Group Play is heavily discouraged by the way the game works in this state.. Which is odd, since the designers specifically created the game for the best co-op experience.
Simple idea:
1 player game = 5 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 100% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares) Which is how it currently works.
2 player game = 6 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 133% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares)
3 player game = 7 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 166% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares)
4 player game = 8 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 200% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares)
opinions?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
Ok lets get the facts straight. if you play with friends that are as good as u and u don't rely on specs like ww/tornado etc that basicly require you to have complete controle of the mobs farming with others is better. Simple reason for this is that mobs don't get double hp from 1 to 2 players and dmg isn't increased anymore.
On another thing why should people benefit from playing with friends which is often more fun compared to people playing alone cause they either don't have any friends that are any good or prefer that.
You're right. HPs don't double, they go up 115%. When you add on the fact that you lose your followers and you're not putting out 100% of your damage in co-op and that synergies are largely defensive between players, yeah co-op is still an issue.
They could largely fix this by reducing the HP bonus to 90% and allowing your followers to stay with you, but make their buffs only effect them and you, therefore not really making an incentive to stack followers. If they made those two simple changes I bet lots of people would really open up to multi-player farming.
OP is on the right track. I was just having a conversation with a few friends on how there is little to no incentive to farm Act 3-4, especially in groups larger than 2, as the enemies become so OP that they serious impact efficient farming practices i.e. If it takes that much longer to kill mobs for essentially the same drops, what's the point?
There needs to be incentive for traveling with 3-4 peeps, as well as more incentive to play in Act 3-4.
I normally play with 1 other person for the most part, sometimes 2 other people. Added incentive for group play would be great as it usually seems that adding a 4th player gives the mobs too much health and it takes much longer to kill them
Group play already has more than enough incentive.
1. You're undergeared. You can dabbled in Act III but you die too much to be effective. Your friend is the same. Lets say you are a DH and your friend is a Monk. You both have the same issues, you have trouble surviving just about every elite pack. So you build up a LoH set for your DH for a million or two gold, and play Act III with your Monk friend. A DH and Monk compliment eachother very well in this set up. The Monk provides 20% more armor and 15% more dodge for the DH, and the DH provides 40% damage reduction for the Monk. Even with a measly 10-12k damage output each, you still beat enrage timers.
You can also cover more ground, spread out and look for the elite packs while ignoring trash this way too. And if you're good, with a Monk there you can bug out blue packs to drop double, triple, or even quadruple the loot. Though that can be very tough to pull off most of the time.
This also works fantastically for low budget Critical Mass Wizards with either a Barb, Monk, or tank DH.
2. Let's say you're a glass cannon, but can't afford the proper gear to kite effectively, whether its not enough run speed, not enough discipline, or what have you. Doesn't matter, Wizard or DH. Having a Monk in your group who can Cyclone strike like a boss is incredibly OP in so many situations. Imagine stuff running around like mad, you have Cluster Arrow Loaded for Bear, and you say in vent, cyclone, and everything gets sucked to the monk and you unload two or three or four Clusters Arrows on the group (depending on spec). Not a lot of stuff is as satisfying as coordinated teamwork that wipes the enemy out of existence in seconds.
3. If you NEED incentive to play with your friends, then maybe you need new friends, or maybe you are a bad friend. There is no down side to playing with your friends unless they are holding you back. But I'd still rather play with my friends even if I have to carry some of their weight.
Imo, nothing needs to change in that department. The real issues with the game are bugs, exploits, AH functionality, UI shortcomings, viable build diversity, and to some extent, the way farming and playing this game overall works in the long term. If you're not playing with your friends, or they're not playing with you, its entirely within your capability to fix it yourself, and should not be Blizzards concern, as there is no reason to not play with your friends aside from the same reason you might not want to play with your friends in any other multiplayer game on the market.
As to what I was saying; I don't think the mess of group play can and will be solved. Which is ok by me. However, the ineffectivity of playing together should be bumped up. Even how much I'd like to play with my friends, and how good or bad they are... It's just so anoying to make choice between fast/ easy/ loot or the joy of having a friend(s) playing with you.
