Self-Found (League) [Thread outdated!]

I'll set it a day for now.
The first 5 posts are updated till this point.

If you miss valuable points in the first 5 posts
or have constructive feedback concerning them, PM me.


Small reminder:

"

Disclaimer wrote:

I request from the participants of this discussion that we respect each others points,
avoid breaking forum rules at all costs and be as constructive as possible.

Please avoid nasty buzzwords which tend to initiate arguments.
I don't claim credit for any points or suggestions discussed in here.

If you want to contribute to this thread anonymously, PM me your response.
I will add it to the discussion accordingly.

Thank you for your awesome contribution to this thread.
You guys really rock so far!

I mainly play solo self found. Sometimes I have to buy the occasional item, but I generally have a good crack at finding/crafting an upgrade before I do. I try and play as much as I can and I have a few hundred hrs clocked up I think and have never made it into a lvl 70 map, nor have I found anything remotely god like IMO.

I love the game but it is getting tedious grinding day-after-day, hour-after-hour with nothing to show for it except, of course, when I do normal Merveil runs :(, which is where I get most of my currency. I have tried trading and creating a shop but frankly that is not a sub-game I want to make time to play (I have monsters to smash don't ya know). If I sell stuff I can only buy stuff or craft with the profits. Well, I want to find good items not buy, and from looking at other peoples attempts at crafting I am really put off from trying, as I'm pretty sure it would make me quit. My experience with trying to get any links or colours has been most frustrating.

Maybe RNG is not on my side, but this isn't the first game. In fact its been every one. I know RNG is a part of many games but I really wish people would consider conditioned RNG aimed at preventing long periods, if not an infinity, of not having at least one godly item (I know it's subjective). It's great to say if you play as much as the streamers do then you'll be bound to have as much loot as they do. However, that's flawed. RNG can mean that you can play for as long as you want and still not get lucky. Frankly from a lifetime of gaming and growing up owning an arcade I think RNG is retarded. Yes have randomness, by all means, but put a bloody intelligent algorithm around your core RNG to factor in time played as a weighting constant or something.

Well done GGG on a great game. I love levelling new characters. The progression, early on, is just right. Just around Merc, however, it takes a turn for the worse. Grind to 80 finding next to nothing get bored start again (rinse and repeat ad nauseam). Just gimme some bloody items already, I'd love to try some of the more gear-centric builds but cant find any of the uniques, or rares for that matter, to pull any of them off. -- I don't think this gaming experience was intended, however, perhaps my expectations are off.

I'd like to think I'm a bit masochistic and hence love a good gear grind but jeez is it unrewarding here. Take it as you will, I'm easy. I just want a better game for all, hopefully. :)

PS: If you want me to formulate a conditional RNG algorithm that takes in time played and all the uniques (with easy addition of future uniques) drop chances ect. I can and will PM me!

"

DUXX96 wrote:

Grind to 80 finding next to nothing get bored start again

That about sums it up.
Even if you stick it out at 80+. it's a hundred+ hours of nothing.
If I see one more bloody Crest of Perandus...., and every single rare that drops, is junk.
I'm trying to stick it out, as there's alot about it I love, but collecting scraps and chasing the proverbial carrot is getting old.

"

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.

OK, deleted long wall o' text.

Quarl: If you'd like a descriptive story of how a guy who loves ARPG's and item farming came to feel despair about item farming in an ARPG let me know and I'll send you a PM. I suspect that you need to talk to some dissatisfied players and get more than just the math. I think you need a descriptive story that talks about both the raw math and the emotions that came along with it.

I've said this before but here goes. I'm a guy who loves ARPG's and I love farming. POE is written by a development team I'd love to love. It uses a funding model that I'm highly supportive of. The fact that I have come to see POE as I do is wrong somehow. I should have been a slam dunk for you. You need to understand why and then work to fix the problems which I suspect are partly perceptual and partly mathematical.

