Request for a Fully Solo Option in SSF Mode

Dear Developers,

First, thank you for creating such a beautiful and immersive game. Path of Exile 2 has incredible potential to draw players into its lore-rich world and offer a deeply personal experience. However, I feel there is room to enhance the Solo Self-Found (SSF) mode for players like me who seek full immersion without any exposure to other players.

While SSF mode successfully removes trading and multiplayer interactions, the presence of other players in shared hubs, often with distracting or immersion-breaking names, takes away from the feeling of being "the chosen one" in a rich and mysterious world. For players who wish to lose themselves in the story and atmosphere, this can be jarring and detracts from the experience.

I believe adding an optional "purely solo instance" mode, where even shared hubs are private, would appeal to a significant subset of players. This feature would not only strengthen the immersive qualities of your game but could also attract more players who otherwise feel deterred by the forced social elements.

Thank you for considering this suggestion. I truly appreciate all the effort that goes into creating such a fantastic and evolving game, and I hope this feedback resonates with your vision for Path of Exile.

Yes, I kind of agree that when playing solo we should not have to be surrounded by pimped characters with their 5 flying and fire spitting pets. It's breaking the immersion. Unfortunately that's the nature of that kind of online solo game which are not meant to be played solo but everybody play solo anyway.

Luckily we can switch off the chats. But I'd love to have a way to switch off the players too, except if they are in my party, or if I am trading with them.

The hubs are also very small, so when there are 20 or 50 players on screen it's really resembling a pile of mess more than anything else. In Act 1 we start in a small devastated village... covered with player characters from ground to rooftop, definitely not the "chosen one" feeling the story is telling us as stated by OP.

I can live with this and absolutely love the game. It's just a nice to have feature I'd say.