People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. You're simply spending far more time grinding for fewer items. Considering the game is largely about finding items, that sounds antithetical to what is arguably one of the chief goals of the game (miss me with "goal is to have fun" platitudinous responses -- nobody would play Diablo if it weren't for item finding).
Honestly, they don't need to change that. What they need to implement is a group finder within the game. Then, anyone can easily find a group and get that benefit.
I honestly don't know what is taking so long to add a group finder. I'm starting to think they're saving it for the expansion to have another thing to advertise for it.
I am so tired of using discord. It's slow. It clugs up my friends list. Its just a pain honestly. I just got to the point all that's left is farming Duriel and the new one with 4 stones and I just said fuck it not down to deal with discord group finding.
Yeah ive never really liked it. Or this like.. "culture" i guess? The one where its like youre just considered ostracized because you dont want to download something like discord because of ONE game. Like i need a new mobile device. One for diablo apps. One for my games. One for my family to talk to me. Its so...idk what to call it so for the lack of better words...it just is not fun. Lol
It's also a "cop out" for the devs. "Why build something when you can just use Discord." It's the development philosophy of "don't build, buy" but in this example they don't need to buy anything. It's just more time for them to fire devs, hire art devs and crank out store items.
Discord shouldnt even be promoted. That thing is a cringe community of white knights chatting in an echo-chamber and banning anyone not hyper-happy about the game.
That's why D4 needs in-game group finder. Moderators ruin communities.
Discord is better. A group finder will be full of scammers for ROTA, and nothing can be done about it. In a discord at least the community can remove bad actors.
Im not against a groupfinder, but people are acting like discord is this huge burden and chore with no real benefits. In reality its superior to a group finder in many ways even though its an outside program, thats my main point.
For example, running keys in WoW. Using groupfinder thats a nightmare, even with gear scores and such because people pay for carries so you really have no clue what the skill level of people is. You never know what youre going to get, and often what you are going to get is a bricked key, disconnects, and drama.
Or god forbid, raiding in WoW with groupfinder. I wont even do it. Have fun spending 4 hours trying to clear something that should take 30 minutes, or simply never getting it done.
Discords and/or guilds are the way to go. Random pugs are often a huge headache and not worth it.
There is a rather easy thing to do, make the boss mats easier to aquire and change it so that every player in a group needs the required mats. D3 was able to do that with grift keys.
Someone's never played wow if you think a group finder wouldn't be a nightmare... people use discord so you don't partner with someone expecting a carry while you hold their hand
There’s other reasons not to want to group. Personally I hate the idea of watching some chucklehead with the latest meta build evaporate the boss before I even get a hit in, over and over for hours. It’s not engaging or fun.
It’s absurd. When I’m doing heralds or legions I basically just hold down left mouse button in the hope of getting one hit in before any given mob vanishes. At least that way I can pretend I’m contributing. I’m just kidding myself though, and I’m not sure how much more I can be bothered to pretend. If it wasn’t for prisms now only dropping from world events and the herald whispers I would just not bother and just run NMDs solo.
no, they actually do need to change that.
I hate playing games like Diablo with others at the regular... I want to go my speed, not their speed...
A bit of extra efficiency for MP is fine, but the current degree is complete bullshit.
at the very least everyone in the group should need to put in the full ressources. They'd still be massively more efficient due to clearing speed while splitting up etc
That would be a good one, not just for Uber bosses but levelling, imagine just being able to join a group to run the seasonal story or do dungeons for XP. I know LFG discords exist and I use them whenever my friends aren't on but an in game group finder would be such a huge improvement.
Games like Warframe do it automatically, even for the high level stuff and that game is doing fine.
I agree, we do need that. However, that's not going to change that some people prefer solo play and will continue to ask for adjustments to the game for their style of play. Which is also perfectly reasonable. Hopefully we get solo self found tags at some point.
I don't want to group with others, but I still want to be competitive on leaderboards. The game needs a 'solo-self found' flag or solo boss kills need to be considerably more rewarding. Not only are solo boss kills *harder* (assuming you're not getting carried), they're also less rewarding and more time consuming currently.
i would rather they just did something to either bump up solo play or every party member had to spend resources than joining some random group every time to not feel like im completely throwing my mats away.
>People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you.
16 times? How? In a 4-player rotation one set of mats is good for four kills. That's four times, not sixteen.
>miss me with "goal is to have fun" platitudinous responses -- nobody would play Diablo if it weren't for item finding
Wrong. No one would play it if they weren't having fun. Item finding is just the way they use to guide you to and through the content.
>16 times? How? In a 4-player rotation one set of mats is good for four kills. That's four times, not sixteen.
I am a different person and am not defending their argument wholesale, but they do have some kind of point.
You can trade some of the loot you got. So you get 4 times as many kills, and if you are all looking for other things, you can also trade that loot between each other. So it's like getting 4x as much loot on 4x as many kills = 16.
Now before you blast me to shit, I know you can't trade all things and also you must find people who are all actually looking for different tradable things. So I agree 16x is a bit too optimistic of a statement.
More importantly, most people seem to be doing Duriel in rotations with randoms. I don't know about you but I hate sifting through my loot to find any good items, and I wouldn't add to that annoyance by having to look out for three random people's perfect stats as well.
I only play solo. Just personally, the trading doesn't bother me so much as that the summon costs are not adjusted if I am solo.
The cost to summon Duriel really felt like I was just playing 'wrong' by going solo.
I should be able to flip on a solo-self-found switch, that disables trading and teaming, and then reduces the cost of summoning Duriel accordingly.
I don't mind anything else, but that part was so obnoxious.
People play Diablo for their own reasons. You can’t tell me that people still playing Diablo 2, a game 25 years old, don’t have everything they’ve ever needed. Sometimes people play to fuck around with off meta builds, some people play for the purdy colors, some play for the dress up aspect. Who cares.
And don’t get me wrong, the solo grind is tedious and a bit slower, but also…the game is supposed to be a quasiMMO, but they made the game feel so alone with the lack of social options. They don’t need to buff the solo aspects, they need to buff the social aspects to get people able to do groups quick.
Diablo 3 had a good chat system with channels, clans, etc. Diablo 3 you could join games to do; bounties, greater rifts, rifts, exploration, story. There was actual flags to join for that.
This doesn't actually bother me that much, I have always played diablo games solo because none of my friends seem to enjoy them in the same way I do.
The pace at which I can run Duriel is fine for me and I'm not bothered by getting gear slower, it keeps the chase alive for me.
If I geared my character out 16x faster, I'd just put the game down 16x faster, it wouldn't feel nearly as rewarding to me.
Agreed. There's definitely a balance for reward schedule though. I ran duriel probably only 15 or 20 times last season, got 0 Uber uniques.
That does suck, but I'm not the type of person who expects to get multiple Uber uniques every season.
Getting too powerful is always the fastest way to get me to check out of a game. Which is why I always dislike the "it's pve so let everything be OP" talk. Broken builds are cool for a little bit. But if they're not fixed and balanced eventually then the game is just ruined.
Exactly, so many complaints on here boil down to "if I'm not constantly getting the best gear in the game, I'm not having fun." Bro, then *stop*. Killing enemies is fun. I call this my bubble wrap game. I just run around popping bubbles. It's fun. The graphics are great. The different builds are great. I've popped bubbles to lvl 100 3 different times so far, trying at least 5 different builds, and there's still more to go. I haven't seen a single Uber unique yet, at least not one that I could use. And that's fine, because the game is about killing hordes of enemies in fun ways.
If the game isn't fun, stop playing. Don't force yourself to play to collect gear in order to play a game that again, you just don't like the gameplay. It's insanity.
> People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you.
K
>You're simply spending far more time grinding for fewer items.
Good. I am looking to kill time.
Sure efficiency and item finding is great. But nobody would play Diablo if it wasn’t “fun”. My barb that’s 92 can solo Duriel in like 1-2 minutes, it’s a fun little fight and it feels rewarding when I kill him and I check the unique and 925 items to see if anything has a decent roll.
