In my opinion the baseline should be equality, let everyone play how they want to play and not force them into either solo or group
the problem in case of equality (4 playing together earn the same as one player alone) are the followings.
1-ungeared friend and clanmate: sometimes the other player are not well geared...if you play social you can't simple say no to when they ask to play with you.
2-different activities...sometimes your friend want to do something that is not what you need the most...if you play social you can't simple leave saying "do by yourself I'l play alone"
So, imo to incentive the social play the gain in group play should be at least 2x or 3x compared to play solo
Well, first of all, I don't think anyone needs compensation for playing with friends. If you wanna play together, that should be an inherent improvement of your enjoyment. I can't remember how many hours of my life have been spent on carrying friends through these games.
If you want to do different things, either find some common ground or do your stuff individually while talking/chatting to each other. That was the norm in vanilla D2.
Your first point is more tricky, that's where the core of the issue lies and where Blizz went so extremely far in the wrong direction (in my opinion, that is). You can't tune the game so that any 4 player grp will be as effective as a solo player. Now the starting point for multiplayer balancing would be: each monster gets its hp multiplied by the number of players etc (not the damage). Then 4 equally geared and skilled dps classes would be as effective as each of them solo. Now what do you think, are there more players who are able to outperform this bar by complementing each other and applying some teamwork or are there more players who would not make that for whatever reason (gear/skill discrepancy)?
I'd think the former but Blizzard must think the bulk of their playerbase to be utterly degenerated morons. So they tuned this to the effect that you get an easier game by virtually bringing anyone. Monsters don't have nearly 100% hp per player, several classes bring buffs that affect everyone and to add insult to injury there's even an independent exp bonus just for not playing solo.
Just to add my own 2 cents. I don't think any game I've played before has kept me playing it for as long as Diablo 3, and the reason is the combination of (1) the constant grind to gain main stat and to continue to improve my already near perfect gear, even by small amounts and (2) The regular patches that constantly move the goal-posts and in doing so momentarily breathe new life into the game.
So I have to give Kudos to Blizzard for creating a game that has an end game like almost no other.
Having said all that, eventually it does start to get old, and the limitations of what you can do at end game (paragon advancement and ever decreasing gear improvements) gets boring. More than that, I've decided the end-game mechanics specifically reward endless hours of grinding, and in hindsight, it has been pretty unhealthy for me to have sunk so much time into what is supposed to be a leisure activity, not the main focus of my life.
I think I'll go back and play this game occasionally, but for now I've switched to fallout, which in my view does not provoke or reward the sort of obsessive grinding that Dialo 3 does.
In terms of how D3 could have a better end game, it became pretty obvious to me that after several patches, class and set balance is impossible to achieve by virtue of the way sets are designed. They have very specific and finite attributes associated with them. It appears that even with a PTR, Blizzard does not fully know how powerful or weak certain sets are going to end up being, especially when players come up with alternative approaches that were not considered by the game designers. When each new patch comes out, they typically make your old favorite set (or in some cases the whole class) redundant. I find this as ironic as it is annoying. Their tag line is play your way, but without question they set the goal posts and demand you to play their way. Rhyker argues the idea of the "meta" which he suggests is something players themselves define, and which everyone else follows but that is only part of the truth. The "meta" becomes the meta because these are the builds that prove themselves to be the most powerful and effective. That is on Blizzard, not the players.
What I'd like to see is set bonuses that scale up. It is not going to solve the grind, which is inherent in the game, all I'm saying is that I think it would have been great that if I'd wanted to keep playing the Marauders set (ie play my way) then if I continued to invest time to scale that set up, then it could continue to hold its own compared to other sets which would make for much more variety both in sets and classes actively being played when going online. It appears that patch 2.4 will attempt to offer a serious rebalancing of sets in an effort to promote more balance and more variety of classes being played, but I have serious doubts about how successful this will be because the issue of one set/class being better than another is inherent in the game design.
In the end, I'm not trying to seriously criticize this game with this post. It has stolen a huge amount of my life that I'll never get back, so for all its perceived issues and flaws, they sure must have got something right.
Strongly for the endless paragon system. If change is to come, let it only be to competitive modes (meaning seasons and possibly non-season grifting IF there is an option to do uncapped grifting which can be on a separate leaderboard or non-leaderboard).
