Solo Self-Found Support in 2.6.0

Perhaps "Self-found restricted" would be more appropriate? like a 5 lv allowable gap for parties and all must be SFR to party together? Trading would still be out.

I can't be the only person who finds playing with others breaks up the monotony of grinding etc.
you could even still restrict boss kills to solo-killed or w/e

Its about time in terms of the effort but falls short when you're doing it just for bragging rights. The core RNG on self found is brutal and that's the real problem. We gave up on the ladder a long ass time ago and it really does nothing to help our situations. I've NEVER chanced a unique. I've only ever rolled a single 6L (granted I'll use the table from now on but that's still a brutal cost for self found and one 6L since beta by dumping every fusing I owned into it tells you exactly how brutal the odds can be for self found). And to add insult to injury, that 6L has never rolled anything even close to comparable to the semi-trash 5L I made years ago for the only build I can use it on. And I've been trying to roll something for so long its not even high item level anymore like it used to be.

My roster is full of characters who have stagnated somewhere in maps because they lack the gear to progress and it just does. not. drop. or. roll. Period. And I've been playing since beta. I've learned to live with it but jesus christ does it suck. Time after time you see person after person linking best in slot items and massive stacks of currency and how they bought it and/or traded for it. It absolutely sucks to know that your choice to play the game normally and grind it out is going to get you nowhere while anyone who doesn't want to play can simply buy their gear, slingshot to the end of the game then complain how "easy" it is. And then you see development decisions that further stagnate progression for self found in order to govern the shortcuts everyone is taking through trading and it makes you want to strangle someone. Other problems with trading are the rmt spammers it creates and the trade spam that ruined the public grouping board from the start.

Masters, essences, the lab.. there have been noticeable efforts to provide more rng CHANCES for our experience but the core rng still screws us and is made worse by decisions to nerf IIR, IIQ and hide build-gating uniques behind restricted loot tables. I don't know how many times I have rolled a chest with perfect stat composition but horrible stats and known I'll never have enough divines to reroll the number of times it would take to get something decent before I simply gave up on even trying to craft beyond chaos orbs. Crafting is completely screwed by the need to use those components as currency to support the trade system.

I love PoE and have played self found the entire time I've played with almost no exceptions. The only time I've ever traded I think was to offload a ton of alts I had way way back in the day when the game had a lot less content and four difficulties. And the entire time I've felt like a second class citizen due to the above. I've only learned to live with it due to the added options for rng chances I mentioned above. But they still don't change the fact that the core rng just does not reward self found players enough to support a single character, or even a roster full of them.

I like this idea. Solo Self-Found Play, it levels the playing field.
How can we have a true "game" without a level playing field?

Would like to see some incentives based on points or level, or accomplishments.

One thing that I like about this game is players
can not directly gain advantage using $$,
Solo Self-Found Play takes it to the next level.

Great idea!
Show me first lvl100 HC SSF! :)

Like many here, I have only ever played SSF for many reasons. So, I did not realise it was harder! Though I do notice getting very slow progress around 82.

Looking forward to this to see how it works out.

As a SSf player, I'll definitely be playing in that league in 2.6. I will have to still play SC so I can play with friends, but I'd at least want to be able to chat with them on the SSF server. As far as bragging rights go, I take pride in only completing 20/40 challenges because I know I did it with no help. All that is missing is a client based POE so I don't have to deal with lag spikes. It can still require being connected to the internet, just not streamed from a server.

I see folks asking for a loot droprate boost, but that defeats the purpose of SSF. IF we have to go that route, I suggest gating uniques around boss fights ala The Shaper or the Council so we would have to grind those bosses for a certain uniques. Leveling ones could be gotten from Normal bosses, while endgame ones could be collected from t14+ rare corrupted map bosses, prophecies, and recipes. Just my $0.02

I keep thinking something of this nature makes sense for hardcore. You "opt-out" on your first death... but stay in the league. It might get more people to try hardcore.

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I like this idea. Solo Self-Found Play, it levels the playing field.

Actually, trading levels the field by ensuring that you can turn all the stuff you don't need into the 1 or 2 critical build enabling items that you do need with some certainty over time. The SSF player has no such guarantee, and is wholly and exclusively governed by RNG.

I don't know if this is good or bad, but I don't think people play SSF to "level the playing field" but rather because it encourages a strong understanding of the game mechanics to adjust the build to the drops that your individual RNG gets. This means no two SSF players will be running the same build, and many flavor-of-the-week builds won't be viable simply because they depend on having a specific item.

So you get more diversity... but that is not the same as equality. A few people are gonna get SSF shavrones and so forth.

I've never bothered with an ssf char but this has given me the incentive to try. Thanks for that.

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Lendari wrote:

Actually, I think trading levels the field by ensuring that you can turn all the stuff you don't need into the 1 or 2 critical build enabling items you do need with some certainty over a long enough time. The SSF player has no such guarantee, and is thus much more governed by RNG.

There are a few wrenches that make an SSF league much more fair.

1. People collaborating. A lot of the top ladder players in the past have been supported by entire guilds.

2. People claiming to be SSF when they're not.

3. Trading opens the gateway to a lot of end game content and gear much faster than you would otherwise be able.

4. RMT is pretty much disallowed, since you can't RMT without trading.

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Arcis wrote:

afaik, the main reason people want a SSF league is so the game doesn't have to be balanced around the fact that trading will always be much more efficient than soloing. if there are no additional benefits to playing SSF, i think this has missed the point.

Actually, the reason a lot of people want to see it is because Trading causes a huge glut of loot, and lowers the challenge of the league. A lot of people want a more challenging and rewarding experience, because while killing uberAtziri, Shaper and other content is no longer a challenge for them, doing it in a SSF league would be a challenge, and it lends itself to a league that isn't over in a matter of a few weeks like the current breach league.