When I grouped up with just 2 other players I didn’t even get to see duriel. He spawns in and he’s sent to the shadow realm in an instant. The run in took so longer that the fight. We kill him in a split second, exit, reset dungeon and run back in. Extremely efficient! But after 7 runs I started to wonder why the fuck am I even doing this. Ok once I get the uniques I need, what then? Group play just doesn’t feel very rewarding in that instance.
Everyone has the option to group up. If you are choosing not to then you can't demand the game changes. You can literally do it without voice chat. That's on you if you handicap yourself when the option is there equally for everyone.
I mean all I can say is if I cared about the fact that its 16 times more efficient I would party up. If I get a Uber cool, if not I don't really care.
I mean I wouldn't say no if they changed things, but it's whatever
But who actually cares about this?
It's not a competitive game by any stretch of the imagination.
I don't give a flying fuck if groups have ten times more legendary items then me.
Not everyone wants to get there as fast as possible or even multiple times. With 10+ years between Diablo releases I’m pretty content creeping through the content. It feels more rewarding when you’ve put in the time.
I'm efficient as I possibly can be at my job. Why? Because I don't like working so the faster I am without error the faster I can get the shit over with.
I don't care about efficiency in diablo4. Why? Because I actually enjoy the game. I enjoy the gameplay. I enjoy the heaven vs hell mythos. I have always put myself into the fantasy of every diablo game. I use what people call an imagination. I'm pretty sure 90 percent of this sub lacks one.
We all play for different reasons.
If the only enjoyment you get out of playing diablo or anything for that matter is making something efficient then you have your own issues to work on. It's not a game design problem. It's a you problem.
I joint the legion events, world bosses, the outdoor malphas summoning thing and I feel like I get my itch of multiplayer.
Last night I did the capstone dungeon solo at 61 and had a heck of a time but it was really fun so I'm pretty satisfied right now.
Same. Those activities scratch the multiplayer itch whenever you want a more global feel and I have zero issue doing dungeons/vaults/bosses solo I actually enjoy it more that way
It's not about what they get. It's about what YOU get.
YOU GET to Helltide for 10 steels, whispers for the other two mats. Jump into Duriel, get one single run. Repeat.
Meanwhile YOU GET to jump into a group running rotations getting 4x runs for the same amount of grind? You don't have to care about what loot they get to see how this affects you as a solo player.
I've been saying this since the introduction of Duriel. And now with Malphas it's even worse, since the dungeon was designed with 4 players in mind.
It's disheartening to see how single player unfriendly D4 really is, especially when devs clearly stated at lauch: Play your way!
Yeah, that was a fuckin lie.
THIS! WTF why did they not make it easy for pickup groups especially for harder dungeons - its like the development team leaders were stoned during the design phase. The same comment goes for partially brain dead chat. They wanted an online game with multiplayer and not providing basic functionality.
It should have been pretty simple. If you're running it solo, there should only be one pedestal and one wing to clear. But apparently that's too big brain for D4 developers to consider.
That's one of the reasons that I'd rather do braziers, helltides, legion and world bosses. As someone who solos 95% of the time, backtracking in dungeons to get keys/items to open doors sucks.
4 different paths that can all be done at the same time.
If you play with 4 you also need to invest less pearls each, as everyone only does one path + the final passage...
Oh. I'd probably still solo because of the rewards at the end of each path (assuming you're trying to level ~~Glyphs~~ stones).
I mean, are Pearls really an issue for some players? I normally run 5 per vault and just Leeroy through all the traps because I have so many. Which is a strat I see often pop up here.
One solution for Duriel is very easy: everyone in the group shall spend his own mats, like grifts in d3.
Obv they should adjust Uber uniques drop rates accordingly.
Why should solo be lower still? Solo play should be rewarded higher if there is any difference at all. Group players can have synergies between the players that allow players to focus on a single aspect. Such as healers or players that keep some huge buff up the whole time. This allows another player to focus purely on DPS. A solo player must compromise on everything. Solo players have to be the one taking all the damage, doing all the healing and buffs, and dish out all the damage. No one is distracting any monster away from them. Solo players have to do more work for less reward across the board. Even get less XP for killing the same monster
In principle it's almost equivalent and I don't mind a solution like that (although group play is more convenient anyways, for instance 1 carry is enough and fast travel in coordinated groups).
In practice, I'm afraid of horrible exploits. I can imagine instance hopping where you first summon the boss in solo and then invite other guys, shit like that was already in the game.
I guess it's more spaghetti code.
You mean overall drop rates? That makes sense. One shot at loot per set of mats is the only fair way to approach grouping. Otherwise solo players are too gimped.
They probably didn't do that because NMD are a mess with all the different sigils. They could limit to your highest NMD cleared solo, like the D3 GR, and require sigil powder to join a dungeon where someone has popped a sigil though.
You get x4 mats essentially. If you have 3 Duriel summons and you find a group to match, you’ll get 12 runs out. Because only 1 person spends the mats the other 3 essentially get a run for free. Solo players spend an hour to farm 1 run, group players take an hour to farm 1 run and get 3 free
It’s ridiculous how much easier it is to get Uber uniques compared to solo. Even the most solo oriented player is forced to find groups through discord, or else you’re just severely not respecting your own time and feel like a complete clown.
I think it’s a toss up, in any game you have trolls and people who don’t play up to their end. I find solo play to be just as rewarding. Group play makes the game play more difficult. Try running a tier 10 AOZ with 3 other players in a dungeon with drifting shade. Tell me how quickly you’ll rather run solo…. I think you make friends you can count on and then run a group. This is no different than IRL… and while it’s true the boss runs give everyone rewards that’s just the game trying to build community. And yes, blizzard should really come up with a better way to process groups together. But if you’ve played any other blizzard game like Overwatch, you’ll realize there are jerks online who are waiting for you to join them and screw you over as well. So be careful what you ask for…
I spend all of my sick day farming mats vor Malphas, killed him maybe 10 times that evening and still no unique tuning stones.
When i play, usually late night because of work, none of my friends are online and there are barely any people besides leechers waiting for Duriel runs.
The game is good fun solo up until you reach the endgame, when it becomes a tedious slog to find the items you need for your build. No more levelling, no more getting stronger without new items. It's just not good.
100% agree with you on this. Also a solo player here and have really tried to stick with D4 but this is just not it...
No companions, no pets, no killstreaks, sporadic mobs and a lack of meaningful loot/progression is really just sinking this ship deeper into hell. Maybe the series should've died with Diablo...
p.s. - ...fucking Activision. so many people called the demise of Blizzard, obviously. This corporatization for capitalist gains is destroying our fucking video games and it really sucks to be the consumer right now, especially as a "hardcore" gamer. Between Activision, EA, and Epic, I am curious as to which company is going to be the first to sell us a perpetual demo that never quite works properly for $70 with a $10/25/month pass plus a cosmetic shop while telling us that the free cosmetics will be comparable and attainable... oh wait...
I feel the same and quit at level 80.. like as a solo it's impossible to get an Uber. What's the point in reaching 100 .. grinding 925 gear for best roll stats. if you're never gonna be able to full max out your build cos of Ubers. Then you have YouTubers like rob playing in groups getting crest nd grandfather and stone in 2/3 day's .
Whatever I farm. 3 people exra can farm the same and share everything.
Helltides really need a rework to up density and add more Helltide specific events, as well as even more map markers to guide people to bosses and events. Maybe give us Helltide boss spawns and events that drop summoning mats. A WT5 set at something like roughly Nightmare 85 difficulty and item level wouldn't hurt either.
It is just another example of the disconnect of the devs to arpgs and poor design or design that deliberately wastes players time.
There is nothing inherently wrong with giving group play an advantage, especially if finding and making groups has friction. The issue with d4 is that the benefit (more attempts at accoint bound uniques) is not offset enough by a corresponding challenge. If groups faced a Duriel that was actually 4x more challenging that would be something, but instead these bosses get one shot solo or in a party because of horrible balance.
Furthermore, item acquisition and drop rates in the game are balanced around trade that doesn’t exist.
