Group based SSF..... GSF...

Hi I would like to forward the idea of GSF.

Group Self Found.
Same Idea except you can form groups.

Loot can be distributed among players in the group.
Only while in the zone it dropped in.

It would be fun to play with others under the rules of ... no trade.
You can ONLY give non currency items .. with no option to receive anything ....
Also with zone/loot restrictions to limit loot trades to zone it dropped in and to those who were in the zone when it did .

I've asked for this multiple times over the years, this would immediately be my go to mode. I love SSF, I keep getting drawn back to it despite the fact that the game's balancing purely for trade makes SSF feel like ass quite often in very specific ways. But the one thing that I miss the most is grouping with people. Not for power but for fun. I still have friends in trade and ex-SSF'ers in my friends list and periodically I play trade group with them (which I did for affliction league) and am reminded how much I miss grouping.

"just play trade then" someone might say.

Problem with that is trade league is easy mode. It feels like a clown fiesta of trivial loot acquisition, and speed of progression, dumpsters of loot raining down on your head and a complete lack of challenge. its hard to give a shit about anything in trade league.

Ruthless trade would be a thing but they kinda burned the Atlas to the ground and salted the earth and gave us the ashes.

GSF would essentially be medium core not the sterility and tedium of Ruthless trade but not the goofy faceroll of easy mode. I've done this in private leagues multiple times over the years but Private leagues have their own slate of problems.

^wouldn't this just be....private leagues? Isn't that why they exist?

Playing in an insular environment with just your friends

What problems do private leagues have that a GSF league wouldn't share....seeing as they are the exact same thing.

You can do this with private leagues.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

^wouldn't this just be....private leagues? Isn't that why they exist?

Playing in an insular environment with just your friends

What problems do private leagues have that a GSF league wouldn't share....seeing as they are the exact same thing.

GSF is a small ruleset that last I checked isn't available in private leagues except ofc by decree. Private leagues are also much smaller usually have someone running it that has rules, a gimmick or expectations of the people who join.

Currently POE has Easy mode and 6 hard modes, IMO GSF could slot in as medium mode quite nicely filling both a missing place in the structure of the game and a more sociable semi-SSF mode at the same time.

"

Lonnie455Rich wrote:

You can do this with private leagues.

you actually can't private leagues don't have GSF mode either. But ofc this is going to devolve into a "just pretend its GSF" discussion.

Private leagues just die too fast cost money, don't have an enforcable GSF ruleset and lack discoverability.

"just be a big streamer if you want a sociable GSF-like mode" I guess.

so a long time ago 99% of ARPG players were effectively SSF but could group. This was how Diablo and D2 both worked trade was only for sweats on a certain famous forum.

Along came POE with drop rates balanced against trading in their own version of that forum, and the game after a time was easily trivialized and 100% deterministic. Due to trade becoming stupidly easy and low friction.

So people like ProjectPT who mostly wanted the game to be harder for the sweats started doing SSF based on ethical honor system.

GGG saw this, stripped trade out and put SSF in as a challenge mode.

Leaving the people who mostly don't trade with an Easy mode
that has grouping, or a sweaty mode without it. Thats as succinct as I can explain it.

"

alhazred70 wrote:

Currently POE has Easy mode and 6 hard modes, IMO GSF could slot in as medium mode quite nicely filling both a missing place in the structure of the game and a more sociable semi-SSF mode at the same time.

There are only two modes, normal mode and ruthless mode both being equally easy with the twist of ruthless being obnoxious in some way and not everyone's bread and butter.

The difficulty between ssf and trade league is both the same with the game being in a pretty poor state with even early power creep which is accessible in both modes trivialize the games content entirely. SSF is just for the bragging right just as much as HC, or for the people who are unable to play ssf in a normal league without the temptation to touch the market ever so often.


Also you can play gsf anytime in a private league or even normal trade league. Loot allocation is a thing and you can always just not touch trading at all while playing with your friends in the normal league. Just a matter of self constraint acting lol

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Pashid wrote:

There are only two modes, normal mode and ruthless mode both being equally easy with the twist of ruthless being obnoxious in some way and not everyone's bread and butter.

The difficulty between ssf and trade league is both the same with the game being in a pretty poor state with even early power creep which is accessible in both modes trivialize the games content entirely. SSF is just for the bragging right just as much as HC, or for the people who are unable to play ssf in a normal league without the temptation to touch the market ever so often.


Also you can play gsf anytime in a private league or even normal trade league. Loot allocation is a thing and you can always just not touch trading at all while playing with your friends in the normal league. Just a matter of self constraint acting lol

The notion that there's no difference in difficulty between the various ways to play the game is just silly and a waste of time to address.

I'm also not going to play along with the "you can pretend" argument. Its a cop out and nothing more. Its just as misguided as the "if you don't like it don't play it" school of game balance.

Just say you don't like the idea of other people getting an official GSF mode because you don't personally want GGG to work on anything thats not to your taste and move on.

"

alhazred70 wrote:

The notion that there's no difference in difficulty between the various ways to play the game is just silly and a waste of time to address.

I mean you did start to claim that there are 6 hard modes and one easy mode and you've been simply proven wrong.
Stating the actual differences between the modes is in fact not a waste of time to stay all accurate about the two existing different game modes normal core game and ruthless :^)

"

I'm also not going to play along with the "you can pretend" argument. Its a cop out and nothing more. Its just as misguided as the "if you don't like it don't play it" school of game balance.

That's how it works. Many people do their ssf group play via private leagues with success of what they want. Some even do it over the normal league while not touching trade at all.

"

Just bad faith arguments. Just say you don't like the idea of other people getting an official GSF mode because you don't personally want GGG to work on anything thats not to your taste and move on.

I mean again you already do got the option for said suggested "official" mode, you either use it or don't. SSF exists since almost 7 1/2 years and they did certainly had no interest do introduce even another sub mode of the current existing core game into the game yet give players the option to party up in ssf either.

Private leagues however were introduced for that exact purpose to allow you to cop out of the main league and enjoy playing with just a few friends as a guess what "official" mode.
Sure some are not willed to pay for a private league but those players can still just party up and do their ssf in the main league.
In the end just a matter of resisting the urge to trade. I've done both options myself multiple times and it's honestly not that hard.

And yea I and for sure many many other players want GGG to focus their small man power on bager leagues like the upcoming league instead of wasting their time and resources on yet another game mode which is going to end up just as dead as ruthless.

The small minority of players needs to learn that devs often have better parts and subjects to spend their resources into that has a much higher priority than something useless that already exist in the game in one or another way. lol