Partying

Parties allow up to six people to play together. You can create or join public parties by clicking on the Notice Board in town, or by pressing S to open the Social window. You can also invite someone to a party by selecting a player's name in chat, clicking on them in town, or typing /invite playername in the Chat Console.

Effect on Monsters

Monsters gain extra life for each additional party member after the first: 20% in Normal, 40% in Cruel, and 60% in Merciless. The original life amount is used for the purposes of determining the length of Stuns and Status Ailments from Elemental Damage - this means monsters will not be harder to stun/freeze/etc when fighting in a party.

Effect on Loot

Each player after the first adds a bonus +10% Increased item quantity and 40% Increased item rarity to the party. For Gems and Currency items, party members add 50% Increased item quantity and 0% Increased item rarity. Bonuses to Increased item rarity from modifiers on player gear are only counted from the player who lands the killing blow. This bonus is multiplicative with any player bonuses to rarity/quantity. Any quantity bonus from a Map is multiplicative with all other modifiers.

Effect on Experience

Experience is split between all members in the party; the amount you receive depends on your level relative to party members and monsters. The usual experience penalty that can come from monster level applies, but experience is also redistributed to higher level characters. This is intended to balance the high experience requirements at higher levels.

Each player's "share" of the experience gained is (CharacterLevel+10)^2.71. divided by the total of all players' shares. Only party members actually in an area count toward getting XP. Party members in town will not receive experience. For example, if a level 10 player was partied with a level 30 player:

Level 10 player's share: (10+10)^2.71 = 3355

Level 30 player's share: (30+10)^2.71 = 21957

Total Shares: 3356 + 21957 = 25313

Level 10 player would receive: 3355/25313 = 0.132 = 13.2% of the XP

Level 30 player would receive: 21957/25313 = 0.867 = 86.7% of the XP

The player also suffers a penalty to XP if they are too far above or below an area's monster level. There is a safe level range where no penalty is applied, which is equal to three, plus one for every sixteen complete player levels. Any additional level difference outside of this safe range is called the Effective Difference.

The formula then applied is:

 PercentOfExperienceGained = ((PlayerLevel +5)^1.5) / ((PlayerLevel+5+(EffectiveDifference^2.5))^1.5)

So a level 24 character has a safe band of 3+1=4 levels. From Monster level 20 to 28, there is an effective level difference of 0. At Monster Levels 19 and 29, the Effective level difference is 1. The Effective Difference matters in either direction.

Finally, being in an area with a party member grants you no experience bonus. Experience is only shared with other players who are near you (roughly two screens of distance). Monsters are always made harder by players anywhere on the level, so players are encouraged to stay together.

Effect on Maps Dropping

The chance of a Map dropping is not affected by party size. They are affected by the quantity and rarity bonuses provided by the Map they are dropped in side of. Unique maps are dropped as part of the normal Item drop system and not governed by the same rules as other dropped maps so they do get the party bonus. However, item quantity still allows players to potentially have better chances of getting maps because iiq increases the quantity of items dropped by monsters killed.

Effect on flasks

Party members of a character landing the killing blow on an enemy will gain Flask charges if they are near by. This is not true for all +Life and +Mana gained "when you deal a killing blow" modifiers; only a character actually landing a killing blow will trigger those effects.

It is unclear if flasks still have a +75% charge recovery bonus for each party member after the first. If this mechanic is still in the game, members of a full party would gain 375% more flask charges from killing monsters.

Version History

Version	Changes
1.0.1	The party life bonus for monsters in higher difficulties has been reduced from 25% to 20% per player per difficulty
1.0.0	40% of the item quantity bonus for additional party members is now shifted towards item rarity. Gems and currency items still receive the old item quantity bonus.
0.9.13e	Players now receive the same amount of experience from nearby monster kills regardless of how many members are in their party. Because experience is awarded to nearby party members equally and is not divided up between them any more, monsters are no longer scaled up in experience if you're playing in a party. This means that larger parties who stick together will get slightly more experience than before, and that idling characters elsewhere in the level no longer increases your experience gains. Solo players receive exactly the same experience that they did previously. Experience is still scaled down if the player is too high or too low level, or if there's a much higher level party member nearby. These equations have not changed.