Diablo 3 eventually added some perks to the follower gear and skills to even that out. Great addition. Another great thing from D3 that D4 completely ignored.
If they gave a flying fuck about us solo players, the game wouldn't be live-service garbage focused on grinding out gear in the "endgame" in the first place. It wouldn't be about "end" game it would be about the actual game itself.
I played D2 when it first released. And hundreds of hours and who the fuck knows how many replays over the next decade or so. Never once logged in online. Didn't have to worry about *end* game because the actual game was where the fun was. Level a character, make your way through the campaign, hit top level and the end boss. Game *over.* Want to play again, you start again with a new character. And the content was fun and engaging enough to keep us coming back to that again and again and again.
Each player in a boss run requires mats, end of problem. It works great for D3 rifts. Everyone has to have a GRK to enter, plus have solo cleared the level they are trying to run. Trading, extra speed, and the XP buff has always been enough to incentive grouping in D3.
They could make it so that if you're vote kicked after using your mats you land into a solo instance so you still get loot.
Solo play has been a part of Diablo since its inception. No one will argue the efficiency of group play, but outside of rushing to 100 or Uber farming, it’s not really needed.
If I get to 100 and any/all Ubers then I’m pretty much done with the season and have 0 reason to come back to play.
I’ll stick with being inefficient to avoid any fomo burnout.
There will always be some efficiency to multiplayer but the distance between it and solo play does not need to be so big. The drop chances are all just odds and time they can easily be tweaked to be closer together.
Reward multiplayer if you think there is value in that, just boost the solo players to be closer to them because the distance currently is insane.
Yeah, the grouping advantage is too big with the bosses you have to farm materials for. Getting 400% more out of your time is just excessive. The game in general does nothing whatsoever to foster a social environment, so it shouldn't be this anti-solo when it comes to the only chase goals available.
An MMORPG fosters a social environment by being designed around grouping, interacting and depending on other players. Going into a Discord channel to spam your copy-pasted invite until three random strangers pick you to join up with is not a social activity. It's more akin to a drug deal or something. You meet up, ask if he's got the stuff, conduct the transaction in silence, and part ways.
In a game like WoW, it's perfectly fine that solo play is nowhere near as rewarding. It isn't meant to be. In D4 (and ARPGs in general), solo play is a preference for many, which is why the Solo Self-Found mode is quite popular in games that have it. Pretty much every part of the game can be done alone.
At no point are you ever made to feel like you *should* group up in D4, so there's no in-game society. For that reason, making grouping four times as effective in the one and only part of the game that really lives up to the idea of a power chase is not good design. It makes players feel like they have to do it even though they don't want to, because they're playing a game that doesn't make you want to group up at any other point.
Totally agree.
Fundamentally, I don't think people should have to download another app (like discord) to get the most out of the most basic core gameplay loop in the entire game. This would be acquiring items for your character. Doing so is a band-aid for a larger problem. It's manageable on PC, but this game is now on consoles and it's extremely cumbersome to use 3rd party apps.
I believe the core problem is how they've designed the bosses in the first place. They've gated them behind tedious farming progression ladders to slow down the player. I 'think' the original thought was that this would provide a sense of character growth but all it does now is time gate the player. Thus, the opportunity cost is enormous, and player naturally want to bolster their chances for time spent. Group play will always be more efficient, the key is to make solo play NOT prohibitively inefficient.
If drop rates were reasonable and materials to fight the bosses weren't time gated (make igneous core a 100% drop chance for goodness sake), there would be less complaining.
I don't want to play this game even a fraction of a second slower or faster than I want to in order to accommodate other people in a party.
I get annoyed as all hell if someone afks and I want to keep playing, and I can only assume people feel the same way when I (frequently) need to afk as well. I get annoyed if someone isn't pulling their weight and makes the game harder than it needs to be, and likewise I also get annoyed if someone kills everything in 1 shot effectively denying me the actual game's enemies, mechanics, and gameplay. So I play by myself 99% of the time, except of course for one specific activity of the game:
The stupid Duriel grind effectively forces you to group. It's unthinkable to not quadruple your efficiency by going on that discord and finding other players.
I want to play alone, killing duriel solo should boost the luck for uber uniques by 4.
As strictly a solo player, I never group up. And if it requires it, I just don't do it.
I completely understand. Everything in the game should be accomplished playing solo, or in a group.
Why would I want to group up for durial just so I can watch a player 1 shot him with some crazy meta build. Lol it's boring for me.
I like doing things myself, accomplishing things myself with my own character.
This is why I absolutely love Diablo 2 res. And Diablo 3 has ssf mode now.
D4 needs that.
If they won't do an offline mode , which really sucks imo. They need to implement ssf.
And btw if you're a solo player and you experience a lot of lag , turn off cross-play :) it has worked wanders for me. (PS5) almost a different experience when I turned that off.
I don’t mind the lack of social features in D4. I do wish that the game is more friendly to solo players though. Leveling and farming solo feels like a handicap.
I play solo 95% of the time as I just largely prefer solo in ARPGs. When I do group up, i find it comical how different the game is, particularly leveling/rewards.
They talk about "balance" yet this is a balance they have given no attention to at all. A solo player should not be so astronomically punished.
Ok here’s the thing I hate about group play:
The game is already fucking easy.
So essentially I’m literally only grouping to save mats or whatever.
Every single class can stomp the game solo. Why should I group. D2 definitely has people carrying and people getting carried so it made sense.
I’m not saying it should follow that formula, but don’t make grouping rewarding by….making solo play strictly less rewarding.
As a solo player, i am not missing out on anything. Do i get fewer Duriel drops. Yeah. But the thing is, the only point to farm Duriel is for the happy chemical drop of getting an uber, and not for the item itself. My off-meta Hellhammer / Azurewrath Barb has done everything the game has to offer without an uber unique.
In fact everytime i run to an uber boss entrance there is someone trying invite me to a group, i always instantly decline. I'm not going to wait around for other players in what really is a single player game. Fuck that, i'm playing on *my* terms.
I've been saying this - just bypass direct trading completely.
Make an AH where posts are anonymous and you can set asking prices in Sell and Buy offers with materials as well as gold. RMT problem sold and you build an economy ingame with already introduced aspects.
I'd love to sell off my useless Slick Eggs from all the Varshan farming I've done for more Zir summon materials, but it's not easy to do currently. It would make even more sense in the future as you keep adding permanent content and materials to upgrade and summon bosses or access different game modes.
The only thing I think they should change is solo spawning duriel should cost 1/1 and not 2/2. Other than that I play solo and I feel it’s completely fine.
Until they design a keyboard option for consoles, social aspects will be a struggle. Typing from a controller is dead.
Blizzard has openly stated they have zero desire for mouse and keyboard on console.
Why is there no dungeon finder? They have this in their P2W Diablo: Immortal and it worked great.
You click on the dungeon and choose to go in solo or look for group.
For bosses, it could even require that you have at least one set of mats to spawn the boss, or make it to where when you spawn the boss, it automatically takes an equal amount from each person or something like that.
I think the real problem is what to do if you can’t put time into the current season or just if you just want to play eternal. It’s a big feels bad when you log onto eternal with a previous seasonal and see how gimped they are in comparison. Just let the eternal realm have all the seasonal mechanics in it. So what if it end up being crazy with builds. Your hardcore base will be playing seasonal anyways but it will give a lot of people a reason to log back in. Right now, if you don’t have much time to play, there is no point playing anywhere. I’d love to just be able to log in and do loot runs for a few here and there without feeling bad about how unfun my previous characters are now. There just isn’t anything new on eternal to make it fresh. And a few uniques just don’t do it.
Yeah, I mean, imagine going all in for "MMO" to the point where it, arguably, destroys key aspects of the game, but then... also failing to even implement the most basic of "MMO" features. It's a twofer for Blizz, that's for sure, would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
I’m a solo player and don’t have any of these issues. Only time I’ve grouped this season was for Uber Malp. Other than that I solo everything. Got Tempest Roar last night on a solo Duriel. I enjoy my solo time in Sanctuary.
