GGGs reasoning on not making a SFL?

Qarl on selffound

Original post

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/510020/highlight/%22/page/2



"I can give my current thoughts on self found.

In the existing leagues, there is nothing stopping anyone from playing self-found, and we know many of our players do. We also have players that only engage rarely with other players, trading and partying occasionally.

So, as you can play self found in an existing league, I doubt we need to separate out the leagues. The question then is, are there progression problems with self found. I think there are two parts to this:

Can you play through self found? Currently there are issues with this, especially around the 40s. One of the main problems here is the availability of 4-linked items. Gear progression gets hard here, as replacement gear requires both beating existing gear in stats, and in skill support. This isn't usually an issue earlier, as you aren't needing full skill sets, and can skimp on stats and still progress quickly.

If we are going to make changes, it will likely be on the ability to make or the availability of 4 linked items.


The second issue is, what is the player expectation of self-found play. In general the main issue comes when players look to the top of ladders and to streamers to direct what their play experience would be like. This gives players a very distorted view of what they should be able to achieve. In general these players are pushing every advantage they can from trade, long play, group play.

Often, when I get told - "everyone is doing X", and I have a look, there are often only a handful of people doing, its just often these are the most visible. An example of this is 6-link Shavronne's. If I look at over level 90 characters, in all leagues, played in the last month, well under 50 players have Shavronne's Wrappings equipped. And if I look at the stats, if you want to die, wear a Shavronne's.

We will not be making a league to make it possible to replicate the play of these players. 1) We don't think its needed. 2) From past experience, if we make accommodations to make it possible to replicate these players, these players will still beat you. If we made a self found league with competitive advantages but solo play, you'll see the same players on top of those leagues, and we'll get a new set of complaints from people who want to replicate the achievements without the same investment."



GGG's vision of the game.

"It is designed around a strong barter-based online item economy"

Now please , make me proud and give me more posts to giggle to.

While your at it go find the old dev posts saying that looting options isn't needed. They still make me laugh as well.

"arguments" against SFL in this thread make so much sense...

"

khemintiri wrote:

GGG's vision of the game.

"It is designed around a strong barter-based online item economy"

Now please , make me proud and give me more posts to giggle to.

Yup, it is hilarious, innit?

Barter, with currency, haha.

The game is awash with contradictions like this.

"

khemintiri wrote:

Qarl on selffound

Original post

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/510020/highlight/%22/page/2

Spoiler

"I can give my current thoughts on self found.

In the existing leagues, there is nothing stopping anyone from playing self-found, and we know many of our players do. We also have players that only engage rarely with other players, trading and partying occasionally.

So, as you can play self found in an existing league, I doubt we need to separate out the leagues. The question then is, are there progression problems with self found. I think there are two parts to this:

Can you play through self found? Currently there are issues with this, especially around the 40s. One of the main problems here is the availability of 4-linked items. Gear progression gets hard here, as replacement gear requires both beating existing gear in stats, and in skill support. This isn't usually an issue earlier, as you aren't needing full skill sets, and can skimp on stats and still progress quickly.

If we are going to make changes, it will likely be on the ability to make or the availability of 4 linked items.


The second issue is, what is the player expectation of self-found play. In general the main issue comes when players look to the top of ladders and to streamers to direct what their play experience would be like. This gives players a very distorted view of what they should be able to achieve. In general these players are pushing every advantage they can from trade, long play, group play.

Often, when I get told - "everyone is doing X", and I have a look, there are often only a handful of people doing, its just often these are the most visible. An example of this is 6-link Shavronne's. If I look at over level 90 characters, in all leagues, played in the last month, well under 50 players have Shavronne's Wrappings equipped. And if I look at the stats, if you want to die, wear a Shavronne's.

We will not be making a league to make it possible to replicate the play of these players. 1) We don't think its needed. 2) From past experience, if we make accommodations to make it possible to replicate these players, these players will still beat you. If we made a self found league with competitive advantages but solo play, you'll see the same players on top of those leagues, and we'll get a new set of complaints from people who want to replicate the achievements without the same investment."