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Well lets get this straight right now, D3 is not an MMO, it is an ARPG. And FYI, it is on console lol!
Those Who Do Not Know True Pain Cannot Possibly Understand True Peace...
I ment a console game other than d3... common sense is not a skill you possess I see
I was never taught how to make statements with proof within that they are false and erroneous.
Well, first of all, I don't think anyone needs compensation for playing with friends. If you wanna play together, that should be an inherent improvement of your enjoyment. I can't remember how many hours of my life have been spent on carrying friends through these games.
If you want to do different things, either find some common ground or do your stuff individually while talking/chatting to each other. That was the norm in vanilla D2.
Your first point is more tricky, that's where the core of the issue lies and where Blizz went so extremely far in the wrong direction (in my opinion, that is). You can't tune the game so that any 4 player grp will be as effective as a solo player. Now the starting point for multiplayer balancing would be: each monster gets its hp multiplied by the number of players etc (not the damage). Then 4 equally geared and skilled dps classes would be as effective as each of them solo. Now what do you think, are there more players who are able to outperform this bar by complementing each other and applying some teamwork or are there more players who would not make that for whatever reason (gear/skill discrepancy)?
I'd think the former but Blizzard must think the bulk of their playerbase to be utterly degenerated morons. So they tuned this to the effect that you get an easier game by virtually bringing anyone. Monsters don't have nearly 100% hp per player, several classes bring buffs that affect everyone and to add insult to injury there's even an independent exp bonus just for not playing solo.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Just to add my own 2 cents. I don't think any game I've played before has kept me playing it for as long as Diablo 3, and the reason is the combination of (1) the constant grind to gain main stat and to continue to improve my already near perfect gear, even by small amounts and (2) The regular patches that constantly move the goal-posts and in doing so momentarily breathe new life into the game.
So I have to give Kudos to Blizzard for creating a game that has an end game like almost no other.
Having said all that, eventually it does start to get old, and the limitations of what you can do at end game (paragon advancement and ever decreasing gear improvements) gets boring. More than that, I've decided the end-game mechanics specifically reward endless hours of grinding, and in hindsight, it has been pretty unhealthy for me to have sunk so much time into what is supposed to be a leisure activity, not the main focus of my life.
I think I'll go back and play this game occasionally, but for now I've switched to fallout, which in my view does not provoke or reward the sort of obsessive grinding that Dialo 3 does.
In terms of how D3 could have a better end game, it became pretty obvious to me that after several patches, class and set balance is impossible to achieve by virtue of the way sets are designed. They have very specific and finite attributes associated with them. It appears that even with a PTR, Blizzard does not fully know how powerful or weak certain sets are going to end up being, especially when players come up with alternative approaches that were not considered by the game designers. When each new patch comes out, they typically make your old favorite set (or in some cases the whole class) redundant. I find this as ironic as it is annoying. Their tag line is play your way, but without question they set the goal posts and demand you to play their way. Rhyker argues the idea of the "meta" which he suggests is something players themselves define, and which everyone else follows but that is only part of the truth. The "meta" becomes the meta because these are the builds that prove themselves to be the most powerful and effective. That is on Blizzard, not the players.
What I'd like to see is set bonuses that scale up. It is not going to solve the grind, which is inherent in the game, all I'm saying is that I think it would have been great that if I'd wanted to keep playing the Marauders set (ie play my way) then if I continued to invest time to scale that set up, then it could continue to hold its own compared to other sets which would make for much more variety both in sets and classes actively being played when going online. It appears that patch 2.4 will attempt to offer a serious rebalancing of sets in an effort to promote more balance and more variety of classes being played, but I have serious doubts about how successful this will be because the issue of one set/class being better than another is inherent in the game design.
In the end, I'm not trying to seriously criticize this game with this post. It has stolen a huge amount of my life that I'll never get back, so for all its perceived issues and flaws, they sure must have got something right.
Strongly for the endless paragon system. If change is to come, let it only be to competitive modes (meaning seasons and possibly non-season grifting IF there is an option to do uncapped grifting which can be on a separate leaderboard or non-leaderboard).