Revision as of 12:07, 12 June 2008 (edit) Wowcool (talk | contribs) (→‎Forming a Party) ← Older edit		Latest revision as of 04:29, 8 March 2009 (edit) (undo) Flux (talk | contribs)
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	In regards to each character, you have three possible options, depending on their status:		In regards to each character, you have three possible options, depending on their status:
−	* Invite: Press this button to invite the player to join your party.	+	* Invite: Press this button to invite the player to join your party. They will receive a text notification in bright green.
	* Cancel: Cancel an invitation. (Usually done so you can invite again, in case they didn't notice the first one.)		* Cancel: Cancel an invitation. (Usually done so you can invite again, in case they didn't notice the first one.)
	* Accept: Press this button to accept a party invitation you receive. You will instantly join the party.		* Accept: Press this button to accept a party invitation you receive. You will instantly join the party.
		+	Parties differ from normal unaligned gameplay in a few ways; party members on the same [[levels|level]] share gold and experience (formulas listed below), can use each other's town portals, can benefit from each other's auras, and can see each other's current location on the party screen.
−	==more to come....==	+	To get an invitation to a party, you can ask by typing a chat message. There is no way to ask for an invite via the party window, and it's impossible to force your way into a party. You can only invite non-aligned characters, not those who are already in parties.
		+	Parties are entirely democratic. No one has control over them or the ability to kick out other party members, and anyone in a party can invite unaligned players to join. You can always leave a party though, and if someone in the party is being annoying and the others don't want to share experience with them, everyone can leave the party and form a new one without inviting the annoying person to join. Players who are so scorned often retaliate by going hostile, either since they want to fight or (more often) simply to be annoying.
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−	and their party status. To invite others to join you in a party, or to join your existing party, just click the invite icon next to their name. They will see a message about your invitation in bright green text, and can join with a click of the icon in the party window.  There is no leader of a party; everyone is equal in it and anyone can invite additional players to join.
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−	To get an invitation to a party, you can ask by typing a chat message. There is no way to ask for an invite via the party window, and it's impossible to force your way into a party. By the same token, it's impossible to kick someone else out of a party. You can always leave a party though, and if someone in the party is being annoying and the others don't want to share experience with them, everyone can leave the party and form a new one without inviting the annoying person to join.
	=Party Options=		=Party Options=
−	Party Options	+	There are several control options available while in a party, some of which are not available at other times. When you are in a party, a button appears on top of the party menu, with the word "LEAVE" in bright green letters. Clicking that will immediately exit you from the party (and dissolve the party if there was just one other player in it).
−
−
−
−	Image:Party-hostile1.jpg
−	Image:Party-loot1.jpg
−	Image:Party-chat1.jpg
−	Image:Squelch-chat1.jpg
		+	The following icons appear in the party window, beside the name of each character in your party. The first three are for all characters, but corpse looting is only available to [[Hardcore]] characters since patch v1.08.
		+	* When you click any of these icons icons, the affected player receives a notification.
−	If no button appears, then the player is not available - because that player is already a member of another party. You may not invite them until they leave their current party. Of course, they could invite you to join theirs.	+	[[Image:Party-hostile1.jpg]]
		+	'''Neutral/Hostile:''' Clicking the crossed swords icon will declare hostility on the chosen player, and enable your character to deal damage to them (and them to you). If you declare hostility on a player in a party, your declaration affects everyone in the party at once, and exits you from that party if you are a member of it. A character can only go hostile while in town, and doing so immediately exits them from their party and closes their town portal. Hostility can only be declared once per minute/per character, to prevent grief-motivated hostility spamming.
−	Once in a party you may leave it by pressing the LEAVE button at the top of the party screen. If you leave a party of more than two players, the other players remain in that party. Once you leave a party, you may form or join another.
