Remove the Party Experience Bonus!

[Dark Luke]

Well the party experience is necessary in order to make people be willing to join parties, but +35% per member is way too much.

In Ragnarok Online, parties offer 2 different ways of sharing exp:
Each Take = a.k.a. no exp sharing, but exp gains depend on how much damage dealt to monster (this will share between 2 or more non-partied players damaging the monster)
Each Share = simliar to our current 1.08-&-later exp sharing system, but it's +10% per party member.

I think Diablo 2 can change the system to either one of these, but if option 1 is chosen then the paladin need some thing to be able to gain exp by giving party member bonuses.

[Kevin]

I have to comment on your 1.10 is moving back the classic atmosphere and a few other things. Others, especially Occhidiangela have echoed my feelings quite well but didn't seem to touch on some other things.

I don't see the idea of them going for more of a classic feel, though as I will touch on later, some of the style you enjoy seems to be back. If that were true, there would not have been new runewords, there would not have been new uniques, there would not have been unique charms for certain. There would not have been synergies.

All of those changes made characters more powerful, which can negate a lot of the harder monsters (I've been doing some testing with this). I don't see how any of those changes point to Blizzard trying to make it feel more like classic. I would like to see how they do.

Classic had no elite items, only exceptionals. No exceptional uniques either. Hell was simply harder with out new rewards. Now they give you new candy. 1.10 to me points to Blizzard wanting to provide more candy for players, it makes me think they are aiming even more at the collector type player, which is no where near the play style you want. It's a new evolution entirely, it is feel that the game has never had before. I think they were aiming for this, something new, not something old. (Actually 1.10 feels like a single Blizzard programmers mod, but since he worked for Blizzard he got to make his mod official, or at least parts of it)

I see your point that your play style was mostly shafted, but I don't think Blizzard ever intended for that play style to happen. Considering just about every patch seemed to try and get away from that style of play. I don't see this patch turning that trend at all.

I personally didn't like playing solo, even with the minor competitve aspect (which wasn't much because very few people challenged your 'right' to an area from my experience with it). If I wanted to play solo I would have played single player. Blizzard even lets you play single player in players 8 now. Most of the solo play was for people who wanted to level faster, most of them (none that I personally knew who were on the ladder) enjoyed having to do that either, they didn't like your competitive aspect at all, they didn't want to have to claim an area, they just wanted experience and since partying provided a penalty it was not an option. I would be willing to bet that if you allowed the players X command on B.net, that most of the ladder players would be in a game by themselves with it set to players 8 even with the party bonus. I doubt they would join open games with more people for the 'competitive aspect' if there was a party penalty. I could be wrong, we won't know, but I bet that is how it would go from talking with the people I know who cared about the ladder. Heck some of them even said that they would do just that, party bonus or no, they just want the extra exp for more players in the game. While this isn't directly related to the environment you want, it seems to point to that environment being there for reasons other than you believe. I just think you vastly overestimate the number of players who like your play style. Though I can't really produce hard evidence for it any better than you can produce evidence that the environment existed because people enjoyed it and not as a by product of other factors that people didn't enjoy, but had to live with to play for the goal they.

As for the party experience bonus. Yeah, you can get rid of it, but you don't have to bring back the penalty it used to have. When the experience was cut to 75% and then multiplied by the number of players in the game and then divided out and all that. Getting less exp than you could in single player sucked! It sucked a lot. I don't want to party just to do the quests, the leveling is slow damn enough as it is, and slowing it down to play with friends blew. Needing to level level by yourself to get some levels sucked. I feel leveling just to level sucks. Even in a party, with good players and a plan, being 8 to 15 levels behind where you would have been solo at the same point makes the game really damn hard because of the monster vs player level curve. Oh and from expeince you would often not even be L18 if you played start through in a moderate sized party by the time you got to Diablo. You would be in the mid to late 20's if you played single player. That really really killed enjoyment. You don't seem to enjoy playing the game this way, so I am giving you a perspective from someone who does and has been playing the game since the day it was released, usually in parties with friends. The penalty took a lot of fun out playing with friends. A lot. It sucked a lot. I don't know if you realized how bad the old penalty really made trying to play the game through in a party, since you don't seem to play that way. I know plenty of people who came back to the game because partying didn't suck so much anymore. I don't know of any who quit because of it. Of course I think most of this is moot because of other changes there were made that I will get to.

