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Last Epoch Forums

Solo, or Self-Found?

General
#1

Good morning/evening/something, folks.

Another random thought today…
One day, probably, multiplayer and some kind of trade will come to Last Epoch.
And I am wondering, what kind of “challenge mode” do you like best?

  • SOLO. Just like we have now, proper solo. This character, and that’s it, no help from alts or groups or trade.
  • SELF-FOUND. No grouping or trading, but a shared stash with other self-found characters.

I don’t really have an opinion, I like both, I guess best for me would be to have both options available at character creation.
Small preference for Self-Found, it is nice to keep the no-trade challenge but be able to use these rare build-enabling idols or uniques drops.

Waiting eagerly for your thoughts! (Some dev input on existing plans would be great as well, I am sure they have considered it already)

PS: Sorry if it has been discussed before, I don’t remember seeing any mention of it. I trust Vapourfire or Llama8 to let me know if my thread is redundant!

2 Likes
#2

I like the idea in theory… but like then we’d have trade, solo, self-found for both HC and SC, which is now 6 servers/sections of maintenance and balance for EHG to deal with.

And then if they do this, then maybe people will want categories for Season players and Non-Season players, which would double this.

Idk good in theory, bad in practice.

1 Like
#3

If you want to skip trade but have a shared stash, you could just play normal mode offline. There probably won’t be a ladder for offline characters, though.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think I read somewhere that EHG is thinking about implementing solo and self found as you described.

#4

I think you can have all 3 options.

Trade, Solo and Solo-Self Found.

This would not split up the community even more, since both Solo and Solo-Self Found are both kinda “on your own” anyway.

I totally think that splitting up communities too much can be a huge issue in online games but in this case it will not really lead to that.

#5

I don’t think asking the communtiy what mode they prefer is ever “redundant” (unless there’s a duplicate thread already running, IMO).

Personally I don’t see the problem with having both Solo & SSF alongside trade as I don’t think it would split the community up & TBH, people that would prefer to do those modes would be unlikely to party up with others in a trade environment. HC/SC & the Masochist equivalents would split the community up as people in those modes can’t/shouldn’t play with each other.

#6

I personally like to get my own loot and feel the excitement when I get something really good but I do also to like to be able to find an item that I really need but can’t get from trade. So, in fact, I’m somewhere in-between the two modes, which is something that no game of this kind has ever implemented (afaik). To be more precise, I want to find my own loot, but when I want to trade I don’t want to spend an enormous amount of money for something that is good and I need, which is something that will probably happen, since trade will be more common than it is to my liking and people grind a lot more than I like to grind (which means they make more money), so it’s kind of curse for me that that trade mode will never hit the sweet spot and ssf is something that I don’t really want to try because you have no trade at all. That’s how I see things. I really wish ssf had some kind of reward to make it more appealing and make up for the fact that you can’t use trade.

#7

I have a feeling we are going to get dragged away from the original thread, but I can’t resist asking…

I would think it would be exactly the opposite? Like, people grinding more and trading more would bring the prices down, not up?

To me, “really need” involves build enabling. A unique, maybe, or an idol.
In my experience these are almost always dirt cheap. As long as you are happy with a basic version just to enable your build.
Of course, prices can become silly when you start looking for perfect stats or max LP or any ultimate item. But you don’t really “need” them, the whole point of SSF is to try and survive without instant-OP gear.

That’s absolutely fine, thanks for your answer, each player has their favourite modes, no right or wrong there.
But you should try joining us someday, it is fun, and very gratifying when you manage to reach whatever goals you had on your own, without external help.
This gratification is in itself the special reward SSF brings. It is built-in.
:slightly_smiling_face:

#8

I would think it would be exactly the opposite? Like, people grinding more and trading more would bring the prices down, not up?

