At some point, sure. But players also quit if they get gear too slowly, and getting gear at a good pace can encourage experimentation with new characters and builds. Would split mono farming move the needle close enough to the breaking point, for enough players, that it must be prevented? Just because coordinated rotations can be done doesn’t mean most players actually do them, after all.
And that’s the question. Is split mono farming a real problem, and if so, on what basis? It feels to me like there isn’t any investigation into that being done here. It’s just taken as true - Advantage = Bad.
It is not that any form of advantage for MP is bad, but it is a matter of degrees.
Partying up needs to always be at better than as playing solo. Otherwise players will feel punished for wanting to play with their friends, which would be very bad.
Arguably, party play actually needs to always be quite a bit better than solo play, to compensate for the effort and logistics associated with playing with another human being.
Then, if party play needs to be better than playing solo, what matters is by how much.
Ideally, it should be such that If some of your friends are online, it is nice and beneficial to join them, however it would not be worth it to look for some stranger to play unless you are feeling very social.
What people are concerned about is that party play ends up being so beneficial that, in terms of efficiency, it does not make sense to do anything else than partying.
As an extreme example, say for instance that party play is 10 times more effective than solo play, and doing so does not require specific builds or complex coordination.
Then, it is always worth to aggressively look for a group. Even if you ended up spending half of your play session looking for a group it would still be beneficial for the enormous benefit it provides. This obviously would be a very unpleasant way of playing the game.
In POE a similar version of this happened with TFT, which was a discord server for trading, which allowed for huge economical benefits, but also significantly disrupted the gameplay loop.
The most optimal way of playing involved using it, but is was also very boring and time-consuming to do so. And people complained about it a lot despite the fact that nobody forced them to use it in the first place.
Many players are optimizers in nature (especially in this genre) so they will naturally gravitate towards what they perceive to be the most optimal play.
I know for a fact that these kind of players exist because that is how I personally play. If I perceive a certain strategy to significantly dominate the others I would most likely either employ it myself if I enjoy it (or at least tolerate it), or significantly reduce my playtime if I don’t.
You are complaining about an aspect of human behavior that has been present since the dawn of time. It is normal. It may not always be healthy (like eating too much), but it is normal.
Who was it that was arguing that the speed of gear acquisition was irrelevant or some such?
It is, its faster, safer and with in-party trading, can have drop rates up to x4 (ish) even without any MF modifiers for mp.
People often think things are zero sum games when they aren’t, just look at all the threads “warning” EHG about the perceived perils of LE 1.0 landing around the same timeframe as D4 and PoE “2”. This is probably also evolutionary behaviour, if 2 hunter-gatherers from different tribes were “hunter-gathering” in the same are at the same time, they both wouldn’t be able to gather the same food as each other, one would get it and the other would go hungry.
I’m wondering how that is better/worse than players feeling punished for not wanting to play in groups…remember, we’re not talking about MMORPGs here. There is no inherent requirement within the genre for group play, and many people purposely pick ARPs over MMORPGs just for that reason.
It feels like you are aguing against a point that I am not making. Players feeling pushed for not wanting to play in a party is just as bad, however I was clarifying that in my opinion party play should still be more rewarding.
In an ideal world the reward structure should be such that players will not feel forced to play either modes.
So players that are adverse to party play should not feel like they are missing out on the game proper by not engaging in that form of play.
On the other hand party play should be at least a bit more rewarding than normal play to compensate for its logistical difficulties.
When you are playing with another human being it is very easy to waste a little bit of time here and there, sometimes people wander off, sometimes they want to craft something, etc.
Party coordination is a skill that can (and IMO should) be rewarded.
There is also the fact that the designers of the game can use rewards to push towards what they believe to be a more enjoyable style of play.
If EHG were to believe that party play is the superior version of the game, they could use rewards to make players more inclined to try it.
There is a sweet-spot in how rewarding something is such that you don’t feel forced to do it, but it is also worthwile to do if you happen to be in the mood for it.
Reiterating my previous point:
From your post it almost seems that you don’t believe that there could be a balance in the rewards such that party play is beneficial but not mandatory.
Party play already has inherent benefits. For people who have some necessity to interact with other people, they have someone to talk to. You have class/skill synergies that happen, simply for being in a group.
But I’m not sure why you feel that:
Partying up needs to always be at better than as playing solo.
Partying doesn’t need to be better, it just has to be a viable alternative playstyle.
I agree with that statement. But we’re looking at a hypothetical where nobody actually knows what the degree is (because just calling it N times greater, where N is number of party members would be very wrong), and automatically pushing back on it anyway. That seems to me like it’s not actually about the degree, but the perception of advantage. Does it not?