−	There are three or four buttons on the Party Screen depending on whether you are playing Normal or Hardcore mode:	+	[[Image:Party-chat1.jpg]]
−	Neutral/Hostile button: When the button shows crossed swords, you are Hostile to the associated player. You may only go hostile once per minute with each other player in your game.	+	'''Include/Exclude:''' Excluding a player from chat means they will not "hear" anything you "say" when you type messages. This effectively makes your typed messages a group whisper to every character but the excluded one. Click the button again to include (stop excluding) the player.
−	Allow/Prevent Corpse Looting button (Hardcore Only). This can allow other players to loot your body which in Hardcore mode can mean saving your items from being destroyed.
−	Include/Exclude from Chat button. When you Exclude a player, that player cannot hear or see any verbal communication coming from you.
−	Squelch/Unsquelch button. When you Squelch a player, you cannot hear or see any verbal communication coming from that player.
−	NOTE: When you press any button on the Party screen, the target player receives an appropriate message about your action.
		+	[[Image:Party-squelch1.jpg]]
		+	'''Squelch/Unsquelch:''' This button mutes the selected player, making it so that their messages will not appear on your screen.
−	=Party Benefits=
−	Forming Parties with other Players	+	[[Image:Party-loot1.jpg]]
−	Parties allow players to share experience, gold, information about where the players in the party are located, and quest information. Parties allow players to work together to beat the game. Many Class skills are designed to help not only yourself but other players in a party. A good example of this is the Paladin's Defensive Aura: Prayer. Prayer not only will heal the Paladin but will also heal his Hireling and other members of the party and their Hirelings. There are plenty of other party friendly skills and spells.	+	'''Allow Loot:''' This option, <u>available only in Hardcore mode</u>, permits the designated characters to take the items off of your corpse when (if) you die. It's common practice for hardcore players to allow friends looting privileges, though many is the HC player who has cursed his fate when dying unexpectedly, without allowing his friends this option. Allowing it to strangers in a public game can be a risky proposition, since it might encourage them to try to go hostile on you, and even if they do not, and you die to a monster, and they loot you, there's nothing that says they have to give you your equipment back. Still, if you do not set loot you will surely lose everything upon death, and if someone PKs you you can probably exit the game after you die, but before they're able to get to your corpse to claim their spoils.
		+	If a friend dies and you have loot, it's imperative that you get to their corpse as quickly as possible, since if they died from latency over a poor connection, their body might vanish seconds after their death when they disconnect. If you trust everyone else in the game, it's best to clean their corpse like a piranha, even if inventory restrictions mean that you must scatter the items on the ground in the dungeon. At least there they won't vanish forever, if the dead player disconnects, and you can make several trips to town to get everything squared in your stash and cube. (This logic holds true for a PK victim too, of course.)
		+	=Player Relations=
−	Party Relationships	+	Each player has 2 possible relationships with all other players in the game -- Neutral (the default) and Hostile. Changes to your relationships are made in the Party screen, and with on screen notices (and a warning sound effect, in the case of hostility).
−	Each player has 2 possible relationships with all other players in the game -- Neutral (the default) and Hostile. Changes to your relationships are made in the Party screen. (Press 'P' to bring it up.) Here is how the settings work:
−	Hostile: You can target players with this setting - just as if they were monsters. If Player X goes Hostile to Player Y, then Player Y automatically goes Hostile to Player X in return. If Player X goes Hostile to Player Y and then goes Neutral, Player Y remains Hostile to Player X until Player Y chooses to go Neutral to Player X. A player can go Hostile only while in town. The other player can be anywhere.	+	==Hostility==
−	If a player goes Hostile with a member of a party, all other members of the party will go Hostile with that player in return. If a player attempts to go Hostile to a fellow Party member, that player is simply dropped from the Party and becomes a regular Neutral.	+	Players who are hostile to each other can target each other, and each other's minions, just as if they were monsters. When another player goes hostile to you, you immediately go hostile in return. The advantage (other than surprise) is to the target, since the one who declares hostility instantly exits their party and sees their town portal close. Since hostility can only be declared in town, players who are wary of an attack are generally safe, unless they're standing very near the town exit or a waypoint. Care should be taken in public games when in such locations.