However, setting it so that you get the same exp in a party as you would have playing single might be alright, I'm not convinced you need the bonus, but I also am not sure having the bonus is a bad thing either. With the new 'you have to be close' scheme it makes it work even better too. I have quite enjoyed it in 1.10. It keeps the people closer together, it lets those who don't know see how much more fun the teamwork can be. It also messes up trying to leach fairly well. I've experimented with it. You have to stay close, and it is so much easier to have a pack led to you so the real party members can deal with you. Partying and running the same area from different ends doesn't work anymore at all. If you want the bonus you stay together, and this is good. True party players aren't affected by this, leachers are easier to kill off, the idea of clearing Bloody (or any other area) from 2 ends to not interfere but still get the better exp is gone. Many of your problems with parties have been fixed by other changes actually. Rushing is still possible, but slower and more dangerous to the rushee. With harder leaching rushing without a reason makes less sense. If you have reason to rush (like enabling HC on that account or having a mule that can get into NM or Hell) you can still do it in a reasonable amount of time.

Actaully the new system does seem to put a bit of your style back. You can now start at the other end of the bloody from the party to get your exp, or go to an area the party isn't in. Your competition as I see it is back, or it looks to be back well enough so that you can get enjoyment from it and the partiers don't have to be screwed completely. Sure the partiers have an advantage in the area they want to play it, but that should just make it more exciting for you to try and claim it, or you fight off another soloer in the area they tried to claim. Maybe I didn't fully understand your point because I see no enjoyment in this game for a competitive side I use other other games that are designed for competition to get the thrill. The little competition the ladder can offer will still be there too and closer to what you wanted with the other changes.

The other changes make is so you don't need to get rid of the bonus, though I don't think it needs to be as big as it is, but there is no reason to go back to the old penalty, most of what you think that will address has been fixed by other changes, at least from the testing I have done, we will have to see it live to really tell. I also don't see this as an attempt by Blizzard to go back to that environment at all. I see it as a new vision that will help accomodate even more playing styles, or at least that seems to be the idea.

Just voicing my opinion. As you said, I don't think this change would happen because I don't think you reasons for why Blizzard would do it are tenable.

[Lane]

I disagree with Rataxes and agree with Cryptic.

My memories of D2C are as follows:

1) Enter exp game with bow bug ridden Amazon.
2) Watch as Barbarians sometimes 30 levels lower than me sped through the game WWing the monsters I'd spent the past 5 minutes trying to kill in a couple of seconds, thus stealing my kills, exp, items, etc.
3) Become frustrated as aforementioned barbs cleared all areas of Act 4 before I could even approach a second mob of monsters.
4) Rinse and repeat.

This isn't even counting the severely irritating trend of Barbarians inparticular hostiling everyone upon entering the game and staking claim to all areas and screw everyone else. Needless to say, I developed a hatred for that class like none other.

Rataxes, what you propose seems to me to be advocating cookie cutter builds, bug exploitation, and 'classism'. Your feeling seems to be that only the strong survive, but with the imbalances in classes and skills that have always existed since day one you're limiting Hell to an extremely small number of mostly the same classes with the same builds using the same equipment. Boring. Sure, you could argue some of that exists now, but at least I see every class in Hell now. In D2C all I ever saw were WW barbs until MS zons started to become popular.

As hinted, it would also deter variant builds from progressing very far. I mean, why bother if you're an uber killing machine all on your own?

I personally don't care for hostile playing environments. I don't want to go into a game and be threatened not to play in certain areas nor do I wish to be prepared to have to defend myself from some selfish and greedy arse who wants to hog an entire act while taking advantage of everyone else in the game. I'm having difficulty not seeing this as a reward for poor behavior.

However, on the flip side I do not agree with being forced to party play which, contrary to your theory of things returning to D2C style, I see happening in 1.10. I also have a problem with the reversal in LoD. In LoD the trend became hostiling anyone who didn't party with you, which I find equally as lame.

I enjoy playing in parties and I also enjoy soloing. I resent being forced to do one or the other.

[Rataxes]

If that were true, there would not have been new runewords, there would not have been new uniques, there would not have been unique charms for certain. There would not have been synergies.

All of those changes made characters more powerful, which can negate a lot of the harder monsters (I've been doing some testing with this). I don't see how any of those changes point to Blizzard trying to make it feel more like classic. I would like to see how they do.

