Self found can use a bit of love

If you have not noticed the Shaper Orbs tied to Unique maps are only for second maps of those tiers to be shaped.. In otherwords ALL the tiers can be shaped once from normal maps. I had one of each of the 10 Tiers shaped without doing a single Unique map. The ones tied to unique maps allow you to shape another map of that tier as far as i can tell so far. IDK still have not got any of the shaper orbs from the unique maps yet but yeah you dont need them either to shape one map of every tier.

Now as far as unique maps go and unlocking.. I honestly feel like when zana actually gives you the unique map since it is the same tier anyway and everything else it should unlock the map. All the other maps i can see why they dont unlock since you can get a high tier map that's way lower tier when you run it which wouldn't be fair nor can you control things like it being rare or magic ect. But unlocking Unique maps from what ive seen pretty much requires trading at this point. With the exception of getting REALLY lucky or hitting some lucky chance orbs. I think ive found 2.. otherwise ive bought all the rest ive unlocked.

But maybe this is the way GGG want it as well.. A LOT of the regular maps ive ended up trading with others for their maps they need or outright buying because it gave up on RNG. Thing is about adjusting anything for SSF when you have trading available is that it makes it potentially worthless to players who trade and can flood the game with these things. Some things are meant to be restricted so they hold value not to mention some of the unique maps hold a lot of value on their own just for running them because they do drop good loot.

At any rate to be completely honest this game as far as SSF goes is all about the grind.. You very well can do anything in this game already right now SSF.. It just takes longer. ProjectPT proved this by going fully SSF last league with his ED build and SSF ALL the BIS items including Shavs, Heretics Veil, Consuming Dark, and even countless stun immune ammys trying for +1 curse not to mention crafted some pretty fucking insane ES Rares as well. Most people would argue it would be impossible to acquire all those items for that build SSF let alone do it within the confines of a 3 month league... but he did.. And all he did was invest a fuck ton of time to do it. Around 12-14+ hours a day fro what ive been told. Just like maps ive bought to unlock on my atlas.. If i had more time could i eventually unlock them? Absolutely. I just end up buying them because i know i have a job and family and probably wont get to play enough to find them on my own so i just speed up the process by trading.
Thats why making adjustments for SSF isnt needed in the end.. If you want to do things SSF you already can.. Its just going to take ALOT more time to do it than if you trade.

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Nykken wrote:

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Jennik wrote:

It's unfortunate how many people reply to this who both have no understanding of self found play and who have crazy notions of how my suggestions would affect the game. Hopefully GGG groks it better than they do.

:(

anything is more likely than you admitting you are wrong.

No man. You're wrong.

I'm not the one who thinks shaper orbs are beneficial for progressing through the atlas.

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Nykken wrote:

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Jennik wrote:

It's unfortunate how many people reply to this who both have no understanding of self found play and who have crazy notions of how my suggestions would affect the game. Hopefully GGG groks it better than they do.

:(

anything is more likely than you admitting you are wrong.

Pot, meet kettle.

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Nykken wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

but rather implying they'll try to facilitate the game towards both play styles.

BOTH
every point in the OP would be something that hurts normal play by reducing the need for an economy while providing marginal, if any, benefit for SSF players. I think the proposed gem changes would even hurt the SSF experience, what's the point of playing only with stuff you find if you want to remove the feature that creates the most variety in playstyles for SSF?

There are so many things wrong with this statement, so allow me to focus on only one:

You exaggerate.

The addition of gems available to purchase did not spell doom for the gem-trading economy, it merely made the aquisition of a gem that you happen to need (whether or not you are SSF) a lot less of a pain in the ass. Adding a few more would not suddenly change this reality.

Similarly, PoE is already much more SSF-friendly than D2 ever was, if only for the ability to buy currency at a rate more expensive than the market rate. That did not kill the value of currency for trading.

GGG added more currency recipes, for increased convenience, in the Masters expansion. That also did not kill the value of currency for trading.

Adding more currency recipes, which would presumably also be more expensive than the market rate, will not harm currency trading.

All of the above helped both normal and SSF players. Many of the suggestions by the OP would as well. Your suggestion that they will help SSF players and fuck over non-SSF players by harming the economy strikes me as alarmist at best, and not at all consistent with what we have seen so far.

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Demonoz wrote:

ProjectPT proved this by going fully SSF last league

I already covered the other bits you wrote that I disagree with well enough earlier in the thread, but here's a few things about PT.

1) He was not self found. At the very least, he traded for gems. Gem availability is absolute garbage and completely destroys build variability for self found players. Even PT understands that trying to play self found including gems ruins the game, which is why he, at best, plays self found not counting gems.

2) His luck that league was beyond absurd. Having a Shav's drop on a build that's optimal as low life? Chancing another top tier unique that's perfect for the build? Finding/crafting/chancing a full suite of rares and uniques that are perfect for the build? Honestly, you're more likely to get struck by lightning. Twice.

