGG priorities.

silentS, Vennto comes from the "single player is fine" pov, you can see his comment shitting on players being failures. that person is just deluded into thinking that party play has no significant advantage over single play.

i may disagree with you on certain things but i've not seen you shit on people like the way he does so i respect you a great deal more.

anyway, as to suggestions.

i actually was discussing this with some of my old buddies a long time back and actually your suggestion is one that we also reached.

NPC's can bridge the gap between solo play and party play.

in certain other games the devs actually bolster the single player experience if they balance the game around multiplayer.

examples:
diablo 2. you have a merc
diablo 3. 2 companions
recent monster hunter titles. 2 companions

and MH is a real good example of how to implement companions. go solo, you get 2 companions. go in a party of 2, each player can bring 1 companion. more than that you cannot have companions. max 4 players in a party. you're a little gimped with 3 players but it can be more better than just 2 players if the player is competent/well geared.

when you bring up heist, i would say it's GGG's NPC TRIAL. they wanted to gauge how the community would react to having NPCs.

i would say i would like it very much. i really like having einhar helping me out in quests. and i would say GGG already has laid out the groundwork for having NPCs via heist.

they also have stuff that you also suggest (need to be unlocked, reset each season).

i would disagree on having player npc/ ghosts tho. but would be hilarious. DUDE YOUR GTFO of my party! your ghost is way better than you! git gud brah!

as for cassia you've brought up a VERY important point that i've neglected to mention in all my "anti party" posts.

BLIGHT is the WORST league mechanic for solo play. Sure if you use a huge ass AOE skill that can clear huge waves/bosses fast you wont feel it. but if youre on the weaker side, i can tell you this. in blighted maps, i would have 10K ++++ upgrade points. simply because i m busy trying to stay alive and killing monsters ASAP.

solo players like me NEED an option where cassia can assist me to auto upgrade towers.

maybe its not what GGG wants as thats one of the main features of blight, but let me tell GGG this. the times that i actually play POE, after grabbing the atlas passives that improve my chance to drop a higher tier map, blocking blight is one of the first things i strive to do.

why? coz as a "weaker" solo player, blight is a waste of time. especially with the remaining AN mods.

oh not to forget i m using melee. theres a gazillion monsters on screen and i need to make sure i somehow can notice lightning mirages that spawned not to far from me and also make sure that theres no purple crystals around. i ALSO need to run like a headless chicken when the flame orbs/green acid orbs chase me.

so yeaaaaaaaaaaaah. anyone who doesnt see the advantage of party play really should get rethink their stance rather than just shitting on others.

on top of all that was mentioned there are 2 other things that need to be addressed

1. sharing of resources
2. magic find

for the first one, which is where players pool up their resources to juice up maps, i actually feel this is fine. how they choose to divide the drops is also up to the players.

as for magic find, i would say GGG needs to either remove party mf bonus OR buff single player magic find to be of equal level of a full party.

ON TOP of that, there needs to be a cap so it does not go significantly over what a single player can achieve normally.

speaking of magic find, it reminds me of another party benefit. a player could be an aura bot or a curser with a culling role where they actively stay out of combat and have gear tailored towards maximizing magic find.

this simply is a significant party only bonus that a party can get.

how to solve this problem in particular? fuck i dont know. its a problem GGG created themselves way back when dominus was the last campaign boss. people were running parties and doing MF cull characters, heck even "single player" players would run 2 instances of POE to get their MF culler in.

a huge hassle for single players but a damn easy task for a dedicated party culler.

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exsea wrote:

solo players like me NEED an option where cassia can assist me to auto upgrade towers.
maybe its not what GGG wants as thats one of the main features of blight, but let me tell GGG this. the times that i actually play POE, after grabbing the atlas passives that improve my chance to drop a higher tier map, blocking blight is one of the first things i strive to do.

why? coz as a "weaker" solo player, blight is a waste of time. especially with the remaining AN mods.

