The Self Found League

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As per my comments in the other thread what I want is a solo, no trade with currency drops rebalanced to allow solo players more realistic crafting.

The thing about Self Found league, is there is nothing but one's own self-control holding one back from soloing. I cannot see a good argument for a technical enforcement means there, because I can see no trade off that would yield a need for additional in-game benefits for solo'ing. Can you?

--C

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Courageous wrote:

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If i can suggest that if they ever make a self found league, then imo they should give each char his very own stash (no character sharing stash),

I'm with Dakarian: no. Many players enjoy that moment when they have found a very nice item for an alt. By excluding said players, we're overly specializing the league.

--C

Fully agree with this, as if I find a nice item and give it to another char of mine it's still a drop I've found, not something I've just gone and bought from a shop, which is the point of self found as far as I'm concerned.

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Courageous wrote:

The thing about Self Found league, is there is nothing but one's own self-control holding one back from soloing. I cannot see a good argument for a technical enforcement means there, because I can see no trade off that would yield a need for additional in-game benefits for solo'ing. Can you?

Because everything -- currency drops in particular -- is balanced around the idea that people party and trade. And so drop rates have to be kept very low to avoid inflation and people who perma-group and trade a lot being able to steamroll everything too easily.

But in a solo league not connected to any other league you could up the currency drop rates and increase the effect of IIQ/IIR and (maybe) increase unique and world only gems without affecting the economy. Note the idea is not to make the game stupidly easy but to rebalance for non-party, non-trade players (of whom it appears there are quite a few).

Or to put it another way, currently the chance of me getting a five or six link bow with Chain, etc. is vanishingly small. I would like a solo league were it still takes significant investment but is actually possible without lottery winning type odds.

It would also allow solo players more build diversity as it would mean that gear dependent builds become more practical.

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Because everything -- currency drops in particular -- is balanced around the idea that people party and trade. And so drop rates have to be kept very low to avoid inflation and people who perma-group and trade a lot being able to steamroll everything too easily.

I think they are mostly balanced around trade, not partying. I say this in particular, as more loot is not available in partying. To wit:

The loot bonus is 50% per additional player, however the number of people playing per additional player is an additional 100%. So a party of 6 increases loot by 250%, but increases players to divide it between by 500%. That of course is not a full analysis. But it's the start of any reasonable one.

However, there is something you didn't say. There's quite a possibility that the end game difficulty (maps) is indeed balanced around party play. It's really hard to say, though.

--C

I still think party is against the spirit of a self found league, if only because of the second point you make about reduced difficulty in groups.

Certainly its hard to imagine that in a no trade but party league the top levels of the ladder would be dominated by party players, if only because they would kill stuff faster.

(Not that I care about ladders as I play very few hours.)

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I still think party is against the spirit of a self found league,...

It's not, really, though, because the spirit of Self Found League is "no trading," but otherwise there is something in it for everyone, including the player type that like the extra busyness and action of multiparty play. As I've said previously, I think we should eschew specializations of the League until there are more leagues.

The point about the ladder is both fine and true, however once you start getting so deeply into subject like this, it seems like one should start posting support over in the Solo League thread, no?

--C

Yeah I agree really. All I really want is a league with drops balanced for play without trading so that the game is more practical for people who don't want to play the trading meta game.

Yeah. We're in agreement.

As for the map balance issue I introduced earlier, if it's really true (and I'm not saying it is, I merely acknowledge the possibility), then it's an issue for Default.

If you scroll back and read a lot of the middle posts in this thread, you'll find some discussion on crafting. While it seems to me just having lots of extra currency for crafting available is at its root the most expedient method of making crafting better, the one basic variation that fits perfectly well with Self Found League is things to make crafting better. I say this, because in Self Found league, you are rather obviously not trading for your gear to get it. ;-P

--C

I'd pay a monthly fee to GGG if they started a self found league. I'm not kidding.

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Courageous wrote:

While it seems to me just having lots of extra currency for crafting available is at its root the most expedient method of making crafting better, the one basic variation that fits perfectly well with Self Found League is things to make crafting better.

The problem with crafting IMHO is not so much the overall success % but the variance and attendant, to use a Poker term, risk of ruin (i.e running out of orbs). What might work is to shift the percentages on consecutive attempts so a first attempt might have a lower than current chance of a 5-link or 6-link but if you keep Fusing the % chance increases as you keep fusing. Fusing a different item or using a different orb and it resets.

I.e. you are less likely to get super lucky 6-link on your 10th attempt but if you are willing to commit, say, 500 fusings you would have to be very unlucky not to get one and the overall number of 6 links per found fusings stays the same. Which is still RNG based but just not as brutal as the current system.

Although that is getting off topic :-)