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Split farming is the practice of multiple players in a game splitting up spreading out to [[farm]] items or other valuables more quickly than could be done alone, or in a collected group. The most common form of split farming is found in [[Adventure Mode]], where players play on a low difficulty level (usually [[Normal]]), and each all head off to a do different [[bounty]] bounties in the Actsame act, thus completing them more quickly than is possible solo, and all partaking in order to complete the entire act and earn the [[Horadric Cache]] reward from Tyrael as quickly as possible. Split farming is most commonly found in Act One, since the [[Ring of Royal Grandeur]] can only be found from Act One caches. If/when cache distribution changes, or that ring begins to drop from other sources, or other highly-desired cache-only items are added, player split farming behavior will surely change.
While the developers have said that they don't approve of split farming[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/travis-day-weighs-travis-day-weighs-in-on-reaper-of-souls-legendary-item-drop-rates] and feel it's not how the game is meant to be played, they have made few changes to make split farming less viable or valuable, and added many features and game mechanics that make split farming the smartest way to play, at least when seeking [[Horadric Caches]] or [[Infernal Machines]].
Split Farming was made somewhat less valuable in a patch shortly after Reaper of Souls' release, when bounties were changed to only award their experience/gold value to characters who were near the monster/event, or on the level the bounty was awarded for. The awarding of a Horadric Cache to every character in the game, no matter their location, was not changed in this patch, and thus split farming continued on as a popular tactic for players seeking Cache-only items, chiefly the Ring of Royal Grandeur.
==Infernal Machine Farming==
Keywardens have always been a useful enemy to split farm. True split farming wasn't useful on Keywardens until Patch 2.1, when the keys they dropped were made [[Global drops]].
Prior to that patch, going all the way back to [[Diablo 3 vanilla]], players would spread out to find the Keywarden more quickly, but everyone would do so in the same area at the same time. The point was to search more quickly, and when someone found the KW they would announce it, and then wait until the other players could run over before killing the KW. This was necessary since prior to global drops, the KW dropped like any other monster, and thus only dropped items (including the Key) for characters who were nearby when it died.
This changed in [[Patch 2.1]], at the start of [[Season One]], when KeyWardens were made Global Drops. This meant that the KW would drop items for every character in the game, no matter where they were located when the KW died. Thus players could all head off to hunt them, up to 4 players each in a different act, and only when someone found and killed the KW would they announce if it had dropped a key, since if it dropped a key for one player, it would drop a key for everyone. (And if not for one, then not for all.) Players then had to wait near the KW until the other players in the game could portal over, otherwise it was hard to find the corpse and the key not knowing where to look on the entire map.
===Horadric Cache materials===
[[Patch 2.3]] introduced [[Horadric Cache material]]s, which greatly incentivized split farming bounties in all five acts. Rather than just Act One and occasionally some other Act, in Patch 2.3 players need to collect Caches from all five acts to obtain the [[legendary materials]] inside them. When earned, Caches are awarded to everyone in the game, regardless of their location or participation in any of the bounties in that act.
==Developers Disapprove==
The Developers have several times said they don't like the play style that split farming incentivizes, and while early in Reaper of Souls they've made some minor tweaks to make it split farming less rewarding (requiring players to be near the Bounty target to earn the reward), that's done nothing to lessen the practice, since the main goal remains the Horadric Cache for completing the entire act of bounties.
Travis Day spoke on split farming during the Reaper of Souls beta, in January 2014.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/travis-day-weighs-travis-day-weighs-in-on-reaper-of-souls-legendary-item-drop-rates]
<blue>Lastly on the topic of split farming, this is very clearly not how we want players to play the game. We know of the problems it causes as well as the reasons its occurring and are actively discussing ways to address the problem. While we love co-op and we want players to enjoy playing the game together, the right answer should obviously not be “Lets play co-op and all go solo in the game!”. I’m walking into a meeting as soon as I post this to discuss the issue and possible solutions.</blue>
Game changes dating to after Travis' comments, such as making KeyWarden drops global and adding Horadric Cache materials in [[Patch 2.3]] have done nothing but encourage Split Farming, so clearly it's not high on the developers list of player behaviors to fix or change.