So, I can understand some of the appeal to the initial SLF idea… I have ran in races that allowed partying and went solo only to end up an extra 50-100+ places behind those with a group after an hour or so. Since I do not have a team, sometimes I would prefer a solo race instead of joining public groups in a “parting allowed” race.
I could even imagine maybe a one-week solo race? However, this idea of making it a permanent league? It’s beyond reason, and a great example of how so many people (is this “group think”?) can be so wrong about what they think will make the game better.
One: it is absurd. PoE is an online ONLY game, to have a dedicated play mode that is only single player runs against the games premise. Yay! A single player game with built in de-sync so you can really feel like you are really playing a multiplayer game? Not to mention the games developers single source of income being visual MTX – have you ever got all dressed up when your home alone to just look in a mirror? (not saying that some ppl would not pay for them anyway, but you would have to admit it’s a little sad)
Two: it would only detract from the game for everyone else. So really, almost all of us spend a great deal of time soloing already – this should really be your last resort play mode. I know that’s just my opinion, but hear me out: that’s fine, you can hate the “public” or not want to join any of your fellow exiles. But realize, there probably are other people that think the same way as you, there is at least a chance you can meet someone and make a friend. Why would you want to eliminate that possibility?
I can tell you with absolute certainty (from someone who played d2 ladders with /nofriends for a few years) there is nothing more satisfying than breaking that barrier and making a few buddies, sharing loot and synergizing builds etc.. What a nice feeling to login to a game after a long day at work and be greeted by teammates happy to see you? Seriously! All you guys out there complaining about being burned out, try making some friends, the game can be so much more fun.
- note: this is one of the biggest reasons I opposed changing the loot system, there WERE very good reasons/advantages to want to make friends when loot was competitive.
Three: This whole idea of more orbs or moar loot for this league is absolutely awful.
So, plenty of people already play solo in the various leagues and do JUST FINE, these solo players who just might make some friends or eventually join a group game and enjoy it would be extra attracted to this solo league. Even players that DO group and add to the community would find “more loot” attractive and get drawn in to playing a substandard isolated poor version of the game. (Substandard because of all the features that would be removed for this league – no trade system, no party system, no loot system, no guilds, shared stashes, etc) -it’s not in GGG’s best interest to promote a crippled version of their game – as the other leagues would just look like “less loot” to people who already solo and re-enforce the worst aspects of “you must trade to succeed” bullshit everywhere else.
Four: it really, really, really is unnecessary. When people tell you: “you can already play self-found!” It’s not condescending as you might think – you REALLY CAN, and I say this because people really do it! It’s not like the “you can play HC in soft-core because you can just delete your character if you die” you could, but you would also have that option of just changing your mind later. - and just that thought alone would ruin HC, part if playing HC is knowing just how fragile your characters life is, that would be gone. This is not the same thing at all (one is dying, which should be discouraged in all leagues, and the other is grouping, which should be ENCOURGED in all leagues) – this is just resigning yourself to isolation for sake of “competition” with others doing the same thing?
In the last one-week race my racing partner died early and went back to nemesis. I carried on playing solo all the way up to lvl 70 before I could start looking for mapping groups – soloing is quite viable and a necessary part of the game just the way it is already –it was very refreshing to finally join groups, if not for that possibility I would have just quit. (Grinding to 70 in the catacombs sucks with self-found gear – knowing map groups were ahead kept me going)
Finally, there is only one problem that this solo league idea solves: removing RMT or trading instead of playing to gain advantage. This is the only place I have empathy for the SFL idea… while I don’t have a solution for this problem, consider this:
If they have to keep butchering large chunks of the game to make things fairer for some people, then where do you stop? (we already have desync as a design side effect of a system that is harder to cheat/hack in) I mean, is it fair that someone finds a godly mirror worthy rare worth 100’s of ex and others find nothing worth even close to that for years? Maybe, right? Its legit at least. Well, what if they found that item last season, and they went and sold it on some website for “forum currency” and then used the “forum currency” in the next season to buy a nice item from someone else? Now it’s not legit, but really? It’s just splitting hairs. (of course we have no way to know if they didn’t just pay cash for that “forum currency” either) Then you have the whole issue of huge guilds that could effectively share and do anything they want (cross league trades, personal trade for real money etc) they have their own voice chat channels so GGG could not even catch them if they read their guild chat.