On a side note; Yeah i do think HP scales need to go down to make up for the scattering mobs. Diablo isn't really that much about single target damage (especially trash mobs!). Therefor they need to scale down, the champions however im totally fine with. They should remain tough(maybe a little less) and the way of killing them with single target damage is fine with me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
The OP's suggestion is way too much incentive and would force you to find some good farming partners (most likely not your RL friends but instead people that are as geared as you). I'd rather have something like allowing you to keep your follower in 2 player because 2 players don't have much synergy and the loss of follower buffs and either MF/dps is quite large, and then making NV give 20% MF/GF for 3-4 players because they can have more synergy but it makes up for the loss of follower MF without clogging the screen and your paths with 3-4 followers.
MF/GF sharing in groups is also a problem but I don't think there's any fair solution to it. On one hand, if a group is carrying a badly geared person in MF/GF then they deserve to share it, but on the other hand, if someone puts together a great set of gear that has huge dps/defense/hp along with MF/GF then they alone deserve it. In a group of RL friends it doesn't matter much because you'll probably just share any good drops anyways, but you're less likely to share with internet friends or people in public games.
After playing all classes to 60, I feel that melee classes have it WAY WAY WAY too easy overall and benefit the most by grouping. They start out with great defenses along with an inate 30% damage reduction and if they group then they end up taking even less damage because they can gain defenses from group buffs and some of the mobs hit other people. As a ranged, grouping feels like complete hell. You have less maximum potential defenses and life regen (all forms of them) to start with and even with buffs from your group, ranged still end up taking more damage while grouped. You go from being able to kill mobs before they reach you most of the time when you're solo to taking lots of hits from stray mobs that take over 2-4 times as long for you to kite while grouped. Either aggro needs to change in groups or ranged need better overall defenses.
That would provide more incentive, but it seems like there could be a more interesting way to do it. I do agree there needs to be more seeing as I have never joined a public game or even really thought about it.. Only people I have played with are friends.. when they log on..
The OP's suggestion is way too much incentive and would force you to find some good farming partners (most likely not your RL friends but instead people that are as geared as you). I'd rather have something like allowing you to keep your follower in 2 player because 2 players don't have much synergy and the loss of follower buffs and either MF/dps is quite large, and then making NV give 20% MF/GF for 3-4 players because they can have more synergy but it makes up for the loss of follower MF without clogging the screen and your paths with 3-4 followers.
MF/GF sharing in groups is also a problem but I don't think there's any fair solution to it. On one hand, if a group is carrying a badly geared person in MF/GF then they deserve to share it, but on the other hand, if someone puts together a great set of gear that has huge dps/defense/hp along with MF/GF then they alone deserve it. In a group of RL friends it doesn't matter much because you'll probably just share any good drops anyways, but you're less likely to share with internet friends or people in public games.
This was in fact part of my original post and I agree completely. Although it may be hard to solve, it is absolutely necessary.
Apart from that, my original idea was not to have any effect on solo play, which is fine at the moment. It only affects group play, which should be more fun/ rewarding anyway.
Both types of play should be balanced; I dont mind bashing some mobs a bit longer. However, when I do I should be rewarded more. The change i suggested reflects precisly this. For example: Solo Play nets 60 rares an hour, Group Play nets 30 rares an hour. Either these 2 numbers should ideally be the same, or social play needs to be promoted in such a way that people find beneficial and fun (I.E. 70 rares per hour).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t...
Simple idea:
1 player game = 5 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 100% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares) Which is how it currently works.
2 player game = 6 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 133% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares)
3 player game = 7 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 166% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares)
4 player game = 8 stacks of nephalim (with a bonus 200% chance to drop an extra rare from bosses and champions/rares)
opinions?
You're right. HPs don't double, they go up 115%. When you add on the fact that you lose your followers and you're not putting out 100% of your damage in co-op and that synergies are largely defensive between players, yeah co-op is still an issue.
They could largely fix this by reducing the HP bonus to 90% and allowing your followers to stay with you, but make their buffs only effect them and you, therefore not really making an incentive to stack followers. If they made those two simple changes I bet lots of people would really open up to multi-player farming.
There needs to be incentive for traveling with 3-4 peeps, as well as more incentive to play in Act 3-4.