−	Neutral: You cannot target players with this setting. If you try to target a particular Neutral player, the true target instead shifts to a nearby monster, Hostile player, or simply the ground. You cannot directly harm a Neutral player.	+	Once hostile, both players must agree to return to a friendly setting. If one player turns off their hostility they will return to neutral, but the other player will still be hostile to them. This is to prevent players from being able to simply turn off another's declaration of hostility.
−	Neutral players may form a Party together. Party members share equally in gold and experience points. Certain skills, like Paladin Auras and Barbarian Warcries, apply to party members, too.	+	==Neutral==
−	NOTE: You receive a message whenever players change their relationship settings with you.	+	All characters are neutral when they first join a game. You must declare hostility, or join a party (become friendly) to change the starting neutral state. Neutral characters can play in the same areas, but they will not share experience, gold, spell effects, or be able to directly affect each other in any way.
−	Experience is Shared within a Party
−	The total experience earned for killing a monster is increased by 35% when a party member of the killer is in the same named area, defined as the "level" on the Automap. Then the pool is divided as explained below:
−	For each party member the total Experience earned for killing a monster is divided into shares -- where each member's fraction of the total Experience is equal to the member's level divided by the sum of all the members' levels. After this Experience Share is computed, it is multiplied by another percentage that is computed on a sliding scale that is based on the difference between your character's level and the monster's level -- regardless of whether you are in a party or not. The sliding scale applies if the level difference is between 5 and 10. If the level difference is relatively small (5 or less), you get 100% of the Experience Share. If the level difference is relatively large (10 or more), a minimum amount (5%) of the Experience Share is earned. Thus, high-level characters killing low-level monsters get only a small amount of experience. Similarly, low-level characters killing high-level monsters get only a small amount of experience, as well. This is done so that a level 5 character running around with three level 20 characters isn't getting ridiculous amounts of experience for the higher level monsters which only his level 20 party members can destroy. Finally, party members share experience only when they are in the same named area, defined as the "level" on the Automap.	+	=Experience Sharing=
−	Experience Restrictions	+	Characters in the same party share experience when they are on the same level together. [[Levels]] are discrete areas of the map, such as the [[Blood Moor]], or the [[Den of Evil]]. Proximity to another character does not matter; you can be half a screen away and not share experience, if you or they have crossed over into a different level.
−	Party Members must be a distance of about 2 screens from the monster death to gain experience from party member kills. This prevents low-level characters from joining a party and then staying completely out of harm's way while still getting Experience.
−	Gold is Shared within a Party	+	In addition to sharing experience, there are experience bonuses in parties. The total experience earned for killing a given monster is increased by 35% when both party members are in the same area.
−	When a party member picks up a stack of Gold, Gold is evenly divided among the members with any remainder going to the one who picks up the pile. Gold is only split when Party members are in the same level area or "zone" as shown on the Automap or party menu. You cannot turn Gold splitting off. Keep this in mind when trying to exchange Gold between party members and when picking up Gold dropped by other party members when they die. It's a good idea to keep Gold in your Stash when in a Party to avoid Gold Splitting issues if you die. To exchange Gold among party members without splitting the Gold use the Secured Trading Screen in town. Other options include leaving the party to pick up the Gold to avoid the split, then rejoin the party. You can also drop Gold in Town or an area, then make sure no one in the party is in the same area when the pile of Gold is picked up off the ground.
−	Improved Drops for Parties	+	Sharing [[experience]] enables weak or lower level characters to level up quickly when partied with efficient killers. During the various patches added to the game, limitations have been placed on experience sharing, to prevent very low level characters from simply tagging along and leveling up like a slot machine while standing well away from the action. In v1.11, characters need to be within 5 levels of the monsters (that are dying) to gain full experience, and the experience is divided between characters on a sliding scale, with higher level characters receiving proportionally more.
