[ SSF Concerns ] Without Smart Loot it may be SSL (Solo Spell League).

With untouched drop rates, the first several chars will inevitably be cheezy builds (casters/totemers). Viable weapon/attack based builds will be close to impossible to make, besides a couple of 2H/bow options.

The good news is, items use to accumulate over time, thus providing higher pool of available builds. It applies to currency as well, as socket greedy builds need their fix.
The bad news is, it takes too long, so the ability to play wide variety of builds/play styles will be extended in time, and there are no methods to shorten the process.

IMO this league won't apply to a great portion of the player base and it will soon get abandoned, effectively becoming vanilla HC.
I'm personally not sure if ever gonna try it, as I'm doing the same shit in HC on a regular basis.
The HC SSF ladder is tempting, though. Gonna be elitist as fuck.

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EKTELESTES wrote:

Casters - Spell Totems - Trappers will be the only viable chars to make it to the endgame with your 1st char without heavily relying on RNGesus with the current loot system.



2nd-3rd etc chars will depend on your loot / farming divination cards, so they could be attack based chars.



What I mean by smart loot = Not necessarily raising the drop rate; just have it so that if I have an attack based char, let's say Bow based, more bows drop than other weapon types. This way, the drop rate won't be altered, so you won't get more rares, uniques, etc, just MORE RELEVANT loot.


Other suggestions on how to balance SSF / make it a more enjoyable experience?

Well, as a guy that played more or less SSF from 4-5 years mostly, I think thats not entirely true. It depends your mentality.
I mean, there are guys that like to play the endgame fast, and for them everything you have said is absolutely correct.

However, there are other guys like me, and I think many of the SSF lovers are kinda similar. I like more the leveling process than the endgame thing. My more satisfaction in an arpg is the effort it takes to reach the end of the game (I mean, complete the campaign) without trading or receiving any kind of help. And usually when I finish the last act and I can do maps and that, I would rather prefer to start another character and enjoy the game again. So I have plenty of fun with melee classes, summoner classes, mage-type classes, etc. in any ARPG.



However, you have some points, not everyone is this way. ANyway I think any character can reach perfectly dried lake without being a totem one. Even in hardcore, any character can reach this easily nowadays, the game is just so easy you can go almost naked and do it. Once you are there with a character you enjoy, you can do runs and start dropping things to improve, and then do some low level maps.


Im pretty sure after some ones, you can start other character than can do endgame, more or less properly. And you cna use the melee one for more "magic find" runs in easy maps if you like it more.


I dont see a problem and I dont see many guys playing totem builds for going fast, unless you got that kind of mentality. And imho, if you got that kind of mentality, I think you wont play SSF for long, that mode is not for you.

SSF is not for all. It would be an error to assume it, I think.

Just my opinion.

Yep, I was thinking of older / Veteran players, myself included.

I don't think SSF Leagues are viable for new players or even players that don't know the game that well yet, anyway. That's why I don't take those players into account when discussing this kind of Leagues.

Besides, ALL PLAYERS will benefit from Smart Loot, not just Veterans ;) In your case, for example, you will be able to go to maps much faster, BUT it will still take you a long time to reach yellow - red maps :)

Besides, after a player has played the campaign for X times, doesn't he / she desire to explore the end game, too?

Im confident I could start a physical bow or melee spec day 1 of a league ssf and get it to maps without any real issues. Ive done it in hardcore leagues many times, never hit a gearwall with weapons, never died, never failed to get to lvl85ish get bored and go back to standard league.

I think theres a lot more late game goals now, perhaps Ill feel more compelled to stick with it.


edit: just like to throw in there that I hate smart loot, I hate it in D3, I think it would be even worse over here. Example I level bows using claws, until I find a good bow... I like finding gear for other characters, I like making new characters for the items I find, I dont want to only find items like the ones Im using. Do not want, for sure.

I really find it humorous that you're all applying the goals set by the trading community to SSF play. Really. We set our own goals.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

I really find it humorous that you're all applying the goals set by the trading community to SSF play. Really. We set our own goals.

+1

Getting a melee char self-found to maps in HC is no problem if you know what you're doing.
Also i was leveling my Frost Blades with Axes, Swords and Claws because i found some good ones, but actually was planning for daggers.
I was also using armor/eva items to die slower but didn't have any armor-nodes skilled yet. Regardless to what's viable smart loot would have never given me what i was searching for.

Shagsbeard got the insight already, but having like 3 characters is also nice if your HC-char dies. You can switch to another char you're already working on :)
Even better if you found nice melee-stuff for him already with your ranged-build or whatever.

I'm a bit hyped for SSF-ladder, will be very interesting to see how fast and far people will be going in SSF-HC ^_^

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Shagsbeard wrote:

I really find it humorous that you're all applying the goals set by the trading community to SSF play. Really. We set our own goals.

They will never get it.

"You mean to say, that you're NOT choosing a META FoTM build, trying to make the game as fast and easy as possible, rushing to maps to get the market advantage!? pleb-n00bz!".

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EKTELESTES wrote:

Yep, I was thinking of older / Veteran players, myself included.

I don't think SSF Leagues are viable for new players or even players that don't know the game that well yet, anyway. That's why I don't take those players into account when discussing this kind of Leagues.

Besides, ALL PLAYERS will benefit from Smart Loot, not just Veterans ;) In your case, for example, you will be able to go to maps much faster, BUT it will still take you a long time to reach yellow - red maps :)

Besides, after a player has played the campaign for X times, doesn't he / she desire to explore the end game, too?

Yeah of course, I also like it and enjoy it.
However, for me the most fun is playing and leveling a new character just from start naked, and geting my own loot. It feels fine for me, and usually when I reach level 85 or so Im pretty tired of it and have a lot more fun starting another and trying to survive all the way. Its a different mentality ofc.

You know, each guy is different.

I honestly have less and less enjoy if I find soon items and if I reach endgame soon, or if someone rush me or if I reach endgame fast. Maybe you cant understand that approach because as I have said, each person is different and not everyone want the same things.

I can say not everybody here is like me ofc, but Im pretty sure that from the guys wanting the SSF mode, there are more similar to me, with similar mentality at least.