OP's idea is solid.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
1. You're undergeared. You can dabbled in Act III but you die too much to be effective. Your friend is the same. Lets say you are a DH and your friend is a Monk. You both have the same issues, you have trouble surviving just about every elite pack. So you build up a LoH set for your DH for a million or two gold, and play Act III with your Monk friend. A DH and Monk compliment eachother very well in this set up. The Monk provides 20% more armor and 15% more dodge for the DH, and the DH provides 40% damage reduction for the Monk. Even with a measly 10-12k damage output each, you still beat enrage timers.
You can also cover more ground, spread out and look for the elite packs while ignoring trash this way too. And if you're good, with a Monk there you can bug out blue packs to drop double, triple, or even quadruple the loot. Though that can be very tough to pull off most of the time.
This also works fantastically for low budget Critical Mass Wizards with either a Barb, Monk, or tank DH.
2. Let's say you're a glass cannon, but can't afford the proper gear to kite effectively, whether its not enough run speed, not enough discipline, or what have you. Doesn't matter, Wizard or DH. Having a Monk in your group who can Cyclone strike like a boss is incredibly OP in so many situations. Imagine stuff running around like mad, you have Cluster Arrow Loaded for Bear, and you say in vent, cyclone, and everything gets sucked to the monk and you unload two or three or four Clusters Arrows on the group (depending on spec). Not a lot of stuff is as satisfying as coordinated teamwork that wipes the enemy out of existence in seconds.
3. If you NEED incentive to play with your friends, then maybe you need new friends, or maybe you are a bad friend. There is no down side to playing with your friends unless they are holding you back. But I'd still rather play with my friends even if I have to carry some of their weight.
Imo, nothing needs to change in that department. The real issues with the game are bugs, exploits, AH functionality, UI shortcomings, viable build diversity, and to some extent, the way farming and playing this game overall works in the long term. If you're not playing with your friends, or they're not playing with you, its entirely within your capability to fix it yourself, and should not be Blizzards concern, as there is no reason to not play with your friends aside from the same reason you might not want to play with your friends in any other multiplayer game on the market.
As to what I was saying; I don't think the mess of group play can and will be solved. Which is ok by me. However, the ineffectivity of playing together should be bumped up. Even how much I'd like to play with my friends, and how good or bad they are... It's just so anoying to make choice between fast/ easy/ loot or the joy of having a friend(s) playing with you.
On a side note; Yeah i do think HP scales need to go down to make up for the scattering mobs. Diablo isn't really that much about single target damage (especially trash mobs!). Therefor they need to scale down, the champions however im totally fine with. They should remain tough(maybe a little less) and the way of killing them with single target damage is fine with me.
MF/GF sharing in groups is also a problem but I don't think there's any fair solution to it. On one hand, if a group is carrying a badly geared person in MF/GF then they deserve to share it, but on the other hand, if someone puts together a great set of gear that has huge dps/defense/hp along with MF/GF then they alone deserve it. In a group of RL friends it doesn't matter much because you'll probably just share any good drops anyways, but you're less likely to share with internet friends or people in public games.
After playing all classes to 60, I feel that melee classes have it WAY WAY WAY too easy overall and benefit the most by grouping. They start out with great defenses along with an inate 30% damage reduction and if they group then they end up taking even less damage because they can gain defenses from group buffs and some of the mobs hit other people. As a ranged, grouping feels like complete hell. You have less maximum potential defenses and life regen (all forms of them) to start with and even with buffs from your group, ranged still end up taking more damage while grouped. You go from being able to kill mobs before they reach you most of the time when you're solo to taking lots of hits from stray mobs that take over 2-4 times as long for you to kite while grouped. Either aggro needs to change in groups or ranged need better overall defenses.
Yep. I'm callin bullshit on that as well.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
This was in fact part of my original post and I agree completely. Although it may be hard to solve, it is absolutely necessary.
Apart from that, my original idea was not to have any effect on solo play, which is fine at the moment. It only affects group play, which should be more fun/ rewarding anyway.
Both types of play should be balanced; I dont mind bashing some mobs a bit longer. However, when I do I should be rewarded more. The change i suggested reflects precisly this. For example: Solo Play nets 60 rares an hour, Group Play nets 30 rares an hour. Either these 2 numbers should ideally be the same, or social play needs to be promoted in such a way that people find beneficial and fun (I.E. 70 rares per hour).