If you think the game is hard at any point even acts, please read this (Trading)

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AnimePillowCollector#2255 wrote:

Trading bad, game should be balanced around ssf. Let the trade leaguers have their unbalanced easy mode, nothing matters there anyway so who cares.

That would require an absolute overhaul of everything, and then people would get bored to shit after 50-100 hours and that would be that, player retention would drop to nothing after a couple of months, not saying the game would fail, just it would be in the dustbin like every single other ARPG besides maybe diablo.

Chase items and dopamine is what keeps people playing, every little thing that drops is a fraction of a good item you can get from trade. You cant have impossibly rare items in what would be effectively a single player game, who the fuck would grind for weeks for an item to drop? So it would it by nature have to be realistically obtainable by anyone in a few hours of grinding at most. Trading lets every piece of good loot even if you cant use it and currency drops you get matter, because those represent a movement towards a better item via trading up, and not a "oh I got a small chance to get something good now!" its a literal tangible increase that has no RNG at all. If you get an item for 10ex that you can't use, you can sell it, and now you are 10% the way to that 100ex item you really want, not 10% chance to either get it or you dont.

I don't hate games like titan quest, torchlight, grim dawn etc. but I played them, im done with them, I'll never be done with PoE, and the fact it has lasted 10+ years means a lot of other people aren't as well. You can't have extremely rare chase items or content that requires insane gear in a SSF environment, it would suck for 95% of people, and for the 5% that like that... SSF exists in this game, you can have that challenge, you can have more meaningful loot drops, and you can show off the fact you did it SSF instead of just expecting people to believe you did. But to cater to that audience would just be stupid.

I'm all for them locking characters to SSF and adjusting it to make it better for them, but until they do that and people can't move and they have to think "well we cant do that or people will farm in SSF and transfer to trade" it is a problem. The reason you can even move in the first place, is they know that people will hit a wall in SSF, get frustrated, and if they can transfer to trade they just quit the game.

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Pathological#1188 wrote:

PoE Ninja can only track a given number of characters as determined by GGG's API, which gets immediately capped in both SSF and non SSF on a new league.

Again; what metrics, besides those you invent in your head?

Ya im sure everyone is actually secretly playing ssf and hates trade league, it actually came to me in a dream you are right, im sorry I should have listened to my ancestral blood memories before.

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Cajual#4575 wrote:

Congrats, you just discovered why SSF exists.

SSF is a handicap. The game is designed around the existence of trading. The piss poor drop rates, the horrible weights on rolls...its because you can trade. So by its very definition, SSF is a handicap.
You can be all "SSF FTW, I hate trading" but you're kidding your self. All you're doing is making the game 10x harder.
Until the day comes that they buff drops and weights in SSF mode, to account for no trading, SSF makes ZERO sense to play out side of a personal challenge to overcome.

They want smart loot, and drop rates significantly increased so they don't have to trade and can play without it. So that for instance in PoE1 if you really needed to get a specific minion unique or something for your build to function it would have like an astronomically higher chance to drop or gaurenteed path of progression for it like cards.

Like I don't even mind if that happens, but the characters made there would have to be locked to that league and not able to transfer EVER, thats a problem for new/casual players. That and everyone that is specifically there for the hardcore challenge of playing with bad loot is going to be up in arms for people casualizing that experience.

They would also need rares to roll better, even if you got 5x as many rares as trade leagues chances are you are not getting anything good, even with smart loot giving you correct bases, and if not they would complain about loot explosions.

PoE also isn't diablo, you arent forced to use anything just because you picked one class, smart loot would also have to have a UI to turn on the drops you want, otherwise be forced into preset builds.


This would create a fun game for a while, but it would get old, the "Chase" and dopamine rush of getting a good item would fade instantly, you don't get the feeling that every map you do might be game changing. Even players that have no idea what they are doing might come across something worth 100ex in acts (some insane tri res ring with life etc.), you can't have that in this type of system. The end result is a great experience for a few playthroughs, but ultimately a game that doesn't have longevity like POE1 did. What ARPG has lasted that long, and not only lasted, but constantly broke its player records over the years?

And PoE isn't small time, its top page of steam every single league launch, its not like grimdawn going from 1k to 5k players every once in a while.

I played the acts without trading and it was a bad experience. I found a total of 0 upgrades on the ground after act 1. All my gear was from the vendor or the gambler. In a loot-based game.

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DiabloImmoral#7632 wrote:

I played the acts without trading and it was a bad experience. I found a total of 0 upgrades on the ground after act 1. All my gear was from the vendor or the gambler. In a loot-based game.