FWIW, I'd recommend finding a few players who you trust/respect/whatever and then do a skype conversation with them. I imagine a real voice conversation would cut through the noise a zillion times faster than any number of wall o' text posts. Ideally these players would be drawn from alpha and closed beta so we could dispense with the learn 2 play noob discussions and get right down to the facts. I'd start each of these conversations with a query about what the "perfect game play" would look like to that individual player.

For me...

A few hundred hours per character to get to a few steps below BiS. This allows me to play with the skill tree in a reasonable fashion and build characters for fun. My current assessment of POE looks more like 2-3 thousand hours per character (witness Anuhart's post). So to do what I think of as "fun" in this game each character would be several years worth of effort. I would think of 300 hours farming (more for particularly noxious gear builds) as reasonably appropriate. It is important that this farming produce some sort of reasonably regular reward or the whole pop the pinata thing becomes... well.. unrewarding :)

Glad to have a dev response on this topic. To me, the reason I want a self-found league or a league balanced around solo play, is because we currently have a system the incentivizes group play - for no reason at all. This isn't an MMO so why do groups get advantages? Why are there more mobs which allows for more kills/more loot etc? Could have more mobs but less xp and drops in line with solo play right?

I then read people saying that those who DON'T want to team but want incentives of their own are "crying" or "asking for handouts" - as if joining a group while the top dps members slaughter everything for you isn't a handout itself. It just doesn't make sense to me. If PoE is a game designed to be played solo - then make it that way, and if it isn't, don't claim that it is.

Also, the RNG in this game needs work. No, I don't want 6-L gear with perfect rolls after running a few dungeons - or even a thousand. What I do want, and what Qarl touched on, is the ability to pick up marginal gear with crap slots and links and turn it into decent gear with decent slots and links, but right now I just don't see it. Right now I hoard all my currency drops to use one whatever item is closest to perfection already, because I realize the chances of actually making something decent is quite slim. I am fine with being forced to grind for a year to get godly gear, but I don't want to have to do that to get decent gear.

I think it's an issue that most players will tell new players to hoard currency items to buy items with, rather than using those items to craft their own gear, because now... this great innovative system is no different than the gold based system they abandoned. If you're going to spend so much time implementing a system that wraps currency with it's own sink - encourage us to use it.

"

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.

Yeah, I agree it's not necessary. I play solo most of the time. And have only traded for two items: Elemental Hit. And a fair fellow gave me some 4L gloves. The vendors just refused to offer any for days and days and they were essential to be able to wear my armor upgrade.

"

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

As I've gone on about, the game is just about assembling the triforce of power: offense (sockets), defense (affixes) and item find (affixes, space for which can be partially offset by skillpoints into resist).

4L are not that hard to get at the endgame. It's the coincidence of odds converging on a disposable non-max drop that's the issue. Making them easier to acquire would mostly just create the possibility of someone actually getting to use those pre-50 rares.

Where I'm at wealth-wise now involves two main crossroads:

* 5 and 6 link body pieces. I know full well it'll cost me hundreds and hundreds of orbs for either. The grind, I don't mind flushing a dozen hours of my life down the toilet for no gain. But the idea that after it's all done I'll be left with an even weaker item (and we're talking a 5th tier item at best here; 2.8 usable affixes) is beyond the pale.

* Alchemy Orbs. I wish I had an effective way to farm Armorour Scraps in order to get some. But the only effective way to craft rares is to have a ton of item find, to get them alch shards and Chaos Orbs. Which means (trading for) Wondertrap and using auras on life. And abusing the defective Righteous Fire. And not playing any other character.

I understand fully that I'm completely gimped compared to those who choose to participate in the botconomy; no human can compete with a machine. And that you can't want what you have.

But in the long run would it break the game if upgrading a crap ilvl 35 item to rare only cost the equivalent of an Orb of Fusing?

"

So we really do care about things that cause players to quit and not return.

While the hump of grinding stuff to get ready for maps is very tiresome (same three zones (two in my case, as The Dock remains an FPS deathtrap)), especially having to stay awake to be able to cheat out of the death penalty...