I already listed the, to this topic most relevant v1.10 changes in my first post, I think you'll find that none of the changes I mentioned had anything to do with the power balance. These new runewords, new uniques, new charms and other insanely powerful items - they will really make little difference since so many other things have been changed in v1.10 to outbalance them. D2 has really never changed whenever new and more powerful items have been introduced, because they have always been outbalanced by other things. Yes there are some relevant item-related differences between Classic and LoD, but none concerning the power balance.

I see your point that your play style was mostly shafted, but I don't think Blizzard ever intended for that play style to happen. Considering just about every patch seemed to try and get away from that style of play. I don't see this patch turning that trend at all.

I don't see how any of the first six patches tried to diminish the competitive side of the game, and all patches that have been released so far post LoD, have actually tried to limit the "collector style", though they failed completely. LoD, and LoD alone, ruined competitive play in D2, and I doubt this was ever Blizzards intention.

It's a new evolution entirely, it is feel that the game has never had before. I think they were aiming for this, something new, not something old. (Actually 1.10 feels like a single Blizzard programmers mod, but since he worked for Blizzard he got to make his mod official, or at least parts of it)

Most big changes (read, changes that will actually have a significant impact on gameplay) were definitely made with the past in mind. I've already listed the changes that will bring v1.10 closer to it's roots, so I'm not going to do it again.

Now they give you new candy. 1.10 to me points to Blizzard wanting to provide more candy for players, it makes me think they are aiming even more at the collector type player

They eliminated Boss MF farming, or so they say they will at least, I've heard reports that state Hell Mephisto drops just as good items as before, even with a few hundred repeated runs. If they were trying to please the collector players more with this patch, this sure was a very funny way of doing it. Collectors have by far been the most vocal and whiny group when it comes to v1.10 criticisms.

just think you vastly overestimate the number of players who like your play style. Though I can't really produce hard evidence for it any better than you can produce evidence that the environment existed because people enjoyed it and not as a by product of other factors that people didn't enjoy, but had to live with to play for the goal they.

Competition is overall one of the most important ingredients to any game. It's no coincidence that it's a general rule of life that a little bit of competition always "spices things up a bit". It's no coincidence that just about every popular game in the world, computer or real, are competitive games, or games where challenge is an important aspect.

I can't believe I'm sitting here, explaining the elementary importance of the aspect of competition and challenge in games. I would've thought it obvious. It flows through almost all games. To say that I, as one who liked the competitive aspects of D2, was in a minority is simply ludicrous. Even in games that contain no competitive elements of it's own, one of the few ways an interest strong enough to form a community can be created, is by competition. What is the one change that is always on top of reader polls when D2 sites are asking what they're looking forward to the most in v1.10? The Ladder. What is the Ladder? It's the revival of the competitive aspect of D2, which has been missing since the day LoD was released. It's the chance for everyone to once again start with the same conditions, on equal terms. No cheats, no hacks, no pre-created lvl 99 characters or imported items - one of the basic requirements of a competitive environment, that everyone start out with equal conditions. There are obviously people who see the Ladder as the best change for other reasons, but it is really the one major v1.10 improvement that will reinstate the competitive side of this game. It's not a coincidence that it is also the most wanted change of them all.

[zaffo]

When people say they are looking forward to the ladder, Rataxes, many are talking about the Ladder Games & Characters rather than the competition. Why? Because they are interested in the fresh start and dupe-free environment. A lot of the people I play with -- and, uh, that's a lot of people -- are looking forward to the ladder games but have no plans at all to compete on the ladder. They just think the ladder "realm" is where the fun will be, especially because it will attract most of the legit players.

The reason I have played this game for so long -- and abandoned other games quickly -- is specifically because D2 does not require you to be competitive. That is only one of the options. This is a wonderful open-ended game that really only pits you against yourself and the monsters. If you choose to measure yourself against others because you need competition for it to be exciting to you, that's your bag. But for many of us it is not a competition and that's a big reason why we play it.

There are many games out there that are purely competitive, but D2 is not one of them. This game is great fun if you play it cooperatively and just try and have fun together.

Competing for drops? Please. That's only a part of the game if you play that way. Some of us play with friends and share. I'm not kidding.

I don't see how the party experience bonus is the problem. I understand that you are saying that people don't discourage leechers because there is no impetus to bother. But there are a bunch of other factors that made 1.09 ripe for leeching. While I'm not terribly concerned about the party exp bonus since there is plenty of experience in 1.10 (contrary to some fearmongering) your reasons for wanting to eliminate it don't make sense to me.