−	Every party member in the area of the kill increases the chance that stuff will drop (whether via monster death, chests, etc). Every two additional other players in the game (whether it's a non-party member or a party member in another area) count as one additional party member toward the extra chance for a drop.
−	For example (for a sample baseline 25% drop):	+	Another patch change requires that party members be near the action to gain experience. In early versions of ''Diablo II'' a character only had to be on the same level. In v1.10+ characters must be on the same level '''and''' within about two screens of the monster deaths to share experience from party kills.
−	Party Chance Of Getting Something	+	Even with these changes, it's still quite profitable for low level characters to party up with higher level ones, especially past level 25, when the major limitations are relaxed.
−	1 1-(0.75^1) = 0.250
−	2 1-(0.75^2) = 0.438
−	3 1-(0.75^3) = 0.578
−	4 1-(0.75^4) = 0.684
−	5 1-(0.75^5) = 0.763
−	6 1-(0.75^6) = 0.822
−	7 1-(0.75^7) = 0.867
−	8 1-(0.75^8) = 0.900
−	Note that most things don't have a 25% chance of dropping something, so the values in the table need to be adjusted for that fact. Also, some monsters (namely bosses and chests), roll more than once for items (since they can drop multiple items). The bonus for additional players gets calculated into each roll.
−	Some bosses (such as normal uniques) will always drop a magic item or better. The additional players will have no effect on them.	+	=Gold Sharing=
−	The additional players has no effect on the quality of the drop, it only affects the chance that items get dropped in the first place.	+	Gold is shared evenly between party members on the same level. If a stack of 203 gold is picked up by a character with 4 others in his party, each character will receive 40 gold, with the character who picked it up receiving the 3 left over after the even shares are distributed. All gold picked up in the game is shared this way, with all other players in the area. This includes gold dropped due to the gold penalty for death, and even gold dropped and picked up in town (which will be shared with any other party members in town at that time).
−	Town Portal Restrictions	+	To exchange gold without sharing it, use the trading screen (while in town) or else pick it up when no other party members are in the area.
−	You cannot enter Town Portals cast by other players in areas beyond the "blocking quests" without having completed those quests: e.g., Canyon of the Magi/Seven Tombs/Duriel's Lair (The Summoner), The Harem/Palace Basement/Arcane Sanctuary (The Tainted Sun), Durance of Hate (The Blackened Temple), The Worldstone Keep (The Ancients), The Secret Cow Level (Terror's End in DII classic or Eve of Destruction in DII: LoD). NOTE: A player who kills the High Council (but doesn't use Khalim's Will to smash the Compelling Orb) may take a Town Portal into the Durance of Hate.
−	This is to prevent higher level players from helping lower level players to advance further in the game without working for it. If a player is unable to enter a portal, this means they need to complete a quest.
−	Party Tips	+	=Increased Item Drops=
−	Decide how you are going to divide up the loot. There are a few popular ways to do this:	+	While being in a party does not improve the quality of item drops (that's what [[Magic Find]] is for), it does increase the quantity of items dropped. More characters in a game does that too, but more characters in a party adds to the benefit. (And that's not even counting the faster killing time possible when characters cooperate.)
−	Players unofficially rotate between items, "you got something last time, now it's my turn."	+	These benefits are seen chiefly from regular monsters, and also from Act Bosses. Random bosses, champion types, and other [[Superuniques|SuperUniques]] are unaffected by more players in a game, since the quantity of their drops is set in the game code. Regular monsters drop far more items in larger games, and Act Bosses have a better chance to drop multiple items (up to six) in larger games.
−	The Group leader or Master Looter decides which player gets which item.	+	For example, here's a demonstration of the increasing odds that a regular (non-boss) monster will drop something when it dies. If the monster has a 25% chance to drop something in a single player game, it will drop at the following % for more players.
		+	* 1 -- 1-(0.75^1) = 0.250
		+	* 2 -- 1-(0.75^2) = 0.438
		+	* 3 -- 1-(0.75^3) = 0.578
		+	* 4 -- 1-(0.75^4) = 0.684
		+	* 5 -- 1-(0.75^5) = 0.763
		+	* 6 -- 1-(0.75^6) = 0.822
		+	* 7 -- 1-(0.75^7) = 0.867
		+	* 8 -- 1-(0.75^8) = 0.900
		+	This is a spurious example, since normal monsters don't have a 25% chance to drop something, but it gives an idea of the rate of increase.
