Differences between single and multi

[Somnus]

This is incredibly fair towards SP players, btw. I fully cleared fauzt 8 times and got 2 great runes, then this goblin spawns on my 9th run and bam, boosts my drops by 150%, from 2 great runes to 5. lol. never gonna happen on SP



The amulet was a +3 death ward too, so not too bad at all.

Well, MP players insisted for years that sp is for <s>testing</s> cheating only. Some even repeatedly said it should be removed altogether. Devs said there is possibility of reverse engeneering or code, ideas stealing. So we're almost there .

You can still reverse engineer everything, the launcher, the client, the server. Removing SP would be useless and bad for the game/community. Doubt it will go away.

[paolo12]

This is incredibly fair towards SP players, btw. I fully cleared fauzt 8 times and got 2 great runes, then this goblin spawns on my 9th run and bam, boosts my drops by 150%, from 2 great runes to 5. lol. never gonna happen on SP



The amulet was a +3 death ward too, so not too bad at all.

Well, MP players insisted for years that sp is for <s>testing</s> cheating only. Some even repeatedly said it should be removed altogether. Devs said there is possibility of reverse engeneering or code, ideas stealing. So we're almost there .

You can still reverse engineer everything, the launcher, the client, the server. Removing SP would be useless and bad for the game/community. Doubt it will go away.

hopefully

[Theyniel]

For now SP is gone but not because it was removed but by introducing unreasonable changes which just killed it. I won't say dramatically that I give up on Median, but definitely I won't play during this season, I'm not a masochist. Maybe I'll come back on n+1 if there will be possibility to have fun on SP again.

[Somnus]

For now SP is gone but not because it was removed but by introducing unreasonable changes which just killed it. I won't say dramatically that I give up on Median, but definitely I won't play during this season, I'm not a masochist. Maybe I'll come back on n+1 if there will be possibility to have fun on SP again.

I think "gone" and "killed" is a bit far from the truth. You can play it and SSF, you cannot get all the items in game to test any build you want unless you farm more than you would normally have to in MP (specially if buying items).

..or you cheat/sandbox for testing builds.

[Siosilvar]

Has anybody in this thread actually tested and compared singleplayer drops between 2.2 and 2.1? I hear from folks who've been playing both that TSW came up to meet SP way more than SP went down to meet TSW... lots of folks here saying that their SP experience is destroyed over a change in itemratios.txt they don't even know the size of, while they're still getting the rune and cycle drop buffs from this patch too. Does it suck that it got nerfed? Yeah. Do we even know how much it sucks, or are we making a mountain out of a molehill?

And as a long time SP player (started when XVc launched) who's only recently touched TSW the past couple of patches, the idea that comparing drop rates between the two has any meaning at all is pretty laughable to me. TSW has much more active trading and time limited ladders, SP (and non-ladder, let's not forget) builds up wealth over multiple patches.

If it does turn out to be a change that meaningfully affects how long it takes me to put together a Scosglen-ready character, sure, I'll eat my words. But y'know, the "30%" number (which morphed from "20-40% more sets and SUs" before it completely lost context) actually came out of testing it. We can talk all the theory we want. How much does it actually change?

[Reeses]

So I had a talk about this on my stream yesterday. A big point I pointed out was having 2 different drop rates adds dev time to something that the devs probably don't want to work on. Now they can just copy/paste and call it a day. In my honest opinion this reason alone is a good enough reason to drop this Single Player buff. The devs can focus on way more important things.

And the points I've seen for SSF has been "You cant get every item in the game! So we should have better drop rates!"
But Path of Exile has done just fine with both "teams" having same drop rates. Same mechanics, and same servers essentially. Even part of the community has asked GGG to not give the new League Content for an X amount of time after the season has started specifically to Single Player (MP SSF would get the new content) because seeing new content would be more exciting if it wasn't tested/Power housed on Single Player.

On top of that. Isn't the purpose of SSF supposed to be to challenge yourself? Your not really being challenged if you gain an advantage. You should never design a build that is 100% reliant on a VERY rare item. Thats just a silly idea in my honest opinion. If you want the experience of being able to get any item in the game with a challenge. Get on MP or make up your own system. Sell AC to a "vendor" for 1-2 "SP TG". Expecting to get ANY item via SSF is just silly.

[Somnus]

Has anybody in this thread actually tested and compared singleplayer drops between 2.2 and 2.1? I hear from folks who've been playing both that TSW came up to meet SP way more than SP went down to meet TSW... lots of folks here saying that their SP experience is destroyed over a change in itemratios.txt they don't even know the size of, while they're still getting the rune and cycle drop buffs from this patch too. Does it suck that it got nerfed? Yeah. Do we even know how much it sucks, or are we making a mountain out of a molehill?