GGG's vision of the game.

"It is designed around a strong barter-based online item economy"

Now please , make me proud and give me more posts to giggle to.

To start off...

"Posted by Qarl
on August 28, 2013"

Two months before release or a total of nine months before.

What changed in the meantime? They addressed the progress issue regarding 4L availability and made 5L slightly easier to obtain as well. Pretty awesome, I have to say. Still doesn't make obtaining truly sick gear any easier, but makes the game more available for the majority, as having a 5L greatly enhances the gameplay.


The second part of Qarls post is largely based on the premise that we just want to have an easy game to "replicate the play of these [top on the ladder] players." That is not the case, and nobody in their right mind expects GGG to open an SFL with a thousand times higher drop rates where all items are instantly max linked max socketed and what not. There he is doing the exact same thing most other anti-SFL crowd is; taking things out of context then blowing it out of proportion to make a point. I don't have anything against Qarl, but that's just nonsense. They can infinitely decline requests for "easy mode game", and I think that's a great thing to do. But don't undermine honest suggestions which are widely accepted more than rejected. At least give a proper response with some actual facts, or some sort of statistics backed up speculation (not bullshit like "majority of players want to drop Kaoms on Brutus Cruel") on why you wouldn't implement this in the game.

"

TheAnuhart wrote:

"

khemintiri wrote:

GGG's vision of the game.

"It is designed around a strong barter-based online item economy"

Now please , make me proud and give me more posts to giggle to.

Yup, it is hilarious, innit?

Barter, with currency, haha.

The game is awash with contradictions like this.

You're right.

Now... Suggesting that the whole game changes in a way which would disable a typical capitalistic environment is probably too much effort and would have much worse impact than good. It would possibly destroy the game.

However, suggesting for a separate league is a whole other story. There would still be a very large amount of players in the trade-enabled leagues, but a large amount would also amass in the SFL. How is this negatively impacting the game? If the players who are currently contributing to the economy switch over permanently to SFL, you can't say that will impact the economy of this size in a significant manner, especially in an MMO environment (lets not nitpick the MMO definition, please). SFL can only impact the game on a globally positive way.

"

SaiyanZ wrote:

HC players still trade and they need a separate league to do that. They can't trade with SC players or there will be no item sink like there currently is in the HC league. i.e. HC needs a separate economy.

SF players don't trade by definition so they don't need a separate league/economy.

That's an interesting point.

So a HC league needs an item sink.

Item sinks are good for longevity, in any game, especially with free trade.

Yet, you challenge 'playing HC in SC' on the grounds that there would be no item sink.

When in fact, it would add an item sink to SC.

:)


Regardless, HC players could play and trade only with HC players, in a SC league. There's nothing stopping them.

''SF players don't trade by definition so they don't need a separate league/economy.[/quote]



You are confusing self found players with solo players.

You cannot tell if everyone in your party is self found or not, just the same as in a soft-core game you wouldn't be able to tell if players Rip'd with their chars. Therefore you need a separate realm for hc about as much as we need a separate realm for SFL.

Test it in a 1/2 week temp league. Shut people up and learn if it works or not.

Until that happens we're all just jerking each other off here.

"

TheAnuhart wrote:

"

SaiyanZ wrote:

HC players still trade and they need a separate league to do that. They can't trade with SC players or there will be no item sink like there currently is in the HC league. i.e. HC needs a separate economy.

SF players don't trade by definition so they don't need a separate league/economy.

That's an interesting point.

So a HC league needs an item sink.

Item sinks are good for longevity, in any game, especially with free trade.

Yet, you challenge 'playing HC in SC' on the grounds that there would be no item sink.

When in fact, it would add an item sink to SC.

:)


Regardless, HC players could play and trade only with HC players, in a SC league. There's nothing stopping them.

A separate hardcore league is necessary for the item sink to work properly. You need the league to enforce the removal of items from the league upon death feature against the other HC players. By forcibly removing them from a HC league on death, they are not around any longer and thus cannot elect to trade/still use their equipped gear in HC, thereby avoiding the item sink.