−	The least structured method, but unfortunately most popular, is Free-For-All. Whichever player can click on the items the fastest will get those items, if they have room in their backpack. When loot is FFA, often monsters come second as party members race to grab the good loot. Keep in mind that Gold is split so let greedy party members grab up all the gold they want! One thing to watch out for in FFA looting are players who will let other players in the party finish off a monster while they stand there doing nothing waiting for the item to drop. This is not recommended.
−	Share items among classes that can best use them. You may find a Magic Staff that is worth money to the vendors but do the right thing and let the Sorceress have the Staff if she needs it. Don't be a jerk, if a Sorceress helps you kill a monster, and a Sorceress item drops, let the Sorceress pick it up!	+	=Town Portal Restrictions=
−	If class-specific items drop, let players of those classes pick them up. Don't pick them up just because you want to see what it is, or because you want to trade it. If a class is helping you, they deserve a cut of the loot. Be fair and let them have their class-specific items. Let the Assassins pick up Katars, let the Sorceress pick up Orbs and so on. Yes that means you, Barbarians!	+	The v1.09 and especially v1.10 patches added various town portal restrictions, to prevent players from so easily "rushing" low level characters up through the game. Prior to those patches, a brand new character could simply take town portals to Catacombs 4, Tal Rasha's Tomb, the Durance of Hate 3, and so forth, get close enough to activate the quest, and then stand back while a higher level character slaughtered the Act Boss in seconds. After v1.10, this process is somewhat complicated by the so called "blocking quests."
−	Share potions among classes that can best use them. While all classes can use Mana, Health and Rejuvenation potions, some classes need some potions over others. Casters need Mana and Rejuvenation Potions, let them have them. Amazons and Melee Characters can use Mana/Life Steal while players like Necromancers, Elemental Druids, and Sorceresses have to rely on Potions and their Mana Regeneration.	+	These quests designate areas to which new characters can not take a town portal, until they have finished the quest. For instance, it's now impossible to take a portal to the [[Canyon of the Magi]], [[Tal Rasha's Tomb|Seven Tombs]], or [[Durial's Lair]] before a character completes [[Quests_Act_Two#Quest_Five:_The_Summoner|The Summoner]] quest. Other blocked areas include:
−	If you get a good item such as a Set or Unique, stop looting and let other players in the party do the looting from then on. You got your good item so let them get items to make up for it. Don't be a jerk! Share the loot! When you continue to loot items they will be thinking didn't that player just get something good? And they'll be right! You got your item, it's their turn.	+	* [[Quests_Act_Two#Quest_Three:_The_Tainted_Sun|The Tainted Sun]] must be completed to portal to: The Harem, Palace Basement, or Arcane Sanctuary.
		+	* [[Quests_Act_Three#Quest_Five:_The_Blackened_Temple|The Blackened Temple]] quest must be completed before a character can take a portal into the Durance of Hate.
		+	** Rather than having to collect all the parts of Khalim, it's possible to get credit for killing the high council in Travincal, then return to town and take a portal into the Durance.
		+	* [[Quests_Act_Five#Quest_Five:_Rite_of_Passage|The Rite of Passage]] quest must be completed before a character can take a portal into the Worldstone Keep.
		+	** It's possible to have another player create the game, so you may defeat the ancients and walk into the Worldstone Keep without completing the quest. This is recommended, since the experience reward for killing the Ancients on Nightmare and Hell is so much more valuable when taken at level 90+, thanks to the heavy experience penalties that set in at higher levels. Save them both until level 98, if you're taking your character to level 99.
		+	* The [[Secret Cow Level]]: It's impossible to take the red portal in, or a friend's town portal, unless your character has qualified for the quest by defeating Baal on that difficulty level.
−	Pick a leader
−	This player will be the one who leads the group throughout areas and dungeons. This player will open doors, and sometimes "pull" monsters back to the party to attack. Barbarians, Amazons with Melee Weapons, Assassins, Melee Druids, and Paladins are good at this job.
−	An alternative method to a group leader is the wandering pack, which wanders off into an area and comes back together after running into trouble. "Hey I brought some friends for you!" This can also work and may or may not be as successful as having a group leader. This is the most popular but least effective method.	+	[[category:basics]]
		+	[[category:Battle.net]]
		+	[[category:multiplayer]]