And as a long time SP player (started when XVc launched) who's only recently touched TSW the past couple of patches, the idea that comparing drop rates between the two has any meaning at all is pretty laughable to me. TSW has much more active trading and time limited ladders, SP (and non-ladder, let's not forget) builds up wealth over multiple patches.

If it does turn out to be a change that meaningfully affects how long it takes me to put together a Scosglen-ready character, sure, I'll eat my words. But y'know, the "30%" number (which morphed from "20-40% more sets and SUs" before it completely lost context) actually came out of testing it. We can talk all the theory we want. How much does it actually change?

I dont think it changed that much for the non-hoarders in SP (those who play "SSF" and use what they find), they see "nerf" and they go craycray

[Siosilvar]

I dont think it changed that much for the non-hoarders in SP (those who play "SSF" and use what they find), they see "nerf" and they go craycray

I would be a little more charitable than that, but I don't think you're wrong. Nerfs always get a big reaction, just look at how HCP dropped completely off the ladder when it got some AoE and leveling nerfs, while every dedicated HCP player I know says the build is still good. That's why I always try to drill down to what the actual changes are and how different it is ingame.

[PaMxl]

I'm sure the Season 29 player numbers, which had only a third of the players of the previous season has nothing to do with nerfing SP drop rates.

I’ve been enjoying Median on and off since D2 Maniacs servers. I’ve been playing on Hardcore for the last several seasons, on one side for the thrill and rewarding game play, but on the other side to escape this TG hoarding environment. You can just share items with other friendly players within HC community.

I had initially wanted to start Sigma 2.2 on Single Player to enjoy the content / builds usually locked past what can be realistically done in HC. Just push the game to the limits at my own pace. The last time I did it without chasing the ladder was when Holy Paladin still had boobs and I had unreliable Internet connection due to frequent travels.

I got disappointed that the drop rates were nerfed in SP so decided to stay on Sin War. Perhaps I’m not the only one so the quote from above seems to be very true.

I understand that the servers, infrastructure, developers time, and everything else needs resources, but forcing people to play MP rather than making the game so enjoyable that people would support the project regardless which mode they play is not the strategy that should be employed in my opinion.

I can see the argument for having slightly higher drops in SP compared to MP to compensate for trading ability. It sounds very disheartening to label every SP player as a cheater and tell them to download item packs anyway. One can always argue that the same can be done on MP using TG obtained via donations. Also, one can feel that SP experience has been continuously nerfed by removing shared stash (however it is in development), /players 8, and then drop rates, and perhaps a few more things. I would prefer to have a perspective of playing SP or MP based on how I want to play the game rather than being stirred to play MP or shamed for playing SP. I’d like to emphasise I’m saying this from a perspective of an on-line player.

I would love to see the dev team engaging in constructive dialog with the community to find a suitable solution. The work that has been done on the mod is beyond comprehension, especially that one can essentially play it for free (*need a legal copy of D2 and expansion). However, the response to a valid point raised by the OP feels far from adequate.

[void]

Has anybody in this thread actually tested and compared singleplayer drops between 2.2 and 2.1? I hear from folks who've been playing both that TSW came up to meet SP way more than SP went down to meet TSW... lots of folks here saying that their SP experience is destroyed over a change in itemratios.txt they don't even know the size of, while they're still getting the rune and cycle drop buffs from this patch too. Does it suck that it got nerfed? Yeah. Do we even know how much it sucks, or are we making a mountain out of a molehill?

That's a fair point. Apart from personal experience, it is not really knowable how big the difference between 2.1 and 2.2 really is. There are always outliers and one example is never enough to generalize.

However, the problem I personally have with the 2.2 "nerf" is that my impression with 2.1 drops was already less than decent, so getting a reduction beyond that feels like a slap in the face.

Undeniably, there is an element of subjectiveness to it depending what one expects of a playthrough and one's playstyle, so I can only speak for myself, but so can everybody else.

I don't like the SP is better/worse than MP debate, I think it causes too much antagonism between us.
I want to enjoy the time that I spend with the game, and I believe that one of the reasons that I don't enjoy it as much as I'd like is that the current drop rate is too low. Progression with drops feels like crawling rather than walking or running.
There is a point where the slot-machine aspect of the game becomes a headache.

And despite these SP complaints, I do not want MP to suffer a "worse" experience than me. Different, maybe, but not any less fun.