The Self Found League

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Souleus wrote:

An easy fix for this would be to make the rarer, high-end orbs guarantee improvement. For example, rather than randomize all the values on an item, blessed and divine could be guaranteed to improve one value on an item. You'd still churn through a LOT of them to get a perfect item, but you'd have control of your destiny, and you can make progress self-found.

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Perfect_Black wrote:

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Souleus wrote:

An easy fix for this would be to make the rarer, high-end orbs guarantee improvement. For example, rather than randomize all the values on an item, blessed and divine could be guaranteed to improve one value on an item. You'd still churn through a LOT of them to get a perfect item, but you'd have control of your destiny, and you can make progress self-found.

I can't speak for GGG, but I do believe that your ideas go against the whole philosophy behind and design of PoE's currency system. Also, self-found is self-found regardless of guaranteed improvements or complete modifier randomization.

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In the interest of protecting the game's economy, GGG have limited their crafting system to only those who take part in the economy. In my view, crafting needs to be an alternative to economic participation, not a reward for it. If GGG were to unhinge crafting from the economy, while leaving the wild randomness intact, they could allow self found players more pulls on the one armed bandit without fear of destroying what, in Chris' own words, is the most important aspect of the game to them.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Beautiful post, Thaelyn.

The only minor qualm I have with that entire wall of text is this: Drop rates, at least for solo non-MF stackers, are clearly not fine. I like to believe that, while mass forum QQing is rarely a solid indicator of a solution, it is a solid indicator of a problem. Whenever a thread like this one reaches this kind of post count, you know that there is a mass interest in fixing a common problem all these users are finding with the game... and that they're struggling, often futiley, to come up with answers to that problem, and that their cures may be worse than the disease. But the point here is: the problem is real, there is something resonating here.

Solo drop rates are wrong. And that is something which should be fixed. I feel I've done a decent job explaining why the suggestions in this thread would break more than they'd fix, and I think I've even found a reasonable fix to the solo drops issue in my "halve MF" thread. But I could be wrong; I could be one of those forum QQers myself, identifying a problem but offering crap solutions. What's important for GGG's sake is that they identify an appropriate course of action that eliminates or at least mitigates the effects of this pervasive problem.

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Thaelyn wrote:

As I see it, the real problem is that for solo/self found players, gear progression is too heavily constricted by the way crafting orbs are tied to the economy. In a dev diary from February 2011 Chris opened with, "Path of Exile’s economy is the most important element of the game to us." (citation: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/55102)
This is where I think the core of the problem lies. By trying to control the rate at which currency (i.e. crafting items) enter the economy, GGG have effectively limited the alternative to trading to only those who trade. The crafting system in PoE is basically pulling on a slot machine, given it's RNG nature (which, as I said before, is needed). The problem is that if you play self found you are severely limited in the number of pulls you're allowed to take on that slot machine, all because you don't want the shortcut.

In the interest of protecting the game's economy, GGG have limited their crafting system to only those who take part in the economy. In my view, crafting needs to be an alternative to economic participation, not a reward for it. If GGG were to unhinge crafting from the economy, while leaving the wild randomness intact, they could allow self found players more pulls on the one armed bandit without fear of destroying what, in Chris' own words, is the most important aspect of the game to them.

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Ricekrispies wrote:

The one thing I do disagree with is leaving wild randomness intact.

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Thaelyn wrote:

The more I think about this suggestion and the way the discussion has evolved, the less I think I can remain behind it.

Initially I supported this suggestion due to the obvious fact that self found players, particularly those who prefer solo play, are at a demonstrable disadvantage in terms of gear progression. After more thought, this remains clearly true, but I don't know that I necessarily think it's a bad thing. Trading, for those who like it, can only really be seen as a shortcut in gear progression and I have to assume that the devs are intelligent enough to be aware of this and happy with it's existence. Removing trade from one league isn't something I really take exception to, until I consider the law of unintended consequence.

While it has been summarily dismissed by most supporters of this suggestion (and, initially, by me as well), I firmly believe, after more consideration, that Scrotie's concern about the number of people who would ditch trade leagues for this one is a valid one. Until this suggestion grows to include safeguards for other perfectly legitimate play styles within PoE, I don't think I want to be a part of it. My goal has never been to get what I want at the expense of people who like having access to that gearing shortcut. Given the boost to IIQ/IIR that this suggestion asks for (which I don't personally agree with), I don't think the migration to SFL would be limited only to those who are presently invisible to the existing league economies. The lure is just too strong. This jeopardizes the trade league environment and I won't support that.

I do think something needs to change, but this suggestion, as it currently exists and appears to be moving, is no longer the way I think things should go. I think this primarily because the problem isn't in gear drop rates or in the RNG.