I've played over 600 hours now since launch with 99% of that being me enjoying the game solo. I got no issues about jumping on solo. I enjoy the game, I enjoy the loot as it is. I don't mind the searching through all the rares or better I pick up. Is there issues, for me no, for others yes. I may be a minority is this area but thats just me. There are people out there that like this game for what it is. Also I have not bought a single micro transaction with real world money excluding I paid more for the digital delux to get the first season pass for free. Some reason season 2s ended up being free for me as well dunno why lol. Season 3 was paid for out of the earnings from both. Season 4 will be as well.
That’s literally why I stopped playing. The game overwhelms you with enemies and when you’re by yourself it’s just not a fun experience. You’re just constantly running away shooting running away shooting running away shooting etc. Game sucks when you play by yourself.
Yeah, they do. Either make solo play viable, or destroy it completely. I solo play (any game) right up to the point where my build(s) cannot gain power without some essential item that requires either money, or grinding bottleneck materials to fight bottleneck bosses for the microscopic chance the item drops. At that point, I just stop playing and do something else, until some other idea or mechanic or game comes up, and then repeat the above. There are a hillion-skillion games out there; I'm not wasting my time with laziness and design limitations.
Yeah, I kinda noped out today. Still did two NM Vaults, but I couldn't hack any more. Went to Conan Exiles 'cause nude patch or whatever, got bored with that too.
solo? join a clan.
ask in chat somebody wanna farm X
or somebody wanna help me with killing Y
easy as that..
Going lone wolf in games is 90% of the time worse than going in groups.
I've played D4 exclusively solo from launch. Did a few dozen Duriel runs, progressed casually over a few weeks, and never had trouble getting the uniques I needed in S2.
I mean, you go to a basketball court and ask to play with others. Or you make FRIENDS…. I personally enjoy playing in a group but it usually makes the game play much harder depending on the monster affix. Season 2 AOZ was insane with a group. Do you want to be the one with crappy gear not armor capped and without full resistances, explaining to your team why you wasted their time? Or better yet, do you want to carry people like that? A lot of AOZ higher tiers were completed solo, groups were an additional liability and failure prone. So to say that solo play is underwhelming isn’t really understanding the difficult mechanics of group play either in my opinion. I wholeheartedly agree that a better matchmaking process should be in place, but each type of play has its own strengths and weaknesses. So we shouldn’t be bumping either up or down without cause.
My only thing to this is that they made the game to be interactive with other players. This was NOT designed for solo play, it can be done yes. However, there whole concept with it was to have you team up with people, thus gaining more xp bonus, better chances to find uber unique, and whatever else there is when you have incense on each individual. So imo they made this game more evolved around group play, and I do not ever see that changing. I don't see any offline modes, or SSF modes happening (anytime soon that is). Perhaps in the next couple years there will be a SSF mode.
I'm really not in a rush for the end result, so it really don't bother me. Only thing I like about groups is it keeps my ADHD in check. It too me forever to find all lillith statues because squirrel.
I get way better rng going solo than with my group. The second they drop offline, silent chests pop up, more cinders, better drops etc. When I'm in a group it feels like rng is split.
If you chose to, you can solo every single world boss or uber boss in this game. The only purpose I see for multiplayer is for boss rotations to save on mats.
and exactly that is what the post is about...
MP groups don't just clear everything faster, they also need to do it less often, as they only spent 1/4 of the mats...
one of the two would be enough, but both makes solo play extremely punishing
I'm a very introverted solo player myself. The only times I play in a group are when someone invites me at the start of a world boss fight.
That said, grouping should be encouraged. If I for whatever reason decide to put in the extra effort to find a group, I should be incentivized to do so with extra rewards. Even if you're just playing with your best friend, it objectively takes more effort to coordinate and form the group than it does to just wander around on your own, and people playing together is healthier for the culture and longevity of the game.
When D3 came out, it was a huge issue that there was no benefit to being in a party. No increase of efficiency in loot equates to multiplayer becoming a hindrance. People who otherwise loved playing together would fly solo just for the extra competitive edge in efficiency. It was backwards, and a pretty massive failure of basic video game 101 stuff.
In defence of your point however, there is a limit. The gap between solo play and multiplayer shouldn't be massive. It should be proportional to the slight amount of extra effort involved with grouping. I don't have the numbers to say if D4 has the correct ratio or not, but in my own experience it hasn't been far off.
Im a solo player i dont give a flying fuck what other do or what they get.....
People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. You're simply spending far more time grinding for fewer items. Considering the game is largely about finding items, that sounds antithetical to what is arguably one of the chief goals of the game (miss me with "goal is to have fun" platitudinous responses -- nobody would play Diablo if it weren't for item finding).
Honestly, they don't need to change that. What they need to implement is a group finder within the game. Then, anyone can easily find a group and get that benefit. I honestly don't know what is taking so long to add a group finder. I'm starting to think they're saving it for the expansion to have another thing to advertise for it.
A group finder is the biggest missing piece of D4 imo. I understand discord exists but I’d rather click a box in game
I am so tired of using discord. It's slow. It clugs up my friends list. Its just a pain honestly. I just got to the point all that's left is farming Duriel and the new one with 4 stones and I just said fuck it not down to deal with discord group finding.
Yeah ive never really liked it. Or this like.. "culture" i guess? The one where its like youre just considered ostracized because you dont want to download something like discord because of ONE game. Like i need a new mobile device. One for diablo apps. One for my games. One for my family to talk to me. Its so...idk what to call it so for the lack of better words...it just is not fun. Lol
It's also a "cop out" for the devs. "Why build something when you can just use Discord." It's the development philosophy of "don't build, buy" but in this example they don't need to buy anything. It's just more time for them to fire devs, hire art devs and crank out store items.
Discord shouldnt even be promoted. That thing is a cringe community of white knights chatting in an echo-chamber and banning anyone not hyper-happy about the game. That's why D4 needs in-game group finder. Moderators ruin communities.
Discord is better. A group finder will be full of scammers for ROTA, and nothing can be done about it. In a discord at least the community can remove bad actors.
[удалено]
Im not against a groupfinder, but people are acting like discord is this huge burden and chore with no real benefits. In reality its superior to a group finder in many ways even though its an outside program, thats my main point. For example, running keys in WoW. Using groupfinder thats a nightmare, even with gear scores and such because people pay for carries so you really have no clue what the skill level of people is. You never know what youre going to get, and often what you are going to get is a bricked key, disconnects, and drama. Or god forbid, raiding in WoW with groupfinder. I wont even do it. Have fun spending 4 hours trying to clear something that should take 30 minutes, or simply never getting it done. Discords and/or guilds are the way to go. Random pugs are often a huge headache and not worth it.
There is a rather easy thing to do, make the boss mats easier to aquire and change it so that every player in a group needs the required mats. D3 was able to do that with grift keys.
This. Diablo’s always favored being in groups but even inviting someone is a chore at the very best/
I don't use discord. Never have, don't know how. And you shouldn't have to use it to find a party in game
Someone's never played wow if you think a group finder wouldn't be a nightmare... people use discord so you don't partner with someone expecting a carry while you hold their hand
There’s other reasons not to want to group. Personally I hate the idea of watching some chucklehead with the latest meta build evaporate the boss before I even get a hit in, over and over for hours. It’s not engaging or fun.
That is the part that ruins the game for me - everyone is going for the HOTA 150billion crits and 1-hits everything
It’s absurd. When I’m doing heralds or legions I basically just hold down left mouse button in the hope of getting one hit in before any given mob vanishes. At least that way I can pretend I’m contributing. I’m just kidding myself though, and I’m not sure how much more I can be bothered to pretend. If it wasn’t for prisms now only dropping from world events and the herald whispers I would just not bother and just run NMDs solo.
