We NEED to talk about SSF.

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Helios#8298 wrote:

I've accepted the limitations of ssf and started doing a lot more grinding
I can't rely on trades or even alts so I treat everything available as a precious resource

I don't ignore loot I could break down from vendors between levels and I farm for gear to sell, craft

I know it won't be easy and I might never find the perfect items I need for my build.

If I didn't want these burdens I wouldn't be playing SSF.
I don't think SSF was ever meant to be "I'm playing by myself give me everything I need" mode.

Yup

From what I’ve played so far in league 0.2.0 in SSF, I finished the campaign dirt poor, still rocking gear I picked up back in Act II. Honestly, I have no idea what GGG’s intention is with not giving players any decent progression. It really feels like Jonathan’s vision is to force everyone into the trade market at all costs, because accordingly to them “it’s a healthy economy”, yeah, my ass.

Another thought I had today is how trade turns poe into a game of economy. I'm not caring about getting specific items through specific mechanics, all I'm caring is about getting as much income as possible so I can buy the stuff I need.
I already have a daytime job.

I think SSF can be fixed by that train of thought. Trade should just be another way for players to get gear. Currently you can get more exiled rogues on maps for more likely uniques of your choice, and essences for better chances at getting affixes with your prefered mods. It's not much, but its there. Problem is that trade is still 1000% more efficient. I'm better of selling that Greater Essence and buying a good item with that profit, than using it myself to get that good item. Ofcouse as the trading manifesto states, the whole trading experience is intended to be a hassle so you don't end up trading all day. But even then its still more worth it. And to me its the wrong kind of hassle. It's just annoying trying to whisper ppl an no one answering, it's like playig with huge latency, not fun.
They have certain ideas that makes this whole thing very convolute.For example: GGG likes that all items are tradeable. I can get behind that, what follows in this trade economy is not good though. Items never get lost and you can buy an item cheap, beat all content with it, farm some currency, replace it with a new item, and then sell the old item again. This means at some point the market is just flooded with items making it harder and harder to keep up if youre not one of the very top income earners in the economy. Ofcourse Hardcore league doesnt have that problem.
So the question is, how can Trade/Economy be changed so it's not the most efficient way to get gear, forcing everyone to use it, or if everyone should use it, how can the "hassle" of trade actually be fun instead of annoying. I don't want to progress my character because I know how to navigate and use the item filter on the trade website better than the next guy.
For high end, chase tier items I can easily see a bid system in form of an Auction house. List and item for 2+ days and highest bidder wins. That's easy and I think solves scams and price fixing.
For average player I don't know. Either cost to buy stuff should be so high that I can barely buy stuff, and cost to list too, so I can barely sell stuff. Maybe if theres an auction house system, theres a huge gold costs to list items the higher their ilvl and affix/tier count. I think it's good that they want their trade system to be secondary to farming yourself. But that hassle shoulndt come in a form of bad accessability.

Almost all loot across the board is lacking except for maybe runes (lol)

I disagree when you say SSF should be focused on at this point in development. Normal mode needs priority and will fix many of the problems the other modes have when changed. 0.1.0 was fine for it being launch season, 0.2.0 is horrible even compared to 0.1.0

I agree with everything else though. Loot left the building, and so have I

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

The game is not designed for SSF. Drop rates are not balanced for SSF and they never will be. By choosing to play SSF, you are deliberately electing to play the game on a more difficult, punishing game mode in which you do not have access to trade but are subject to drop rates which assume trade is present.

It is unreasonable bordering on irrational for you to choose to play SSF, deliberately denying yourself access to trade, and then turn around and demand GGG balance drop rates to compensate for that lack of access.

If SSF is not fun because you don't have access to gear, the solution is right there in front of you. Don't play SSF.

This is the equivalent of stuffing hot coals down your pants and then loudly demanding GGG immediately deploy a squad to dump ice water on you to relieve your suffering when instead you could have just not stuffed those coals down your pants in the first place guy.

What really baffles me is if the game is indeed designed around trading then why is the trade mechanic one of the worst things a game designer has ever conceived and GGG straight up refusing to even talk about improving it. It makes NO SENSE!

Yes, all GGG did was apply the "ruthless" loot drop rates for PoE 1 as the baseline for PoE 2, while also removing most targeted crafting systems at the same time. The end result is not feeling any progress/reward compared to the time invested. I get that they want a different/slower game that PoE 1 especially at the start, but in the simplest terms there is just not enough dopamine moments while playing, and way too much reliance on RNG crafting which feels bad 99.999999% of the time.

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Flowneppets#0528 wrote:

"

Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

The game is not designed for SSF. Drop rates are not balanced for SSF and they never will be. By choosing to play SSF, you are deliberately electing to play the game on a more difficult, punishing game mode in which you do not have access to trade but are subject to drop rates which assume trade is present.

It is unreasonable bordering on irrational for you to choose to play SSF, deliberately denying yourself access to trade, and then turn around and demand GGG balance drop rates to compensate for that lack of access.

If SSF is not fun because you don't have access to gear, the solution is right there in front of you. Don't play SSF.

This is the equivalent of stuffing hot coals down your pants and then loudly demanding GGG immediately deploy a squad to dump ice water on you to relieve your suffering when instead you could have just not stuffed those coals down your pants in the first place guy.

What really baffles me is if the game is indeed designed around trading then why is the trade mechanic one of the worst things a game designer has ever conceived and GGG straight up refusing to even talk about improving it. It makes NO SENSE!

I agree 100% Flowneppets

Funny thing is, since crafting is so horrible/non-existent, it just shines a spotlight directly onto the item trade system. And guess what? Item trade is horrible

So many stories of price fixers, bots that don't respond, can't trade when offline, can't trade if you get a message in middle of a boss fight/important objective sometimes, SC and HC items are mixed for some weird reason when already filtered (meaning you cant trade with players in diff leagues obviously), players raise the price after you message and go to their base (wasted time), players low ball your item price after messaging and teleporting to your base (wasted time again), blah blah blah.

Same problems, but 0.2.0 has exacerbated them. I am losing so much hope and trust in GGG that this game will succeed come full launch. Personally, I think Jonathon is probably a huge contributor to 0.2.0's failure, but that's just my thoughts

Im the Witch on SSF with more DMG on Essence Drain, and i can say 2 things so true:

1- Skill need too much investment to work

2 - The drop on SSF of currency + % of recombinator do the experience more hard than must be

Now im stucked because dont have vaals orb to hit T16...

Since I also think SSF needs change, I made a real suggestion here:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3760619

I usually play HC SSF, I also started 0.2 on HC SSF and got killed by Silverfist boosted by a purple Wisp (I do not use escape pause logout streamers' technique :) but then I realized the Early Access is just not designed around HC or SSF and I'm making it too difficult for me as an old boomer father playing occasionally in the evenings. I made peace with it and now I play trade league and hoping for better tomorrows. I understand the devs, even standard league is far from being balanced, why to waste time on SSF.

My dream one day is that they significantly boost currency drop and Uniques drop on SSF and disable character transfers. I think it is the only way to make it fun.