How to Fix Multiplayer - End Game (Buff Loot With the Common Sense Approach!)

This will be my best attempt to provide clear and concise feedback without a rant—or, at minimum, feedback first, rant later.

No, this is not a one-portal death or visibility post.

Problem: The game incentivizes single-player play versus multi-play in the end game.

Why: End-game activities (maps, league mechanics, pinnacle content) reward the same quantity of end-game drops as solo play (breach/delirium splinters, same ritual alter, distilled emotions, log books, etc..) regardless of solo play or not. Going from a solo to a duo DOES NOT double your clear speeds to make up for the identical rewards as solo play.

Solution: End-game and interactable items should be unique to each player in the party. Breach/delirium splinters, distilled emotions, ritual alters, and expedition drops should be unique to each player in the party.

Explanation:

- Breach Maps / Delirious Maps: Currently, when playing in a party on a league mechanic like a breach or with a distilled way stone trying to collect splinters in a party, only two things come to my mind. 1 - When I am the host, and I am picking up all the splinters, I think to myself, "What a waste of my buddy's time; it'd be WAY more efficient if we just played separately so we could collect twice as many splinters. 2 - When I am not the host and my friend is picking everything up I think to myself "Why am I just not playing solo so I can collect splinters too and progress towards my next simulacrum or breach stone.

- Delirium maps: You don't get twice the amount of distilled emotions with two people, and a party of 2 does not mean you clear a map twice as efficiently and double your emotions drop. Each person should get their own emotions to drop. Once again, every time I play a delirium map in a group, I think to myself, "I should just be doing this solo; this is a waste of my time doing it in a group.

- Ritual: Once again... same song and dance; why would you play one map with two people to get one chance at an audience with the king or a good omen when you could independently play two maps separately from each other, doubling the likelihood of seeing an audience with the king.

- The loop: 2 players go into a map; let's say it is a breach, a delirious waystone, with a ritual... you clear the map. While clearing it, simulacrum splinters are dropping. Together, you receive a total of 9 on the map when you could have received 18 doing 2 separate maps. When you find the breach, you activate it. Each goes in separate directions and obtains a total of 11 breach splinters, maybe 1 or 2 more than you would have a solo. Upon clearing all the rituals, the instance owner checks. There is no audience, re-rolls, no audience again; neither player wants anything. You both wonder if we should play separately. How quickly would we find an audience if he was running rituals simultaneously with me running my own maps? Even if we are running them together... what happens when we see one? What if ingenuity drops from the one audience we find after many hours of playing together? How do we determine who gets the belt we both want? Speaking of that... once we build up enough for a breachstone or simulacrum, who gets to run it and get the atlas points? We were running maps together, but technically, I was the instance owner most of the time. Should I be the one getting the credit first? Why are we even playing together if there is only a benefit for one person??

Bottom line:
- Double drop rates of end game materials and making them unique to each party member would not negatively impact the economy significantly. It would be the equivalent of each person playing solo. Currently the end game systems disincentive group play. Although I do not wish the group to be stronger than solo, there is a nagging on the back of your mind when in group play that EVERYTHING would be so much more efficient solo... and you are constantly asking yourself why you are playing with your friend (that you'd like to play games with) when you could be having less fun without them but be more twice as efficient.

The lack of friendliness and efficiency in group play is going to drive people who enjoy playing games with their friends away.