A quick intro, this is my second full season playing Median XL and this is the first season I've played Single Player. Last season on TSW I completed most content as Holy Melee, with the exceptions being the endgame fights that were a struggle for the spec such as Samael, Uldy and the T15 rift(s). I don't have a whole lot of time to play so I couldn't be bothered collecting a caster set to finish the content. This is my old armory: https://tsw.vn.cz/acc/char.php?name=Seraphicide
I made the change for a few main reasons:
1) I play melee exclusively and there's some lag and hitbox issues that are eliminated with SP play (monsters killing you from half a screen away, difficulty connecting with a monster that's moving, de-sync from FRW, connection timeouts during critical moments, etc.)
2) I spent way too time trading. I spent way more time trading than playing, the power creep of better gear is addicting but ultimately it was starting to feel like it was turning into a pay to win sort of game. It felt like the TG is king on TSW (things like stacking UMO honorifics and in-demand SSU gear for FotM builds while everyone else is basically forced to craft until mid-late season).
3) I rarely played in multiplayer games. Nobody chats, everyone runs in separate directions. You're pretty much playing a SP game with trading. Most of the builds are showcased on the forums and discord anyway, so why deal with all of this? I work long hours so I have pretty much 0 chance at being the first at anything in an ARPG.
So, off I went to try a season in SP with the newly buffed Unholy Melee spec.
Everything is as I thought it might be so far. All the lag frustrations associated with melee are gone. Not once have I wondered: "what the hell just killed me?"
Specific items are hard to find, you have to rely on shrine crafts more. You can't just get what you need from an auction. This is a good thing though! More time is spent actually playing.
What I've noticed since I started farming Duncraig and Fautz: drops are much better. Not sure if this is a bug or a way to balance the lack of trade or if i'm just extremely lucky combined with MF and the better farming ability of UHM vs Holy Melee, but it's a lot of fun. Here's a quick rundown of some drops from farming Duncraig and Fautz from 120-131
-Azurewrath
-Probably half of the SSU's in the game
Last season with more time spent farming I had found maybe 10 SSUs and pretty much every SU, but nothing else worth mentioning.
The reason for this thread is to get some discussion rolling with the only downside I've stumbled across, which is a social one:
The optics of playing SP.
Whenever the topic is brought up, folks in discord and the forums seem to be discounting literally anything that is done in SP. Discussing a build? LOL SP. Find something cool? LOL SP. Find a way to get past a difficult boss? LOL SP. No /time, no discussion. You're instantly viewed as some retard who's probably cheating using duped and hacked items.
This seems ironic to me, because if you have a pile of TG on TSW you can literally buy characters and do anything in the game.
So, it seems a little absurd to me to demonize all of the SP player base because a minority of users use hacked items and tools to cheese the game, while at the same time a minority of TSW players have the resources to purchase literal god-status in the game.
It's pretty much the same thing at a fundamental level. Accomplishments are written off because the players did not earn their way. SP can easily be hacked, and TSW in-game power can straight up purchased. Seems a little silly to me to demonize one group and not the other.
Diablo 2 still has a pretty active single player community. Speed running, legit magic finding. The integrity is mostly kept in-check by streaming. It would be cool to see this adopted for MXL. Maybe the devs could build a save game verification tool, maybe tie that to a forum badge or something.
Anyway, would love to hear peoples thoughts on this