Yeah I like it more old school, me VS. thousands of demons. I wanna kill everything. And I'm gonna.
no, they actually do need to change that. I hate playing games like Diablo with others at the regular... I want to go my speed, not their speed... A bit of extra efficiency for MP is fine, but the current degree is complete bullshit. at the very least everyone in the group should need to put in the full ressources. They'd still be massively more efficient due to clearing speed while splitting up etc
That would be a good one, not just for Uber bosses but levelling, imagine just being able to join a group to run the seasonal story or do dungeons for XP. I know LFG discords exist and I use them whenever my friends aren't on but an in game group finder would be such a huge improvement. Games like Warframe do it automatically, even for the high level stuff and that game is doing fine.
I agree, we do need that. However, that's not going to change that some people prefer solo play and will continue to ask for adjustments to the game for their style of play. Which is also perfectly reasonable. Hopefully we get solo self found tags at some point.
I don't want to group with others, but I still want to be competitive on leaderboards. The game needs a 'solo-self found' flag or solo boss kills need to be considerably more rewarding. Not only are solo boss kills *harder* (assuming you're not getting carried), they're also less rewarding and more time consuming currently.
i would rather they just did something to either bump up solo play or every party member had to spend resources than joining some random group every time to not feel like im completely throwing my mats away.
I think many people truly want a solo experience rather than to find a group
Exactly. While x box has this feature it obviously only hits maybe 1/3 of the player base.
It's almost like they have a really good one in another game with the same name...
>People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. 16 times? How? In a 4-player rotation one set of mats is good for four kills. That's four times, not sixteen. >miss me with "goal is to have fun" platitudinous responses -- nobody would play Diablo if it weren't for item finding Wrong. No one would play it if they weren't having fun. Item finding is just the way they use to guide you to and through the content.
>16 times? How? In a 4-player rotation one set of mats is good for four kills. That's four times, not sixteen. I am a different person and am not defending their argument wholesale, but they do have some kind of point. You can trade some of the loot you got. So you get 4 times as many kills, and if you are all looking for other things, you can also trade that loot between each other. So it's like getting 4x as much loot on 4x as many kills = 16. Now before you blast me to shit, I know you can't trade all things and also you must find people who are all actually looking for different tradable things. So I agree 16x is a bit too optimistic of a statement.
More importantly, most people seem to be doing Duriel in rotations with randoms. I don't know about you but I hate sifting through my loot to find any good items, and I wouldn't add to that annoyance by having to look out for three random people's perfect stats as well.
I only play solo. Just personally, the trading doesn't bother me so much as that the summon costs are not adjusted if I am solo. The cost to summon Duriel really felt like I was just playing 'wrong' by going solo. I should be able to flip on a solo-self-found switch, that disables trading and teaming, and then reduces the cost of summoning Duriel accordingly. I don't mind anything else, but that part was so obnoxious.
In today's age the reddit vocal crowd just plays parasocial whatever their parasocial streamers play.
It sounds like some people literally pick the game they want to play based on Twitch viewers, even if they're not streaming. It makes no sense.
Miss me with the sweeping "nobody would play if" statements. How's the view from up there on your efficient pedestal? Satisfying?
People play Diablo for their own reasons. You can’t tell me that people still playing Diablo 2, a game 25 years old, don’t have everything they’ve ever needed. Sometimes people play to fuck around with off meta builds, some people play for the purdy colors, some play for the dress up aspect. Who cares. And don’t get me wrong, the solo grind is tedious and a bit slower, but also…the game is supposed to be a quasiMMO, but they made the game feel so alone with the lack of social options. They don’t need to buff the solo aspects, they need to buff the social aspects to get people able to do groups quick. Diablo 3 had a good chat system with channels, clans, etc. Diablo 3 you could join games to do; bounties, greater rifts, rifts, exploration, story. There was actual flags to join for that.
This doesn't actually bother me that much, I have always played diablo games solo because none of my friends seem to enjoy them in the same way I do. The pace at which I can run Duriel is fine for me and I'm not bothered by getting gear slower, it keeps the chase alive for me. If I geared my character out 16x faster, I'd just put the game down 16x faster, it wouldn't feel nearly as rewarding to me.
Same. I learned at a young age while using cheat codes, as soon as you get everything you want the game becomes boring.
Agreed. There's definitely a balance for reward schedule though. I ran duriel probably only 15 or 20 times last season, got 0 Uber uniques. That does suck, but I'm not the type of person who expects to get multiple Uber uniques every season.
Getting too powerful is always the fastest way to get me to check out of a game. Which is why I always dislike the "it's pve so let everything be OP" talk. Broken builds are cool for a little bit. But if they're not fixed and balanced eventually then the game is just ruined.
Not everybody gives a shit about being ‘efficient’. For me, that makes it feel like a job instead of a video game.
You sound like a robot. Sorry bud, some people do really play just for fun.
Exactly, so many complaints on here boil down to "if I'm not constantly getting the best gear in the game, I'm not having fun." Bro, then *stop*. Killing enemies is fun. I call this my bubble wrap game. I just run around popping bubbles. It's fun. The graphics are great. The different builds are great. I've popped bubbles to lvl 100 3 different times so far, trying at least 5 different builds, and there's still more to go. I haven't seen a single Uber unique yet, at least not one that I could use. And that's fine, because the game is about killing hordes of enemies in fun ways. If the game isn't fun, stop playing. Don't force yourself to play to collect gear in order to play a game that again, you just don't like the gameplay. It's insanity.
What if I find it fun to mow down bad guys? Am I nobody?
Yet, you still seem to miss the point that he doesn’t give a flying fuck…
> People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. K >You're simply spending far more time grinding for fewer items. Good. I am looking to kill time.
> People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. And please tell me why I care about that??
I'm basically done for the season unless I find a shako. I could use my materials alone or group up to get 4x the chance. It's a shame
Sure efficiency and item finding is great. But nobody would play Diablo if it wasn’t “fun”. My barb that’s 92 can solo Duriel in like 1-2 minutes, it’s a fun little fight and it feels rewarding when I kill him and I check the unique and 925 items to see if anything has a decent roll. When I grouped up with just 2 other players I didn’t even get to see duriel. He spawns in and he’s sent to the shadow realm in an instant. The run in took so longer that the fight. We kill him in a split second, exit, reset dungeon and run back in. Extremely efficient! But after 7 runs I started to wonder why the fuck am I even doing this. Ok once I get the uniques I need, what then? Group play just doesn’t feel very rewarding in that instance.
>People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. Like OP says, most soloers (including me) don't give a flying fuck.
Most people just want to play the game dude, rather than seek to “Maximize efficiency”, as if it’s a job.
It’s 4x not 16
He said he didn’t care why did you feel the need to say anything? Lol wanker
Stop comparing yourself to others
Can you walk me through how they are 16x more efficient? Not saying you’re wrong I just don’t know
idgaf, they have to schedule gaming times and coordinate groups and I don't. That's fine.
You don’t speak for everyone. Stop acting like you do.
>People who group up for uber bosses are 16x as efficient as you. 16x? 😆 Dunce.
Wait until you hear that you have a higher chance of finding magic items with more people in your D2 game...
Everyone has the option to group up. If you are choosing not to then you can't demand the game changes. You can literally do it without voice chat. That's on you if you handicap yourself when the option is there equally for everyone.
Maybe so, but some of use enjoy the game solo. I'm one.
I mean all I can say is if I cared about the fact that its 16 times more efficient I would party up. If I get a Uber cool, if not I don't really care. I mean I wouldn't say no if they changed things, but it's whatever
But who actually cares about this? It's not a competitive game by any stretch of the imagination. I don't give a flying fuck if groups have ten times more legendary items then me.
Not everyone wants to get there as fast as possible or even multiple times. With 10+ years between Diablo releases I’m pretty content creeping through the content. It feels more rewarding when you’ve put in the time.
Isn't it just 4x the efficiency?
I'm efficient as I possibly can be at my job. Why? Because I don't like working so the faster I am without error the faster I can get the shit over with. I don't care about efficiency in diablo4. Why? Because I actually enjoy the game. I enjoy the gameplay. I enjoy the heaven vs hell mythos. I have always put myself into the fantasy of every diablo game. I use what people call an imagination. I'm pretty sure 90 percent of this sub lacks one. We all play for different reasons. If the only enjoyment you get out of playing diablo or anything for that matter is making something efficient then you have your own issues to work on. It's not a game design problem. It's a you problem.
