Real Life Highscore

In this series I look at the game mechanics of Path of Exile, and Indie A-RPG that really has some amazing gameplay elements to show off. This time I take a look at how party scaling works in PoE.

In Path of Exile you can have a party of up to six players and each additional person beyond the first has a scaling effect on each instance you enter. These effects are essentially an increase in potential difficulty and rewards. The increase in the actual difficulty you have is dependant on how well your party synergizes and works together to clear the content. Diverse parties with stacking auras may have a much easier time with scaled content than a less diverse, and less cooperative party – despite the actual scaling being the same.

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Monster life Scaling

For each additional player in a party beyond the first monsters gain 50% extra life from their base. So a party of three will see double life monsters while a party of six will see triple life monsters.

I should note that for the purposes of calculating players tuns and status effects the base, unsclaed life of monsters is used.

Experience Scaling

There are two aspects to experience scaling and sharing in a party. The first is an increase in the base experience of monsters by 50% per extra player after the first. The second is that players within roughly two game screens of their party will receive a 30% experience bonus on whatever their party kills. This means that you should clear content as a group sticking together to maximize your experience gains. Total experience for a two man party is 195% of base divided by two. Which is actually slightly less (2.5% less) than solo.

Loot Scaling

In a party loot is scaled by quantity at a rate of a 50% plus item quantity modifier per additional player after the first. Killing a boss or opening a large chest with six players is going to fill your screen with loot. For the purposes of item rarity rolls the player dealing the killing blow has their Item rarity bonus used.

Flask Charge Gain Scaling

Flasks are given a bonus of a 75% increase in charge recovery per additional player after the first. However, only the player dealing the killing blow to a monster will receive charges. Although this will balance out most of the time you may want to intentionally share the killing with lower DPS party members occasionally to ensure they see some flask charges. This can be especially helpful if you have a very low damage tank taking all of the incoming damage for you.

You can view more Path of Exile guides like this over at my YouTube channel ZiggyDStarcraft. If you would like to play PoE then you can sign up for an account on the official PoE website.