I don't personally have problems with leechers because random leeching does not happen in the games I usually play in. You don't have to play with leechers either, Rataxes.

Your beef really appears to be with co-op play and partying because Diablo is only fun for you if you are in competition. No one is stopping you from solo-8ing and playing the game the way you have fun, and you can still get loads of experience. However, I recommend you make some online friends and try playing more co-op in general and only measuring yourself by how much fun you and your friends have. Having fun is the goal of game playing.

Your theory that Blizzard's design goal for the patch is to return to the early days of D2 is interesting but not convincing.

PS: Probably my favorite real-life game to play is hacky-sack, specifically because in its purest form it is not competitive. It is a group activity where everyone wins or loses together.

[Kevin]

I guess I shouldn't have dismissed your other points out of hand, so I will address them specifically:

The increased difficulty, the severely decreased experience gains and monster levels, the elimination of boss farming for items, rares being back on top as the most potentially powerful item type, gambling being relevant once more - All these are changes meant to bring D2 back to it's core. I guess Blizzard finally realized that things were better before, as anyone who has been with D2 since day one realized a week after LoD was released.

Item farming is not removed, only farming bosses, and I am glad this is gone. In my testing of the beta Regular monsters drop better making magic find even more powerful because there is more stuff you can kill to get good items, so magic find removal hasn't happened.

Experience gains are not descreased overall until much later. Early experience gains are higher, the new high level experience penalties really don't start to make a difference until around L80 (most of what I have seen says getting to 80 is faster), so while that change is sorta there, it isn't a huge deal, though I agree it keeps 99's off the ladder for a little bit longer. Of course it still isn't hard to get to 90, and in classic 80+ was hard because Diablo himself was the only thing you could get real exp from, that isn't the case anymore. You also can't finish the game (kill hell diablo, well Baal now) at L40 easily like you could in classic. So playing through the game makes you naturally much much higher than anything in classic (70-80 in 1.09 I haven't gotten all the way through in 1.10 beta just yet to see).

Actually crafted are potenially the most powerful item types now, not rares. Runewords have a lot to say about that as well. Gambling will be back some, but no where near where it was in the early days, because there are execptional and elite uniques that are hugely powerful and easier to plan around. The new candy is not outweighed. Rares were a necessity because there was no other option, there are a ton of other options now.

The difficulty has been increased, but that doesn't immediately point to the return of the annoying atmosphere that you are talking about. Most of the difficulty increases simply make the game even more item dependent (this is exactly what the larger resists penalties do). Of course classic was much easier than current D2. If it wasn't then I don't know how L28 chars were able to beat Hell Diablo without a lot of problems. The only thing that was harder about classic play was getting to high levels, they have brought that back a bit, but with so many more high level monsters it is still a lot easier to get to high levels than in classic. As you yourself said the more significant changes that I already talked about vastly outweigh those.

I can't believe you tried to explain the elementary importance of competition either. I well understand it, but D2 is a designed a competition of the player vs the computer. Not the player vs computer vs other players. I can be that, and it can be just player vs player and player with player vs CPU, and player with player vs player with player, etc. That is part of the beauty of the game, it can be a lot of things. As I said, this patch looks to be trying to make lots of styles more enjoyable, through other more important changes. It is not trying to go back to 1.01 - 1.03 days (1.00 was never playable on the realms).

Why is the ladder significant? Because it is changes a lot of things. It is soooo much more than just who can get a char to the top first. It is, as you say a clean start. That means I can trade again. That means I can play PvP again if I want to. I can't do those now because most of the people out there are using duped or hacked items. For me and lots of others it has nothing to do with being on the ladder rankings and everything to do with being on a clean realm. It has very little or nothing to do with the environment of the early days either. There are more reasons why people are excited for the ladder that have nothing to do with competition of the sort you are talking about (because as I said there are lots of forms of competition and you are talking about a specific type). Pointing to people wanting the ladder, with a little qualifier, as a prime reason for Blizzard wanting to wholy return the game to one type of play style and atmosphere is silly because there are so many other variables in it. Some of them I pointed out. So, no it isn't a coincidence, when the ladder effects such a huge number of things, and benefits so many play styles what other change would you expect?

So I will say it again, this patch is not aiming D2 backwards, it is aiming it somewhere new. It is helping out a lot of styles of play, yours included. It is not that narrow focused. Many of the other changes you didn't talk about change the game a lot more, and they change it a lot more than your proposal.