3) He literally plays POE as a more-than-full-time job. Hell, it's probably more than two full time jobs. Using PT as a point of comparison for other POE players is ridiculous. The reality is that hardly anyone is capable of doing what any of these people do.

Just pointing this out. How far you progress in this game in terms of power is entirely based on the amount of time you put into it. A SSF player who puts in 60+ hrs a week is going to progress far better than any non SSF player with trade who only plays a few hours at most. (SteamSpy says average play time per day is less than 1 hour) Due to this fact, it is not a good idea to use a player who fits this criteria to make a point related to players with significantly less time available.

I'm sorry but I don't really get the rant about the "missing gems" part.

Either you really want to play SSF or you don't. But if you do, why do you allow yourself to buy a gem from a vendor, but not from another player ? SSF = solo self FOUND, not bought... Seems to me that if you really are that much of a purist that you don't want to buy from another player a level 1 gem of the most basic spell, that you could buy with an alt of level 5 from a vendor, then you shouldn't allow yourself to buy it from an NPC either...
What's the difference between buying your lvl 1 Blade Vortex from a player or buying it from an NPC ? It's still buying...

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Jennik wrote:

he, at best, plays self found not counting gems.

So why can't you do that? There's nothing stopping you. You are playing by an arbitrary ruleset that isn't fun for you, so switch to an arbitrary ruleset that IS fun for you.

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Jennik wrote:

His luck that league was beyond absurd. Having a Shav's drop on a build that's optimal as low life? Chancing another top tier unique that's perfect for the build? Finding/crafting/chancing a full suite of rares and uniques that are perfect for the build? Honestly, you're more likely to get struck by lightning. Twice.

Isn't that the point of SSF? Sometimes you have these lucky moments that enable a build that is crazy rare, and other times you don't? Making the experience a product of your random drops instead of a product of everything available because you trade for the rest?

Why are you playing SSF if you don't like the point of SSF?

Potentially useful math:

Let p equal the probability of achieving a particular affix combination or better with a single Chaos Orb (0<p<1)

Let P equal the probability of achieving a perfect affix combination with a single Chaos Orb (0<P<1)

ln(x) = natural logarithm of x

If the vendor offer for each affix combination is equal to ln(P)/p Chaos Orbs, then the average vendor offer after applying a Chaos Orb is equal to just under 1 Chaos Orb (approaching 1 as P approaches zero).

Now if course, I wouldn't suggest that "crafting" with your currency consistently provide a full vendor refund. But simply halving this amount (or whatever multiplier 0<k<1 one chooses) should be sufficient.

In this way, a smart vendor formula system could be implemented with confidence that it could not be abused.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Potentially useful math:

Let p equal the probability of achieving a particular affix combination or better with a single Chaos Orb (0<p<1)

Let P equal the probability of achieving a perfect affix combination with a single Chaos Orb (0<P<1)

ln(x) = natural logarithm of x

If the vendor offer for each affix combination is equal to ln(P)/p Chaos Orbs, then the average vendor offer after applying a Chaos Orb is equal to just under 1 Chaos Orb (approaching 1 as P approaches zero).

Now if course, I wouldn't suggest that "crafting" with your currency consistently provide a full vendor refund. But simply halving this amount (or whatever multiplier 0<k<1 one chooses) should be sufficient.

In this way, a smart vendor formula system could be implemented with confidence that it could not be abused.

How are "better" and "perfect" defined by the system?

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Nykken wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Potentially useful math:

Spoiler

Let p equal the probability of achieving a particular affix combination or better with a single Chaos Orb (0<p<1)

Let P equal the probability of achieving a perfect affix combination with a single Chaos Orb (0<P<1)

ln(x) = natural logarithm of x

If the vendor offer for each affix combination is equal to ln(P)/p Chaos Orbs, then the average vendor offer after applying a Chaos Orb is equal to just under 1 Chaos Orb (approaching 1 as P approaches zero).

Now if course, I wouldn't suggest that "crafting" with your currency consistently provide a full vendor refund. But simply halving this amount (or whatever multiplier 0<k<1 one chooses) should be sufficient.

In this way, a smart vendor formula system could be implemented with confidence that it could not be abused.

How are "better" and "perfect" defined by the system?

The math holds for any number of arbitrary sub-groupings, providing "is this a member of the group?" is a given and doesn't reduce the probability.

For example, the math holds if you say there's only one perfect roll, and everything else is inferior. It also holds if you divide into three subgroups - say, physical weapons, elemental weapons, and "other" - but don't allow physical weapons to roll elemental affixes when determining probability values. Or four subgroups, or twenty, etc.

The number of subgroupings used and criteria for "membership" is a design decision. I'd argue for many groupings, though, because that embraces build diversity.