Self-Found (League) [Thread outdated!]

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

The solution to this isn't 4 month leagues, where players have to start over from scratch if they don't want to play an inflated economy. The simple solution is to make a league where there is no economy. That would please the players who don't want to play the inflated economy, and also don't want to start over every 4 months.

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Novalisk wrote:

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

The solution to this isn't 4 month leagues, where players have to start over from scratch if they don't want to play an inflated economy. The simple solution is to make a league where there is no economy. That would please the players who don't want to play the inflated economy, and also don't want to start over every 4 months.

The real solution is adding a proper item sink and making gear less of a factor in determining income rates.

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

The solution to this isn't 4 month leagues, where players have to start over from scratch if they don't want to play an inflated economy. The simple solution is to make a league where there is no economy. That would please the players who don't want to play the inflated economy, and also don't want to start over every 4 months.

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Finkenstein wrote:

This will continue circulating until dev gives proper well thought out response.

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Qarl wrote:

I can give my current thoughts on self found.

In the existing leagues, there is nothing stopping anyone from playing self-found, and we know many of our players do. We also have players that only engage rarely with other players, trading and partying occasionally.

So, as you can play self found in an existing league, I doubt we need to separate out the leagues. The question then is, are there progression problems with self found. I think there are two parts to this:

Can you play through self found? Currently there are issues with this, especially around the 40s. One of the main problems here is the availability of 4-linked items. Gear progression gets hard here, as replacement gear requires both beating existing gear in stats, and in skill support. This isn't usually an issue earlier, as you aren't needing full skill sets, and can skimp on stats and still progress quickly.

If we are going to make changes, it will likely be on the ability to make or the availability of 4 linked items.


The second issue is, what is the player expectation of self-found play. In general the main issue comes when players look to the top of ladders and to streamers to direct what their play experience would be like. This gives players a very distorted view of what they should be able to achieve. In general these players are pushing every advantage they can from trade, long play, group play.

Often, when I get told - "everyone is doing X", and I have a look, there are often only a handful of people doing, its just often these are the most visible. An example of this is 6-link Shavronne's. If I look at over level 90 characters, in all leagues, played in the last month, well under 50 players have Shavronne's Wrappings equipped. And if I look at the stats, if you want to die, wear a Shavronne's.

We will not be making a league to make it possible to replicate the play of these players. 1) We don't think its needed. 2) From past experience, if we make accommodations to make it possible to replicate these players, these players will still beat you. If we made a self found league with competitive advantages but solo play, you'll see the same players on top of those leagues, and we'll get a new set of complaints from people who want to replicate the achievements without the same investment.

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Qarl wrote:

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Cronk wrote:

When people say they would like a self-found league, it's not as a result of a desire to compete - quite the opposite in fact.

Well, from what I have read, that seems to be exactly what they say. They use terms like "You just can't compete."

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The concept stems from the fact that many people don't like the trappings of competition, but, instead, would like to just play the game 'by their own steam'.

The use of the word league is just another word for 'different settings' and many wouldn't care if there wasn't a top XYZ players published at all.

That is an interesting concept I hadn't seen posted elsewhere.

We do know the players who care about ladders, really care about ladders. We also know ladders are important part of getting returning players.

I suspect if we do ladder-less leagues, it'll likely as part of paid leagues.

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In terms of time investment, yes, that is an area that GGG seem quite obsessed with, but, as it stands, solo-self-found plays more like torture than fun when functioning under the mechanics of an MMO trading league. The solo-self-found experience would be significantly different because it would provide an opportunity to actually experiment with different, more beneficial drop rates combined with player retention.

Unless there's a significant distinction in philosophy between the concept of player retention over time and the concept of making players invest time regardless of its retention statistics.

Largely, and I am very glad about this, our business model supports us making the best game we can.

We are planning to run the game long term, so we can't just increase player numbers at the expense of having lower churn. So, yes, we really do care about our players staying.

So we really do care about things that cause players to quit and not return. So this thread is interesting to me. For example seeing people report Act 2 Merciless as an issue, as its not really an area where we have identified as being a problem.

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Qarl wrote:

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Amiag wrote:

well for starter theres a 90-page thread in the suggestions forum where no one ever complains about being unable to top the ladder as self found (well as far as i can remember), so im not sure where you get that competition is the problem ? If anything people playing self found are not interested in competition cause self found is WAY slower especially once you get to act 3 merci and maps.

They don't talk about being at the top of the ladder, but they very specifically mention the play experience of those players, and their gear, and the parts of the game, and their effectiveness in those parts of the game.

I do appreciate you actually saying something in this post.

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Qarl wrote:

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MrMisterMissedHer wrote:

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Qarl wrote:

So we really do care about things that cause players to quit and not return. So this thread is interesting to me. For example seeing people report Act 2 Merciless as an issue, as its not really an area where we have identified as being a problem.

boof is a very good player and in the 1 month race I was in the top 10 on the 2nd day playing solo 2h melee (different account), if people like us actually feel a problem there I don't really want to know what less masochist players think of it. Take that as you may.

Well, I really am interested in this wall. I have yet to get an idea of why it is an issue.

What precisely is the issue at this point? People do mention crafting a bit, so is it a linking issue, in which case the solution for the 40s area will also help here.

If it is a different issue, then what is it, and does it need a different solution.

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Qarl wrote:

I thought I'd also note, when I see part of the problem is a perception that people feel they need what the most time invested players have, I am not saying "you are all just entitled". I am saying, this is an actual problem we have, and we want to find out why we have this signalling issue.

Chase items, and godly gear and perfect mods are excellent things for keeping those players interested in the game, and giving them something to do. But we also want to have other players happy to continue for better gear without feeling like they are missing out at some core level.

And while we want a solution that works for players, we don't want to, say, add 5 hours of play to a player who was only going to play for 20 hours, in exchange for all of our 1000+ hour players, then it is not a very good solution for us.

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Rhys wrote:

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Jddogg wrote:

Qarls reasoning was the equivalent of a game with a pvp server saying " were not making non pvp servers because you can just CHOOSE to not attack each other" It's the exact same ridiculous logic. IT makes NO sense.

If you're talking about non-consensual PvP, then your analogy doesn't work, because in that case it's impossible to play non-PvP because you can't stop others from attacking you, whereas with self-found, no-one can force you to trade with them. The two scenarios are very different.

If you're not talking about non-consensual PvP, then I don't see what the problem is. I don't see how players having the ability to PvP (if they want) is bad, since it doesn't affect those who aren't interested. I mean, we already have this functionality in the game right now.