[AtomicKitKat]

I'm a little lazy to sift through for the right "threaded" post to reply to, but I noticed earlier today that someone(Occhi?) mentioned ladder only items. I personally think it would have been far better to just allow all the "ladder" items onto realms/single/ladder/whatever. That way, the only people who would play on ladder would be the ones who enjoy the challenge of a clean start(I might do that a few times, but I probably wouldn't want to play for 3 months just to see all my stuff "destroyed"), the cheaters, and those of us, like myself, who like a little "permanency" in our lives, can play on in "softcore" Sure, I know a few regulars here frown upon my twinking, but some days, you just get drops you'll never use on the character that found them. Like a Humongous while playing an Inferno sorc...

[Occhidiangela]

LoD, and LoD alone, ruined competitive play in D2, and I doubt this was ever Blizzards intention.

LoD had plenty of competition: duelling leagues were a standard feature. I daresay the ladder was already a joke, however LoD made it more of one due to the XP steroids features.

PvP, a form of competition, for all of its faults and imbalances, was still around.

By competition it seems to me that you refer to "I get to kill Diablo in this 8 player Hell game and you don't so I get the XP for my ladder character, for my character's leveling up."

Is that the "competition" that you felt was "ruined?" Beyond that, there was still plenty of competition. That feature is what I was referring to as dog eat dog and spreading hate and discontent: I work IRL, I don't play PC games to get more of the same during my leisure time.

Or, is the competition you refer to the "competition to get to X level first?" Once someone had indeed hit 99 in Diablo II, what then? Is the ladder that important a source of gaming pleasure? For some folks, it must be. To ever achieve 95-99 clvl takes some time and effort. In LoD, that "competition" was watered down by the Cow Level, and by the rather high monster levels in Act V, and by the speed at which experience points could be accrued in Hell Act V at all. _That_ bit of watering down of level advancement appears to have been fixed. What I will point out is that I never played a character past 80, ever, for the simple reason that I did not find Cows a viable entertainment, and usualy by that time I had typically killed Baal in Hell and wanted to try another character type. The wide variety of builds that could succeed was, IMO, a strength of the game.

Since I am utterly indifferent to the ladder, and do not pursue levels for their own sake, I can only say that the Ladder Only Realm feature appeals to me due to its "cleanliness" feature. There will still be plenty of PK's, legit and otherwise, folks who try to leech, and sundry morons no matter where one goes on bnet: we can all accept that as part of the environment and try to have such fun as the game presents to us.

EDIT: Just a couple of replies to your reply to me, sorry for the delay:

I'll be egocentric enough to say that I think the competitive hardcore players (not the game mode) was Blizzard's first priority when they designed D2 Closed. And I guess it evened out in the end, competitive players were the ones to get the shaft when LoD was introduced. The somewhat decent PvP balance that existed in Classic was crushed, and the Ladder was turned into a true joke with thousands of lvl 99 characters. The competitive ladder will hopefully make a return in v1.10, but PvP is probably forever doomed.

PvP has yet to be balanced in D2, most players and leagues do their own balancing due to the large number of loopholes and other problems. As to the ladder, we shall see.

I believe D2 Closed was originally designed with competitive players primarily in mind. Leisure players belong as little in a competitive environment as novice players belong in Hell. Of course, this balance shifted completely when LoD came out. Just as you claim there's more than enough room for my playing style, there was more than enough room for leisure players back in classic.

Where you sit determines what you see. ANd we both agree that a novice should indeed stay out of Hell diff. Your feelings and mine in re level 5 leechers in the Hell Cow Level are probably the same: earn your own levels, pal. The leisure player will often not intentionally insert himself into the competitive environment, and I assert that your belief that Realms' goal was competition is held hostage to a buzz word*, and your own personal preferences. Realms was, among other things, aimed at making for a clean environment: hack resistant, if not free. (Well, it sorta worked, and over time, degraded.) It also provided a basis for Ladder competition.
It does not follow that therefore only competition was its aim. Blizzard tried to make it amenable to both styles. Why? They want both sorts of players.

*The buzz word, the catch phrase: "Compete Free over Battle.net." Designed originally for . . . Diablo and Starcraft, eh? What you define, or assume, as competition may or may not be identical to that ever elusive "how the game was intended to be played" assertion that can crop up in discussions like this.