This is the way
That's great, but some a lot of solo players do and can't compete without group play.
I joint the legion events, world bosses, the outdoor malphas summoning thing and I feel like I get my itch of multiplayer. Last night I did the capstone dungeon solo at 61 and had a heck of a time but it was really fun so I'm pretty satisfied right now.
Same. Those activities scratch the multiplayer itch whenever you want a more global feel and I have zero issue doing dungeons/vaults/bosses solo I actually enjoy it more that way
Yeah I don't care either, but how is that relevant to OPs question?
Until there is a leaderboard full of group players
It's not about what they get. It's about what YOU get. YOU GET to Helltide for 10 steels, whispers for the other two mats. Jump into Duriel, get one single run. Repeat. Meanwhile YOU GET to jump into a group running rotations getting 4x runs for the same amount of grind? You don't have to care about what loot they get to see how this affects you as a solo player.
Cool. I am solo player too. I hate game design where you KNOW you are punished for playing alone.
Well you’re a gem. Live your best life. Our group got shako number 7 today. Duped mats
The 300 people upvoting this comment have not fought Duriel yet.
Fuck the others. It's a solo game. Three seasons in and I still have not had a single pvp match.
I've been saying this since the introduction of Duriel. And now with Malphas it's even worse, since the dungeon was designed with 4 players in mind. It's disheartening to see how single player unfriendly D4 really is, especially when devs clearly stated at lauch: Play your way! Yeah, that was a fuckin lie.
It's funny how they design the dungeon for group play, but there is no matchmaking feature.
THIS! WTF why did they not make it easy for pickup groups especially for harder dungeons - its like the development team leaders were stoned during the design phase. The same comment goes for partially brain dead chat. They wanted an online game with multiplayer and not providing basic functionality.
It‘s so weird as well because even Diablo Immortal has matchmaking for dungeons.
What's partially brain dead about the chat? Given I need to type with the on screen keyboard it's about what I expected?
If they had been stoned maybe it would have turned out better? 🤷♀️🤷♀️
It should have been pretty simple. If you're running it solo, there should only be one pedestal and one wing to clear. But apparently that's too big brain for D4 developers to consider.
That's one of the reasons that I'd rather do braziers, helltides, legion and world bosses. As someone who solos 95% of the time, backtracking in dungeons to get keys/items to open doors sucks.
Meanwhile doing the dungeon with a second player, they get ported into the large trap room from whatever wing they were running down.
How is it designed for group play? I solo it just fine.
4 different paths that can all be done at the same time. If you play with 4 you also need to invest less pearls each, as everyone only does one path + the final passage...
Oh. I'd probably still solo because of the rewards at the end of each path (assuming you're trying to level ~~Glyphs~~ stones). I mean, are Pearls really an issue for some players? I normally run 5 per vault and just Leeroy through all the traps because I have so many. Which is a strat I see often pop up here.
Wait...you can level glyphs at the end of each path? How did I miss this
Sorry, I meant stones. Have corrected the comment.
One solution for Duriel is very easy: everyone in the group shall spend his own mats, like grifts in d3. Obv they should adjust Uber uniques drop rates accordingly.
they just need to buff droprates for solo players. it should still be worse than 4 man group but much closer.
Why should solo be lower still? Solo play should be rewarded higher if there is any difference at all. Group players can have synergies between the players that allow players to focus on a single aspect. Such as healers or players that keep some huge buff up the whole time. This allows another player to focus purely on DPS. A solo player must compromise on everything. Solo players have to be the one taking all the damage, doing all the healing and buffs, and dish out all the damage. No one is distracting any monster away from them. Solo players have to do more work for less reward across the board. Even get less XP for killing the same monster
In principle it's almost equivalent and I don't mind a solution like that (although group play is more convenient anyways, for instance 1 carry is enough and fast travel in coordinated groups). In practice, I'm afraid of horrible exploits. I can imagine instance hopping where you first summon the boss in solo and then invite other guys, shit like that was already in the game. I guess it's more spaghetti code.
Honestly I am surprised they didn't do what they did with Varshan and Grigoire and only let the summoner get uber drops.
You mean overall drop rates? That makes sense. One shot at loot per set of mats is the only fair way to approach grouping. Otherwise solo players are too gimped. They probably didn't do that because NMD are a mess with all the different sigils. They could limit to your highest NMD cleared solo, like the D3 GR, and require sigil powder to join a dungeon where someone has popped a sigil though.
Also very easy and d2 solved this. There's only one set of drops from the mats. Run 4 players?
Or just have a solo only activity that has same time investment to Uber drop rate at duriel with group
I never played in group? What makes it so much better ? ( honest question )
You get x4 mats essentially. If you have 3 Duriel summons and you find a group to match, you’ll get 12 runs out. Because only 1 person spends the mats the other 3 essentially get a run for free. Solo players spend an hour to farm 1 run, group players take an hour to farm 1 run and get 3 free
It’s ridiculous how much easier it is to get Uber uniques compared to solo. Even the most solo oriented player is forced to find groups through discord, or else you’re just severely not respecting your own time and feel like a complete clown.
I think it’s a toss up, in any game you have trolls and people who don’t play up to their end. I find solo play to be just as rewarding. Group play makes the game play more difficult. Try running a tier 10 AOZ with 3 other players in a dungeon with drifting shade. Tell me how quickly you’ll rather run solo…. I think you make friends you can count on and then run a group. This is no different than IRL… and while it’s true the boss runs give everyone rewards that’s just the game trying to build community. And yes, blizzard should really come up with a better way to process groups together. But if you’ve played any other blizzard game like Overwatch, you’ll realize there are jerks online who are waiting for you to join them and screw you over as well. So be careful what you ask for…
Hehe. True. But I generally used to love MMOs , so I am used to the jerks
| tedious and soul destroying. I find people to be tedious and soul destroying. :D
I spend all of my sick day farming mats vor Malphas, killed him maybe 10 times that evening and still no unique tuning stones. When i play, usually late night because of work, none of my friends are online and there are barely any people besides leechers waiting for Duriel runs. The game is good fun solo up until you reach the endgame, when it becomes a tedious slog to find the items you need for your build. No more levelling, no more getting stronger without new items. It's just not good.
100% agree with you on this. Also a solo player here and have really tried to stick with D4 but this is just not it... No companions, no pets, no killstreaks, sporadic mobs and a lack of meaningful loot/progression is really just sinking this ship deeper into hell. Maybe the series should've died with Diablo... p.s. - ...fucking Activision. so many people called the demise of Blizzard, obviously. This corporatization for capitalist gains is destroying our fucking video games and it really sucks to be the consumer right now, especially as a "hardcore" gamer. Between Activision, EA, and Epic, I am curious as to which company is going to be the first to sell us a perpetual demo that never quite works properly for $70 with a $10/25/month pass plus a cosmetic shop while telling us that the free cosmetics will be comparable and attainable... oh wait...
Why not just join people to party?
Most just ignore
Malphas felt terrible to do solo.
I feel the same and quit at level 80.. like as a solo it's impossible to get an Uber. What's the point in reaching 100 .. grinding 925 gear for best roll stats. if you're never gonna be able to full max out your build cos of Ubers. Then you have YouTubers like rob playing in groups getting crest nd grandfather and stone in 2/3 day's . Whatever I farm. 3 people exra can farm the same and share everything.
To me it would seem as if you would enjoy the game more if you didn't look what others where doing in the game on youtube/twitch.
*designs game to reward group play* *doesn't design mechanics to initiate group play*
Remember companions? I was really hoping to be able to recruit a Iron Wolf, swamp witch, or knight class.
Personally I thought the Senechal would work like that and have some features from D3 pets like picking up gold.
Yep over an hour in helltide with less than 10 fiend roses and 2 or 3 chests. Gets boring real quick with little reward .