This very thing here, is what will drive away most of the new players who wouldnt touch POE1 because it was too complicated and overwhelming. They want to killing things and find loot, not trade for it.

you can find loot and craft it just fine.



but boss is right, the reason poe1 exists as the most successful long term arpg and all the other ones are essentially a bit shit is because poe has the best trade environment of any arpg ever. that is what has given the game meaning, value, longevity.



im not trading in poe2, im finding all my own gear and im doing just fine. but i do that as a 20k hour trader in poe1 who wants the extra challenge. the trade scene in poe is amazing and i would encourage people who havent got into it yet to follow what boss is saying and try out that side of the game.


you dont have to trade and i dont believe poe1 or 2 are "balanced around trade", but there are things in the game that are there for either people who do trade a lot or people who are elite no lifers. the game isnt balanced so that a noob who doesnt trade can do all the content and get all the things.


if you are a noob going ssf, you will probably have limits, you will face big challenges. deal with it or trade, trade is great dont be intimidated by it. if you want an easier life trade is your friend.

Despite the fact the op is ultimately good advice for this game, ironically it's also a reminder of how detrimental trading systems can be to games they are added to.

Players who were just playing the game, instead of spending their time trading first, are finding themselves underpowered, because the game was balanced around the gear traders will have, because it has to be balanced around traders.

People like to say things like "other people trading doesn't affect you" but that's objectively incorrect. The fact anybody is trading affects everyone, because the traders set the game's balance.

Imagine that a monsters power level in a game without trading is 100, and a player is expected to be at power 100 when reaching it. Balanced.
At only 50 the player would be underpowered for the fight, and at 150 they would be overpowered.

Then trading gets added to the game, and suddenly massive amounts of players are reaching that boss at power 300 because they have trade-maxed loadouts.
The only thing the devs can do, is rebalance the boss so that it assumes you're fighting it at power 300, meaning it is now power 300.
Meanwhile, players who aren't trading, are still only power 100 when they reach that boss. 200 power levels beneath it. They are very much affected.

That's the first problem with SSF.
It doesn't have changes to account for the lack of trading, so rather than being a "I don't want to trade" button, it is a "I want to be blatantly underpowered on purpose" button.

The 2nd problem ofc is that wanting to be in a league/ladder where nobody trades shouldn't require also forgoing the ability to play co op with your friends, or the occasional public group.
Plenty of people who want to play in a self found league still want to play with other people.
I would definitely try playing a self found league that let my and my friends group up. I'm not playing a self found league that makes me tell me friends we aren't allowed to play together.

SSF in PoE1 isn't so unpopular simply because of the lack of trading, but because of those two problems. Balancing and friendships.
Some sort of group self found would be more popular than ssf ever was, and ssf with systems to help the balances would be more popular than the unadjusted version.
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As would be the summary of OP's post, one of the most effective pieces of advice for PoE 1&2 is that if you're playing a game that has brought in a trade system, and is therefor balanced around it, you need to accept that fact, and trade, even if you don't like trading.

If you are at all averse to the situation of being severely unpowered, you cannot, or at least seriously should not, consider trading optional.
Not trading in a game with trading is like doing a soul level 1 run of a Dark Souls game. You can, and it's an achievement of challenge, but there's no real point other than intentionally making your life more difficult.

In the event your distaste of trade is strong enough, and you're not the soul level 1 run kind of player, well, find a game without a trade system.

If I hated trading, I wouldn't play PoE at all. If I liked it more, I'd do it more, and I'd have stronger characters. I willingly accept that my characters are weaker, and the game harder, because I don't trade as much as is expected.

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BossOfThisGym#2062 wrote:

That would require an absolute overhaul of everything, and then people would get bored to shit after 50-100 hours and that would be that, player retention would drop to nothing after a couple of months, not saying the game would fail, just it would be in the dustbin like every single other ARPG besides maybe diablo.

Chase items and dopamine is what keeps people playing, every little thing that drops is a fraction of a good item you can get from trade. You cant have impossibly rare items in what would be effectively a single player game, who the fuck would grind for weeks for an item to drop?

Funny you mention Diablo then say single player games can't have insane drop rates.

Check how long it took Llama to grind before he finally got Mang Song's Lesson (it was a hell of a lot longer than "weeks"). There are more than a handful of items with greater than 1 in 100,000 odds - and that's with a lot of magic find gear on. The best chance to get Tyrael's Might is from hell Baal with a 1 in 414,860 base chance. 300% magic find brings that up to only 1 in 175,881. If you want to farm from uniques where you have more chances at lower odds, it's over 1 in 450,000 with the magic find.

People will play and chase those super rare items if the gameplay is fun.

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DiabloImmoral#7632 wrote:

I played the acts without trading and it was a bad experience. I found a total of 0 upgrades on the ground after act 1. All my gear was from the vendor or the gambler. In a loot-based game.

Most of the serial whiners in this board stretch the truth or just outright lie, so you fit in just fine. Having leveled 3 characters, one to T16s, 1 to mapping and one other to cruel, you are absolutely talking out of your asshole..

Upgrades are a plenty.