Let me explain a bit on this one. What I actually want is trade to be something that you will do “rarely”. By that I mean, that I mean that I want to farm my own gear and only use trade if I really need something that I can’t find on my own. I also tend to not grind a lot while other people do. Since people grind a lot more than me, they will make much more money than I will, which means prices will be higher than I want them to be because they will be balanced around the amount of money the average player makes. And since I will make less money than the average player makes, prices will be high for me. And since trade won’t be as “rare” as I want it to be (probably), I will almost certainly be “encouraged” to spend money “here and there”, which will is something that doesn’t strike me as something bad, it’s just something that doesn’t quite fit to my liking, but it’s also something that will result in money loss and make the overall trading experience not as enojoyable as I would want it to be and also make those “build-enabling” items that I want to find harder to find. Now, this probably doesn’t make sense to you but let me explain: Imagine I’m playing a level 90 char and I see something really good on trade that I want to buy but it’s really expensive. Since I have the money (and let’s assume for the sake of this example that I have it) I decide to buy it because it’s really good and I want to improve my character. I enjoy the improvement and play a few days with this char. But after a while, I decide that I want to play a new build that requires a “build-enabling” item. I check the prices (assuming that I can do such a thing) and I don’t have the money to buy it, so now I 'm sad because I can’t play my new character because I want that “build-enabling item” and I don’t have it. And this is what I mean when I say that I want trade to be more “rare” than it will probably be. I 'd like it to be something that you will use to find items that you really need. To fill gaps if you want to put it that way. And it probably won’t be that way, which is fine, I will still enjoy it, it just won’t be exactly the way I want it to be. But the pricing problem still stands. I’m pretty sure that I will make less money than the average player does and things will be expensive for me for the reason I explained above. I hope I covered you with my answer.

1 Like
#9

Sounds like you just want to be able to trade infrequently.

No, people grinding currency pushes prices up (inflation). If the supply of the desired item increased (without demand also increasing, or if demand increased slower than supply), that would push the price down (because people would undercut each other in order to sell their stuff).

Depends how many of them are available compared to the demand.

#10

Sounds like you just want to be able to trade infrequently.

Yes. Something like that.

#11

Good point, I stand corrected. That’s why we always need a good accountant around! :wink:

Yes, of course. That’s why I specified “as long as you are happy with a basic version”, for which I believe supply will always be way higher than demand.
Let’s imagine Last Epoch gets open trade, all the half-serious players will want legendaries. A build-enabling item with 0 LP, even a very rare one, would interest very few players, but would obviously drop much more often than the LPed versions. Making them easy to buy for clowns like me who just want to enable their build and don’t give a hoot about LP.
At least that’s my experience in PoE, never had any problems finding what I needed for super-low prices (but with 2-3 links only and crap rolls).

But anyway, that’s all speculations, it is very likely LE won’t get open trade. That’s good news for you, Matt88, we might have limited trade one way or the other!

1 Like
#12

Yeah, would be nice to know a good accountant. Unfortunately theres only @Llama8 around. But I guess its better than nothing.

3 Likes
#13

You can’t afford a good accountant, that’s why you have me.

Edit: sigh Beaten to the punch by Raw… It’s never good when a German is making a joke…

2 Likes
#14

But anyway, that’s all speculations, it is very likely LE won’t get open trade. That’s good news for you, Matt88, we might have limited trade one way or the other!

I doubt it will be the way I want it to be considering what the majority of players would like, but I still won’t be dissapointed. Trade is something that I like in this kind of games.

#15

I’m still tickled by the idea that trading is needed in this game. Crafting t4 items is stupidly easy, and even good t5+ aren’t mind-numbingly hard to get. The only thing I could see being traded would be LP Uniques, or maybe even well-crafted Legendaries, but really, who is going to let a well-rolled LP2+ Legendary go, or even a rare LP2+ Unique? I doubt we’d ever see any LP2+ Argentus chest pieces up for trade, because those are insanely rare without LP.

So, unless EHG comes up with some value for trading, it’s just a cute novely, IMHO. Which means my answer to this question would just be self-found, since that’s how I’ve been playing the game for the past 3+ years anyhow.

#16

Geurmen humoar is se best.

2 Likes
#17

It’s not that trading is needed, as such, it’s that when you can party up with other people, the desire to trade is a common & natural extension of finding a drop that sucks for your build but that would be great for a friend’s.

You could make your post about multiplayer as well but it’s probably the most requested/asked about feature.

#18

You’d be surprised. In any game with trade a lot of people become more interested in trading than in the game itself (which is fine, just another way to play).
You would see a lot of things being traded just for the “fun” of getting more currency, from rare LP2+ uniques because the piles of currency would be huge, to simple t4 items to save time having to play and craft (and get more time to trade).

Cool, thanks for re-focusing the topic, it was badly needed. :grin:
I would also like a self-found option in addition to just pure solo.

#19

I think both SOLO and SSF with alts have a place. I have less than zero interest in trading. It’s an ARPG finding gear, for me, is 80% of the fun. True solo is good because each player has his own journey. But it sucks when you find a killer unique that would be great for an alt. I will never do MP or trade in this game and as GGG reluctantly found out the SSF audience is pretty large.

2 Likes
#20

don’t like trade. do like playing in a group.
so i want group play without trading.