For me a bit of the malaise comes down to how there's only a few basic builds, really. Everyone's a Paladin, a Necromancer, an Assassin, and one of a Sorceress, Amazon, or Barbarian. The homogeneity is probably the biggest weakness of the game tbh.

"

impotentwinnebago wrote:

"

derbefrier wrote:

but thats not what people are asking for. they are asking for increased drop rates for everything to make the game easier. This entire crusade has always been about making the game easier and nothing else. no one is asking for a permanent decent type league they are asking for the same game as Standard except increased drop rates and no trading. People may try and hide that by throwing out whatever bullshit they can think of but the bottom line is the Self Found People are asking for easy mode. Quarl is right in everything he said your all just to proud and stubborn to admit it.

Ugh. This crap again.

Let's imagine a scenario where 2 players level to 66. They are both eager to start doing maps but they both have insufficient gear for surviving in maps. They also have acquired the exact same number of orbs...let's say 3 gcp, 10 chaos, and 20 alchs and fusings. One player is determined to play self-found and the other has no problem buying their gear. One of these players is going to have a MUCH easier time getting the gear they need to continue progressing. Barring multiple consecutive great rng rolls for the self-found player, it isn't even close. What if the self-found player had twice as many orbs as the trading player? The edge probably still goes to the player who trades.

I of course have no way of knowing how many orbs the self-found player would need to be able to craft gear that is commensurate with what the trading player would be able to purchase. But it is clear that there is a disparity between the two play styles, and a fairly significant one at that.

So yes, most of the people that ask for a SFL are doing so because they would like to see an increase in drop rates in the SFL. This does not mean, however, that they "are asking for easy mode." They are asking for their legitimate playstyle to be afforded a gameplay experience that is on par with that which is experienced by those who trade.

This again.

I addressed this earlier, but I will again. SF is a legitimate play style, for sure. Its also a choice, and you have the option to have a harder game by not using all of the tools at your disposal. If he decided to play self found, he must understand the limiting aspect of it in a game designed to be played online. OF course, the harder experience is actually more rewarding, when he does finally craft / drop that awesome gear.

For your second paragraph, an increase in drop rates on a SFL is indeed making the game easier. As you can play SF only in standard since it is a "legitimate playstyle" already. It would make the game easier, as people playing in such a way already are not trading.

Also, I again have to state that they will not make a league that is easier than the parent leagues.

Advocate short term leagues Descent style, and you have a case.

I'd assume a SFL wouldn't allow trading correct? So, increasing drop rates in such a league seems perfectly balanced to me.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

I'd assume a SFL wouldn't allow trading correct? So, increasing drop rates in such a league seems perfectly balanced to me.

It would still make it easier than the parent league. As they can play that way already.

The reason I say it this way is that I simply just do not see a SF realm on the horizon. It would have to feed into a league we have now.

Except for going the Descent route.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

Glad to have a dev response on this topic. To me, the reason I want a self-found league or a league balanced around solo play, is because we currently have a system the incentivizes group play - for no reason at all. This isn't an MMO so why do groups get advantages? Why are there more mobs which allows for more kills/more loot etc? Could have more mobs but less xp and drops in line with solo play right?

So suggest that all leagues be changed, which would benefit solo players everywhere.

Personally, I think grouping should have advantages. Even strong advantages, maybe as strong as a 2x multiplier vs solo. Unfortunately, the current system allows for 3.5x and sometimes 5x multipliers for group vs solo (examples are map cost per player, and zero-MF solo vs zero-MF in a group with Culling MF support). That's too much. Maybe you don't agree with me fully and think that grouping should have no special advantages whatsoever, and that's okay — that wouldn't stop a coalition of reasonable people from finding common ground and making an successful argument for reducing, but not eliminating, the overpowered incentives for group play. It would be a step forward.

Instead, a good segment of this potential coalition is radicalizing themselves with talk of banning trading and trying to form a separatist movement. They literally want to play a different game, instead of fix the current one. If you can't see how that's counterproductive to the game's future, you need to take a step back and look at the big picture.