Great SSF experience

That definitely resonates with me too. Consider these two scenarios:

1. Conan flees his brutal incarceration chased by ravenous war dogs, he braves the depths of an ancient tomb, confronting his fears of evil spirits and obtains a sword of great strength that matches his abilities!

2. Conan opens a trading tent and after several days of buying and selling mundane things, buys a sword.

I know which I prefer :)

I just know that it's not what PoE is about, and I believe the game is worse for it.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

I don’t play SSF because it’s harder - I don’t care if it’s harder or not. I’m choosing it in order to play a game about my character’s adventures in Wraeclast, without some fourth-wall-breaking Earth economy layered over the top. So I think it’s a mistake to assume others are necessarily choosing SSF for a challenge (though many do, no doubt).

Why you choose to play SSF is up to you, but how SSF was designed is not.
And for all I know, it was designed with people in mind who want to proof that they can "beat" the game without trading for gear, boss kills and so on and/ or reach level 100 without doing breachstone rotas or whatever it is people are doing these days to get there on day 3 of a league.
If you choose to play SSF because you don't want to trade but still want all the good stuff - sorry, that mode does not really exist.
The thing that comes closest is to play non-SSF in a guild with generous members who put items into the guild stash for you to use.
That's actually my biggest gripe with SSF. If I find great items that are not suited for the char I'm playing, I can't easily give them away.
There should be a button "Gifts from above" in SSF that takes an item and drops it randomly on some player in non-SSF.

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Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

That definitely resonates with me too. Consider these two scenarios:

1. Conan flees his brutal incarceration chased by ravenous war dogs, he braves the depths of an ancient tomb, confronting his fears of evil spirits and obtains a sword of great strength that matches his abilities!

2. Conan opens a trading tent and after several days of buying and selling mundane things, buys a sword.

I know which I prefer :)

Hah, it's not even a trading tent, is the thing. Trading exists in the world and my characters engage in it, that's fine, that makes perfect sense in the setting.

They don't, however, have access to a searchable instantaneous database that communicates solely with copies of themselves that shouldn't even exist in the same universe. This is Conan psychically organising trades with Conan-94 and Conan-431. I know there are many things in games we abstract out for the sake of fun and convenience, but nonetheless, interplayer trading fundamentally disrespects the game world.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

Why you choose to play SSF is up to you, but how SSF was designed is not.

Okay? I make no claims about "how SSF was designed". I just said that "the whole point" is not a universality. It's not up to you or GGG or anyone else to decide what the "point" is for any individual.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Mikrotherion wrote:

Why you choose to play SSF is up to you, but how SSF was designed is not.

Okay? I make no claims about "how SSF was designed". I just said that "the whole point" is not a universality. It's not up to you or GGG or anyone else to decide what the "point" is for any individual.

Correct.
However, IF GGG designed SSF the way I mentioned, you or OP insisting on their point is also, well, besides the point.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Mikrotherion wrote:

Why you choose to play SSF is up to you, but how SSF was designed is not.

Okay? I make no claims about "how SSF was designed". I just said that "the whole point" is not a universality. It's not up to you or GGG or anyone else to decide what the "point" is for any individual.

Correct.
However, IF GGG designed SSF the way I mentioned, you or OP insisting on their point is also, well, besides the point.

Beside what point? I mean I don't think "what the point of playing SSF is to OP" could ever be beside the point of them expressing their response to the game. So presumably you must have some other point in mind, on all our behalf, again?

That experience of OP's, that response to playing the game, is not erased, argued down, invalidated etc by you coming in and stating what you feel "the whole point" is or what the design intentions of the game mode are "for all you know". So then isn't your deigning to do those things also 'beside the point'?

And if it is, isn't that okay? All of this is relatively inconsequential, it's just people saying what they think, not some kind of competition.

Lots of people playing SSF for alot of different reasons. GGG also didn't "design" SSF, they just made it so u can have an official SSF tag on ur character and u're not able to trade or party anymore. The idea of SSF came from the community and like I said in the first sentence, there's many reasons why ppl want to play that mode.

For me, SSF is a way to challenge my game knowledge and be creative with items I find along the way. No preplanned builds other than a rather simple starter character. It's a journey, just like u get sent out to the wilds and now u have to survive with the things u find.
(for example I got a Voidforge Div Card yesterday, gambled it into a full Voidforge and now I have a few ideas for a new build. That's exciting to me)

The same can be said for HC btw., not everyone plays HC for the same reason.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

That experience of OP's, that response to playing the game, is not erased, argued down, invalidated etc by you coming in and stating what you feel "the whole point" is or what the design intentions of the game mode are "for all you know". So then isn't your deigning to do those things also 'beside the point'?

If you look at the genesis of SSF, it's quite obvious that SSF was not intended to have better drops or to be easier than playing trade league without trading.
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Version_2.6.0#Solo_Self-Found_Mode

This does not change OP's feelings about it, merely how those feelings might have better been presented. Instead of a rant, just concede that SSF is not for you and maybe that you wish there was an easy mode where you don't have to trade but still get all the goodies.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

That experience of OP's, that response to playing the game, is not erased, argued down, invalidated etc by you coming in and stating what you feel "the whole point" is or what the design intentions of the game mode are "for all you know". So then isn't your deigning to do those things also 'beside the point'?

If you look at the genesis of SSF, it's quite obvious that SSF was not intended to have better drops or to be easier than playing trade league without trading.
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Version_2.6.0#Solo_Self-Found_Mode

Sure, we're on the same page there. I grant GGG the respect of recognising they're skilled professionals who do the things they do intentionally, so the fact the mode doesn't have better drops has always made it clear they didn't intend for it to have better drops. As with literally everything in the game, if they wanted it to be different they would have made it differently.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

Instead of a rant, just concede that SSF is not for you and maybe that you wish there was an easy mode where you don't have to trade but still get all the goodies.

I assume this part is directed at the OP and not me. So just, you know, quick unsolicited advice: it can make your writing unclear when you switch who you're addressing in the middle of a paragraph without saying so.

just dropped 20+ uniques from a t16 boss. no magic find or anything. this has to be the greatest ssf league.

ssf is a self imposed difficulty so dont complain.

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feral_nature wrote:

just dropped 20+ uniques from a t16 boss. no magic find or anything. this has to be the greatest ssf league.

ssf is a self imposed difficulty so dont complain.

And how many of those did you pick up? 99% of the uniqes in this game are utterly useless as in there is no good build that want's to use them. Nevermind trade value which was likely 1 alch for all of them together.


The whole design of "self imposed difficulty" is the reason behind the complaints. Many, if not most, people looking for an ARPG want to find their gear, not trade for it.
They don't want to deal with a trade market and all the bullshit involved.

But the only way to avoid this in the context of POE is multiplying the needed time investment with factor 100 at the very least because it's SSF mode is really just SC trade without trade aka completely imbalanced bullshit.

Yeah, GGG just put it in for the people who wanted that "SSF" badge and it does accomplish that but that's pretty much it. As an alternative for people who like POE but hate trade it's worthless.