All that said, I sincerely hope that when 1.10 is released and the ladder season begins, that you enjoy the game more than you apparently do now.

Fun is where you find it. :)

[Rataxes]

LoD had plenty of competition: duelling leagues were a standard feature. I daresay the ladder was already a joke, however LoD made it more of one due to the XP steroids features.

Your opinion that it was a joke. I did not find RUSSBarbs and GERBarbs achievements to be a joke. Apparently, neither did the rest of the D2 community, since their progress, and eventually the progress of other similar ladder teams who appeared on other realms, was followed with great interest by a large portion of the D2 community.

LoD, up until now, had zero competition since there was no way to measure your relative achievements. The difficulty level was such a joke that any half-assed build could survive in the toughest conditions v1.09 had to offer. The experience gains were so gross that lvl 99 characters are more common now than 70+ characters were in D2C. Again, if the display of commitment, effort and determination that high clvls in Classic were means nothing to you, I don't expect you to understand why it was a huge problem that levels could be gotten so easily and with so little effort in LoD.

PvP used to be a battle of skills, creativity and well-planned characters that could maximize their counter-player abilities while also being competent monster killers, which was an absolute necessity in Classic.

Now it's pretty much entirely a battle of items. You know that the PvP balance has gone out of control when you have to enforce dozens of item restrictions and regulations for it to be "fair".

[Rataxes]

I would like to go back to the subject topic at hand. Discussing leisure vs competitive playing styles wasn't really my intention at all, and if there's one thing I hate about discussions, it's when they slowly drift further and further away from the core subject till you just stop for a moment and wonder what the point was.
The subject at hand being the Party XP bonus, and it's pros and cons.

Pros that I have seen mentioned in this thread

1) This is a multiplayer game, encouraging people to play in parties, rather than isolating themselves, is a good thing.

2) Playing with other people is fun, therefore it should naturally be encouraged.

3) Playing in parties complicate matters for PK's, which is a good thing, which makes encouraging parties a good thing.

That's really what I picked up before this thread drifted away into a different subject.

Me countering these pros:

1) I do not think that what this Party XP bonus has encouraged is what people like to think it is. It has not encouraged people to play co-operatively, it has not encouraged people to work together as a team, it hasn't even encouraged people to play together. What it has done is encouraged people to click a button and magically receive extra experience, mostly for monsters which they took no part in slaying. It has encouraged people to click on the party button upon entering a game, but it has not encouraged any of the elements that actually make parties a good thing.

2) Why is playing with other people fun? Because of the co-operation, because of the chance of working as a team and trying out interesting combinations, because of the chance to meet nice people to play with. Has the Party XP Bonus encouraged any of this? No, I have, despite what some people might think of my preferences after reading my posts, taken part in a great deal of party play, both in Classic and in LoD. The first type is one that I have never enjoyed - Sewer runs, Arcane runs, Bloody runs, Cow runs - Exping parties that is. In those parties, I have never found what I am looking for in a good party: Nice players whose company you can enjoy, players working together as a team, players respecting one-another and attempting to co-operate and realizing that the best thing for me might not be the best thing for the team. In exping parties, not only do people not co-operate, they don't even play together, they mostly don't even play in the same part of the map (this particular problem is the only one that will be fixed by the v1.10 patch, yet it is but one of many problems with v1.09 "party play").

The other type, is party play that I have enjoyed. Parties in which I met nice people, sometimes complete strangers, but yet people you could converse and joke with as you were playing. Parties where co-operation and team-play were priorities for all involved, parties where everyone strived towards a common goal. Do you even need to guess what type of party these usually were? They were questing parties, they were parties consisting of your friends, they were exping parties where thought actually went into the tactics and skill combinations that were used, where people played for each-other, and not just for themselves. In short, they were parties which rewarded themselves, the only kind of parties that existed in D2C, parties in which a gross XP bonus was not needed to give it's members a good gaming experience.

So I'll say this, parties in themselves are not fun, not when you strip away all it's good aspects. Stripping away the good aspects of party play is exactly what the bonus experience has done. By this, I do not mean that all party play has gone bad because of the PXPB, but that while it certainly increased the frequency of parties, it did not increase the frequency of the elements that make party play what it should be. Ask yourself how many really good party experiences that you have had in LoD, were good as a direct result of the increased experience gains? I know what my answer would be, zero.