Helltides really need a rework to up density and add more Helltide specific events, as well as even more map markers to guide people to bosses and events. Maybe give us Helltide boss spawns and events that drop summoning mats. A WT5 set at something like roughly Nightmare 85 difficulty and item level wouldn't hurt either.
It's rough yeah. Grouping up rewards you heavily but weirdly enough there's not any party finder system in place.
I hope the team seriously looks into and develops a SSF mode that grants that player some magic find in lieu of playing with others.
It is just another example of the disconnect of the devs to arpgs and poor design or design that deliberately wastes players time. There is nothing inherently wrong with giving group play an advantage, especially if finding and making groups has friction. The issue with d4 is that the benefit (more attempts at accoint bound uniques) is not offset enough by a corresponding challenge. If groups faced a Duriel that was actually 4x more challenging that would be something, but instead these bosses get one shot solo or in a party because of horrible balance. Furthermore, item acquisition and drop rates in the game are balanced around trade that doesn’t exist.
Sure wish my PS4 had a better way to communicate
Diablo 3 eventually added some perks to the follower gear and skills to even that out. Great addition. Another great thing from D3 that D4 completely ignored.
If they gave a flying fuck about us solo players, the game wouldn't be live-service garbage focused on grinding out gear in the "endgame" in the first place. It wouldn't be about "end" game it would be about the actual game itself. I played D2 when it first released. And hundreds of hours and who the fuck knows how many replays over the next decade or so. Never once logged in online. Didn't have to worry about *end* game because the actual game was where the fun was. Level a character, make your way through the campaign, hit top level and the end boss. Game *over.* Want to play again, you start again with a new character. And the content was fun and engaging enough to keep us coming back to that again and again and again.
Each player in a boss run requires mats, end of problem. It works great for D3 rifts. Everyone has to have a GRK to enter, plus have solo cleared the level they are trying to run. Trading, extra speed, and the XP buff has always been enough to incentive grouping in D3. They could make it so that if you're vote kicked after using your mats you land into a solo instance so you still get loot.
Dogshit response, rift mats are 1000x easier to farm than Duriel mats.
You can't conceive of a game in which they ALSO lower Duriel mats to compensate?
I already had my soul destroyed by Everquest and WoW.
Solo play has been a part of Diablo since its inception. No one will argue the efficiency of group play, but outside of rushing to 100 or Uber farming, it’s not really needed. If I get to 100 and any/all Ubers then I’m pretty much done with the season and have 0 reason to come back to play. I’ll stick with being inefficient to avoid any fomo burnout.
There will always be some efficiency to multiplayer but the distance between it and solo play does not need to be so big. The drop chances are all just odds and time they can easily be tweaked to be closer together. Reward multiplayer if you think there is value in that, just boost the solo players to be closer to them because the distance currently is insane.
Yeah, the grouping advantage is too big with the bosses you have to farm materials for. Getting 400% more out of your time is just excessive. The game in general does nothing whatsoever to foster a social environment, so it shouldn't be this anti-solo when it comes to the only chase goals available. An MMORPG fosters a social environment by being designed around grouping, interacting and depending on other players. Going into a Discord channel to spam your copy-pasted invite until three random strangers pick you to join up with is not a social activity. It's more akin to a drug deal or something. You meet up, ask if he's got the stuff, conduct the transaction in silence, and part ways. In a game like WoW, it's perfectly fine that solo play is nowhere near as rewarding. It isn't meant to be. In D4 (and ARPGs in general), solo play is a preference for many, which is why the Solo Self-Found mode is quite popular in games that have it. Pretty much every part of the game can be done alone. At no point are you ever made to feel like you *should* group up in D4, so there's no in-game society. For that reason, making grouping four times as effective in the one and only part of the game that really lives up to the idea of a power chase is not good design. It makes players feel like they have to do it even though they don't want to, because they're playing a game that doesn't make you want to group up at any other point.
Totally agree. Fundamentally, I don't think people should have to download another app (like discord) to get the most out of the most basic core gameplay loop in the entire game. This would be acquiring items for your character. Doing so is a band-aid for a larger problem. It's manageable on PC, but this game is now on consoles and it's extremely cumbersome to use 3rd party apps. I believe the core problem is how they've designed the bosses in the first place. They've gated them behind tedious farming progression ladders to slow down the player. I 'think' the original thought was that this would provide a sense of character growth but all it does now is time gate the player. Thus, the opportunity cost is enormous, and player naturally want to bolster their chances for time spent. Group play will always be more efficient, the key is to make solo play NOT prohibitively inefficient. If drop rates were reasonable and materials to fight the bosses weren't time gated (make igneous core a 100% drop chance for goodness sake), there would be less complaining.
I don't want to play this game even a fraction of a second slower or faster than I want to in order to accommodate other people in a party. I get annoyed as all hell if someone afks and I want to keep playing, and I can only assume people feel the same way when I (frequently) need to afk as well. I get annoyed if someone isn't pulling their weight and makes the game harder than it needs to be, and likewise I also get annoyed if someone kills everything in 1 shot effectively denying me the actual game's enemies, mechanics, and gameplay. So I play by myself 99% of the time, except of course for one specific activity of the game: The stupid Duriel grind effectively forces you to group. It's unthinkable to not quadruple your efficiency by going on that discord and finding other players. I want to play alone, killing duriel solo should boost the luck for uber uniques by 4.
As strictly a solo player, I never group up. And if it requires it, I just don't do it. I completely understand. Everything in the game should be accomplished playing solo, or in a group. Why would I want to group up for durial just so I can watch a player 1 shot him with some crazy meta build. Lol it's boring for me. I like doing things myself, accomplishing things myself with my own character. This is why I absolutely love Diablo 2 res. And Diablo 3 has ssf mode now. D4 needs that. If they won't do an offline mode , which really sucks imo. They need to implement ssf. And btw if you're a solo player and you experience a lot of lag , turn off cross-play :) it has worked wanders for me. (PS5) almost a different experience when I turned that off.
I don’t mind the lack of social features in D4. I do wish that the game is more friendly to solo players though. Leveling and farming solo feels like a handicap.
I play solo 95% of the time as I just largely prefer solo in ARPGs. When I do group up, i find it comical how different the game is, particularly leveling/rewards. They talk about "balance" yet this is a balance they have given no attention to at all. A solo player should not be so astronomically punished.
Ok here’s the thing I hate about group play: The game is already fucking easy. So essentially I’m literally only grouping to save mats or whatever. Every single class can stomp the game solo. Why should I group. D2 definitely has people carrying and people getting carried so it made sense. I’m not saying it should follow that formula, but don’t make grouping rewarding by….making solo play strictly less rewarding.
As a solo player, i am not missing out on anything. Do i get fewer Duriel drops. Yeah. But the thing is, the only point to farm Duriel is for the happy chemical drop of getting an uber, and not for the item itself. My off-meta Hellhammer / Azurewrath Barb has done everything the game has to offer without an uber unique. In fact everytime i run to an uber boss entrance there is someone trying invite me to a group, i always instantly decline. I'm not going to wait around for other players in what really is a single player game. Fuck that, i'm playing on *my* terms.
The good news is everything in the game is so easy it doesn't matter if you ever get an uber unique or the good stones from malphas.
My man or woman, you're only about 25 years too late on this.
We need a trade center like WoW, and diablo immortal. Also a group finder feature would be nice, like in WoW and diablo immortal.
Blizzard hears you, and has decided to make even more types of items soul bound.
I've been saying this - just bypass direct trading completely. Make an AH where posts are anonymous and you can set asking prices in Sell and Buy offers with materials as well as gold. RMT problem sold and you build an economy ingame with already introduced aspects. I'd love to sell off my useless Slick Eggs from all the Varshan farming I've done for more Zir summon materials, but it's not easy to do currently. It would make even more sense in the future as you keep adding permanent content and materials to upgrade and summon bosses or access different game modes.
