A Veteran's Proposal for a Self Found League - Poll Included!

@ScrotieMcb: I agree, on principle; I just didn't want to see the discussion devolve into a circuitous argument about semantics :)

I agree that, if any changes can be made to the core game to enhance the SF experience, they should on principle of improving the core game. If that satisfies the self found experience, then that's great. If those improvements are inadequate, because trading is still a stimulus, then I believe exploration of the SFL to have merit.

I also believe any discussion of league fracturing should be written off, as there is no evidence to support one way or the other what would happen. It is, ultimately, as unpredictable a decision as when GGG decided to implement Anarchy/Onslaught. There simply has not been precedence for this kind of change; therefore, the only thing to do is wait and see.

That's not to make light of the issue either; I am always fundamentally opposed to any suggestion that would trade one player's woes for another player's pleasures. It is, indeed, something to be concerned about, but it is not something that can be affected through theories and discussion. What can be, is examination of the other pro's and con's, as well as examination of potential test league results, to determine if it is worth the risk; just as was (must have been) done to determine if Anarchy and Onslaught were worth the risk.

In the meantime, I am one of those "on the fence" observers. I have no reason to disagree with a SFL, but at the same time I would prefer the core game receive greater attention, and improvements be made in leaps and strides (such as, aherm, vendor recipes, a more complex item mod system utilizing tables of hybrid modifier, and more adequately rewarded risks as an alternative to MF). It may very well be that certain core systems are lacking, and thus contributing to self found dissatisfaction. As much as these players could benefit from a new league, I also believe they could benefit from being engaged on a more cerebral level.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@RogueMage: I enjoyed your reply (edit: before you moved it). I personally believe the solution would be to reverse the current "new rules" situations — the temporary leagues should be kept vanilla, and the permanent leagues should get the new rules such as Invasion and Ambush, rotating every few months. Temporary leagues already draw new players due to the competition of a fresh ladder, and don't need the extra bells and whistles to keep them fresh.

Ehh, can't see that one turning out right. What players are there at standard at the moment are there precisely becaouse they don't want/don't have time to start anew, what players there are at temp leagues are there because of new bells and whistles and to escape the itemization quagmire in standard.

So, if you transfer bells and whistles in permaleagues there's only one reason left to play temp ones, and it might easily not prove good enough.

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CanHasPants wrote:

I agree that, if any changes can be made to the core game to enhance the SF experience, they should on principle of improving the core game. If that satisfies the self found experience, then that's great. If those improvements are inadequate, because trading is still a stimulus, then I believe exploration of the SFL to have merit.

You know, if you really think about it, the only way to have decent permaleague experience is for it to be self-found. As long as trading is enabled there is no way to stop global item saturation, only delay it, there will still be local item saturation for those that invest a crapload of time in the game but that's a problem only for those players, global saturatin affects everybody.

So, I'd propose current permaleagues to be converted into legacy (yes, and die a slow death but at least the promise is kept), and new permaleagues to be self-found. Yes, you will be able to trade in temp leagues and keep items in perma once they're over but that's perfectly fine, if you want to get a lot of shinies for strictly your own pleasure, well, it's an option too if you like stuff like that.

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raics wrote:

So, I'd propose current permaleagues to be converted into legacy (yes, and die a slow death but at least the promise is kept), and new permaleagues to be self-found.

You just brought me off the fence; I am so in favor of this.

I'd be remiss not to admit, almost solely because it involves legacy leagues ;D

+ 1 for SFL, signed petition.

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raics wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@RogueMage: I enjoyed your reply (edit: before you moved it). I personally believe the solution would be to reverse the current "new rules" situations — the temporary leagues should be kept vanilla, and the permanent leagues should get the new rules such as Invasion and Ambush, rotating every few months. Temporary leagues already draw new players due to the competition of a fresh ladder, and don't need the extra bells and whistles to keep them fresh.

Ehh, can't see that one turning out right. What players are there at standard at the moment are there precisely becaouse they don't want/don't have time to start anew, what players there are at temp leagues are there because of new bells and whistles and to escape the itemization quagmire in standard.

So, if you transfer bells and whistles in permaleagues there's only one reason left to play temp ones, and it might easily not prove good enough.

Well at a very minimum the switch should be made on the Hardcore side of the house; on that particular point I won't budge. I mean, just thinking about it: your Hardcore character just died (because this is what Hardcore characters inevitably do), you are about to start a reroll, you know you will inevitably die again, so which league do you pick? The situation itself heavily favors the temporary Hardcore league.

Perhaps something more like this...

Three leagues for non-race character creation:
1. Standard, as it is now (no option to check the Hardcore option)
2. Temporary softcore, as it is now
3. A single Hardcore league, which would always have a challenge mod which changes from season to season. It would follow the naming convention "Hardcore: Invasion" (instead of just "Invasion"), and would have something like "When Invasion ends, its characters will become characters in the next Hardcore league" in its description.

That would be it. There would, however, be a Season Race, which is just what you'd expect: a vanilla Hardcore race which lasts all season. It would technically fall under the Events schedule, and would count towards the Season Ladder for the folks who like competing for it. This means there would always be at least one event to join in the Event Join section.

The disadvantage to this is that GGG would need to greatly reduce its downtime between seasons.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

How about this: until desync becomes more manageable, yep, 100% against a test SFL.

How bout this: until the 3D engine / particles are optimized, 100% against fixing desync.

You are just seting some non-related arbitrary conditions, like a test SFL would require so much resources to run. Just say it man, you are against SFL as a principle for whatever reason and are just grabbing at straws and nitpicking for excuses in all the related threads.

Also about "fracturing the playerbase" myth ->> Standard, Standard HC, Ambush, Invasion, Races, CT coming, 1-week races alongside ladder, 1-month race alongside ladder, paid leagues someday... But yeah a SFL would so fracture the playerbase into oblivion, lol! :))

If anything a SFL might bring some people back.

the reason new leagues never interested me is because rmt and d2j** are just as prevalent if not more so there than on standard. there is no such thing as a true fresh start that isnt quickly tainted by cheaters.

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Nephalim wrote:

the reason new leagues never interested me is because rmt and d2j** are just as prevalent if not more so there than on standard. there is no such thing as a true fresh start that isnt quickly tainted by cheaters.

Which you'll just see 4 months from that point anyway. If that's really how you feel, Standard is just delaying the inevitable.

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morbo wrote:

How bout this: until the 3D engine / particles are optimized,

Not likely to ever happen until PoE2.