SSF feedback

I took a long break from the game and was excited to see the SSF mode, it's pretty nice to see that after all the casualization and sort of putting hardcore players in the back seat something like this would happen.

A few thoughts...


1. I'm not sure having the stash league bound is technically SSF. Since you are essentially trading with your other characters later on in the league, traditionally SSF would never grab leveling or endgame enabling uniques from other characters.

2. Global chat should not be mixed with tradecore. It just opens up a massive exploit for shitposting, and creates situations where it might be hard to get advice on ssf specifics. You can see people buying kills and SSF players shitting on them, or just SSF superiorty memes. TBH i find myself in the shitposting camp a lot and it's funny to make fun of tradecore ironically, but at the same time getting real advice or decent conversations going is often impossible.

3. PvP should not be separated, I don't see how SSF and tradecore being in the same PvP pool would be negative. There is a huge problem with lack of pops due to low population. Going even further I don't see why Softcore and Hardcore temp leagues should be separated.

4. Endgame is a bit iffy in SSF, and I think some of the tweaks that could be made are not because of the migration option. I can't claim to have an answer for this, but mapping especially is not a fun experience post 85. And it's not that it's hard, it's just that it is really RNG reliant without being able to play around it like you can with your character builds and reliance on item drops.

1) LOL

Part of the point of SSF was account level restrictions, not stopping you from using stuff you find on other characters.


2) I was under the impression that they were separate leagues, therefore had separate chats.

3) pvp no one cares

4) Endgame is fine for SSF, your suppose to be challenging yourself, not expecting hand outs for not playing with others.

1. I'd prefer stashes bound to character, not account, for SSF. I don't trade across SSF characters and account-linked SSF stashes makes keeping things separate for each character a pain. But, GGG would decrease their revenue by doing that because they'd sell quite a bit less stash space if creating more stash space was as easy as creating a new character. I don't see it happening, despite me personally (and you, apparently) finding that much more appealing.

2. I'd favor separating global chats SSF and tradecore / buy-boss-and-lab-kill-core. I don't understand why they haven't been separated, as it can't be that hard to do. The current situation predictably leads to a lot of trash talk back and forth across leagues, with some of it good-natured and some of it not. Also, as the OP here points out, it is challenging to get an SSF question answered when tradecore players jump in and interfere (which they often do). Plus, chat would be a better experience for SSF players without all the e-clutter of tradecore boss kill / lab run requests, begging for items, and trade chat.

3. I hope that PvP chat never intermingles with other chat. Sure, PvP gets a bump in how often it gets noticed if that happens. But, the vast majority of players want nothing to do with PvP and the PvP shit-talking in chat is multiple times more annoying than the usual tradecore stuff. It seems like a bad trade to annoy the overwhelming majority to please the tiny percentage of players who care about PvP in POE.

4. Endgame is where SSF slows down and there's no denying that. Figuring out how to smooth out the post-level-85 part of the experience is a doable feat, though, and experience at plugging away at it helps a lot.

One key is to get a five link for your main skill before level 85. Vorici's five link cost is not necessarily a "fair price" per se, given the odds and how you give up on the chance of a six link when you use his services for a five link. But, the certainty of getting a five link that Vorici can offer, and using masters dailies to bulk up on fuses and jewelry, allows you to pretty much assure yourself of getting a five link in the low 80s (mid 80s at worst) at a cost that should leave you with plenty of other resources to devote to defenses / utility / other aids to DPS.

PvP doesn't have a global channel afaik, just the local channel you are in. If you don't like people shittalking just kill chat or ignore them tbh.

I know 95% of people don't give a shit about PvP, i really dont either but it is a fun little distraction here and there that I would enjoy. However because im in SSFHCA there is literally zero chance of any pops because the match maker isn't looking for players in HCA or SCA.

I'm not asking for a revamp or more resources being poured into fixing PvP, just would be nice to at least get a pop here and there, and for me to be able to fuck around with players in my guild or friends if they aren't in SSFHCA in stuff besides duels.

4) Item and map drops are balanced for the trading leagues, when you go SSF you still have the exact same drops so yeah, you are just hurting yourself if you ask me. I play trading leagues simply because of that. Is like pissing against the wind if you do SSF.

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BossOfThisGym wrote:

1. I'm not sure having the stash league bound is technically SSF.

I guess that technicality depends what we each choose to mean by "self". For me, "self found" has always sounded like it referred to things I found myself: my self, not my character's self. The current setup is thus exactly what I expect.

So I can see how to others, that "self" might mean "character's self", but if that change were made, I'd go back to non-SSF. And while that's fine in terms of effects on the way I play (nothing would change), I'd prefer to stay, since the only reason I tick SSF at all is to do my part in giving GGG a "hey guys, at least this many people play without trading" count.

Account-level SSF. It's how a lot of us play ARPGs anyway, ever since the introduction of the account-wide stash.

You can always self-impose character-only SSF. I do it from time to time. Just allocate one stash tab (or a subset of them) to that character, don't use shared tabs like currency, cards, etc.

Skipping to the other issue that pertains to me: SSF and endgame has to mean something different than non-SSF and endgame. It's just a whole other ballgame when you can't trade to mimic whatever's hot and meta. Not saying you can't do 40/40 SSF (I see people do it all the time) but it's an essentially different experience where you are far, far more limited in options. So if you're going to play SSF you have to temper your expectations big time. It is not meant to be an alternative to non-SSF on equal footing with it in terms of difficulty or challenge. It is an extra layer of challenge that far more people avoid than I expected. I very, very rarely see SSF leaguers on my friends list, even though I know at least some of them play soft SSF -- they don't trade aggressively, probably only use the guild stash and trade within guild or with friends.

On a side-note, I think only SSFers truly miss the Orb of Binding and view the Jeweller's Touch as GGGod's Gift to Exiles.

@OP: Did you delete your SSF characters? Bc your profile is showing none.

1) Per char stash is one step too far in my taste. If you as me play one char at a time just migrate out the old one (with the stash). Then you start clean for each char.

2) Yeah odd that, no idea why they did it that way. Personally I would have normal and hardcore in the same instance with just a flag for death, like the SSF flag works right now, and move SSF it's own instance.

3) Not intrested

4) Yes endgame in SSF is quite a bit harder. That is as it should be. But I would love some tweaks in currency and map drops though to make it a smoother experience. For ex cost of Zana mods is not easy to sustain... nor sextants => hard to get the amount of map drops you need.

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Dharall wrote:

4) Yes endgame in SSF is quite a bit harder. That is as it should be. But I would love some tweaks in currency and map drops though to make it a smoother experience. For ex cost of Zana mods is not easy to sustain... nor sextants => hard to get the amount of map drops you need.

You don't need to sextant maps to sustain them, you might have a harder time doing so and might have to ultimately make a larger pool initially or drop down occasionally, but no one else in SSF is getting sextants from other players either, so your on equal footing there.


In terms of reducing the cost, its simply not going to happen while they allow the characters of SSF to transfer over and they aren't stupid, they know the min they make one change that disables this, the more and more demanding players are going to be about balancing around the


SSF, or what I like to think of some as special snow flakes.