Divine shards because currency exchange exists (with 200IQ explanation)

It may be doable if there is no vendor recipe unless its not worth it unless ssf like the divine + 5 offerings -> divine vessel recipe. Or they only dropped form t17 harbingers. Then it would just create another problem. Being able to farm them easily in t1 maps wouldnt be good. I assume that would cause an issue in sctrade with bots farming them in easy content.

We would be better off if we just removed trade from the game entirely though. Every problem comes back to being an issue with sctrade and the people who exploit it.

The only chronic issue with hctrade is people that rip exclusive items to std for rmt. That could be fixed by characters going to a "void league" until the next league launch.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 wrote:

We would be better off if we just removed trade from the game entirely though. Every problem comes back to being an issue with sctrade and the people who exploit it.

That's....quite a loaded statement. I could say the same about D3's no-trade being the largest problem for why D3 RoS was pretty terrible.

There are many problems in which trade happens to be a main contributor or cause, but there are FAR MORE problems that would arise if trade didn't exist altogether.

We need only look at the Annihilus or Torch from D2 as a great example of the pure bullshittery that can happen when items are NOT tradable. And those are just a drop in the no-trade bucket of problems.

If trade didn't exist, this game would have died on the vine. In fact, there wasn't trade during the Beta (at least part of it) and it was such a huge issue that it was an almost constant complaint from every single "big time" beta player. The game was just straight up significantly worse without trade. Finding a great item that you couldn't use.....and with no trade.....turned even more items into garbage than we already have WITH trade.

Sure....people like to and will play SSF. But its an incredibly small percentage of the total playerbase for a reason.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 wrote:

We would be better off if we just removed trade from the game entirely though. Every problem comes back to being an issue with sctrade and the people who exploit it.

Or if they find a good middle ground like Last Epoch did, where the game is balanced for both trade and SSF. Both work well, and you don’t lose out just because you choose one over the other. It’s flexible, and lets players enjoy the game fully how they want without drawbacks.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

Sure....people like to and will play SSF. But its an incredibly small percentage of the total playerbase for a reason.

But that's only because the game is fully balanced around trading, and a large thriving economy.
Choosing SSF in PoE comes with the sacrifice of even heavier gambling as you can only accomplish or farm so much by yourself.
Most of the time you have to settle on something, or put in many extra hours to get something very specific.
SSF was launched as a self set challenge to make the game harder, but the only hard part is to play more or accept heavy limitations in terms of what you can do throughout a league.
Not everyone's bread and butter tbf

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Pashid#4643 wrote:

But that's only because the game is fully balanced around trading, and a large thriving economy.
Choosing SSF in PoE comes with the sacrifice of even heavier gambling as you can only accomplish or farm so much without the market. Most of the time you have to settle on something, or put in way to many hours to get something very specific.
Not everyone's bread and butter tbf

It certainly contributes but its not "only because the game is fully balanced around trading". There are plenty of full single player games out there that people could have chosen to play, but they come here to play PoE. And PoE is trade. Just as you said, from the very beginning it has been balanced around trade. The thriving economy is a huge part of what makes the game what it is.

That's just fact.

A better SSF experience might attract some more players, but I highly doubt in any significant numbers to compete with trade.

the devs have said the vast majority of players dont trade or only trade a couple of times.

but the core playerbase who are a minority in the big picture but probably make up most of the 1000s of hours sunk in the game, back every league, characters in the mid 90s, posting on the forums, $500+ in supporter packs type folks are probably mostly trading. for the hardcore poe addicts i think its fair to presume trade is the go-to format. they are a small minority of players in the overall playerbase tho.





i hear what ur saying about trade pashid, ur a long time poster here with good takes, i agree completely with what ur getting at. its symantics but personally i word it a bit differently.

for me i dont think the game is balanced around trade, i think its designed around trade knowing the hardcore enthusiasts will mostly trade and knowing that they will have fun using that as a way to play something completely unbalanced, and that is intended design.


but its not actually balanced in terms if difficulty, i think the game is 99.99% balanced around self found. they know most players dont trade, especially new players and the game is supposed to be balanced and challenging for them.



you are supposed to settle for something, youre not supposed to just say oh i want this 'trash' unique that will do something pretty 'normal' like let be blow up every single monster including the map boss in a T16 6 mod map in 1 second so let me just go run 1x tier 1 map and use the 2 chaos orbs i get from it to buy that off trade right away.

i dont think thats intended balance, its not balanced at all its a total joke. if you trade with any frequency or even mild competence in this game there is no balance, the game becomes an absolute farce of instaphasing pin bosses, widing out screens in T16 maps with a single click, its utter stupidity.

thats not balanced, its not the intended state of the game that the devs sat down and write the hp, item stats, skill damage etc around. its almost completely balanced around being self found and having to grind or stuff, having to make do with what you find, those limitations are fundamental to the game having any sense of balance.


but the design is that most of the dedicated intense player base who watch streams, follow op guides, employ complex endgame strats etc are almost always playing something completely unbalanced and broken, and that makes it feel exciting for them.



so the game is balanced around self found casuals who are the majority, designed to feel intentionally broken for trading journeymen minority and ultimately to be completely mastered by the handful of ultra elites who are in ssfhc with a mageblood on beating the highest uber pinnacle content.

ssf was added as a tag so that those ultra elite could prove what they were doing was legit and they were not just using trade or rmt etc off stream to fake it. its a flex for the minority of self found players who feel a need to flex that theyre self found. most self found players are in trade league just playing the game like the complete oblivious noobs they are.

