im quite new to diablo 2 as a whole, only started really playing in d2, ive heard that 3/5/8 people in a game have better loot

i only play solo online, and have no friends to farm with. am i missing out on a huge boost by having 2 mates?

Only if you don't buy two more copies and load them into same game. Then you have 2 extra pseudo friends!

ye

more player = higher chance to find sth

how much higher?

technically i can say i have 2 friends

drop rate increase with more players in the lobby but actually almost everyone is solo farming, u must only have patience and keep run run run and kill kill kill and be lucky with the rng

Yes, the loot rounds up on odd number of players so 3-4,5-6,7-8 are each in their own drop rate bracket.

Going from 1 player to 3 player is the most dramatic increase is drop rate. Then its a smaller increase to 5 and even smaller but best rate at 7.

well you would have to share the drops then too
just join a public game and do your thing if you can

NewNoDrop=int( ProbSum/(1/((NoDrop/(NoDrop+ProbSum))^N)-1) ),
where N=int(1+AdditionalPlayers/2+ClosePartiedPlayers/2),
AdditionalPlayers — the number of all additional players in the game, where the monster is killed,
ClosePartiedPlayers — the number of players in your party near you (not far than two screens away),
ProbSum=Prob1+Prob2+Prob3+...+Prob10,
int — operation of truncating fractional part of a number.

3, 5, 7 players change the loot drop table (more items)

yes, you're missing out on many more drops by not playing with anyone. i would recommend doing whatever you're currently doing in random pub games that already have 2,4,6 players in them to boost your item drop chances.

gl

whats the % increase ? is it like an addition to ur MF% or is it a an extra multiplier