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Latest revision as of 04:29, 8 March 2009

The ability to play the game with other players is one of the most enjoyable, and maddening, aspects of Diablo II. There's nothing more fun than playing with a group of friends when everyone is good at the game, everyone does their share of the work, the loot is being apportioned justly, and your mixture of characters meshes well. And there are few things as frustrating as being in a party full of item grabbers, lazy players who don't pull their weight, wanna-be PKs, and rush-beggars.

Finding your way into the first type of group, while avoiding the second, is a major preoccupation of most players online, and while no wiki page can tell you how to manage that trick, knowing more about how parties work and the game mechanics underlying them will certainly help.

Forming a Party[edit]

To form a party press the "P" key to open the Party screen. This menu will list every player in the game, with their names in three different colors, depending on your character's status with them:

• Green: In your party.
• White: Neutral player. Not in your party or in another party.
• Red: Hostile player, trying to kill you (or you him).

In regards to each character, you have three possible options, depending on their status:

• Invite: Press this button to invite the player to join your party. They will receive a text notification in bright green.
• Cancel: Cancel an invitation. (Usually done so you can invite again, in case they didn't notice the first one.)
• Accept: Press this button to accept a party invitation you receive. You will instantly join the party.

Parties differ from normal unaligned gameplay in a few ways; party members on the same level share gold and experience (formulas listed below), can use each other's town portals, can benefit from each other's auras, and can see each other's current location on the party screen.

To get an invitation to a party, you can ask by typing a chat message. There is no way to ask for an invite via the party window, and it's impossible to force your way into a party. You can only invite non-aligned characters, not those who are already in parties.

Parties are entirely democratic. No one has control over them or the ability to kick out other party members, and anyone in a party can invite unaligned players to join. You can always leave a party though, and if someone in the party is being annoying and the others don't want to share experience with them, everyone can leave the party and form a new one without inviting the annoying person to join. Players who are so scorned often retaliate by going hostile, either since they want to fight or (more often) simply to be annoying.

Party Options[edit]

There are several control options available while in a party, some of which are not available at other times. When you are in a party, a button appears on top of the party menu, with the word "LEAVE" in bright green letters. Clicking that will immediately exit you from the party (and dissolve the party if there was just one other player in it).

The following icons appear in the party window, beside the name of each character in your party. The first three are for all characters, but corpse looting is only available to Hardcore characters since patch v1.08.

• When you click any of these icons icons, the affected player receives a notification.

Neutral/Hostile: Clicking the crossed swords icon will declare hostility on the chosen player, and enable your character to deal damage to them (and them to you). If you declare hostility on a player in a party, your declaration affects everyone in the party at once, and exits you from that party if you are a member of it. A character can only go hostile while in town, and doing so immediately exits them from their party and closes their town portal. Hostility can only be declared once per minute/per character, to prevent grief-motivated hostility spamming.

Include/Exclude: Excluding a player from chat means they will not "hear" anything you "say" when you type messages. This effectively makes your typed messages a group whisper to every character but the excluded one. Click the button again to include (stop excluding) the player.

Squelch/Unsquelch: This button mutes the selected player, making it so that their messages will not appear on your screen.

Allow Loot: This option, available only in Hardcore mode, permits the designated characters to take the items off of your corpse when (if) you die. It's common practice for hardcore players to allow friends looting privileges, though many is the HC player who has cursed his fate when dying unexpectedly, without allowing his friends this option. Allowing it to strangers in a public game can be a risky proposition, since it might encourage them to try to go hostile on you, and even if they do not, and you die to a monster, and they loot you, there's nothing that says they have to give you your equipment back. Still, if you do not set loot you will surely lose everything upon death, and if someone PKs you you can probably exit the game after you die, but before they're able to get to your corpse to claim their spoils.

If a friend dies and you have loot, it's imperative that you get to their corpse as quickly as possible, since if they died from latency over a poor connection, their body might vanish seconds after their death when they disconnect. If you trust everyone else in the game, it's best to clean their corpse like a piranha, even if inventory restrictions mean that you must scatter the items on the ground in the dungeon. At least there they won't vanish forever, if the dead player disconnects, and you can make several trips to town to get everything squared in your stash and cube. (This logic holds true for a PK victim too, of course.)

Player Relations[edit]

Each player has 2 possible relationships with all other players in the game -- Neutral (the default) and Hostile. Changes to your relationships are made in the Party screen, and with on screen notices (and a warning sound effect, in the case of hostility).

Hostility[edit]

Players who are hostile to each other can target each other, and each other's minions, just as if they were monsters. When another player goes hostile to you, you immediately go hostile in return. The advantage (other than surprise) is to the target, since the one who declares hostility instantly exits their party and sees their town portal close. Since hostility can only be declared in town, players who are wary of an attack are generally safe, unless they're standing very near the town exit or a waypoint. Care should be taken in public games when in such locations.

Once hostile, both players must agree to return to a friendly setting. If one player turns off their hostility they will return to neutral, but the other player will still be hostile to them. This is to prevent players from being able to simply turn off another's declaration of hostility.

Neutral[edit]

All characters are neutral when they first join a game. You must declare hostility, or join a party (become friendly) to change the starting neutral state. Neutral characters can play in the same areas, but they will not share experience, gold, spell effects, or be able to directly affect each other in any way.

Experience Sharing[edit]

Characters in the same party share experience when they are on the same level together. Levels are discrete areas of the map, such as the Blood Moor, or the Den of Evil. Proximity to another character does not matter; you can be half a screen away and not share experience, if you or they have crossed over into a different level.