They absolutely ruined div card farming for hcssf players because of sc blasters. Same thing with veiled orb change to appease tft haters.

Amongst the dozens of little things that are made worse by people that blast 12 hours a day receiving balance to make it harder for them to print mirrors.

I can't stand it.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 wrote:

They absolutely ruined div card farming for hcssf players because of sc blasters. Same thing with veiled orb change to appease tft haters.

Amongst the dozens of little things that are made worse by people that blast 12 hours a day receiving balance to make it harder for them to print mirrors.

I can't stand it.

Wait, hold up, you say they “ruined” div card farming and veiled orbs for HCSSF because of SC blasters and some “TFT haters”? How exactly did they ruin it for you?

The veiled orb changes made things easier for everyone, mirror tier crafters get to spam orbs nonstop without hunting down aislings or dealing with sketchy trades, and TFT "haters" can grab orbs on demand without having to risk getting scammed or even visit a Discord in the first place.

It’s not everyone’s bread and butter to sit on 20 different Discords just to have reliable access to something. Meanwhile, you in SSF can just farm your own orbs and slap them on whenever instead of babysitting aislings forever and keeping the league mechanic on hold until you’re ready for your next crafting attempt.

That’s not “ruined”, that’s good player agency, and honestly a big GG GGG moment.

Div cards? Easier than ever to print in both trade and SSF now, too. Look, I’d love to see SSF balanced around SSF players as well, but that’s just not how the devs approach it.
SSF is literally the mode designed to throw large chunks of extra hurdles in your way. If you choose to play it, that’s on you.

So if you’re this salty about it, maybe it’s time to admit SSF isn’t your cup of tea? Or maybe try another game if the main game balance isn’t “to your liking.” Just a thought.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 wrote:

They absolutely ruined div card farming for hcssf players because of sc blasters. Same thing with veiled orb change to appease tft haters.

Amongst the dozens of little things that are made worse by people that blast 12 hours a day receiving balance to make it harder for them to print mirrors.

I can't stand it.

Play HC trade!

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

Wait, hold up, you say they “ruined” div card farming and veiled orbs for HCSSF because of SC blasters and some “TFT haters”? How exactly did they ruin it for you?

because they lowered drop rates considerably. When people say the "game is balanced around trade", it literally is.......drop rates take into account how easy it is to trade, and so they are super super super low.

The "difficulty" might not be balanced around trade, but itemization sure is. ANYTHING that was too friendly to SSF throughout the years has been nerfed HEAVILY. Because trade exists.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

because they lowered drop rates considerably. When people say the "game is balanced around trade", it literally is.......drop rates take into account how easy it is to trade, and so they are super super super low.

The "difficulty" might not be balanced around trade, but itemization sure is. ANYTHING that was too friendly to SSF throughout the years has been nerfed HEAVILY. Because trade exists.

If something’s easy in SSF, it’s usually trivial in trade, so it gets changed. That’s just how a game built and balanced around trade works. It’s not some “evil trade balance” ruining SSF, the real issue is that SSF was never balanced as its own mode. It’s just the “harder” version, not a standalone experience.

SSF means doing everything solo, no carries, no shopping, no skipping progression or knowledge with lucky drops. That’s the appeal, but in PoE, it also makes the mode feel limited, since no proper balance was designed for it. It’s like playing Ruthless, still PoE, but with extra weight strapped to your back.

Veiled Orb drop rate changes don’t erase the positives it brought onto the menu with the overall change. You can still speed farm Masterminds and get solid craft attempts.
The real bottlenecks are other resources, fossils, resonators, scarabs for map juicing, essences, which aren’t rare but are needed in large amounts.
Farming them solo is slow and tedious, especially with crafting tuned around trade.

Requiring 3 Veiled Orbs sounds easy, but needing hundreds of essences or fossils just to get there is the real grind.
Often, you don’t even reach veiled crafting because you have to annul and risk bricking the item, forcing more farming. SSF shouldn’t be all about sticking to meta builds, off-meta requires a brutal RNG grind to compete with budget meta builds. Ironically, off-meta is easier and cheaper in trade leagues.

Imagine SSF where you grind resources for exponential growth like trade players grind currency for their upgrades, offering more flexibility and better chances of growth. PoE probably won’t see SSF balance, but other games (cough Last Epoch cough) show it can work and coexist to trade just fine without taking the challenge of being just on your own. GGG just missed the chance to do something similar years ago.

SSF isn’t meant for those who focus on minor changes with a sense of entitlement,especially when those changes unintentionally benefit SSF, while overlooking the more significant flaws of the mode.