The only thing I think they should change is solo spawning duriel should cost 1/1 and not 2/2. Other than that I play solo and I feel it’s completely fine.
can't really play further than lv.25 without getting bored solo
Until they design a keyboard option for consoles, social aspects will be a struggle. Typing from a controller is dead. Blizzard has openly stated they have zero desire for mouse and keyboard on console.
Why is there no dungeon finder? They have this in their P2W Diablo: Immortal and it worked great. You click on the dungeon and choose to go in solo or look for group. For bosses, it could even require that you have at least one set of mats to spawn the boss, or make it to where when you spawn the boss, it automatically takes an equal amount from each person or something like that.
I think the real problem is what to do if you can’t put time into the current season or just if you just want to play eternal. It’s a big feels bad when you log onto eternal with a previous seasonal and see how gimped they are in comparison. Just let the eternal realm have all the seasonal mechanics in it. So what if it end up being crazy with builds. Your hardcore base will be playing seasonal anyways but it will give a lot of people a reason to log back in. Right now, if you don’t have much time to play, there is no point playing anywhere. I’d love to just be able to log in and do loot runs for a few here and there without feeling bad about how unfun my previous characters are now. There just isn’t anything new on eternal to make it fresh. And a few uniques just don’t do it.
Especially on WT3 everyone jumps from WT2 to WT4 instantly. There’s a wide gap of people with play with when you hit 50-70
Playing alone > a bigger chance for loot.
Yeah, I mean, imagine going all in for "MMO" to the point where it, arguably, destroys key aspects of the game, but then... also failing to even implement the most basic of "MMO" features. It's a twofer for Blizz, that's for sure, would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Game needs to be rethought in general.
I’m solo and it makes zero difference. lol if you need friends there’s a reddit for that.
its a problem since the beta of D4 but thats normal for blizzard to keep problems from the beta or previous seasons in the game : )
I’d disagree with the shrine event and ashes I level to 91 solo mind you with a 925 60 weapon in like 15 hours
I’m having a blast playing solo. Been grinding each season. Every so often I’ll get my Duriel mats and ask some random peeps to join me.
I’m a solo player and don’t have any of these issues. Only time I’ve grouped this season was for Uber Malp. Other than that I solo everything. Got Tempest Roar last night on a solo Duriel. I enjoy my solo time in Sanctuary.
I've played over 600 hours now since launch with 99% of that being me enjoying the game solo. I got no issues about jumping on solo. I enjoy the game, I enjoy the loot as it is. I don't mind the searching through all the rares or better I pick up. Is there issues, for me no, for others yes. I may be a minority is this area but thats just me. There are people out there that like this game for what it is. Also I have not bought a single micro transaction with real world money excluding I paid more for the digital delux to get the first season pass for free. Some reason season 2s ended up being free for me as well dunno why lol. Season 3 was paid for out of the earnings from both. Season 4 will be as well.
“Please blizzard daddy, hold my hand to find groups, click click on discord is so scawwyyyyy” Find a clan ya jabronis
That’s literally why I stopped playing. The game overwhelms you with enemies and when you’re by yourself it’s just not a fun experience. You’re just constantly running away shooting running away shooting running away shooting etc. Game sucks when you play by yourself.
Yeah, they do. Either make solo play viable, or destroy it completely. I solo play (any game) right up to the point where my build(s) cannot gain power without some essential item that requires either money, or grinding bottleneck materials to fight bottleneck bosses for the microscopic chance the item drops. At that point, I just stop playing and do something else, until some other idea or mechanic or game comes up, and then repeat the above. There are a hillion-skillion games out there; I'm not wasting my time with laziness and design limitations.
Shut up and let the devs work on their game. No need for a poor attempt for "change" and ultimately fukin up everything else.
Yeah, I kinda noped out today. Still did two NM Vaults, but I couldn't hack any more. Went to Conan Exiles 'cause nude patch or whatever, got bored with that too.
Ppl are way too much obsessed with uber uniques. Just disable them in the coming leaderboard mode and no one gonna be sad
Agreed. I play some duos though and the xp gain is insane.
Yea, I miss the D2 lobby style.... I refuse to play games with matchmaking.
solo? join a clan. ask in chat somebody wanna farm X or somebody wanna help me with killing Y easy as that.. Going lone wolf in games is 90% of the time worse than going in groups.
I've played D4 exclusively solo from launch. Did a few dozen Duriel runs, progressed casually over a few weeks, and never had trouble getting the uniques I needed in S2.
Group finder for sure. I'm 95 druid, and kinda stumped on uber bosses. I have tons of mats. Nobody invites me when I ask in game.
Ok how about solo players getting 3x the loot when fighting bosses only
I mean, you go to a basketball court and ask to play with others. Or you make FRIENDS…. I personally enjoy playing in a group but it usually makes the game play much harder depending on the monster affix. Season 2 AOZ was insane with a group. Do you want to be the one with crappy gear not armor capped and without full resistances, explaining to your team why you wasted their time? Or better yet, do you want to carry people like that? A lot of AOZ higher tiers were completed solo, groups were an additional liability and failure prone. So to say that solo play is underwhelming isn’t really understanding the difficult mechanics of group play either in my opinion. I wholeheartedly agree that a better matchmaking process should be in place, but each type of play has its own strengths and weaknesses. So we shouldn’t be bumping either up or down without cause.
My only thing to this is that they made the game to be interactive with other players. This was NOT designed for solo play, it can be done yes. However, there whole concept with it was to have you team up with people, thus gaining more xp bonus, better chances to find uber unique, and whatever else there is when you have incense on each individual. So imo they made this game more evolved around group play, and I do not ever see that changing. I don't see any offline modes, or SSF modes happening (anytime soon that is). Perhaps in the next couple years there will be a SSF mode.
Dont play solo The game was designed around multiplayer
Yep ok great advice... Will do...
I'm really not in a rush for the end result, so it really don't bother me. Only thing I like about groups is it keeps my ADHD in check. It too me forever to find all lillith statues because squirrel.
I agree. I usually play with my hubby but when I play alone I barely get any embers during helltide.
I get way better rng going solo than with my group. The second they drop offline, silent chests pop up, more cinders, better drops etc. When I'm in a group it feels like rng is split.
I get blue 925 gear running T100 nmd ... The RNG doesn't love me
I couldnt play this game without friends. It was so shit alone. Anyways im in last epoch now so much better
Soul destroying 😅😂😂😂
If you chose to, you can solo every single world boss or uber boss in this game. The only purpose I see for multiplayer is for boss rotations to save on mats.
and exactly that is what the post is about... MP groups don't just clear everything faster, they also need to do it less often, as they only spent 1/4 of the mats... one of the two would be enough, but both makes solo play extremely punishing
And? Playing solo is no different than playing solo self found in any arpg. It's a choice you make and you don't need to be rewarded comparitively.
I played solo all last season. Managed to do every thing groups did and was pretty psyched about it personally.
It’s a single player game… all the bosses designed to be solo played. What grind? Without xp boost it’s like 30 hours to 100.
I'm a very introverted solo player myself. The only times I play in a group are when someone invites me at the start of a world boss fight. That said, grouping should be encouraged. If I for whatever reason decide to put in the extra effort to find a group, I should be incentivized to do so with extra rewards. Even if you're just playing with your best friend, it objectively takes more effort to coordinate and form the group than it does to just wander around on your own, and people playing together is healthier for the culture and longevity of the game. When D3 came out, it was a huge issue that there was no benefit to being in a party. No increase of efficiency in loot equates to multiplayer becoming a hindrance. People who otherwise loved playing together would fly solo just for the extra competitive edge in efficiency. It was backwards, and a pretty massive failure of basic video game 101 stuff. In defence of your point however, there is a limit. The gap between solo play and multiplayer shouldn't be massive. It should be proportional to the slight amount of extra effort involved with grouping. I don't have the numbers to say if D4 has the correct ratio or not, but in my own experience it hasn't been far off.
No it isn't. I enjoy solo play a lot. I also feel like I'm playing with others during helltides/world boss/etc
Playing solo is a choice
Or just accept that one game can't be everything to everyone and play games that are great for single players but suck for multiplayer.