In addition to sharing experience, there are experience bonuses in parties. The total experience earned for killing a given monster is increased by 35% when both party members are in the same area.

Sharing experience enables weak or lower level characters to level up quickly when partied with efficient killers. During the various patches added to the game, limitations have been placed on experience sharing, to prevent very low level characters from simply tagging along and leveling up like a slot machine while standing well away from the action. In v1.11, characters need to be within 5 levels of the monsters (that are dying) to gain full experience, and the experience is divided between characters on a sliding scale, with higher level characters receiving proportionally more.

Another patch change requires that party members be near the action to gain experience. In early versions of Diablo II a character only had to be on the same level. In v1.10+ characters must be on the same level and within about two screens of the monster deaths to share experience from party kills.

Even with these changes, it's still quite profitable for low level characters to party up with higher level ones, especially past level 25, when the major limitations are relaxed.

Gold Sharing[edit]

Gold is shared evenly between party members on the same level. If a stack of 203 gold is picked up by a character with 4 others in his party, each character will receive 40 gold, with the character who picked it up receiving the 3 left over after the even shares are distributed. All gold picked up in the game is shared this way, with all other players in the area. This includes gold dropped due to the gold penalty for death, and even gold dropped and picked up in town (which will be shared with any other party members in town at that time).

To exchange gold without sharing it, use the trading screen (while in town) or else pick it up when no other party members are in the area.

Increased Item Drops[edit]

While being in a party does not improve the quality of item drops (that's what Magic Find is for), it does increase the quantity of items dropped. More characters in a game does that too, but more characters in a party adds to the benefit. (And that's not even counting the faster killing time possible when characters cooperate.)

These benefits are seen chiefly from regular monsters, and also from Act Bosses. Random bosses, champion types, and other SuperUniques are unaffected by more players in a game, since the quantity of their drops is set in the game code. Regular monsters drop far more items in larger games, and Act Bosses have a better chance to drop multiple items (up to six) in larger games.

For example, here's a demonstration of the increasing odds that a regular (non-boss) monster will drop something when it dies. If the monster has a 25% chance to drop something in a single player game, it will drop at the following % for more players.

• 1 -- 1-(0.75^1) = 0.250
• 2 -- 1-(0.75^2) = 0.438
• 3 -- 1-(0.75^3) = 0.578
• 4 -- 1-(0.75^4) = 0.684
• 5 -- 1-(0.75^5) = 0.763
• 6 -- 1-(0.75^6) = 0.822
• 7 -- 1-(0.75^7) = 0.867
• 8 -- 1-(0.75^8) = 0.900

This is a spurious example, since normal monsters don't have a 25% chance to drop something, but it gives an idea of the rate of increase.

Town Portal Restrictions[edit]

The v1.09 and especially v1.10 patches added various town portal restrictions, to prevent players from so easily "rushing" low level characters up through the game. Prior to those patches, a brand new character could simply take town portals to Catacombs 4, Tal Rasha's Tomb, the Durance of Hate 3, and so forth, get close enough to activate the quest, and then stand back while a higher level character slaughtered the Act Boss in seconds. After v1.10, this process is somewhat complicated by the so called "blocking quests."

These quests designate areas to which new characters can not take a town portal, until they have finished the quest. For instance, it's now impossible to take a portal to the Canyon of the Magi, Seven Tombs, or Durial's Lair before a character completes The Summoner quest. Other blocked areas include:

• The Tainted Sun must be completed to portal to: The Harem, Palace Basement, or Arcane Sanctuary.
• The Blackened Temple quest must be completed before a character can take a portal into the Durance of Hate.
  • Rather than having to collect all the parts of Khalim, it's possible to get credit for killing the high council in Travincal, then return to town and take a portal into the Durance.
• The Rite of Passage quest must be completed before a character can take a portal into the Worldstone Keep.
  • It's possible to have another player create the game, so you may defeat the ancients and walk into the Worldstone Keep without completing the quest. This is recommended, since the experience reward for killing the Ancients on Nightmare and Hell is so much more valuable when taken at level 90+, thanks to the heavy experience penalties that set in at higher levels. Save them both until level 98, if you're taking your character to level 99.
• The Secret Cow Level: It's impossible to take the red portal in, or a friend's town portal, unless your character has qualified for the quest by defeating Baal on that difficulty level.