How much have you considered the possibility that people who are concerned with efficiency in a video game to their own detriment and inability to have fun have an unhealthy relationship with video games?
I mean this genuinely and not as a dig - That sounds like a very sad and unpleasant way to engage with something that’s supposed to be a fun passtime.
Emphasis mine.
This sounds like you’re agreeing with the idea that it is not necessarily a valid concern when other players are able to gain an advantage through coordinated cooperation.
Probably. But you’re not going to get me on board with the argument that food and Last Epoch items are in any way comparable enough for that to be relevant to what we’re talking about.
What claims? That they exist? That we shouldn’t judge them for behaviors they can’t control or evaluate them by the same standards as neurotypicals? “There is a wide range of neuro-divergent conditions, some of which can cause compulsive behavior” is not a statement that requires “professional qualifications or statistics” to make. Any reason you found to be offended by a simple acknowledgement of existence is one you made up in your head. And I think we both know that if I hadn’t acknowledged it, you would instead be accusing me being an ableist through omission.
Cool! So am I. That makes me an authority on every type of neuro-divergence and how they manifest themselves, right? Just like it makes you one, apparently, right?
That’s just the same argument on a different side of the coin. If multiplayer is too much better than solo, “everyone” will feel compelled to use multiplayer because they can’t keep up otherwise. If multiplayer isn’t better than solo, “everyone” will just play solo because there’s no reason to go through the additional work of finding groups.
These are not my arguments, but they’re arguments that are being made.
I completely agree. Neither style should require any carrot to play, other than personal preference. Otherwise, the other will be marginalized, by default.
I just feel here are already enough, built-in, advantages to group play, that I don’t see it needing any other boost(s). If anything, modes like “masochist” and “self-found solo” play need them… but even then, that would take away from the spirit of those modes.
Hello everyone! I just wanted to drop in with a few words. We appreciate the community having discussions such as these, and we of course do pay attention to them for general feedback and sentiment from the community, however we do want to keep it constructive and civil. So please try to stay away from attacking players providing opinions, and rather debate the points themselves (ie. ad hominem fallacy attacks).
To provide some context from our view: The realm of multiplayer is a constantly evolving scene. Not only are we planning for a long life cycle for Last Epoch with many years of content which will keep changing the landscape, but we constantly keep a close eye and adapt things to a healthy balance with community perception. When Multiplayer releases, we acknowledge that there will be all sorts of different team combos and strategies emerging which can change the power balance. We will be keeping a close eye on this and making sure we adjust as necessary. To set reasonable expectations, we don’t expect 0.9.0 to be able to immediately release with the desired balance due to the community’s ability to find all sorts of crazy little tricks ( you guys are amazing at this )
For the intended balance of multiplayer, it is our goal that a coordinated multiplayer group will be very similar to solo but if one has to be more efficient then we plan to lean a little to the coordinated group - but we’ll be again keeping a close eye on the gap. Our primary intention is for Last Epoch to be a fun game, rather than a competitive game - and mechanics are designed to reflect this. Of course ‘fun’ is highly objective, but we will prioritize “fun” over “fair”, while trying our best to prioritize it being both.
Thanks for the input. I will definitely concede that MP will, by its nature alone, be more efficient. I think my concern is how some games also add additional carrots to entice people to group up – enhanced drop rates, improved drop quality, increased xp, etc. (think D3’s Gold Find/XP bonuses).
Drops are instanced - every player gets, and only sees their own loot. This is not changing for multiplayer, and again we’ll be keeping a close eye on any sort of mechanics the community finds to greatly change the balance of loot in multiplayer.
Experience is also individual: xp is not provided to the group and split, it’s provided directly to the players, the xp is the same solo or in multiplayer. It also follows the same mechanics for xp curve as solo (eg. Being level 5 in a level 20 area will only grant xp as if getting it from level 10 mobs). Again, certain strategies may allow for efficiency differences, but we’ll always be keeping an eye on it.
We are not planning on any content to be only available to multiplayer.
In order for 3 to occur, that means trading can be between anyone or there is no trading. As party only trade would provide benefits to MP only. Since we know there is trading then it becomes complicated as they don’t want people to need a third party tool for anything in the game. And they don’t want to make an Auction House.
D3’s issue is that there is massive benefit to paragon farming in groups and so I certainly want any parallel progression systems, at the level cap, to not have an advantage in MP. Although the existence of SSF ladders, which D3 unfortunately doesn’t have, can alleviate that to a certain extent.
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