Even in a closed SFL environment it’s still possible to cheat by sharing an account across a few people – and what about this ladder season? Someone (s) exploited some mechanics and stomped their way to lv 100. Did they exploit the trade system to become super rich in order to win? Nope.
GGG needs to do what they can to help keep things from getting out of control – taking action to stop or hamper the big RMT sites is great, banning the occasional blatant JSP users is also good. I just don’t think it gets better than this though. If we have items in game that “feel valuable”, it is because they ARE valuable and that “value” comes from our ability to do what we want with them. (even if it’s just sitting in your stash) Every time we take away freedom to make things fairer, the game itself is diminished.
TLDR: just DR it’s okay
Agree completely with Ten_of_swords here, although initially I like the idea of a solo self found league it will do much more damage in the long run then good.
In my opinion if some of the randomness of crafting was removed and set breakpoints for certain crafting options were implemented (ie 6 sockets after so many fusing guaranteed perhaps) then solo crafters would be empowered enough to take care of their own item needs, which trading would still allow the higher end gamers to min-max perfectly.
The only reason I would support/play a SFL is to measure myself against other self-found players. I think crafting has some issues, but that is a game-wide problem, and should not be 'fixed' in just SFL, but either all leagues, or none.
Economy-wise, it should make no difference for the existing leagues, since self-found players do not take part in the economy anyway. I can see the fear of community-splintering, since some self-found players (like myself) still actively use the chat. But then I would have to counter that the rumoured/upcoming regional versions of Path of Exile would do the same, if not to a larger extent.
So yea, I support SFL, but only to 'play with' like-minded people, not to change droprates, change crafting probabilities or anything else.
Amazing how this thread is turning... This idea was build not around the fact that crafting sucks in PoE. SFL WILL NOT fix that problem. SFL born cause people don't like trading in any form. In form of organised trading with some kind of market place(read Auction House, otherwise we would whine for such place) or in form of chaos swamp of trading channel and trading sub-forum like today. If you think that crafting sucks, please make note, this is wrong thread for such complaints.
since crafting sucks, trading becomes the best if not the only way to succed in poe, the reason for SFL is to avoid this trade to win situation and since we are with it screw RMT sites wich make this problem worst, but without changes to the crafting a SFL will only point out how broken creating your own items is.
then again i dont want crafting to be easy, what i want is to make crafting reliable, expensive but reliable like median XL honorifics,
=true.
It will happen in some form.Why ? because a large part of the community want a "fair" ladder/Game. Where the player´s skill (and dedication ofc , its a grinding game) playing the game is the core..Not when grouping,trading,multiboxing,Rmt,"cheating" are the way to "win"..
Dont read me wrong , love to join a group on occasion , trade ..But I do not like to be forced to do it to be able to progress , thats just folly..
I do love the core of the game and have had a lots of fun since Sept 2011 ..but..cmon!
And:
"
DirkAustin wrote:
Besides, if there was a SFL only around 100 people would play in it from what i saw how many voted for it in the "we want a sfl - petition" thread.
=true.
It will happen in some form.Why ? because a large part of the community want a "fair" ladder/Game. Where the player´s skill (and dedication ofc , its a grinding game) playing the game is the core..Not when grouping,trading,multiboxing,Rmt,"cheating" are the way to "win"..
Dont read me wrong , love to join a group on occasion , trade ..But I do not like to be forced to do it to be able to progress , thats just folly..
I do love the core of the game and have had a lots of fun since Sept 2011 ..but..cmon!
And:
"
DirkAustin wrote:
Besides, if there was a SFL only around 100 people would play in it from what i saw how many voted for it in the "we want a sfl - petition" thread.
Lol, linking that thread means nothing. it was even less than 100 people who are strongly in favor. Therefore it makes only sense to make a 1 week race or 4 month league for it.
PS: GGG wants player interaction and part of that is trading. Deal with it.
Lol, linking that thread means nothing. it was even less than 100 people who are strongly in favor. Therefore it makes only sense to make a 1 week race or 4 month league for it.
PS: GGG wants player interaction and part of that is trading. Deal with it.
dont know the exact numbers but the amount of people that actualy read and coment in the forums is probably below the 10%, i would even risk to say that actualy more pro traders lurk this forums becouse they use the trading subforum as one of the way to buy/sell stuff.
if GGG wants some real numbers they would need to create an ingame poll with SFL characteristics where everyone can see it .
