POE2: Multiplayer Balance Concerns - Party Play Feels More Punishing Than Rewarding
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The current state of multiplayer balance in Path of Exile 2 creates significant issues that discourage cooperative play, particularly in duo scenarios. Based on extensive testing, multiplayer feels fundamentally unrewarding compared to the solo experience, which runs counter to PoE 1's successful implementation of party play.
The core issues stem from overtuned scaling in multiplayer: When playing in a duo, monster health and resistances appear to scale multiplicatively, effectively quadrupling their effective HP. While player damage output theoretically doubles with two players, the massive defensive scaling of monsters creates a severe time-to-kill disparity. This makes combat feel significantly more sluggish and less satisfying than in solo play. The reward structure compounds these issues. Despite facing much tougher enemies, loot drops in multiplayer are disproportionately low compared to solo play. This creates a double penalty - players face harder content while receiving fewer rewards. The natural expectation would be that overcoming tougher challenges as a team should yield appropriate compensation. This represents a concerning departure from Path of Exile 1, where duo play was smooth and rewarding. Currently, the optimal strategy is for players to run content separately rather than together, which undermines the social and cooperative aspects that made the original game so engaging. Suggested improvements: -Reconsider the multiplicative scaling of monster defenses to bring time-to-kill more in line with solo play -Implement better reward scaling to ensure multiplayer feels appropriately rewarding -Look to PoE 1's multiplayer balance as a reference point for successful implementation The single-player experience demonstrates that the core combat balance is solid. These multiplayer issues appear to be primarily tied to scaling factors rather than fundamental gameplay problems. Addressing these specific concerns would help restore the cooperative experience that many players enjoyed in the original game. Zuletzt angestoßen am 14.02.2025, 06:19:55
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+1
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Exactly . we noticed the same . multiplayer needs balancing . also the players colliding is annoying as hell
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" Yea, that problem made me start hating on quarterstaff user. They keep pushing people into mobs like they wanted to kill/troll us. Zuletzt bearbeitet von Thaynime#8492 um 13.02.2025, 17:08:03
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" Soooo true. Me and my brother live countries apart and he was a POE1 player which I never got into. Since I'm playing POE2 I offered him the game so we could play together however is very bad to coop for all the reasons you mentioned. a boss I kill in 5min on my own becomes 20 min in coop, if we manage, and same rewards. therefore when we can play together we go play something else. Definitely not ideal neither for us, other coop players or POE2. Hopefully will be rebalanced. |
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Group play is actually perhaps too overpowered compared to single player when it comes to drops. The more people in a group, the more drops there are. They should instead increase the drop rate in single player.
It’s important to create a well-designed tower zone (and this is the big problem with this game’s endgame — creating one is excruciatingly boring) and to set up the Atlas skill tree in a specific way. Obviously, to get good drops you have to invest properly; don't expect to start a random T15 map and find Divine currency dropping abundantly inside. |
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" While some ppl think that group play needs to be buffed, I have bad news for you, at least regarding "difficulty" and "loot". With a likeliness of 99% - there will be no group play buffs. It can be that GGG changes some QoL things, like "phasing through party members" and other stuff that does not affect the direct power/difficulty, but that's unknown atm. What we already know, not only from PoE1 but from PoE2, group play is busted. In a group, you are able to farm content and do stuff, that most solo players cannot do, period. Sure, not every single group out there is like the party from "Empyrian", but many are, they are just not streaming most of the time. The reward scaling will not be improved for group play, it's already strong enough. That less experienced groups are not there now is not a scaling issue and a buff to it would break the top-end. The same goes for "time to kill", a nerf to monster health/defences makes it even easier and faster for these groups and would put solo play at an even bigger disadvantage. The problem is, while weaker groups feel, well... weak, any buff made to group play would basically push any strong group beyond broken. The only thing you probably can do is recommend QoL stuff that's not connected to in-game power/speed/loot/etc. |
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" the way I understood is the increase of difficulty (e.g.) four times fold being way too much to the increase of drops not even double. Personally I feel that way. But I'm not doing T15 maps yet.. so maybe I just need to experience the game a bit more to see. but as of right now where I'm at, is not worth to play in coop. And if is worth later on, the fact that earlier on is really bad will make lots of players simply not even try coop again after a bad early experience with it. |
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Meanwhile people grouping 6 people with 1 aurabot with absurd %900 MF, buffing all allies and having several astramentis in a day.
U guys find it weak cuz u guys have no setup. Group play is absurdly unfair and strong actually. Zuletzt bearbeitet von ekader1#7483 um 13.02.2025, 18:15:14
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Group play should be balanced around the average casual player with some small bonuses for group teams pushing limits.
So 2 buddies playing together should have fun and maybe its even a tad easier than solo with slightly more drops. 6 players together should see a boost but not divines and uber rare uniques dropping like candy. |
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