Literally my point. You demand an NPC taking care of things that your build is not supposed to do in the first place. There are tons of options of going around that: Build the right towers with ring enchants, pick a skill that is more useful for blight, don´t juice blight that much... But you can´t expect to net solid results on a mechanic that you cannot use at its maximum power, that is just utter nonsense. Blight is one of the stronger solo farming options, but with the current atlas tree you have so much player agency, that of course you can decide to block it. I just wonder... what does the blight-example has to do with partyplay?

As I´ve explained in a different post, if a group nets 8 times your profit that does still mean they have to divide by at least 6 people, not considering traders. In what world is the amount of organisation and training people put into this not supposed to give them an advantage?

Fact of the matter is, MF was nerfed strong enough that 6-man-groups are not the most profitable ways to farm the game while its by far the ones most difficult to organize.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Time and time again Party play is under attack by Solo players who feel they can not compete without having a highly optimized party and when you look at some of the organized farming efforts out there it sure can seem so far above and beyond what a single person would be capable of and in many cases its true.

I dont think its nearly as bad as some would like to claim.
Simply because those claims are based on YT highlight reels. The vast majority of the playerbase has no idea what it takes to pull this off nor would many like the playstyle to begin with.

On top of that guilds with plenty dedicated and highly knowledgeable players will be able to compete with the average yield of 6 player MF culler party - assuming they are pooling their resources.


It looks more like a distorted view (highlight reels) with regards to parties combined with a lack of understand what a single dedicated, knowledgeable and efficient player can do - let alone what a guild full of those players - compared to what the average or below player can do in their sessions, especially if the average player doesnt care all that much about speed and efficiency.


The gaps knowledge, speed and efficiency create are massive!
And that before playtime, which is yet another multiplier for wealth.

I highly doubt GGG can do much about it. Because whatever they do introduce, its pretty much guaranteed that the highly efficient players - who are already generating plenty wealth as is - will generate exponentially more wealth with new toys to play with than whatever the average player would be able to generate.

And thats the real "issue", if you want this to be an issue that is.

I'd take a /players 6 command until they figure out a solution :)

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Vennto wrote:

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exsea wrote:

solo players like me NEED an option where cassia can assist me to auto upgrade towers.
maybe its not what GGG wants as thats one of the main features of blight, but let me tell GGG this. the times that i actually play POE, after grabbing the atlas passives that improve my chance to drop a higher tier map, blocking blight is one of the first things i strive to do.

why? coz as a "weaker" solo player, blight is a waste of time. especially with the remaining AN mods.

Literally my point. You demand an NPC taking care of things that your build is not supposed to do in the first place. There are tons of options of going around that: Build the right towers with ring enchants, pick a skill that is more useful for blight, don´t juice blight that much... But you can´t expect to net solid results on a mechanic that you cannot use at its maximum power, that is just utter nonsense. Blight is one of the stronger solo farming options, but with the current atlas tree you have so much player agency, that of course you can decide to block it. I just wonder... what does the blight-example has to do with partyplay?

As I´ve explained in a different post, if a group nets 8 times your profit that does still mean they have to divide by at least 6 people, not considering traders. In what world is the amount of organisation and training people put into this not supposed to give them an advantage?

Fact of the matter is, MF was nerfed strong enough that 6-man-groups are not the most profitable ways to farm the game while its by far the ones most difficult to organize.

when i bring up blight and bring up about how it can be challenging to run as a single player you tell me to change to a different skill/different this different that.

let me throw you a very simple question. the problem i highlighted. building towers. would it be significantly easier to run blight in a 2 party group where one person concentrates on killing monsters while another builds towers? yes/no?

lol, i come with many different angles and you can simply dismiss them. i m too lazy to keep repeating myself. profit is one thing i've talked about but you could be right on your point but still it does not address the other benefits party play provides.

It isn't an issue, its pure FOMO caused by isolating specific gameplay moments then thinking it represents the norm. Its perfectly viable to get rich solo, you also aren't beholden to anyone else while doing so.