You should balance SSF game mode separately from trade.

This is never going to happen, SSF was created because people wanted the bragging rights from showing they'd got their achievements and such without trading in a mode harder than the base game. It was never intended to be a loot pinata ez mode.

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RandallPOE wrote:

This is never going to happen, SSF was created because people wanted the bragging rights from showing they'd got their achievements and such without trading in a mode harder than the base game. It was never intended to be a loot pinata ez mode.

I literally recall them saying they are thinking about it.

I can think of a list of things that are low-impact even with migration still enabled that would make life in SSF less tedious, starting with

- extra harvest craft for swapping uber elder fragments
- Kirac selling boss invitations (rare shop outcome)

Beyond that they don't have to do much. I am happy with drop rates.

You could also have 2 separate SSF modes.

SSF as it is now and, well, "Round table of good luck" mode.

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Sadaukar wrote:

If GGG changes SSF to be much more accessible for new players or a more casual playerbase, that means it will become the default game mode and trade will die out over time. No one wants to deal with people or an complex economy as a new player, if they can just play solo and find everything themselves.

if there is possibility that people will ignore trade in the slightest change on your game, than it means you took players hostage with your mechanic and its already a bad design from the start.

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ilkeryuceler wrote:

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Sadaukar wrote:

If GGG changes SSF to be much more accessible for new players or a more casual playerbase, that means it will become the default game mode and trade will die out over time. No one wants to deal with people or an complex economy as a new player, if they can just play solo and find everything themselves.

if there is possibility that people will ignore trade in the slightest change on your game, than it means you took players hostage with your mechanic and its already a bad design from the start.

Lets see.

For prospective buyers:

1. You find out you want to buy x
2. You have to Alt+Tab out of the game and search for it
3. Stuff you want may have a lot of "joke" prices at the top
4. 90% of people don't respond anyway
5. A lot of jumping around between hideouts

Takes a lot of time which one could spend actually playing the game. And Alt+Tab. Alt+Tab.

For prospective sellers:

1. Market prices are distorted by a lot of "1 alch" non-sellers (!)
2. You have to leave the map you're in to sell, with not every transaction actually being successful
3. Setting up a shop is clunky
4. Taking out / putting back in if not successful.

Well, yes, I'd say it is terrible design. And yes, most players won't take this any longer if SSF was viable for endgame without having to no-life.

I think to a degree, some of the aspects of the game that people view as being hardcore weren't originally intended to be hardcore and the devs are adjusting to player demand. Back in the relative olden days, when Dominus was the end game boss and Bringer of Rain was considered a chase item (no joke), no one could get enough maps. You were automatically elite class to even be sustaining them. As they progressed and built content depth and were able to do leagues and so on, it allowed them to open the purse-strings more. I think the league model and FTP with cosmetics being their main source of revenue has driven the difficulty and grind more than anything.

As it is, they have a new release coming out that is going to draw a lot of players from POE1 and they have some fair to middling competition from other titles. LE isn't going to kill them unless POE2 bombs for some reason, but it's some fire under their feet. Making POE1 more player friendly wouldn't be that unlikely. This league started pretty bangin' and still isn't too shabby despite the inflation. I've never come close to an HH or Mageblood before this league and now I can afford them no problem. Also, the wildwood stuff is pretty nuts. I think they might open the floodgates for SSF because this is all a pretty fantastic way to placate plebs like me that finally get to actually dig into endgame. I can't speak for other people, but I buy MTX when I'm enjoying myself, I wasn't in a hurry to when Kalandra was running. Also, the sheer amount of drops this league is creating stash tab revenue, which is a big chunk of their sales.

They've already partitioned ruthless for the super try-hards, I bet they do make SSF more friendly. Hope so too, I keep running into people I am sure are either RMT farmers or bots in trade league and it kind of ruins the fun of my measly attempts to craft and sell nice stuff.

What about instead of balancing the game around trade, we would balance the game around SSF? Maybe we should not be able to create endless amount of copies with mirrors and instead have better crafting experience. Maybe "balance changes" should not be just 15 cosmetic changes in a game with 100+ skills. Maybe we do not need new broken unique items each league.

Imagine how much untouched potential the game has with the underused skills/ mechanics, which would be enabled by balance changes.

-1

Trade currently is easy mode. If you want that, just play trade and put limits on how much you trade. No one's forcing you to trade for everything, it's FOMO and efficiency-brain talking.

SSF (aka the game baseline) in it's current state is in an excellent spot, and has been since the introduction of the Atlas Passive Tree (expect for perhaps uber-fragment RNG, but even that is acceptable with Destructive Play Keystone introduced last league).

If people want something easier, it should be an entirely new mode (similar to Ruthless) and not affect the base game balance (SSF/GSF/Trade). Make a "casual" mode for all I care, but don't mess with the general game balance, as it's in a very good spot.

(...and before anyone goes "says the guy with only trade chars", please know that almost all my 100s are from Private League with a handful of friends, which already makes the game too easy as we can farm Ubers no problem. We only play 1 month though, after which the league closes and we all transfer).