The RNG Only Crafting or SSF in POE2 Must go Away. They Cannot coexist.

I have been playing mercenaries SSF and the league is a lot of fun. As usual I play SSF because I like to craft my own gear, not just buy it off someone for 3 exalts. But that isn't really possible in POE2 and of course that means SSF mode isn't really possible. With the trade league pure RNG can work because players can trade based on the RNG. If you roll a set of affixes that don't work for you but would for another char you can sell it. Of course even this has limitations and it encourages RMT. Why? Because some players in third world countries play for a living 24/7 on the same chars or in a massive group of players and make $3 a day while the company makes hundreds per day per player with RMT.

But why is RMT not a problem in POE1? Namely because of the variety of things that can be crafted and that a player can craft what they need even if it takes some work. This is because of the crafting bench.

Runes were a half hearted way to change this but they are also RNG because you have to drop them or trade for them. They are also anti-SSF because if I need a particular rune and I am unlucky, I am just SOL.

Crafting bench needs to come back to the hideout. It should use currency for crafting and work very much like the POE1 crafting bench with perhaps some new twists that make it better. Instead of removing it. Movement speed needs to be an implicit on all boots. In fact clever use of implicit values that cannot be altered by crafting will make dropped loot valuable without impacting crafting. Runes should be "inscribed" at a bench after they are unlocked. Additional crafting recipes should be unlocked for the bench as new things are unlocked. Instead of the 50 ways to craft like in POE1 (e.g. Harvest), the player should just unlock additions to the crafting bench.

If there isnt deterministic crafting, then SSF mode will never work. People arent going to farm for 30 hours to drop a pair of boots. They will just go quit, as the numbers have shown.

I like the way it is. More options are needed for sure, but I guess ruthless mode will disable them, so I don't care that much. SSF was never about playing with top gear. Can't wait for HC SSF R! Have in mind PoE 1 had 40+ expansions, hence so many options. PoE 2 is still in early access and people want even more out of it than PoE 1 has. Well... No.

deterministic crafting doesn't belong in ARPG, and its what destroyed poe1 itemization, balance and build diversity. and no there is no build diversity in poe1, everything is just so OP that no matter what you do it 'works'. you can play ruthless mode to see that for yourself. deterministic crafting is also abused in poe1 by mafia like groups that control the market there so that goes straight against OPs argument. rmt is a huge problem in poe1.
i play exclusively ssf and i can tell you current orbs, recomb and 3:1 work very well for gearing, but few things could be added for sure. finding one really good item and making a new char around it is the best part about ssf. and looking at the ssf ladder i think the mode works just fine and i'm not an exception here. ssf looks even less meta heavy compared to trade as well.

so hard no on the OPs suggestions. they are short sighted and not good for the game. bench in poe2 is a terrible idea.

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vestolevs#5239 が発言:

I like the way it is. More options are needed for sure, but I guess ruthless mode will disable them, so I don't care that much. SSF was never about playing with top gear. Can't wait for HC SSF R! Have in mind PoE 1 had 40+ expansions, hence so many options. PoE 2 is still in early access and people want even more out of it than PoE 1 has. Well... No.

i also was going to suggest Ruthless version for poe2, but I don't think fracturing the player base was so good in long term. I think if they balance the game to be challenging but allow OP meta to exist it would work much better. its similar to the loot scarcity they did. there is so much more loot now compared to week 1 but they gave us item tiers, so i can crank up my own loot scarcity as i please just by hiding certain item tiers. really enjoying how this was implemented. the content difficulty setting on atlas tree is similar to that, and I hope it will move in that direction on all fronts.

Says who you?

Wake me up when you're a dev then.

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Says who you?

Wake me up when you're a dev then.

OP has more of a concise vision, geared towards fun, can't be hired by GGG.

You have to understand the people left on POE2 are the diehards. They are going to be "I like it the way it is" right until the servers are closed down and the game gancelled. If GGG wants to make money they will look at the numbers and know I am right.