3) This is a valid point, from a certain viewpoint. Personally I have no problem with legit PK'ing and consider playerhunting as valid a playing style as the next (no I'm not going into that subject again), and thus I do not see the good in preventing PK'ing. Cheap tricks and unlawful playerhunting such as Triggerhacks and Hydra PK'ing is of course a bad thing, but not something that playing in a party does much about.


Cons with the PXPB, brought up mostly by myself.

1) The PXPB is the sole cause of the leeches that flood Battle.net. It is also indirectly responsible for the vastly increased demand for rushing, since getting rushed through the game would be pointless if there would be no way you could survive in Hell with a lvl 20 char. The leech is the D2 equivalent of the real-world healthy social welfare abuser. Only in D2, people have a choice not to give these abusers a free ride through life, but choose to do it anyway since it comes at no cost for themselves. It sickens me really.

2) The PXPB has eliminated the need for the once so complex tactical decisions and executions of strategy involved in making a successful party. There is no longer any need to weigh drawbacks with benefits when creating a party or deciding how to play, because there aren't any drawbacks any longer. Because people gain roughly the same amount of experience per monster no matter the size of their parties, there is no longer any need to co-operate, no need to try and combine skills for greater effect and work as a team, and when you don't need to do something, people as a rule, will not do it. Public game party play as of v1.09 consists of getting 8 random people to all click their buttons, go to the same area, and then go and do whatever they want. People will argue that things will be different in v1.10, that the new difficulty will not only be an incentive to party up, but to actually do all these things that I think party play should involve. But if this will be the case, why would we even need the PXPB? We don't, and we never did. It has never encouraged party play, it has encouraged pathetic and hollow excuses for parties which contain none of the elements which makes true team-play so good.

Counter-arguments to my cons.

1) v1.10 contains many changes and restrictions which makes it harder to leech, and close to impossible to be rushed. None of these changes will completely eliminate either problem, but it is good enough for me. An all-out elimination wont be needed if v1.10 can reduce the amount of leeching and rushing to the degree it has promised.

Another popular, but useless argument, is that it's better to ignore and avoid a problem rather than try to solve it.

2) I haven't seen any attempt to counter this yet.

Counter-counter-arguments to my cons

1) v1.10 will, as I've already said, will not provide a perfect solution to either problem. What v1.10 does is implenting a whole slew of restrictions that is meant to hinder rushing and leeching. The rushing deterrants seem to be the most effective ones, though I have no doubt that people will find loop-holes. The leeching deterrants however, look to be nowhere near as effective. What the two-screen limit will do is force leeches to be a bit more active and expose themselves to an ever so slight risk, I have no doubt that leeches will adjust to this change in no-time. This will also actually increase the number of leeches who will not only clutter up your screen while they run around, trying to avoid danger, but also steal your loot. The level-difference experience penalty will slow down the leeches mad rush through the clvl's, but not in any way deter it.

These changes, like most of the suggestions I've seen in this thread, are not ultimate solutions, and loop-holes will be found to go around these restrictions, they will most likely also cause new problems of their own. They're akin to trying to stop a leaking water pipe with thousands of small holes by plugging them, instead of simply stopping the water flow, you'll never be able to plug all the holes, and a new one will likely burst out as soon as you plug another.


The bottom line is: Party play should be it's own reward. When it's not, you're better off not partying. When it is, you don't need the Party XP Bonus.

[OneInTen]

After reading this whole thread, I can't help but ask: Why not play single player?

It seems to offer everything you could want in a game. You get to play in pseudo 8-player games, so you get all the experience you want. There's nobody else to beg you to party, so you get to go it solo. Furthermore, you can play whatever version you like (1.06 classic if that's what floats your boat), and you wont even have to deal with lag.

I find single player to be the ideal solution to obnoxious brats on the realms. I don't play on the realms at all, I just dont see the point because it offers precisely nothing to me. And I can still multiplay with friends who feel the same way, as Diablo 2 has TCP/IP play.

So I'm curious, if you don't want to party and don't want to deal with leeches and other annoyances, why not play the game in single player mode?

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Rataxes
I want to feel that there are other people playing with me, that I am a part of, and very much integrated into the world that is D2 Bnet Closed. So suggestions about playing on my own in passworded games are lost on me, it's simply not the way I want to play the game.

Originally posted by Rataxes
Another popular, but useless argument, is that it's better to ignore and avoid a problem rather than try to solve it.

Did you really read the whole thread? I wonder... :)